ARLINGTON, VA. — While many senior people are contemplating retirement at the Department of Energy’s $8-billion Office of Environmental Management, William “Ike” White apparently is not among them.
“No. I do not have a retirement date circled on my calendar at this time,” White told Exchange Monitor on the sidelines of the National Cleanup Workshop here Tuesday.
Asked if he planned to remain in his current role as long as desired by the White House, or if he has a retirement date in mind. White said he never did much career planning.
During a Monday session with young professionals at EM, “what I essentially told them is that I am not the right person to give anybody career advice,” White said. “I never actually planned my own career …. I don’t plan to start planning my career now.”
White has been EM’s senior adviser, basically running the headquarters part of the program, since June 2019, and is a longtime federal executive with prior management stints at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
As is common these days, the nuclear cleanup office, with a headcount of around 1,200, is stressing recruitment and training for a new wave of workers, White said. When new blood joins the complex, it is beneficial for the new hires to have face-to-face access with more seasoned feds, said White.
So, during the next couple of months, White said two top lieutenants, EM deputy assistant secretary Jeff Avery and chief of staff Cathy Tullis, will study a post-pandemic telework policy for the cleanup office.
They will look at “what is the right level of in-person collaboration,” when weighed alongside employee flexibility, White said. The current approach stresses “maximum flexibility.”
White thinks many workers want more face-to-face time than was possible for the past three years, due to COVID-19.
“We see it at workshops like this,” White said of the National Cleanup Workshop, hosted by Energy Communities Alliance, saying such conferences are seeing record attendance. “Doing the kind of work that we do requires us to have the sort of relationships that are difficult to build” in online meetings, White said.
White added that when he was a new federal hire, he benefited from being in an office with more senior people.
Other federal entities, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are also rethinking liberalized telecommuting practices born during the pandemic. Senate appropriators want an annual briefing on that agency’s approach. EM has not publicly received that level of scrutiny from Capitol Hill. At least, not yet.
Meanwhile, White also told the Monitor that he is hopeful a government shutdown can be avoided when fiscal year 2024 begins on Oct. 1. The House and Senate were, as of the Cleanup Workshop, still sharply divided on the appropriate levels of government spending.
“I’m always confident that Congress will do its job,” and work out something, White said.
Down at the sites
In his quick talk with the Monitor, White said that DOE and Bechtel should be able to meet the current 2025 target for starting up Direct-Feed-Low-Activity Waste Facilities at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant in Washington State. Under that effort, the site will turn the less-radioactive portions of its substantial cache of liquid waste into more stable glass in a process, used daily at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, known as vitrification.
“I get briefed a couple of times a month,” on the Hanford plant’s progress, White said. Getting the plant’s first melter heated up was a big step. The second melter should be ready by year’s end, said White. The melters liquify the glass with which waste is mixed.
In 2024, Hanford crews should be “fully into the commissioning process” for the treatment plant, White said. “I’m confident the team out there can pull that off.”
Elsewhere, White reiterated that a report on DOE’s plans to transfer landlord responsibilities for the Savannah River Site to NNSA from EM is complete and could be made public. DOE plans to hit the switch on the transfer in 2025.
NNSA, the nuclear weapons steward, now accounts for more Savannah River work than the cleanup office and the trend that should accelerate within the next 10 years when the weapons agency begins producing the fissile weapon cores called plutonium pits at the site.
The Savannah River management contract and the site’s paramilitary security contract, both now administered by EM, will be run through NNSA after the transition, White said.
As a result, the Environmental Management budget line item for Savannah River could be trimmed but the money will still be spent there by NNSA. Nuclear cleanup officials at Savannah River had said the biggest difference will be that NNSA would receive the first overnight phone call when something breaks down onsite.
