Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
March 24, 2000, Friday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 5020 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF T.J. GLAUTHIER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF ENERGY
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE SUBCOMMITTEE ON
ENERGY & POWER
BODY:
Mr. Chairman, I want
to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee on the
Department of Energy's Fiscal Year 2001 budget.
Management Reforms
Before I discuss the details of our FY 2001 budget request, I would like
to address a major issue of concern to the Administration and the Congress --
management systems of the Department.
In the past year, a top priority
has been to improve the way DOE manages its people, its resources, and its
programs. The Secretary and I have given management efficiencies our closest
attention.
First. we changed the way headquarters and the field
interrelate. We instituted a Field Management Council to bring coherence to
decision- making and weigh competing demands for requirements on the field, and
assigned Lead Principal Secretarial Officers (LPSOs), responsibility for
specific sites within the complex. We hired new managers at almost all our sites
throughout the complex. Second, we increased the accountability of our top
managers. We are depending more upon "line management," have empowered LPSOs,
and are holding them accountable for their specific areas of
responsibility.Third, working with the Congress, we regained control of
assigning M&O contract employees to the Washington area. We restructured
assignment procedures for these employees in Washington, required specifically
defined tasks from them, and ordered closure of most M&O Washington offices
reimbursed by DOE.
Fourth, working with the Congress, we are applying
sound business principles to management of our construction and environmental
remediation projects. We established and staffed the Office of Engineering and
Construction Management within the Office of the Chief Financial Officer to make
major fundamental changes in our project management procedures, principles, and
practices.
Fifth, we initiated several immediate actions correcting
security and counterintelligence problems within the Department which have
existed for years, but had not received the appropriate level of attention. We
have made substantial progress on an extensive program of security and
counterintelligence improvements, including: Creating the Office of Security and
Emergency Operations, consolidating the security functions throughout the
Department; Instituting a bottom-up internal security review; and, Creating the
Office of Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance, which independently
oversees security, cyber security, and emergency management within the
Department and reports directly to the Secretary.
Sixth, last year, we
launched the "Workforce for the 21st Century" Initiative to build a talented and
diverse workforce which will strengthen our technical and management
capabilities and address new challenges. Increasingly, the Department is
competing with private industry to recruit and retain the highly skilled
personnel required to deliver our missions. This growing skills gap has been
recognized by the General Accounting Office, the Office of Inspector General,
and this Committee. To address part of the scientific skills gap, we are
proposing a Scientific Recruitment and Retention Initiative in this budget which
totals $10.0 million. Under our Workforce 21, for the first
time in four years the Department has been able to target hiring of key
technical personnel and strengthen recruitment and internship programs to create
a pipeline of employees ready to enter the DOE workforce at the entry and
mid-level jobs.
The Department also has an opportunity and
responsibility to address the longstanding underrepresentation of women and
minorities in senior management and technical positions. We have initiated an
extensive review of workforce management practices to identify barriers that
hinder the promotion of a more representative workforce. The review resulted in
a Department-wide strategic plan called "Achieving and Promoting a Workforce
that Looks Like America: A Companion to Workforce 21." This plan, now in place,
will help build a representative workforce and instill management systems that
foster equal opportunity in hiring, promotion, and training practices. We have
also established a task force against racial profiling and emphasized the need
to promote more partnerships with minority educational institutions.
Seventh, under the direction of the Under Secretary Ernie Moniz, we also
established a clearly defined and well articulated Departmental R&D
portfolio. This will ensure our R&D programs are properly structured and
take advantage of interrelationships with all relevant program areas.
Lastly, the Department's defense mission is being restructured into the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). We established the NNSA, as
required, on March 1. This included the successful consolidation of the Defense
Programs, Nonproliferation and National Security, Fissile Materials Disposition,
and Naval Reactors offices into the NNSA and involved the transfer of some 2,000
federal employees and 37,000 contractor employees to this new organization. As
we discussed, the President has announced that he intends to nominate General
John A. Gordon to head this organization. He also nominated Madelyn Creedon to
be the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs. We are committed to making the
NNSA a viable, effective organization. The FY 2001 budget for the NNSA will
total $6.2 billion, an increase of $432
million over this year's level.
We've made progress in many areas, but
we are far from finished. We will continue to improve the Department's internal
management capabilities to realize the full potential which our workforce and
facilities hold for America. This budget will help us go farther. It is a
forwardlooking request emphasizing investments for the future.Mission
Accomplishments
Notwithstanding our efforts to address our management
problems, the Department has continued successfully to carry out its critical
missions. For example, in Science, Department-funded researchers received 43 of
the 100 awards given in 1999 by R&D Magazine for outstanding technology
developments with commercial potential. This is the largest number ever won by
any public or private entity in the history of the awards.
In national
security, the Departments of Energy and Defense certified for the third
consecutive year that the safety, security and reliability of our nation's
nuclear weapons stockpile could be assured without nuclear testing. And we are
well on our way to our fourth certification. We also completed important
agreements with Russia to promote non-proliferation. And we are meeting critical
mission objectives including new production requirements for the W76, W80, and
W88 warheads, refurbishment of W-87 Peacekeeper warheads, successful
accomplishment of subcritical experiments, initiation of production of tritium
reservoirs at the Kansas City Plant, and re-establishment of pit production
capability at, Los Alamos.
In energy resources, we proposed legislation
to restructure the electricity industry, to give consumers choices, and save
them $20 billion a year on their power bills. We hope Congress
will act on it this year. We promoted new technologies for clean and renewable
energy.
We worked with utilities and the oil and gas industry to make
systems Y2K compliant, and on January 1, the lights stayed on. We are responding
to current oil supply problems through a range of measures: from the Secretary's
diplomatic initiatives with major oil producing countries, both within and
outside of OPEC, to the reestablishment of an Energy Emergency Office within the
Department, to extensive consultation and coordination with energy suppliers and
state and local government officials, to renegotiation of Strategic Petroleum
Reserve royalty-in-kind deliveries to keep more oil in the market. On Saturday,
the President announced the Administration's intention to create a Northeast
heating oil reserve and the Department is working to expedite this decision.
For the environment, after years of delays and excuses, we opened the
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the nation's first nuclear waste
repository. We've successfully completed 44 shipments to WIPP to date and on
March 10 resumed shipments from Rocky Flats after successfully completing
additional waste certification requirements. We formed partnerships with
governors to clean up and close former nuclear weapons production sites, and set
aside over three hundred thousand acres as wildlife preserves in Washington,
Colorado, Tennessee, South Carolina, Idaho, and New Mexico.
Strength
Through Science
We've given this budget the theme Strength Through
Science. Science is the focus because scientific research, both basic and
applied, is integral to achieving our programmatic objectives in each of our
mission areas. This is as true for our national security mission-- which ensures
that the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe, secure, and reliable,
and counters the spread of weapons of mass destruction--as it is for our energy
mission--to achieve continued reductions in the economic and environmental costs
of producing and using energy resources.It is also true for our environmental
mission to clean up the nuclear and toxic waste that is the legacy of the Cold
War.
Many of the technologies that are fueling today's economy, such as
the Internet, build upon government investments in the 1960's and 1970's-
including the Office of Science's "Esnet." The Department of Energy and its
predecessor agencies have been the sponsor of science-driven growth through the
combined efforts of the national laboratories, 70 Nobel Laureates associated
with the Department, and thousands of outstanding university- and industry-based
researchers nationwide.
This Department is among the top federal
research and development funding agencies, regardless of the criterion used. We
are first in scientific facilities and rank third in basic research after the
National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. The
Department of Energy is, at its heart, a science agency; in fact, 40 percent of
our FY 2001 budget qualifies as R&D expenditures. We will spend a total of
$7.1 billion on R&D in FY 2000 and plan to spend
$7.7 billion in FY 2001, an increase of 8 percent.
Department of Energy FY 2001 Budget Request
The Department of
Energy's FY 2001 budget request is $18.9 billion. This is
$1.6 billion over this year's appropriation, a nine percent
increase. Our budget is organized into four business lines; some highlights of
each of these are described briefly below.Energy Resources:
$2.2 billion (an increase of $175 million, or
8 percent ) to provide energy options for a stronger America, These investments
will enhance U.S. energy security by providing more economical and
environmentally desirable ways to use and produce energy. DOE continues to
support a balanced portfolio of energy for America's future, and research and
development (R&D) to enable a cleaner energy future. This request emphasizes
energy infrastructure reliability, scientific carbon management and R&D,
international energy R&D partnerships, and bio-energy/bio-power
technologies.
The request features several cross-cutting initiatives
involving the energy technology research offices (Fossil, Nuclear, Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Science) that will ensure energy security
through new economically and environmentally desirable means of using and
producing energy. The Climate Change Technology Initiative and the International
Clean Energy Initiative will identify and develop pre- commercial energy
technologies and potential markets for their use. The latter effort builds on
the conclusions of a recent report by the President's Committee of Advisors on
Science and Technology (PCAST) that identifies the need to bridge the gap
between development and deployment of new technologies.
The Electric
Grid Reliability Initiative will develop policies and technologies to enhance
the security of our electricity supplies. The Carbon Sequestration Initiative
follows a technology roadmap to accelerate R&D to mitigate the impacts of
carbon emissions.
The Enhanced Ultra Clean Transportation Fuels
Initiative targets government and industry resources to develop a portfolio of
advanced petroleum-based highway transportation fuels and fuels utilization
technologies that are responsive to near-and mid-term environmental, regulatory
and technical challenges.
Finally, the Bioenergy/Bioproducts Initiative
will fund research to help make biomass a viable competitor as an energy source
or chemical feedstock.
The Fossil Energy Research and Development
program level of $385 million includes funding for the
up-graded National Energy Technology Laboratory for fossil fuels research. This
budget continues investments in advanced technological concepts and development
of highly efficient power generation and fuel producing technologies that
together could reduce, or perhaps nearly eliminate, carbon emissions from fossil
fuel facilities. The centerpieces of this research include the Vision 21 energy
plant of the future and carbon sequestration.
The proposed deferral of
$221 million in the Clean Coal Technology program reflects
schedule delays from the rescheduling of certain projects. The Department
believes the Clean Coal Program is important and we anticipate to successfully
complete all of the ongoing projects.
Funding for the Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy includes support for research to assist in the
development of more efficient homes and buildings, wind energy, geothermal,
photovoltaics, and bioenergy and biopower projects. Research will also continue
in the on-going Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV), which is
developing the prototype advanced technology vehicle in conjunction with the
automotive industry. We are requesting $1.26 billion for these
programs in FY 2001-- an increase of 18%.
The Weatherization Assistance
Program, which helps to reduce heating and cooling bills for low-income
residents, has an increased budget request for FY 2001 to weatherize
approximately 77,000 homes. In addition, the Administration is requesting
$19 million for this program in the FY 2000 Supplemental
Appropriations package to cover 9500 more homes.
This Office also funds
the Federal Energy Management Program, which helps federal agencies identify,
finance and implement energy efficiency improvements for their facilities. The
Federal Government spends $8 billion each year on energy for
its own facilities and operations, and this program saves money for taxpayers by
reducing that spending. Our FY 2001 request for this program is
$29.5 million - a 23% increase.
The budget for the
Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology has an increase of
$21 million to support such important activities as nuclear
energy research and development (including the expanded Nuclear Energy Research
Initiative) and managing the inventory of depleted uranium hexafluoride. The
Department is also proceeding with the project to design and build facilities to
convert this inventory to a more stable form, and in a manner that fully
protects workers and the environment. This office also conducts a program to
produce and distribute isotopes necessary for medical, industrial and research
purposes, including the Advanced Nuclear Medicine Initiative.
The Power
Marketing Administrations (PMAs) sell electricity primarily generated by
hydropower projects located at federal dams. First preference for the sale of
power is given to public bodies and cooperatives. Revenues from selling the
power and transmission services of the three PMAs are used to repay the U.S.
Treasury for annual operation and maintenance costs, repay the capital
investments with interest, and assist capital repayment of other features of
certain projects. However the PMAs also buy and sell, as a simple pass through,
purchase power and wheeling. This budget assumes that in FY 2001 the PMAs will
use offsetting collections from the sale of electricity to finance purchase
power and wheeling expenses previously funded by direct appropriations.
Purchase power and wheeling activities financed through this method will
be phased out in annual decrements by the end of FY 2004.
Science and
Technology: $3.2 billion (an increase of $337
million, or 12 percent) to strengthen our science programs and provide the
knowledge base for future innovation, thereby improving America's long-term
position in an increasingly competitive world economy. We continue to promote a
strong national scientific infrastructure and provide the technical foundations
for our applied missions. The FY 2001 budget includes initiatives to advance
ongoing work at the frontiers of nanoscience, scientific computing, microbial
genomics, robotics, bioengineering, and it will allow us to increase the use of
our scientific facilities.
The budget calls for $182
million for Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) to increase computer
modeling and simulation research and development.Microbial genomics, an
outgrowth of the Department's pioneering work in the Human Genome Program, is
expanding efforts in microbial cell research. This research, which involves the
study of organisms that have survived and thrived in an extreme and inhospitable
environment, could hold the key to advance energy production and use,
environmental cleanup, medicine, and agricultural and industrial processing.
Nanotechnology, or research and development into extreme miniaturized
technologies, is funded at $91 million, of which
$83 million is in the Science budget and $7
million is in Defense Programs. This work gives researchers the ability to
manipulate matter at the atomic level and could spark further development of
supercomputers that fit in the palm of the hand, or tiny devices to fight
disease or heal injuries from inside our bodies. Also included in this science
budget is $281 million for the Spallation Neutron Source and
$247 million for fusion.
The FY2001 budget continues to
strongly support the Department's unique scientific user facilities. Each year
over 15,000 university, industry and government-sponsored scientists conduct
cutting edge experiments at these particle accelerators, high-flux neutron
sources, synchrotron radiation light sources and other specialized facilities.
Environmental Quality: $6.8 billion (an increase of
$$11 million, or 8 percent) to protect the
environment and our workers. These amounts are required to ensure that each
cleanup site meets safety and legal requirements, supports accelerated cleanup
and site closure, and maintains others critical environmental priorities.The
Environmental Management budget of $6.3 billion supports
proposals to continue our efforts to meet cleanup obligations to communities
throughout the country: $1,082 million for Defense Facilities
Closure Projects; $4,552 million for Defense Environmental
Restoration and Waste Management; $ 515 million for Defense
Environmental Management Privatization; $ 286 million for
Non-Defense Environmental Management; and $ 303 million for the
Uranium Enrichment D&D Fund.
These funds will allow the Department
to continue to implement the agreement the Secretary reached last year with the
Governors of Colorado, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington on a Statement
of Principles laying the foundation for a cooperative working relationship
between DOE and the states with DOE cleanup sites. Our FY 2001 request continues
an aggressive approach to address immediate and long-term environmental and
health risks of the weapons complex. In March 1999, we made great progress when
we opened the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico as a safe, permanent
disposal location for transuranic nuclear wastes. The FY 2001 request represents
an increase of approximately $440 million over the FY 2000
current appropriation to continue making progress in completing cleanup and
closing sites.
A budget request of $664.7 million
supports closure of Rocky Flats by December 15, 2006, the closure date targeted
in the new cost-plus- incentive-fee contract that took effect February 1, 2000.
The Rocky Flats Site is the largest site challenge to accelerate cleanup and
achieve closure in 2006, and to date significant progress has been made toward
making this goal a reality.
The FY 2001 request furthers our efforts to
protect the Columbia River by beginning the removal of spent nuclear fuel from
the K-Basins at Hanford in November 2000. This project will carry out a
first-of-a- kind technical solution to move 2,100 metric tons of corroding spent
nuclear fuel from at-risk wet storage conditions in the K-East and K- West
basins adjacent to the Columbia River into safe, dry storage in a new facility
away from the river.
The increased request for EM Privatization will
provide for more progress in cleaning up and reducing risks from the
environmental legacy of the nation's nuclear weapons program. The FY 2001
privatization request includes $450 million in budget authority
to develop treatment facilities that will vitrify at least 10 percent by volume
of the 54 million gallons of high level waste now stored in underground tanks at
the Hanford Site in Washington. The Department is using a privatization approach
that shifts many of the technical and performance risks to the contractor. The
request, a $327 million increase, anticipates a decision in FY
2000 authorizing the contractor to proceed to the construction phase of the
project. The amount requested will keep the project on schedule to begin hot
operations in 2007.
The request features new initiatives to accelerate
cleanup and protect health and safety at Gaseous Diffusion Plants (GDPs) in
Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky. Last summer, after reports of alleged
health and environmental problems surfaced at Paducah, the Secretary announced a
strategy to investigate, identify and remedy any past or remaining health,
safety and environmental problems at these plants. The Secretary appointed an
investigation team that made recommendations which resulted in a request for
funding to achieve health surveillance, safety assessments, and environmental
remediation goals within a rapid timeframe. The Administration also has
submitted a $26 million FY 2000 Supplemental Budget Request to
Congress to address additional concerns -- $10 million for
ES&H activities and $16 million for environmental
restoration. This supplemental request and the FY 2001 budget will significantly
increase funding for the two GDP sites.
The FY 2001 budget request also
provides funding, subject to new legislative authority, to initiate cleanup of
uranium mill tailings in Moab, Utah, to restore lands at the gateways of some of
our most spectacular national parks.
The Environment, Safety and Health
budget provides an increase of $38 million, to
$166 million, to make health and safety programs a key priority
of the entire department. ($40 million is included in the
Energy Supply account for non-defense ES&H activities.) This also includes
$17 million for the Energy Employee Compensation Initiative.
Pending now before Congress is legislation to establish an occupational illness
compensation program for the Department of Energy's workers at its nuclear
facilities. The bill has three parts, each addressing a specific group of
workers eligible for compensation benefits: The Energy Employee's Beryllium
Compensation Act, addressing current and former DOE federal and contractor
workers with beryllium disease. Eligible workers would receive reimbursement for
prospective medical costs associated with the illness and a portion of lost
wages, or have the option of receiving a single, lump sum benefit of
$100,000; The Paducah Employees' Exposure Compensation Act,
addressing Paducah, Kentucky employees exposed to radioactive materials; and A
specific group of Oak Ridge, Tennessee employees determined by an independent
panel of occupational physicians to have illnesses due to workplace exposure.
The President has also directed that the National Economic Council (NEC)
conduct a review of other workplace exposures and illness at DOE sites. At the
end of this process, the President will receive an interagency study on the
health of our workers which may lead to additional measures beyond those we
initially proposed.
In response to worker health concerns, the
Department has also established the Chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD) Prevention
Program. Contractors at DOE sites with the potential for worker exposure to
beryllium, a metal used in many nuclear applications, are required to submit a
detailed plan to meet prevention program requirements. This is intended to
minimize the number of future cases of disease from current workers.
The
program also calls for monitoring the health of "beryllium- associated" workers
to promote early detection of CBD.
The Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management program is funded at $437 million to support
determination of the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a
permanent repository for nuclear waste. An increase of $77
million for Yucca Mountain design and engineering works allows
DOE to maintain the schedule of work included in the Viability Assessment. In FY
2001, an investment of approximately $ 4 billion and almost 18
years of site investigations will culminate in a series of statutory decisions
on whether the repository should be sited at Yucca Mountain. If
the site is determined to be suitable, a Site Recommendation Report will be
prepared and submitted to the President in FY 2001.
National Security:
$6.6 billion (an increase of $502 million, or
8 percent) to promote peace and address the next generation of national security
threats. One of the Department's most important responsibilities to the American
people, the President, and to you, the Congress, is to ensure the safety,
security and reliability of the nation's nuclear stockpile. A dependable nuclear
deterrent remains at the root of the United States' national security policy.
Once again, without underground testing, our Stockpile Stewardship Program is
working today to confirm its continued safety and reliability. It draws upon the
best scientific resources in our complex, allowing the Secretary of Energy and
the Secretary of Defense to annually certify to the President that the nuclear
deterrent does not require underground testing at this time. Three annual
certifications - and a soon-to-be-completed fourth -- are proof of its enduring
success.
Last October, the Secretary tasked Under Secretary Moniz to
conduct a comprehensive internal review of the Stockpile Stewardship Program
(30-Day Review). The principal finding of the review is that stockpile
stewardship is working, both in terms of specific science, surveillance, and
production accomplishments, and in terms of developing a program management
structure that integrates the span of program activities. However, the program
does face significant people and infrastructure challenges, including attracting
and retaining the best and the brightest people at both the laboratories and the
production plants, and maintaining and recapitalizing an infrastructure that -
in many instances - is over fifty years old. These challenges, along with
numerous requirements that have been added to the program since its inception,
are being addressed by Secretary Richardson through his 15 point Action Plan. We
have made considerable progress on these issues in the last three months and
continue to work very closely with the Department of Defense, through the
Nuclear Weapons Council, to ensure that U.S. nuclear deterrence remains viable
into the future.
In addition, our supplemental budget request for FY2000
of $55 million will allow us to address infrastructure issues.
It will specifically apply to the workforce, production readiness, required
infrastructure, and safety challenges at the three production plants: Y-12 Plant
in Tennessee; Kansas City Plant in Missouri; and the Pantex Plant in Texas.
The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2000 created a semi-
autonomous agency within the Department, the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA). These national security program increases are necessary
to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of America's nuclear weapons
stockpile, reduce nuclear proliferation threats world- wide, and protect against
the threat of weapons of mass destruction. A total of $6.2
billion-up $432 million from the funding level for these
programs in FY 2000-is requested for departmental programs that are consolidated
into the NNSA (Defense Programs, Nonproliferation and National Security, Fissile
Materials Disposition, and Naval Reactors). The Albuquerque and Nevada Field
Operations offices also are under the jurisdiction of the NNSA.
The
remaining national security budget request includes department- wide offices of
the Secretary of Energy that are not part of the NNSA the Offices of
Intelligence, Counterintelligence, Security & Emergency Operations,
Independent Oversight & Performance Assurance, and Worker Transition. The
most significant increase is for the Office of Security and Emergency
Operations, with a program level of $340 million. The increase
of $48 million, assuming favorable Congressional action on our
supplemental request, is mainly for additional cyber- security activities and
personnel.
Conclusion
Our FY 2001 budget is a strong statement
reflecting this Administration's commitments to the American people. It is a
request that emphasizes our strength in science and enables us to effectively
deliver our missions. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman and other
members of the Subcommittee, to meet our responsibilities to the American
people.
END
LOAD-DATE: March 28, 2000
