March 17, 2014

DNFSB HAVING TROUBLE GETTING AN INSPECTOR GENERAL

By ExchangeMonitor

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board appears to be having trouble complying with Congressional direction to obtain the services of an Inspector General. In a brief letter sent to Senate appropriators last week and publicly released yesterday, the Board said it had engaged in “extensive discussions” with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Inspector General, the IG offices of 10 other federal agencies and the Council of Inspectors General for Government Integrity—all to little avail. “To date these efforts by the Board to enter into an agreement for inspector general services appropriate to the Board’s operation and size have been unsuccessful,” DNFSB Chairman Peter Winokur wrote in the July 3 letter, providing no additional detail.

The Board was directed through the 2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act to enter into an agreement for inspector general services with the NRC Inspector General’s Office for Fiscal Years 2012 and 2013, and to then procure inspector general services on an annual basis thereafter. The recommendation that the DNFSB obtain the services of an IG was first made last year by former Board member Larry Brown. In his letter last week, Winokur noted that there are “differing provisions” concerning inspector general services for the DNFSB in the House and Senate version of the FY 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bills, and that the Board will work “as these differences are resolved” to obtain IG services “consistent with congressional direction.”

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