Have the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration made enough progress in improving project management to get off the Government Accountability Office’s infamous “high risk” list? The question is set to be answered later this week, when the GAO’s is expected to release the 2013 version of the biannual list. The release is scheduled to coincide with a hearing to be held Feb. 14 by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The hearing is set to be held in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building beginning at 10:30 a.m..
EM and the NNSA have long been fixtures on the GAO’s high-risk list. In the 2011 version, the GAO said that EM had met three of the criteria for removal—demonstrating strong commitment and leadership; demonstrated progress in implementing corrective measures; and development of a corrective action plan and a near-term plan for implementation. However, GAO noted further improvement was needed to meet the final two criteria: having the capacity in terms of people and resources to resolve problems and monitoring and independently verifying that corrective actions are effective over the long-term. Last fall, a senior EM official said he believed EM may be able to get “partially” off this year’s version because of the successes EM has had in recent years concerning its operational and smaller cleanup projects. However, the GAO issued a report last month sayings improvements are needed to how EM and NNSA manage their “nonmajor” projects, or those that cost less than $750 million.
