Office of Environmental Management: Managing America's Defense Nuclear Waste; A Report by a Panel of the National Academy of Public Administration for the United States Congress and the Department of Energy

2 Volumes. Volume I is the main report (xiv, 147, [1] pages) and Volume II Appendices to the Report (ix, [1], 101, [1] pages). Volume II has its own ISBN number 1577441664. Illustrations (some with color). Tables. Figures. Acronyms. Footnotes. Ink marks on bottom edges. Covers have some wear and soiling. December 2007 - In 1989, the Office of Environmental Management (EM) was established within the Department of Energy (DoE) to lead a multibillion-dollar, decades-long effort to clean up dangerous materials and take other actions to protect the environment and the health of communities near these sites. Expressing concern about shortcomings in federal oversight, control and accountability, repeated cost and schedule overruns, and numerous challenges to contract awards, the Senate and House Appropriations Committees asked the National Academy to undertake a management review of the EM Program. This report summarizes 19 months of intense effort, collaboration and cooperation among the Panel members, project team and EM. As a result, EM had implemented almost every Panel recommendation by the time this report was published. The Panel also found that EM lacked critical staff resources required to fulfill its mission. In September 2005, the House and Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittees asked the National Academy of Public Administration (Academy) to undertake a management review of EM, emphasizing their concerns about how EM was organized and managed and its acquisition and project management operations. EM Assistant Secretary Rispoli asked the Academy to add another element to the study, an assessment of EM's human capital operations. When this study began in April 2006, the Academy Panel found an organization facing several serious challenges as it struggled to redefine and reorganize itself. James Rispoli the EM Assistant Secretary was in the midst of reversing the direction set by EM's prior leadership-a path based on a policy that the organization was "going out of business" and that the level of federal employment could be significantly reduced. While there were successes at several sites with this approach, the overwhelming criticisms from the Government Accountability Office, the DOE Inspector General, and observers interested in how EM's cleanup work was progressing at other sites throughout the country were that it was taking too long, the work was going substantially slower than predicted, and the cost was substantially more than projected.In May 2006, Assistant Secretary Rispoli implemented a reorganization of EM headquarters. In the field, site offices also had begun an effort to re-baseline EM's entire project portfolio, and the results were producing new project schedules and funding profiles that showed a much longer term mission for EM than projected by past leadership. In addition, EM was being given a new responsibility for nuclear and chemical waste being generated by ongoing federal activities, which solidified a long-term future for EM. The program was hampered by the lack of a systematic approach to re-charting the organization's new direction; organization and management issues that included a lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities in headquarters and between headquarters and the field; insufficient acquisition and personnel delegations of authority; and human capital challenges, not the least of which was that EM's staff level had decreased about 40 percent since 2001. This significant decrease in staff was the outgrowth of the organizational downsizing that resulted from prior policies and the attrition of an aging workforce. To fully identify and address the problems, the Academy Panel and staff embarked on a highly interactive process with EM's senior management and staff that fostered significant collaboration. Rather than waiting until the end of the study to provide recommendations, the Panel provided EM three working documents, "Observations Papers," then met with E.