08.11.06

Cantwell Questions Plan to Dissolve Department of Energy’s Worker Safety Office

Cantwell asks energy secretary for answers; plan could put Hanford workforce, 130,000 total energy department workers at risk

WASHINGTON, DC – Friday, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) joined a coalition of her Senate colleagues demanding answers to a Department of Energy (DOE) plan to break up the agency’s Office for Environment, Safety and Health (ES&H). In a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Cantwell and her colleagues expressed reservations with the reorganization plan, requested details on the proposal, and asked the agency to clarify how it would continue to ensure a high worker safety standard. Under the Energy Department plan, the ES&H office—currently headed by an assistant secretary—would be incorporated into another agency office that deals primarily with security, eliminating the assistant secretary position.

“A high standard for worker health, safety, and security must remain one of DOE’s top priorities,” said Cantwell, a member of the Senate Energy Committee. “Dissolving the office that investigates reported safety and health failures does not seem like an effective way to enhance worker safety. Without meaningful answers, I will continue to have concerns about potential negative impacts on local workers, including the Hanford workforce.”

Under the proposal, ES&H would be incorporated into an office dealing with security, with only 20 percent of the office budget going toward worker safety and health. In their letter to Bodman, Senators Cantwell, Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Harry Reid (D-NV), Patty Murray (D-WA), and others expressed their concern with relegating safely to a lower priority level and leaving DOE without an assistant secretary solely responsible for worker safety and health. The senators also submitted a specific list of question to clarify the proposal’s effects, and asked Bodman to delay the implementation of the proposed changes until all questions had been answered.

“We are writing to urge you to withhold action on this proposed reorganization until key questions are answered and there has been an opportunity to fully examine the implications of the proposal to dismantle the office,” the senators wrote. “…Given the inherent hazards in many of DOE’s operations, it is crucial that DOE’s own employee safety and health systems are robust and reliable.”

“The proposed reorganization poses a significant threat to employee safety and health,” the senators continued. “It downgrades worker safety and health issues by subsuming them into the much larger security office and eliminating the position of Assistant Secretary.”

Protecting the health, safety, and security of the workforce at Hanford and other DOE facilities remains a top priority for Cantwell. In May, Cantwell wrote a separate letter to Bodman expressing her reservations with the ES&H reorganization plan.

[The text of senators’ letter to Secretary Bodman follows below]

August 11, 2006

The Honorable Samuel W. Bodman
Secretary of Energy
 U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, DC 20585

Dear Secretary Bodman:

We appreciate the opportunity to comment on the July 24 predecisional draft plan to reorganize the environment, safety and health responsibilities carried out under the leadership of the Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health. We are writing to urge you to withhold action on this proposed reorganization until key questions are answered and there has been an opportunity to fully examine the implications of the proposal to dismantle the office.

This office has responsibility for protecting the health and safety of 130,000 DOE and contractor employees and the public. With respect to this responsibility, DOE is a self-regulating entity, not subject to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Given the inherent hazards in many of DOE’s operations, it is crucial that DOE’s own employee safety and health systems are robust and reliable.

The proposed reorganization poses a significant threat to employee safety and health. It downgrades worker safety and health issues by subsuming them into the much larger security office and eliminating the position of Assistant Secretary. A rough calculation of the post-merger budget reveals that approximately 80% of the HSS budget will be dedicated to security functions and only 20% will be dedicated to worker safety and health. Because the plan failed to include a cross walk of employees, a precise analysis of the personnel make-up of the new office is not possible, but it would likely yield a similarly lopsided result, in which 80% of the focus of senior management will be on security. There have been dire consequences for the environment and workers in the past when DOE has not paid sufficient attention to these issues, such as the shameful recent exposure of DOE employees to lethal radiation.

We are also very concerned that without leadership at the Assistant Secretary level, employee safety and health issues will lose prominence on a day-to-day basis. An Assistant Secretary provides political accountability. The plan’s assertion that a career professional is better suited to lead the office because career employees provide greater continuity is specious. Our system is based on political accountability at the top levels of the executive branch, supported by a professional career staff. We believe that adequate attention and oversight require a dedicated Assistant Secretary with an institutional mandate in this area from the President and Congress.

We are also concerned that the reorganization will likely complicate and possibly delay the implementation of DOE’s new worker safety rule (10 C.F.R. 851 et seq.). It took DOE more than three years to issue the current regulations and workers can’t afford to wait longer for those rules to be implemented. The regulations assign specific responsibilities to the Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health. If that position is eliminated, the regulations cannot be implemented as currently drafted, causing likely delay and confusion. Our first concern is that DOE has not demonstrated any deficiencies in ES&H. The plan states that its purpose is to strengthen safety and health, but it does not identify specific weaknesses or deficiencies in the current ESH organization. No drastic reorganization should be undertaken without a more specific analysis of the problems with the existing structure, if any.

The plan also fails to state a case for how the reorganization will actually strengthen employee safety and health. For the most part, the operational improvements outlined in the plan could be carried out without the proposed reorganization. For example, the plan claims that a benefit of the reorganization is that it will strengthen line management accountability by improving reporting on performance to the Secretary. There is no explanation, however, of why such improvements could not be made within the current organizational structure. There is nothing inherent in the reorganization that will bring about improved management accountability.

Indeed, the premise underlying this plan – that some kind of synergy will be created by merging security with safety and health – is faulty and without substance. The security and the safety and health functions are fundamentally different. Safety and health are primarily concerned with hazards posed to DOE employees from DOE activities. In contrast, security is primarily concerned with threats to DOE activities, whatever their source. In sum, the disparate nature of the two areas refutes any assertion that there are significant areas of overlap and duplication that can be enhanced by a merger.

Attached please find six questions which, in addition to the concerns outlined above, need to be answered in detail and with supporting documents.

Further, we request that you refrain from any action to implement your “predecisional” draft plan to dismantle the Office of Environment, Safety and Health and to eliminate the position of Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health, until Congress has had an opportunity to exercise appropriate oversight. In light of DOE’s past failures to protect employee safety and health, Congress has a special responsibility to examine the proposed reorganization before it goes forward.

Thank you for your attention to and consideration of this important issue.

Sincerely,

Edward Kennedy
Jeff Bingaman
Harry Reid
Patty Murray
Robert Menendez
Frank Lautenberg
Maria Cantwell
Hillary Clinton
Charles Schumer
Dianne Feinstein
Ken Salazar
Barack Obama
Jack Reed
Chris Dodd

Attachment “A”

Questions for the Secretary of Energy on “Predecisional” Draft Plan of July 24, 2006 Entitled Strengthening Worker Health and Safety and Security at DOE

1. What, if any, are the structural, administrative, management and/or policy defects or problems with the current Office of Environment, Health and Safety?

2. Is there any reason why these defects and/or problems cannot be adequately addressed within the framework of the current Office of Environment, Health and Safety?

3. What are the specific safety and health hazards and issues that are the Department’s highest priorities, what actions/initiatives has DOE taken to date to address these hazards and issues, and specifically how will these hazards and issues be more effectively addressed under the proposed reorganization?

4. Should the Office of Health, Safety and Security be established, what is the budget and staff allocation for safety and health, on the one hand, and DOE security on the other?

5. What are the legal implications of placing environmental policy outside of the responsibilities of an assistance secretary, as required by 42 U.S.C. 7133(a). If these policy functions must remain under an Assistant Secretary, which Assistant Secretary will have responsibility?

6. What, if any, adverse safety and health impacts might result from merging worker safety and health responsibilities into an organization whose combined budgets will be overwhelmingly dominated by security responsibilities?

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