Nuclear Safety

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's First Year of Operation Gao ID: RCED-91-54 February 5, 1991

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the accomplishments, operations, and problems faced by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, focusing on: (1) the Board's mission to improve safety and health conditions at the Department of Energy's (DOE) defense nuclear facilities; (2) problems encountered in hiring technical staff; and (3) changes needed to enhance the Board's independence and credibility.

GAO found that the: (1) Board, in its first year of operation, established its financial operations, acquired office space, hired staff, and issued recommendations to improve safety at four major DOE facilities; (2) Board's recommendations for improving DOE facilities involved such issues as operation training, safety standards, radioactive waste storage, restarting plutonium operations, and the need for systematic evaluations of safety issues; (3) Board's inability to offer salaries sufficient to hire scientific and technical staff limited its ability to carry out its functions; (4) Board's independence and public knowledge of its recommendations were essential to establishing and maintaining public confidence in the Board; and (5) Board lacked a strategic plan to identify future work priorities to help ensure that its oversight was comprehensive and to make its agenda visible to the public.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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