The Department of Energy’s $8-billion-plus Office of Environmental Management is creating a new chief technology office silo and making other organizational tweaks, one of which troubles the head of the Energy Communities Alliance.
The changes were announced in a staff email Thursday, viewed by Exchange Monitor, from Kelly Snyder, an Office of Environmental Management (EM) official for intergovernmental and stakeholder programs. The new org chart had not been posted online as of Thursday afternoon.
There are three big changes.
A new Office of Chief Technology Officer, director currently vacant, is being created and will report to field operations chief Greg Sosson. The cleanup office’s chief technology officer, national laboratory policy functions, the chief engineer and the office of technology operations, will all be in the technology office.
“We are establishing a new Chief Technology Officer to help realize our immense potential for technology development, consolidating the management of our national lab and other university resources,” a DOE spokesperson said in a Thursday evening email.
Secondly, EM is rolling up its communications and stakeholder engagement lines into one organization headed on an acting basis by Carrie Meyer. The new combined office reports up to the acting head of EM, William (Ike) White and his deputy, Jeff Avery.
Third, the offices of infrastructure management and disposition policy and the office of regulatory compliance are being combined into the Office of Infrastructure Disposition and Regulatory Policy. The new combined office is headed by Rob Seifert on an acting basis. The new combined office reports up to regulatory and policy affairs chief Kristen Ellis.
The changes, which don’t alter staffing levels, take effect April 7, Snyder said.
“These alignments are structured to strengthen EM’s advancement in technology development, achieve stronger alignment and synergy in communications and engagement and create stronger collaboration in the areas of infrastructure disposition and regulatory policy,” said Snyder.
The changes were greeted with a shrug by two industry contractor executives the publication spoke with by phone. But the executive director of the Energy Communities Alliance, Seth Kirshenberg, is troubled by one of the changes.
The DOE cleanup office is moving responsibility for relationships with states, tribes and local governments out of a regulatory office and into a communications office, Kirshenberg said via email. ECA is an advocacy group for municipalities adjacent to DOE installations.
The communications office “historically focuses more on getting out positive stories than coordination and collaboration” with local entities, Kirshenberg said.
“In the early years of the EM program, it took years to convince former defense program officials (that started EM) to engage with and share information with local governments, and through fits and starts, the movement of local, state and tribal engagement became prioritized and moved under EM’s regulatory office,” Kirshenberg said.
“EM today is a very engaging program (the best in DOE) but this change during an election year when community engagement needs to be stressed, caught our attention,” Kirshenberg said.
At the same time, Kirshenberg said the Environmental Management office has tried to reassure ECA that the agency’s outreach to local communities won’t wane under the new structure.
Two industry executives who spoke with Exchange Monitor did not foresee any sweeping changes from the changes.
One said the consolidations might merely reflect a shortage of senior managers to oversee each silo. The same industry contractor said information systems is not included under the new technology office, but instead is one of the sub-offices that report up to Dae Chung, who is in charge of corporate services.
