March 17, 2014

DECISIONMAKERS

By ExchangeMonitor

Also of note during the first day of the Decisionmakers’ Forum yesterday:

 
  • Acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Environmental Management Dave Huizenga emphasized his desire to push authority out to DOE field offices. “To be a productive team, we have to understand what our job is. That’s part of my job in the next few months in EM is to sort out the headquarters and field relationships. We’re getting closer to understanding who is best equipped to do what. We know that there needs to be a headquarters advocacy and support role, but it’s just a question of striking the right balance there.”
  • Stressing a lack of trust in the Department of Energy’s enforcement program, Herman Potter, president of United Steelworkers Local 689 in Piketon, Ohio, listed some major complaints with the Office of Health, Safety and Security. “Our workforce has no confidence in the Department of Energy’s enforcement system. If you go and talk to any of our members, they’ll tell you it’s a waste of time for me to file a complaint. That’s not the attitude that we need.”
  • The National Nuclear Security Administration backed off plans to implement a complex-wide information technology contract, but Scott Cameron, a director at consulting firm Grant Thornton LLP, suggested that there could still be an opportunity to implement some form of IT consolidation: new procurements. Specifically, Cameron said the planned Y-12/Pantex contract consolidation could be a good candidate to consolidate IT systems, though he acknowledged that Y-12 recently spent hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade their IT system. “I think that poses all sorts of opportunities for IT consolidation,” said Cameron, whose firm studied IT consolidation for the NNSA. “That may be a way to drive some of this enterprise optimization.”

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NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

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