Nuclear safetyNuclear safety board slams Energy Department plan to weaken oversight
The Trump administration defended an order that could be used to withhold information about nuclear facilities from a federal board, but its leader says the action is not consistent with the U.S. Atomic Energy Act.
A new Department of Energy order that could be used to withhold information from a federal nuclear safety board and prevent the board from overseeing worker safety at nuclear facilities appears to violate longstanding provisions in the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, the board’s members said Tuesday.
Members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, both Democrats and Republicans, were united in their criticism of the Energy Department’s order, published in mid-May. It prevents the board from accessing sensitive information, imposes additional legal hurdles on board staff, and mandates that Energy Department officials speak “with one voice” when communicating with the board.
The Santa Fe New Mexican and ProPublica first reported on the order’s existence in July but the board called for a special hearing, saying its members had no formal input before the document was finalized.
At that hearing in Washington, D.C., Tuesday morning, the first of three on the topic, officials from the Energy Department and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nation’s nuclear stockpile, said the changes were largely innocuous and were necessary to update a 17-year-old guidance manual.
“It certainly is not intended to harm” the relationship between the department and the board, said William (Ike) White, chief of staff and associate principal deputy administrator for the nuclear security administration. He said the changes are designed to ensure agency leaders “have ownership and accountability for the decisions they make.”
But board members said such statements were at odds with the language of the order, which outlines broad restrictions and could exclude thousands of Department of Energy workers from the board’s safety oversight.
“To me the primary question is, is [the order] consistent with the Atomic Energy Act?” asked acting board chairman Bruce Hamilton. “In my view, it is not.”
Board members also questioned whether the department was systematically changing its approach to nuclear safety, which agency officials denied.
