The Department of Energy is refusing to make public a recently prepared memorandum on how it will move forward with the greater release of contractor fee information. In response to a request from WC Monitor and NW&M Monitor late last week, DOE declined to issue the memo from Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman, citing the legal advise contained inside. Earlier this month, Poneman decided to allow contractors’ annual Performance Evaluation Reviews to be made public, reversing a 2009 decision by the National Nuclear Security Administration to shield the reviews from release. The policy change appears to have come in response to increased criticism in recent months over DOE’s lack of openness in how its contractors are paid.
Previously, the NNSA had argued that the PER information was business sensitive, releasing only one-page summaries of the report cards. For its part, the DOE Office of Environmental Management has not had a formal policy on the release of contractor fee information, instead largely leaving it up to individual cleanup sites to decide how much to release. Explaining how DOE will proceed with the release of contractor fee information going forward, Department spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler said in a written response late last week, “The Energy Department is committed to being open and transparent where possible. To better increase transparency across the Department, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman recently adopted a new policy that applies a consistent standard regarding the disclosure of award fee and incentive fee reports across all program offices and NNSA. Under the new policy, organizations across the Department will publish a one-page fee report for each contractor. More detailed award fee determination reports will be released upon request following appropriate security review. The Department and our offices are still working to implement this new policy in the coming weeks.”