The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) will lose some of its watchdog powers but will retain others, even while down to one member, the departed acting chair of the board Thomas Summers said last week.
This is the second article resulting from Exchange Monitor’s interview last week with Summers prior to his last day on the job Oct. 18. The Summers departure leaves only Patricia Lee, as the only remaining member of what is supposed to be a five-member panel of experts.
There were four members on the board when Summers first joined the panel in August 2020, filling out the last months of the unexpired term of Sean Sullivan. The last time the board included a full five members was before the COVID-19 pandemic, Summers said.
According to a history of the agency, in 1988 Congress created DNFSB to provide advice and recommendations to the secretary of energy on public health and safety issues at the Department of Energy’s defense nuclear facilities.
DNFSB will soon lose its authority to make formal recommendations to DOE on safety issues at properties ranging from the Hanford Site in Washington state to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
“That tool we will not have.” Summers said, adding such recommendations are “our biggest legislative tool.”
Secondly, the board will no longer be able to undertake large safety investigations, Summers said. DNFSB dropped below three members with the January retirement of Joyce Connery, but has been able to temporarily retain most of its authority under the board’s intricate governing rules, Summers said.
This loss of clout by a federal watchdog, at least until a DNFSB majority is restored, has caused worry in some circles such as by the New Mexico-based Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety.
The National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal 2020 prevented DNFSB members from serving beyond the expiration of their five-year terms in most cases, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a September report. While DNFSB has addressed most of its internal management problems, Congress and the White House should replenish the board’s membership, according to the report.
Lee, who was appointed during the Joe Biden administration, has to date not been appointed acting chair by this White House.
But DNFSB’s staff of more than 100 people can investigate site-level safety allegations, Summers said.
There are things that the DNFSB led by Lee can do, Summers said. It can still hold public hearings and it still has authority to mandate reporting by DOE.
This means the ability to order to “make reports to DNFSB within 60-to-90 days, whatever,” Summers said.
When asked if DOE is increasingly self-regulating itself, Summers said he feels good about the department’s commitment to safety and DNFSB’s continuing ability to monitor what’s going on.
“We are essentially on the same page as far as being safety partners.” Summers said. DOE under Secretary of Energy Chris Wright is making some changes, “and we are monitoring those changes,” Summers said. DNFSB is looking for details on how DOE is juggling duties during a time of staff cutbacks at the department, Summers added.
One of Summers last acts on the job was sending out welcome letters to the newly Senate-confirmed heads of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
In the letters, the new weapons complex officials were reminded of open board recommendations ranging from construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to a 100-year-old hoist at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
DNFSB has preserved its staffing and funding levels so far during the current austerity period, and Summers is cautiously optimistic about the White House getting the board quorum back by the time Lee’s term ends in October 2027.
“The agency is in great hands” with Lee, a former executive at the Savannah River Site, Summers said. The board will be “working to get five or as close to five [members] as we can,” Summer said.
Summers, a 30-year Air Force veteran, said he is proud to have been with DNFSB. It has been great “being a part of what I think is the greatest defense nuclear agency in the world and I mean that sincerely and the reason I say that is because of the people,” Summers said. The board and its staff ensure nuclear complex workers and the public “are safe each and every day.”