The legislation that created the National Nuclear Security Administration as a semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy has been “counter-productive” as it has been implemented, the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise said in an interim report made public this week. The panel’s broad conclusions have been known for some time—that the NNSA has failed and its governance model is fundamentally flawed –but the 62-page report provides details about the panel’s findings that illustrate just how deep the agency’s problems run. Formal recommendations are due to Congress in July. “DOE’s implementation of the NNSA Act has produced parallel, intertwined NNSA and DOE headquarters staffs in many functional areas, rather than truly separate or independent DOE and NNSA staff offices,” the panel said in the report, recounting an interview with one NNSA field official who described a complex management structure in which the official received direction from NNSA’s Office of Acquisition and Project Management, the Office of Defense Programs, DOE headquarters, leadership for infrastructure management, and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. “Outcomes are determined by negotiations among the competing interests, which consume time and energy, and tend to yield ultra-conservative, minimal-risk approaches.”
Part of the problem, the panel said, is that DOE headquarters staff perform mission-support oversight of the agency without any pressure to accomplish the mission itself. “These factors create strong and counter-productive incentives to eliminate all risks—large and small—rather than seeking to effectively manage the most important ones,” the panel said. Ambiguity in DOE orders also “compounds” efforts to resolve issues among staffs that have unclear roles and authorities and lack the procedures to make decisions and weakens the ability of DOE and NNSA to deal with the DNFSB. “Given the statutory role of the DNFSB as an independent oversight arm for public safety, and the lack of a DOE analytical capability to effectively evaluate options to respond to its recommendations, the DNFSB exerts a dominant influence over DOE’s risk management in nuclear safety policies and programs, which at times leads to actions that do not reflect prudent risk management or safety concerns,” the panel said.