Statement:
In support of this goal, DOE will:
- Retrieve tank waste, close tanks, and dispose of transuranic waste within cost and schedule through FY 2015
- On a three-year rolling basis, complete at least 90% of departmental projects baselined since the start of FY 2008 within the original scope baseline and not to exceed 110% of the cost as reflected in the performance baseline established at Critical Decision 2 through FY 2015
- Achieve full operational capability of the Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center (JC3), including TS-SCI operations, by the end of FY 2015
Description:
Overview of the Environmental Management part of the goal:
The Department and its predecessor agencies generated radioactive liquid waste as a by-product of the production of nuclear weapons. The EM Program has an estimated 88 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from the legacy of the Cold War stored in 239 tanks at Idaho, the Savannah River Site and the Office of River Protection. By reducing and disposing of the liquid waste tank wastes, EM is demonstrating tangible evidence of the program's goal to reduce the highest risks in the complex. By eliminating high-risk material, corresponding life-cycle cost reductions are achieved for an activity that is a major cost driver to the EM program.
Management and removal of legacy Transuranic (TRU) waste across the EM complex directly supports risk reduction and the goal of reducing the EM site footprint. The EM Program also coordinates with all DOE sites that generate transuranic waste to retrieve, repackage, characterize, ship, and dispose of transuranic waste resulting in cleaning up sites, reducing risks, and decreasing the Department’s nuclear footprint.
Challenges for meeting EM’s Agency Priority Goal (the retrieval of tank waste, closing waste tanks and disposing of transuranic waste) include designing, building, starting up, and operating complex, hazardous, and unique nuclear facilities. These facilities include the Waste Treatment Plant in Hanford, Washington; the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at Idaho National Laboratory; and the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Successful completion of these cleanup goals depends on overcoming technical, quality assurance, schedule, regulatory, and management challenges. The Department will leverage past experience, applying best practices and lessons learned; identify, develop, and deploy practical technological solutions; and look for innovative and sustainable practices that make cleanup more efficient.
Overview of the Project Management goal:
The Department of Energy (DOE) is the largest civilian contracting agency in the Federal Government and spends approximately 95% of its annual budget on contracts to operate its scientific laboratories, engineering and production facilities, and environmental restoration sites and to acquire capital assets. The Department has been challenged, both externally and internally, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its contract and project management processes. The Department remains committed to making continuous improvements in contract and project management performance.
DOE has been on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) High-Risk List since 1990. During the past several years, the Department has launched and completed several initiatives to address its challenges including a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and associated Corrective Action Plan (CAP) in 2008, Contract and Project Management Summit-related corrective actions, and issuance of several Deputy Secretary policy directives. Many measurable improvements have been implemented resulting from these efforts to include: improving front-end planning by requiring sufficient design maturity prior to establishing performance baselines; defining required project staff-size and required skill-set across the project lifecycle and enhancing training and qualifications of project and contract management personnel; stabilizing project funding and affordability by adhering to baseline funding profiles for incrementally funded projects in annual budget requests; strengthening DOE Order 413.3B inclusive of new independent cost estimating requirements at Critical Decision (CD) gateways; deploying a new and more robust Project Assessment and Reporting System (PARS II), which allows for direct upload of contractor project performance data; and implementing Project Peer Reviews, a best practice successfully employed by the Office of Science, across the Department to better monitor project development and execution and foster sharing of design, procurement and construction lessons learned.
Based on the Department’s progress, GAO narrowed the scope of the high-risk designation in 2009, removing the Office of Science and focusing on the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Office of Environmental Management (EM). GAO issued a scorecard with five criteria for removing all DOE programs from the High-Risk List:
- Demonstrate strong commitment and leadership;
- Demonstrate progress in implementing corrective measures;
- Develop a corrective action plan that identifies root causes, effective solutions, and a near-term plan for implementing the solutions;
- Have the capacity (people and resources) to resolve problems; and
- Monitor and independently validate the effectiveness and sustainability of corrective measures.
GAO acknowledged the Department met the first three of these criteria in February 2011. In GAO’s February 2013 High-Risk List update, GAO acknowledged the Department’s continuing improvement in contract and project management by shifting the focus of DOE’s high-risk designation to major contracts and projects executed by NNSA and EM with values of $750 million or greater.
Progress toward achieving this goal, project success, is tracked in the Department’s Project Assessment and Reporting System (PARS II) and reported to Program Offices, GAO and OMB on a quarterly basis.
Overview of the JC3 part of the goal:
The Joint Cybersecurity Center (JC3) is a Departmental enterprise asset designed to improve information sharing and coordinated incident response for all cybersecurity events. Accordingly the DOE Chief Information Officer (CIO) is responsible for developing and maintaining the Department’s overall cybersecurity strategy in coordination with the Undersecretaries of Science & Energy, Nuclear Security, and Management & Performance.
Learn More
