The Department of Energy’s (DOE) fiscal 2018 budget increase handily outpaced the rise in dollars under contract, according to a report from the agency’s Office of the Inspector General late last week.
The DOE budget rose about 10 percent to some $34.5 billion between fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018, while the amount of money under contract at the agency over the same period rose about 4 percent to about $25 billion, according to the Inspector General’s annual “Management Challenges at the Department of Energy” report.
The Energy Department is, according to its own inspector general, the largest civilian contracting agency in the federal government.
The department released the report, which is dated Nov. 15, on Wednesday ahead of the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
The number of active contracts at DOE rose more than 20 percent, to 14,455, in the fiscal year, according to the Inspector General. At the same time, holders of major DOE management and operations contracts reported that they parceled out some $375 million worth of business under subcontracts as of the end of the budger year on Sept. 30, 2018. That is about 5 percent more than reported for the previous 12-month period.
Meanwhile, the headcount at DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) rose about 7 percent to 39,000 in the fiscal year. The tally includes federal employees, contractors, and military detailees at the NNSA’s Washington headquarters, field offices, production facilities, national laboratories, and the Nevada National Security Site.
The Inspector General’s report did not specify why, or where, the NNSA added 2,500 heads in the 12 months ended Sept. 30.
On the civilian nuclear waste side of the house, the Inspector General reported DOE had paid nearly $7.5 billion over the last 20 years to settle or resolve litigation arising from the agency’s failure to dispose of nuclear waste at a permanent geologic repository, such as the controversial Yucca Mountain site proposed for Nye County, Nev.
Meanwhile, DOE’s liability for cleaning up the former plutonium production complex at the Hanford Site in Washington state continues to rise. The department’s Office of Environmental Management in October increased the agency’s total liability at the former plutonium production site by $80 billion over the expected life of remediation, according to the Inspector General’s report. That places the total liability for Hanford just north of $240 billion through the mid-2070s.
