Abolish Nuclear Safety Board?

The Chair of the independent board charged with oversight of nuclear safety in the weapons complex has asked the White House to abolish it, claiming that the Dept. of Energy (DOE) should be allowed to oversee itself.

Sean Sullivan is Trump’s chosen Chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). Recently he wrote a letter to the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, suggesting that the safety board be discontinued, or, failing that, largely reduced. The letter expresses Sullivan’s belief that the existence of a safety board only adds cost and not value. It is notable in this context that the annual budget for the entire DNFSB is only $31 million.

In making his recommendation to abolish, Sullivan omits an important history. The five-member DNFSB was created in 1988 because decades of severe accidents and safety issues were not being adequately addressed. DOE workers and the public had been repeatedly exposed to radioactive and toxic materials.

Further, the board was founded to prevent new safety hazards for workers handling nuclear materials - and to protect the communities surrounding these facilities. The board’s staff is able to identify safety deficiencies, analyze, and provide recommendations to change (or enforce) laws and procedures.

In sum, DNFSB identifies problems otherwise ignored by DOE. There are numerous incidents in recent years where it is clear that if the DNFSB had not stepped in, safety lapses would have continued with potentially disastrous results.

Three members of the five-member board have now come forward to ensure that Sullivan’s letter does not stand as the opinion of the board. The rebuttal letters come from board members Joyce Connery, Jessie Roberson and Daniel Santos.

Sullivan’s proposal affects the Bay Area and Central Valley. Presently, DNFSB has a DC-based technical staff member assigned to visit Livermore Lab and analyzes its nuclear operations and safety procedures. Indeed, we need more oversight in the form of a permanent DNFSB staff person in Livermore, not less. It is crazy to think the modicum of Lab oversight provided by DNFSB visits may evaporate entirely.

The DNFSB’s annual budget should be safeguarded so that the board can continue to safeguard workers and communities, including ours. If anything, that amount ($31 million/year) may be too little money relative to the size of the task. Certainly, it is not too much.