WASHINGTON, DC - Continuing its longstanding efforts to improve safety at some of the nation’s most critical nuclear sites, House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders today released a report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) with important new findings about problems within the nuclear security enterprise and suggestions for improvement. The report underscores numerous weaknesses in the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) oversight of contractors through the use of Contractor Assurance Systems (CAS).
The new report stems from a June 2012 committee request in response to NNSA’s plans that would have reduced direct federal oversight of nuclear weapons contractors. The committee sought to understand the extent to which federal oversight officials have the capacity to use CAS to evaluate performance, including safety and security, at the eight sites responsible for maintaining the nation’s nuclear deterrent.
The GAO report concluded that, “NNSA has not fully established policies or guidance for using information from contractor assurance systems to conduct oversight of management and operating (M&O) contractors" and “NNSA does not have standards for ensuring that contractors are overseen consistently." As a result, the GAO has recommended that the NNSA, “Develop guidance on using information from CAS to oversee and evaluate M&O contractors, reinstitute a process for evaluating oversight effectiveness, and study staffing needs."
NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz agreed with the findings and has outlined plans for addressing the recommendations.
Full Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA), and Subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-CO) commented, “For nearly two decades this committee has uncovered management challenges facing the DOE complex involving contractor oversight. For the past five years, DOE has experimented with a new approach to contractor oversight that is not ready for prime time. We saw the results of this experiment at the Y-12 security breach in Tennessee three years ago and more recently in oversight failures that led to a costly incident at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site. This report provides a roadmap on what NNSA must do to improve, and we will hold DOE and NNSA accountable for implementing the recommendations of the GAO report."
On Friday, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing examining the oversight failures that led to the radiological incident at WIPP in February of 2014. Testimony will address some of the findings from this GAO report as it relates to the incident at WIPP.as they are posted.
