Nuclear Waste Partnership, prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, got a clean audit of its internal review of costs incurred in fiscal years 2013 and 2014 for operating the nation’s only permanent disposal facility for transuranic waste, the Energy Department Inspector General’s Office said in a report released Friday.
Nuclear Waste Partnership’s own audits show the company incurred and claimed about $312 million in costs for fiscal 2013 and 2014: an assessment DOE found to be sound during a roughly five-month audit-of-the-audit conducted by the IG at DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office and Nuclear Waste Partnership’s Carlsbad, N.M., office, according to the report.
The report’s full title is: “Audit Coverage of Cost Allowability for Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC, During Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014 Under Department of Energy Contract No. DE-EM0001971.”
The Nuclear Waste Partnership internal audit found some “$392,468 in questioned costs” for the 2013 and 2014 budget years, but all of the questions surrounding those claims have been resolved, according to the report.
In its over-the-shoulder read of Nuclear Waste Partnership’s internal audits, the DOE IG said it rechecked “a sample of 40 of the 1,222 incurred cost transactions reviewed by NWP’s Internal Audit in its FY 2014 Allowable Cost Audit, 12 of the 23 transactions from its Erroneous Payments Audit, and 9 of the 18 transactions from its Employee Relocation Audit.”
