ALEXANDRIA, Va. - EM Assistant Secretary Anne White says she is driving the environmental cleanup program forward toward a vision of getting work accomplished safely and completely, and sooner rather than later.
From development of 10-year strategic plans that encourage field sites to picture an end to their missions, to regulatory reforms and new emphasis on “end state" contracts that will aim to incentivize projects to conclusion safely and efficiently, White said she is intent on invigorating a “completion mindset" in EM that she experienced performing field work at cleanup sites early in her career.
“We had clarity and purpose," White said. “We knew what to do. We were there to get sites off the books, to clean stuff up, to get waste to final disposition. That’s what the mindset looks like. It’s a culture of ‘do.’"
White discussed her priorities in remarks to this year's National Cleanup Workshop.
White said EM is motivated by the fact that its cleanup mission comprises a major portion of the third largest liability on the government books after the federal debt and entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
“When you keep that in mind, you recognize that the EM program is unique in government in that we actually have an opportunity to save the taxpayers billions of dollars," she said. “There are not many programs in government where you have that opportunity.
“If we all keep that in mind, then we are all going to be charging toward the same goal, which is to get the liabilities down, get waste to final disposition, start getting risk reductions and completions."
White said there are opportunities for significant near-term accomplishments at the Separations Process Research Unit and the West Valley Demonstration Project, both in New York, and the Energy Technology Engineering Center in California. Key achievements at larger sites like the restart of demolition at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant and the removal of sludge from K Basin at Hanford also are well in reach.
Such near-term “wins" enable EM to show that Congress is justified in approving budget increases for the program, she said.
“You need to have some of these things to go ahead and say this is what we’ve done with the plus-ups. Give us more plus-ups and we’ll get more done," White said. “That’s the importance of these kinds of things. That’s measurable progress that helps EM do better in budget space."
White said she is encouraged by workers at sites she has visited since she was confirmed as Assistant Secretary earlier this year. In particular, she makes it a point to have lunch with early-career workers who are their sites’ future.
“When I go to the sites, I see it all the time," she said. “People want to get the work done. That’s a natural tendency. I see it in the field all the time. It’s enthusiasm.
“It really makes me understand we can get this done. We can get through these things and have meaningful accomplishments."
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, Office of Environmental Management
