For immediate release August 17, 2018

Massive Staff Cut, Reorganization Proposed at Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

Staff to be cut by one-third without their involvement in decision, or any visible analysis, or a Board vote, or consultation with Congress or stakeholders

Action follows multiple prior and current efforts by Trump Administration to eliminate or weaken safety oversight group

In parallel thrust, new Department of Energy rule would eliminate most DOE nuclear facilities from DNFSB purview, prevent communications with operating contractors, crippling oversight

Contact: Greg Mello, Los Alamos Study Group, 505-265-1200 office, 505-577-8563 cell

Selected background

Permanent link * Previous press releases

Albuquerque, NM – On August 15, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) announced a "major reform" which would slash its Washington, DC staff by 46% while increasing its field staff by 80% and place the entire staff under a single "Executive Director of Operations." The new structure would go into effect October 1.

DNFSB currently has 117 authorized positions, of which five are Board members (currently four members are serving), ten are field inspectors, and 102 are at headquarters. Actual total employment stands at 94, including the four current board members. 

The reorganization plan would increase field staff to 18 while cutting total positions to 79, a net cut of 38 persons (33% of all staff). This huge cut was not mentioned in the press release.

Under the plan, headquarters (HQ) staff would be cut from 102 to 56 (plus the five board members).

Over the past 13 months, 26 people have left the agency.

Sources tell us (Acting?) Board Chair Bruce Hamilton believes no reduction in force (RIF) will be necessary to reach the planned lower staffing level, given this attrition rate.

Staff were unaware of this planned reorganization until it happened. No opinions were sought. No analysis was circulated -- or, as far as we know, conducted.

The 38 HQ positions to be cut exactly matches former Board Chair Sean Sullivan’s “secondary proposal” in his June 29, 2017 memorandum to the Trump White House, which advocated abolishing his own agency as his first choice.

Sean Sullivan and Bruce Hamilton are both Republicans, appointed by President Obama under a requirement to have no more than three board members with the same political party affiliation. Mr. Sullivan left the Board on February 2, 2018, resulting in the present vacancy, citing loss of confidence toward his leadership.

Study Group members witnessed contemptuous behavior by Mr. Sullivan toward other board members and staff; "loss of confidence" was an understatement.

President Trump then appointed Mr. Hamilton Acting Chairman.

The other three Board members (Ms. Joyce L. Connery, Ms. Jessie Hill Roberson, and Mr. Daniel J. Santos), also appointed by President Obama, are Democrats.

Of the current four Board members, only Ms. Connery's term has not expired. Board members serve until they resign or are replaced.

As of this writing, no board vote on this reorganization proposal is posted on the DNFSB web site. No meeting agenda involving this reorganization has been posted. It is possible no vote took place.

Upon information and belief, no consultation with Congress or public stakeholders was conducted.

In March, the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) was asked by DNFSB to conduct a study of its operations. The Study Group and other stakeholders took part in that study, which is nearing completion (broad survey questions). Upon information and belief, NAPA is about two weeks away from sending its draft report to DNFSB for comment.

It is unclear why this reorganization would be announced before the findings of the NAPA study.

With this reorganization, there have now been three reorganizations in the past 15 months, all during the Trump Administration. The first was implemented under Mr. Sullivan's chairmanship in May 2017. The second focused on the assignments of Senior Executive Service (SES) personnel, in late December 2017.

In addition to Mr. Sullivan's June 2017 proposed abolition of the agency (or as his second choice, deep cuts to it -- as in the present reorganization) (successful opposition from Ms. Connery, from Ms. Roberson, and Mr. Santos) there was an attempted transfer of DNFSB staff to DOE and NNSA in August 2017. This was successfully opposed from within the Board.

Another attempt by the Trump Administration to weaken the Board occurred in October 2017, when Mr. Hamilton, at the request of Frank Klotz who was at the time Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), proposed to eliminate DNFSB's weekly and monthly site reports. These 1-page reports provide almost the only remaining public window into safety conditions in the NNSA's nuclear weapons and DOE's environmental management sites. The effort was dropped when Mr. Hamilton's proposal to eliminate DNFSB was exposed by the news media.

On May 14, 2018, DOE adopted Order 140.1, which greatly restricts DOE communications with the DNFSB, eliminates direct DNFSB communication with DOE contractors (the sole operating staff in all DOE and NNSA nuclear facilities and for the sites overall), and eliminates DNFSB oversight of Hazard Category 3 nuclear facilities, which comprise about 60% of DOE's nuclear facilities overall.

DOE's internal roll-out briefing, leaked to the Study Group, provides more background and detail. For example, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) management and operating contractor -- uniquely present among NNSA sites in this role -- was part of the team that designed the Order.

In testimony before the New Mexico Legislature's Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee (RHMC) on August 15, 2018, Craig Leasure, Principal Associate Director of Operations and Business for LANL told RHMC Chairman Jeff Steinborn, in response to Steinborn's question as to his role in crafting the Order, that "I helped with the order as one of the people on the team, but it is a federal order." (from Study Group audio recording).

The staff cut, recent Order, and related prior actions to weaken the Board are taking place as the Trump Administration seeks to ramp up acquisition of production facilities for new nuclear weapons, in particular for the production of plutonium cores of warheads ("pits"), the mission of the former Rocky Flats Plant.

Safety concerns loom large in pit production. LANL's aging main plutonium facility has been dogged by persistent safety problems that have been and remain a focus of DNFSB concern.

LANL proposals to build underground factory "modules" to expand pit production capacity “rely solely on the passive confinement capability for accident mitigation and assumes that no active safety systems would be required” ("Pu Pit Production Engineering Assessment," p 2-43). Emergency fire water supply and electrical power “will not be designed, procured, or installed to nuclear code and standards” (op. cit., p. 2-47). These proposals, which set a lower standard for protection against accidents than currently practiced, may become a focus of DNFSB concern. 

NNSA also seeks to transform an existing radiological facility (the Radiological Laboratory, Utility, and Office Building, RLUOB) into a Hazard Category 3 nuclear facility without having designed or built the facility to nuclear standards. Under DOE O 140.1, this facility (and its workers) would lie outside DNFSB's purview.

As of June 17, 2018 the Department of Labor had approved 1,599 unique worker occupationally-related death claims from survivors of LANL workers, according to the Alliance of Nuclear Workers Advocacy Groups (ANWAG, personal communication). Considering that documentation of occupational illness and death is more difficult for the early years of Los Alamos, this is almost certainly an underestimate of worker mortality due to work at LANL. This very roughly works out to one committed occupational fatality every two weeks for 61 years.

Study Group director Greg Mello:

"This massive staff cut is a very heavy blow to what has been a fine agency -- the only external oversight of nuclear safety at DOE facilities there is.

"In combination with DOE Order 140.1, this staff cut is a fatal blow. DNFSB cannot survive these two attacks as a real agency -- as opposed to a figurehead -- should they be allowed to stand.

"There is no doubt that killing the Safety Board, or turning it into a zombie agency, is exactly the idea of those who have proposed these so-called 'reforms.' There have been continued efforts to kill or maim the DNFSB since the administration of G.W. Bush. These have waxed and waned with political circumstances. The Board's internal enemies -- those responsible for repeated efforts to destroy the Board or the Board's effectiveness -- were appointed by Obama but activated under Trump.

"Efforts to destroy the Board are linked to efforts to remove cabinet-level oversight from NNSA, which passed the Senate this summer only to be killed at the last moment in negotiations with the House.

"All these efforts to remove oversight and 'red tape' from the nuclear weapons enterprise come from an unholy alliance between 'Cold Warriors' in both political parties, contractors greedy for more work and funding, and the pork-barrel politicians which enable both these groups -- including all of the current New Mexico delegation. All have adopted a facile 'Russophobia' to facilitate what amount to private objectives in the guise of public good. They are bleeding the country dry, while the real national security issues lie elsewhere -- for example in existentially-dangerous climate collapse.

"Destroying the Safety Board is likely to result in collapse of nuclear weapons work itself, but what kind of tragedies will families have to endure in the meantime, or afterward? A community can be destroyed as readily with nuclear accidents and worker illness as with a bomb."

***ENDS***