While it has made progress, the Department of Energy still needs to more fully address priority recommendations to improve performance in its nuclear security and cleanup missions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday.
In an annual update, the congressional auditor said it has 20 priority recommendations across the Energy Department, including eight recommendations new to this report.
The 20 uncompleted priorities are divided into seven groups, and include six that apply either to DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The six issues include management of projects or programs, contract oversight, financial information, modernization of the nuclear stockpile, cybersecurity, and reducing environmental liability,
These are areas in which the Energy Department has yet to fully implement priority recommendations from prior reports. The federal watchdog deems such items a priority because they could generate cost savings, reduce chances of fraud or mismanagement, or expedite progress toward important public goals.
The GAO status update notes the Energy Department continues to be responsible for most of the federal government’s environmental liability, $505 billion of $595 billion in fiscal 2019. The agency wants DOE Environmental Management to make its remediation planning and decisions more risk-based — in part by comparing risks posed by radiological and chemical contamination from site to site in order to gain a more national perspective of hazards. The Office of Environmental Management currently relies mostly on the 16 cleanup sites to set priorities and negotiate cleanup plans. This is an unimplemented priority item left over from a May 2017 report.
The DOE nuclear cleanup office expects to issue a new project management policy this spring and a new program management policy this fall, both in response to February 2019 recommendations from the GAO. Together the updated policies should help Environmental Management embrace “leading practices” and reduce risks stemming from unexpected changes to scope, costs, or schedule for its work, according to this week’s report.
The Energy Department is slightly above average among federal agencies when it comes to implementing GAO recommendations. Government-wide, agencies have implemented 77% of GAO recommendations made in the prior four years, according to November 2019 figures. The DOE implementation rate is about 78%, according to the status update.
