The Energy Department is “getting close to finalizing” a three-month to one-year plan intended to allow the avoidance of some 500 previously expected involuntary layoffs of workers performing decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) work at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told senators yesterday. President Barack Obama last week signed into law a three-month continuing resolution to keep the government running, which included an anomaly to give DOE the flexibility through its Uranium Enrichment D&D Fund to prevent the planned layoffs that site contractor Fluor-BWXT announced in August. The contractor two months ago said that a budget shortfall of up to $81 million for the project in fiscal 2016 could force it this fall to lay off up to 36 percent of its roughly 1,400 Portsmouth employees.
When pressed by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) during testimony yesterday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Moniz did not give a definitive answer on whether DOE would implement a layoff prevention plan before the current CR’s Dec. 11 expiration, but he voiced intent to reach out to Fluor-BWXT to push the plan forward. “I feel very confident that we will get there,” Moniz said. “I need a little more time to finish the plan and notify the contractor. But that’s what we are working toward: No involuntary layoffs during the CR for the D&D work.”
Notwithstanding that Portman-Moniz verbal exchange, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on Monday cited a conversation that day between him and Moniz, during which Brown said the secretary “guaranteed” that all Portsmouth workers would be spared layoffs through the current CR’s duration. “This evening, Secretary Moniz guaranteed that no jobs would be lost at the Piketon plant for the duration of the spending bill passed last week,” Brown said in a statement. “Southern Ohio’s economy relies on continued cleanup progress—and that can only continue with the dedicated workforce that has put so much time into ensuring that this site can attract future economic development. I’ll continue working to find a long-term funding solution for the plant.”
Moniz during yesterday’s hearing declined to answer another Portman question on whether DOE would request “adequate funding” for cleanup in fiscal 2017, after the senator said there was an $80 million budgetary “shortfall” for Portsmouth cleanup work in fiscal 2015. “I cannot discuss the FY ’17 budget at this stage, that’s clear,” Moniz in response to Portman. “We are trying to get adequate funding for all of our cleanup activities, and right now it’s hard to fit everything into the budget box…. I cannot discuss the FY ’17 budget until we’ve gone through all the tradeoffs and working with, as you know very well, [the White House’s Office on Management and Budget] on this.” The Senate Appropriations Committee in its May-released markup of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill matched DOE’s fiscal 2016 budget request of $165.4 million in funding for Portsmouth D&D work, a cut of approximately $49 million from fiscal 2015-enacted levels.
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