To slow turnover in the top ranks of federal nuclear remediation, the Government Accountability Office is recommending Congress create a new Department of Energy post, under secretary for nuclear waste management and environmental cleanup.
As envisioned in the Government Accountability Office report, the DOE’s $7.6-billion Office of Environmental Management (EM) would be siloed beneath this under secretary, as would the assistant secretary for environmental management, who would serve a term with a specified number of years.
“GAO has previously supported establishing term appointments of at least 5 to 7 years for certain leadership positions,” GAO writes. “Legislation establishing a term appointment for EM’s top leader could help improve leadership stability, address challenges, and better support EM’s long-term mission to clean up nuclear waste by helping create an organizational commitment that can endure across administrations,” GAO said in the 44-page report issued Tuesday.
The top boss at Environmental Management is responsible for addressing upwards of $407 billion of nuclear cleanup liability, but usually only serves two years on the job before turning over the desk to someone else, GAO wrote.
“In the last 2 decades, there have been five Senate-confirmed assistant secretaries (political appointees) and nine acting assistant secretaries or senior advisors,” GAO said in the report.
“Frequent turnover has created challenges for achieving the department’s complex and long-term cleanup mission, such as difficulty building relationships with stakeholders, inconsistent and incomplete initiatives,” GAO went on to say.
The current top manager at EM, senior adviser William (Ike) White who is a career fed, has already exceeded the average tenure, as next month he will hit three years as head of the office.
The report also floats the idea of making a sister entity to EM, the DOE Office of Legacy Management report to the new DOE under secretary.
