Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chronicles Concerns Regarding Lack of Access to Critical Safety Information, press release, 4 Jun 2026

For immediate release: June 4, 2026

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chronicles Concerns Regarding Lack of Access to Critical Safety Information
Sole safety watchdog for DOE warhead, cleanup activities kept in the dark, unable to do its statutory job as Trump Administration loosens and eliminates safety rules

Contact: Greg Mello: 505-577-8563
Permalink * Prior press releases and backgrounders

Albuquerque, NM -- In a detailed letter of April 29 posted recently on its web site, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB, Safety Board) expresses its serious concerns over mounting denials of access to evolving, safety-critical Department of Energy (DOE) standards, as well as to DOE directions to staff to deny access to its nuclear facilities, personnel, and information in instances where DOE believes such access is inappropriate.

These access denials have been described by DNFSB staff as even worse than the ones DOE attempted in 2018, when a then-new DOE Order (140.1) attempted to deny DNFSB access to facilities and information. Congress eventually stepped in, limiting the Secretary of Energy's power to deny safety-pertinent access to the Board and clarifying in law that DNFSB does have such access.

The present letter details many missed DOE safety reporting requirements and denials of access to DNFSB. It also contains a March 10 memorandum from a senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) manager and a senior DOE Environmental Management official ordering DOE's field staff to not provide access to certain types of information and facilities and to "disregard" any DNFSB "directives." By way of background, DNFSB does not make "directives;" DOE does that, though these directives are not always followed.

NNSA considers regulatory "reform" critical to its new production ethos ("U.S. nuclear warhead agency to 'go fast' to fill 'deterrence gaps' to achieve 'peace through atomic strength;' safety, security standards loosened to enable faster production," Study Group, Feb 19, 2026; "NNSA to leave 'life extension,' 'stewardship' paradigm to build new weapons; LANL pit aspirations triple; LANL rad exposure standards loosened fivefold," Study Group, Feb 2, 2026; "At Nuclear Deterrence Summit, Lab Directors Frame Regulatory Reform As Key To Modernization," LA Daily Post, Feb 5, 2026).

Under the rubric of what it calls "Project Velocity," DOE is reexamining up to 80 of its own orders, including safety orders, "to remove barriers to execution and change the way we do business" (slide 4). DOE's March 10 memo expresses forbids DNFSB access to this process, which is in fact allowed under the Atomic Energy Act and existing DOE orders (p. C-2).

The changes contemplated by DOE are profound and include abandonment of the foundational "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA) principle and the "Linear No Threshold" (LNT) model on which it is based, a change secretly endorsed by Secretary Wright on January 9 of this year ("DOE kills radiation safety standard," Francisco Camacho, E&E News, Jan 13, 2026; "The Trump administration has secretly rewritten nuclear safety rules," National Public Radio, Geoff Brumfiel, Jan. 28, 2026).

Study Group director Greg Mello met with DNFSB staff in late January to discuss the rapidly-evolving safety situation, prompted by a January 27 speech in which NNSA said that at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the maximum allowable radiation dose for workers had already been loosened from 1 rem per year (the previous "administrative control limit," ACL) to 5 rem per year, the maximum allowable under 10 CFR 835 (see Bulletin 373, Feb. 2; "Los Alamos National Laboratory to allow for additional annual worker dose, NNSA official says," Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb 28, 2026).

Taking background radiation into account, this change at LANL would raise the risk of harm to workers receiving the maximum dose by a factor of roughly 4, under the traditional LNT model, the exact amount depending on assumptions about background radiation.

Mello:

"We regard these access denials as existential for the Safety Board. Especially now, when the fundamental tenets of radiation safety are under scrutiny -- not to say attack -- the Board's work is critical. A DOE which does not avail itself of the independent expertise available from the DNFSB is a DOE which cannot be trusted to protect workers or the public. Accidents and contamination are certain to follow.

"Congress is going to have to step in again. The Administration is going in the wrong direction on nuclear safety, and not just in a small way. Grossly conflicted contractors -- nuclear cowboys, let's call them -- are working out what they will and will not do as regards safety. There is a lot of money on the table for them -- billions of dollars for companies and their investors and millions for some of the executives involved. This kind of money spills over into campaign contributions. These people don't want "too much safety" to get in the way. Down at the worker level, there's going to be trouble.

"Both Trump and his Energy Secretary have unwisely made themselves captive of optimistic predictions about everything from new nuclear reactors coming on-line faster than anyone might think possible to producing more plutonium pits faster and faster via extended working hours, curtailed safety, and looser quality standards.

"In pit production, we see relaxed safety not just in the allowable dose but also in other ways. For example, the amount of plutonium which will be allowed in Building PF-400 at LANL has now been increased to more than a kilogram, in a building which was not even built as a nuclear facility, or to nuclear facility standards. The original amount allowed was 8 grams.

"To take another example, reliable sources tell us seismic performance requirements for gloveboxes in LANL's plutonium facility have been essentially eliminated for most gloveboxes.

"In addition to relaxing DOE safety orders and standards, contractors are seeking exemptions from having to follow them. We have learned that the long-proposed Material Staging Facility (MSF) at Pantex near Amarillo -- which is to be a bunker for storing nuclear weapons, plutonium pits, and other nuclear components -- will be seeking an exemption from (some parts of) 10 CFR 830 ("Nuclear Safety Management").

"We need more Safety Board involvement, not less. It is a scandal that neither the Biden Administration nor yet the Trump Administration has seen fit to make a concerted effort to nominate, and get confirmed, a full slate of qualified Board members. Failure to do so is a testament to the power of the entrenched nuclear weapons lobby, which holds sway over both major political parties."

***ENDS***

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