[CPEO-MEF] REGULATION: DOE Inspector General questions Federal Facilities Agreements

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

My personal history with the challenges of funding the cleanup of  
Federal Facilities began in 1991, with my participation in what  
became the Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue  
Committee (FFRDC). The approach laid out in the FFRDC Final Report  
still serves as the guide to resolving the challenges of meeting the  
requirements of Federal Facilities Agreements at the Defense and  
Energy Department in the fact of insufficient appropriations. In  
general, the FFERDC solution still works.

Now, buried in an over-arching review of Energy Department  
“Management Challenges,” the DOE Inspector General suggests returning  
to where we were in 1991, recommending:

"To ensure that risk drives funding choices and priorities rather  
than potential local or regional influences, the Department should  
retain a respected outside group, such as the National Academy of  
Sciences, to rank and rate, on a national, complex-wide risk/priority  
basis the Department's environmental remediation requirements."

This recommendation ignores the key role that federal, state, and in  
some cases tribal regulators, as well as impacted communities, must  
play in the cleanup of the nuclear weapons complex. Re-organizing the  
program around a centralized "risk list" is likely to heighten  
confrontation without improving cleanup "on the ground" or under it.  
Furthermore, the Inspector General exaggerates the nature of the  
problem by including all Environmental Management funding in its  
description of the problem. While the long-term management of nuclear  
wastes at Energy site is a big deal, it is different from the  
challenge of soil and groundwater remediation, which by itself has a  
much lower price tag.

- Lenny Siegel








Management Challenges at the Department of Energy
Department of Energy Office of Inspector General
DOE/IG-0858
November 2011
Page 10 (page 11 of the PDF)

Reprioritize the Department's Environmental Remediation Efforts on a  
Complex-wide Basis Utilizing a Risk-Based Strategy – Fund Only High  
Risk, High Priority Activities

Background

The Department's current unfunded environmental remediation liability  
is approximately $250 billion. The result of more than 50 years of  
nuclear defense and energy research work, this effort involves 2  
million acres of land located in 35 states and employs more than  
30,000 Federal and contractor employees. The Department spends about  
$6 billion per year on its environmental remediation activities. In  
doing so, program costs are largely "driven" by 37 individually  
negotiated Federal Facility Agreements (FFA) at key Department sites  
across the Nation. The FFAs involve no less than 350 milestones at  
these sites. The FFAs are augmented by numerous other local  
agreements with their own set of actions, requirements, milestones  
and due dates.

Issue

The FFAs and related requirements are the result of individual, site- 
specific negotiations between the Department and Federal and state  
regulators. In many cases, these agreements were reached after  
complex, painstaking negotiations over many years. In some cases, the  
courts are also involved in these agreements. Modifying these  
agreements would be a very costly and time- consuming process and  
would, understandably, be extremely unpopular with a variety of  
constituencies. However, the current strategy may not be sustainable  
if the Department's remediation budget suffers major reductions.

Key Question: Are the Department's existing environmental remediation  
commitments sustainable in light of current budget realities and, as  
a corollary, would a risk-based strategy applied throughout the  
complex allow for improved targeting of scarce remediation resources?

Path Forward

The Department should consider revising its current remediation  
strategy and instead address environmental concerns on a national,  
complex-wide risk basis. This would result in a form of environmental  
remediation triage. Looking at the program holistically, fund only  
high risk activities that threaten health and safety or further  
environmental degradation. Consistent with this philosophy, where  
appropriate and consistent with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  
guidance and long term Department land-use planning policies, reduce  
costs by remediating to "brownfield" rather than "greenfield" standards.

To ensure that risk drives funding choices and priorities rather than  
potential local or regional influences, the Department should retain  
a respected outside group, such as the National Academy of Sciences,  
to rank and rate, on a national, complex-wide risk/priority basis the  
Department's environmental remediation requirements. The Department's  
National Integrated Priority List could serve as a logical starting  
point for this exercise.

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
 
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