The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is after the Energy Department for a long-overdue update on the agency’s plan to tighten emergency preparedness at active and former nuclear weapons sites.
Sean Sullivan, appointed DNFSB chairman by President Donald Trump in January, made the request in a Feb. 16 letter to then-acting Energy Secretary Grace Bochenek, who temporarily helmed the agency before Rick Perry was sworn in as secretary earlier this month.
The Department of Energy and DNFSB last met for a formal briefing on the issue nearly a year ago on April 16, 2016, a DNFSB spokesperson said by email Wednesday. Formal briefings are supposed to take place every six months.
“The delay is attributed to leadership changes at both the Board and DOE,” the DNFSB spokesperson wrote. “With leadership changes still occurring at DOE, Board staff is working with DOE to schedule the next brief in the near-term.”
In a rare use of its formal recommendation-making authority, the DNFSB in 2014 urged DOE to improve its ability to respond to natural and human-made emergencies at its national network of nuclear sites. The board asked DOE to comply with the recommendation by September 2016 — a timeline then-Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz balked at.
DOE formally responded to DNFSB in April 2015 with an Implementation Plan of Recommendation 2014-1 that included new headquarters-authored procedures and drills intended to homogenize and sharpen emergency preparedness across the nuclear complex. The plan, revised in July 2016, also called for DOE to brief DNFSB “approximately” every six months about the agency’s progress in tightening emergency preparedness around the complex.
DNFSB was not satisfied with this plan.
“We view the Implementation Plan of Recommendation 2014-1 as inadequate and significantly behind schedule as compared to Secretary Moniz’ originally stated intention,” Sullivan wrote in the Feb. 16 letter. “We encourage you to revisit the plan and consider revising it such that it will improve performance at sites with defense nuclear facilities in a more timely manner.”
