During fiscal 2022, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board worked on staffing needs and finalized a deal with the Department of Energy spelling out the watchdog’s authority to access people, records and facilities around the weapons complex.
Those are a couple of highlights from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) fiscal 2022 Agency Financial Report released last week. Congress created the board in 1988 to provide independent safety advice and analysis to DOE
In June, the agencies finalized a memorandum of understanding about DOE Order 140.1, issued by DOE during the Donald Trump administration, which DNFSB members said obstructed their access to people and information at active and shuttered nuclear-weapon sites. The interagency memo was intended to correct that defect, DNFSB has said.
Financially, the board’s budget and staffing appear headed for a growth spurt.
President Joe Biden’s budget requested $41.4 million for DNFSB for fiscal 2023 and the equivalent of 120 full-time staffers. That is up 34% from the fiscal 2022 appropriation of $31 million. The board’s staff headcount reached 103 by the end of fiscal 2021 and 113 by the end of fiscal 2022.
The board’s headcount is capped by statute at 130 and it brought onboard 25 employees in fiscal 2022, according to the 89-page report.
Employee morale remains a key challenge facing the board in fiscal 2023, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Inspector General analysis from October that is included in the board’s year-end financial report.
While DNFSB has made “broad improvements” in “culture and climate” surveys, concerns linger about “employee morale, recruiting new hires and retention,” according to the commission’s Inspector General, which also oversees the DNFSB.
During the fiscal year ended Oct. 30, DNFSB completed nine safety reviews on DOE Office of Environmental Management defense nuclear facilities, 14 focused on National Nuclear Security Administration defense nuclear facilities, six cross-cutting reviews, and four on defense nuclear projects, according to the report.
During the third quarter, the board launched a review of management of aging infrastructure at the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Hanford Site in Washington state.
During the fiscal year, DNFSB hosted eight briefings with congressional staff and committees. These briefings were to the staff of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, according to the report.
