Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
March 1, 2000, Wednesday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 4196 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF DAVID MICHAELS, PHD, MPH ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY AND HEALTH
BEFORE THE HOUSE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
SUBJECT - FISCAL YEAR 2001 BUDGET REQUEST
BODY:
I appreciate the opportunity to present the Fiscal Year 2001 budget
request for the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Environment, Safety and
Health (EH). The total budget request for EH is $166 million.
Of the total EH budget, $40 million falls in the non-defense
area.
There is no question that in this year and the years ahead the
Department and its workers will continue to face complex environment, safety and
health challenges. In the face of these challenges, however, we continue to hold
the base budget request for EH to levels consistent with or less than those of
the past two years. We have achieved this by continuing to streamline the
organization and restrict the use of support service contractors. The increase
shown in the budget request reflects heightened safety and health activities at
the three gaseous diffusion plants and also includes projected costs of a
proposed health compensation program should it become law.
Office of
Environment, Safety and Health Activities The work of the Office of Environment,
Safety and Health is governed by the imperative to prevent accidents, illnesses,
and environmental damage associated with DOE operations. EH is responsible for
the independent environment, safety and health oversight program in the
Department and the enforcement of nuclear safety rules as required by the Price
Anderson Amendments Act. The Office is also responsible for providing guidance
on environmental analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA). We have seen that comprehensive environment, safety and health oversight
and planning of future activities -through tools such as the Department's
Integrated Safety Management program and the NEPA process -- can help avoid
problems that have plagued past DOE operations.
EH operates
independently of the Department's mission-oriented program offices and reports
directly to the Secretary. The Office directly supports the Secretary in the
development of internal environment, safety and health policy, the management of
corporate environment, safety and health programs, and the implementation of
independent environment, safety and health oversight. The Office is modeled upon
that of a safety office in a major, first-class corporation. As the best
performers in the private sector have recognized, such an internal safety
organization is the key to safety and also credibility with the public.
The Office of Environment, Safety and Health conducts its functions in
four business lines -- DOE-wide ES&H Programs, Independent Oversight and
Enforcement, Health Studies, and National Environmental Policy Act
implementation. These business lines are supported by an Office of Planning and
Administration. As the attached chart shows, the Health Studies, Oversight and
Enforcement programs are funded in defense accounts under the jurisdiction of
the Armed Services Committees.
DOE-Wide ES&H Programs
The FY
2001 budget request of $20 million for DOE-Wide ES&H
Programs supports activities that either require unique expertise housed in EH,
independence from line program involvement, or are crosscutting in nature.
Programs are diverse and include the radiation exposure accreditation program,
guiding criticality operations at nuclear facilities, support for the DOE
complex in meeting environmental requirements, and worker safety programs.
Because of budget reductions, the Office of Environment, Safety and Health no
longer provides technical assistance to the various line management programs.
This year's budget combines several safety analysis activities --
previously carded out in separate organizations --- into a single, integrated
office funded at $1.0 million. This function serves as the
basis for setting policy, guidance and onsite oversight agendas. Products
include complex-wide and site-specific analyses, topical analyses, oversight
investigation team preparation, emergency management studies, event analyses,
"lessons-learned" studies and performance indicators. These analyses involve
complex assessments and analyses of environmental, safety and health problems
and risks, such as technical reviews that support specific management decisions,
site- wide vulnerability studies of DOE's hazardous material inventories,
development of engineering solutions to safety problems in the field, and
analyzing safety and risk trends through performance indicators. Data management
activities provide a baseline of performance data on which to evaluate sites
against DOE policies and requirements.
Oversight
The EH Office
of Oversight with a FY 2001 budget request of $8.0 million is
the DOE's independent oversight function for environment, safety, and health.
Its mission is to provide an accurate and comprehensive view of the
effectiveness, vulnerabilities, and trends of the Department's programs in
environment, safety, and health. Safeguards and security oversight functions
previously included with this office have been transferred to the Office of the
Secretary.
Oversight staff provides DOE management with a professional,
systems- approach to oversight. This is accomplished through the use of
analytical tools including comprehensive, sitespecific assessments of
environment, safety and health management called Safety Management Evaluations.
These evaluations play critical roles in management decisions. In Fiscal Year
1999 the Office conducted safety management evaluations at the Oak Ridge Y-12
Plant, Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, the Yucca
Mountain Project, the Nevada Test Site, and Brookhaven National
Laboratory. This year, at the request of the Secretary, the Office recently
completed comprehensive investigations into historical environmental, safety and
health activities at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Similar investigations
are underway at the Portsmouth Ohio and Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plants.
The Office of Oversight is also responsible for independent
investigations of major accidents or injuries. In fiscal year 1999, the Office
conducted three "Type A" accident investigations -- where worker injuries are
more serious -- and five "Type B" accident investigations. Analytical studies
are also conducted on crosscutting topics such as subcontractor safety,
electrical safety, and fire protection help identify vulnerabilities across the
complex.
In the past year the Office of Oversight has taken on added
responsibilities in several areas. The first is to report on the Department's
progress in addressing safety and emergency response non- compliances and
completing related corrective actions. The Office will also take on a new role
in the oversight of the Department's occupational health clinics with the
support of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care that has
developed nationally recognized standards for occupational health care services.
Finally, oversight efforts now include environmental audits, including the
conduct of regulatory audits at facilities, audits of compliance with toxic
release inventory reporting, and emergency planning.
The
Office of Enforcement and Investigation, funded at a level of
$792,000 this year, and with a request of
$975,000 in Fiscal Year 2001 and funded this is responsible for
assessing and enforcing contractors' compliance with nuclear safety rules
(promulgated pursuant to the Price-Anderson Amendments Act of 1988). This office
employs a graded approach that focuses enforcement actions on the most critical
safety issues and encourages contractors to avoid penalties by taking action to
identify, self-report and correct violations. A core headquarters staff
coordinates with enforcement staff in the Department's field offices to
effectively implement this program.
In its first four years of operation
the Enforcement program issued 44 enforcement actions, including
$2,957,500 in civil penalties. Of this amount,
$935,625 was waived due to the statutory exemption for specific
not-for-profit contractors at the national laboratories.
Health Studies
The Office of Health Studies funds epidemiologic studies and public
health activities relating to the community and occupational health impacts of
DOE operations. The key to designing effective health protection strategies for
workers and communities is understanding the relationships between exposures to
radiation and chemicals and potential health effects. Our goals are prevention
of illness and injury, and promoting better worker protection standards and
effective response to the health concerns of workers and communities. Highlights
of the major efforts in FY 2001 follow.
Monitoring Programs and Emergent
Worker Health Issues ($14. 7 million). Surveillance of the DOE
workforce is the cornerstone of our ability to detect any occupationally induced
pattern of illness. Such surveillance helps target areas where intervention
could prevent worker disease or exposure to hazards and identify areas where
studies are needed to develop better, scientifically accurate health standards
for the DOE workplace. A summary of several critical programs and request FY
2001 funding levels is provided below. EH manages several important programs in
this regard.
- Beryllium Health Screening Program ($3.2
million). Beryllium and its compounds were used widely in the production of
nuclear weapons and can cause a serious and debilitating lung disease. The
standards and work practices designed to limit exposures, originally established
in the early 1950s, were felt to have eliminated the problem of "chronic
beryllium disease." However, recent advances in our understanding of the immune
system, and the development of new laboratory tests, have shown that some
workers become sensitized to beryllium and develop the disease despite adherence
to the standards. Consequently, the Department has tightened its restrictions on
worker exposure to beryllium and recently issued a new rule to protect workers
from beryllium exposures.
Since 1991, a screening program has examined
over 9800 workers for signs of sensitivity and identified more than 100 workers
with chronic beryllium disease. The program was expanded to additional sites in
FY 2000 including Ames Laboratory, Argonne National Lab, Lawrence Berkeley,
Brookhaven, Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, Lawrence Livermore, Fermi, Oak Ridge,
Los Alamos, Pantex, Kansas City, Sandia, East Tennessee Technology Park,
Hanford, Idaho, and Savannah River. We expect to conduct about 300 tests per
month. A national Worker Beryllium Exposure Registry now under development will
track workers at risk for chronic beryllium disease throughout the complex.
Medical Surveillance Program for Former Workers ($10. 7
million). In response to Congressional direction, the Department has designed
and implemented a pilot program to identify and evaluate the health of former
DOE employees who may have been subject to significant health risks resulting
from exposure to hazardous substances during their DOE employment. Ten
cooperative agreements have been awarded to consortia of unions and
universities. All projects have completed "needs assessments" and have begun
medical monitoring of workers. Our goal is to complete these initial pilot
projects by the end of FY 2002.
Based on findings of
occupationally-related illnesses in former workers examined by these ongoing
pilot projects, the fiscal year 2001 budget request includes $4
million for an expansion of the program to other major DOE sites based on a
competitive solicitation to be announced later this year.
-
Epidemiologic Surveillance Program ($3.3 million). This program
monitors illness and injury and assesses the overall health of the DOE work
force. Epidemiologic surveillance includes more than 60,000 current workers and
identified groups that may be at increased risk for occupational injury and
illness. The program facilitates interventions that reduce or eliminate risk and
provides a means by which the effectiveness of these corrections can be
measured. Special analyses of at-risk populations in the workforce augment the
program's core surveillance activities. Annual reports are provided to site
workers and management and are available via the Internet.
Public Health
Activities. DOE funds an independent, peer-reviewed program of epidemiologic
studies and public health activities related to potential health effects of DOE
operations. The FY 2001 funding request is $22.8 million. The
program is managed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),
including the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, National
Center for Environmental Health, and the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease
Registry. Since 1990, 27 health studies and environmental dose reconstruction
projects have been completed under this program, with nearly another 100 under
way.
With the support of Congress, the Department and the three HHS
agencies have worked with communities to develop a coordinated agenda of health
studies at DOE sites to ensure that the health needs of communities and workers
at DOE sites are effectively and efficiently addressed. Studies supported by
this program have been integrated into the overall public health agenda and a
single Memorandum of Understanding between DOE and HHS. The agenda is a "living
document" that establishes clear priorities based on site-specific public health
needs and was established with significant input from the affected worker and
community populations. For each site, the agenda describes what is already known
about the environmental contamination legacy, workers' exposures, and the health
of communities and workers; a review of all ongoing public health activities
conducted or supported by the HHS agencies and DOE; identification of gaps in
our knowledge and any unanswered public health questions or needs that can be
used to improve the health of communities and workers.
In Fiscal Year
2000, activities will include completion of the first study of the health of
female DOE nuclear workers, establishment of a community health working group in
Oak Ridge to guide future health activities, and initiation of a major "dose
reconstruction" effort to estimate off-site health risks at Los Alamos National
Laboratory. All data collected during the course of such studies are submitted
to DOE's Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resource where they offer unlimited
opportunities for independent scientific inquiry.
Japanese Atomic Bomb
Survivors ($13.5 million). The Department and the Japanese
government co-fund the Radiation Effects Research Foundation's continuing
studies of the Abomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This program is the
longest and most important continuous study of radiation health effects in the
world and forms the basis of what we know today regarding the incidence of
cancer and non-cancer diseases associated with acute radiation exposure. These
studies continue to hold great promise for significant new scientific knowledge
concerning the health effects of radiation exposure which can be used for
improving the basis for radiation protection standards and practices both in the
U.S. and worldwide.
Russian Studies ($4.5 million). Of
particular note is the collaborative effort between Russian and American
scientists to study a unique set of population and worker exposure data from
nuclear weapons production activities in the Russian Federation. There are data
on more than 45,000 people, 18,000 of whom were employed between 1948 and 1972.
These data include complete dosimetry and detailed inpatient and outpatient
medical records. The exposures of the workers were many times greater than those
experienced by workers in Western facilities, and this research could lead to
improved.definition of radiation protection standards. As a necessary and
notable first step in these studies, we have completed a records preservation
activity that will permanently preserve these records -- many of which were kept
in poor condition that risked their destruction.
Marshall Islands
($6.3 million). Assessing the public health impacts of releases
from nuclear weapons testing has been an important part of DOE's health studies
program. The DOE Marshall Islands Program provides medical surveillance and care
for the peoples of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) exposed to
radioactive fallout from a 1954 U.S. thermonuclear weapon test, as well as
environmental monitoring and characterization, and dose assessment in areas of
the RMI most affected by radioactive fallout. Of the 239 individuals exposed in
1954, 130 survive today.
This population is at a greater risk
for developing certain endocrine problems, such as thyroid disease and therefore
receives annual thyroid examinations and thyroid function blood tests, as well
as ultrasound diagnostics and needle biopsies as appropriate.
The
Department's radiological environmental monitoring program conducts
environmental radiological surveys and plant uptake studies at four Marshallese
atolls. Over the past 13 years, the Department, through Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, has conducted extensive radiological surveys to establish
the levels of cesium-137, plutonium and other radioactive materials in the
environment and in particular in food plants. Research has shown that
application of potassium chloride fertilizer on the radioactively contaminated
soils dramatically reduces the uptake of cesium in plants.
The
Department maintains an Internet site that serves as an easy and effective way
to make historical documents relating to the 1946-58 nuclear weapons testing
program in the Northern Marshall Islands accessible to the Marshallese and the
public. The searchable database of more than 10,500 documents makes available
important information to government officials and others concerned with policy
and compensation, and is also of great interest to historical researchers.
Exposure Compensation Initiative
In recent years the Department
has heard increasing concerns from current and former workers who believe that
their health has been impaired by DOE operations. For the most part, these
workers have not been eligible to receive workers' compensation benefits,
because of the difficulty of linking certain illnesses to work conditions.
Another group of workers with serious health concerns is those workers
who worked with beryllium metal. With these workers, there is no question of the
link between work at DOE and the debilitating lung disease that often results
from beryllium exposure. State workers' compensation systems, however, are not
generally equipped to deal with diseases like berylliosis that are progressive
and often do not manifest themselves until years after exposure.
To
begin to address these issues, the Administration has proposed legislation
(introduced in Congress as H.R. 3418 and S. 1954) to provide workers'
compensation benefits to victims of beryllium disease. The proposed legislation
also includes a one-time compensation payment to certain workers at the Paducah
Gaseous Diffusion Plant, who have diseases linked to radiation exposures, and a
pilot program for a group of workers at Oak Ridge. The budget proposal contains
funds of $17 million that would support funding for the first
year of that program, assuming its passage by Congress and the swift adoption of
implementing regulations.
In addition, President Clinton also directed
the Departments of Defense, Justice, Labor and Energy, and the Office of
Management and Budget to participate in an interagency review, led by the
National Economic Council, focusing on whether illnesses other than those caused
by beryllium exposure should warrant inclusion in such a program. The President
directed the group to report back to him with findings and recommendations by
March 31, 2000. As part of that process, a subcommittee of the group has
prepared a draft report that examined the linkage between workplace exposure to
a variety of substances used in the DOE complex. That draft report is currently
under review by the National Economic Council and will be examined in the
context of other ongoing work by this interagency group.
Gaseous
Diffusion Plant Initiative
A number of serious environment, safety and
health concerns have been raised by workers and in the media concerning the
operations of the gaseous diffusion plants in the Department of Energy. Imminent
hazard site reviews at the DOE's three gaseous diffusion plants, at Paducah,
Portsmouth and K-25/East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge, found no
issues warranting the shut down of current operations. However, significant
"legacy" issues remain concerning past practices' impact upon the environment,
public, worker safety and health and the cleanup of these sites.
The FY
2001 request is $12.0 million. FY 2000 activities are funded at
a level of $6.0 million from within available funds and the
Department has requested a FY 2000 Supplemental Appropriation of
$10.0 million to expedite these activities. Office of
Environment, Safety and Health has initiated four activities to investigate
legacy issues associated with the DOE's gaseous diffusion plants.
--
independent investigations at the three plants to document current and past
practices; Oversight investigations of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and
the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant will be completed in FY 2000. Inspection
of the East Tennessee Technology Park will begin at the end of FY 2000. FY 2001
funds would be used for the following activities: evaluation of the facility
authorization bases to assure they reflect changing conditions and hazards;
evaluation of the implementation of the Department's Integrated Safety
Management Policy; evaluation of industrial safety and health, radiation
protection, and environmental protection and restoration programs; assessment of
the implementation of the comprehensive corrective action plans.
-- a
"mass balance" project to review the characteristics and flow of recycled
uranium throughout the Department. This project is scheduled to be completed in
the summer of 2000. The mass balance project information will be useful in
establishing worker medical surveillance protocols and characterizing materials
that may have been released to the environment;-- an exposure assessment project
to establish worker radiation exposure profiles at the Paducah, Portsmouth, and
ETTP sites. The first phase of the exposure assessment project is scheduled to
be complete in the summer of 2000 with a summary of radiological issues that may
have affected worker health and safety. The report will also include preliminary
worker occupational radiation exposure profiles for paducah and Portsmouth; and
-- expanded medical surveillance of current and former gaseous diffusion
plant workers. This project began in FY 2000 and will continue in FY 2001. This
project will accelerate the existing medical screening program for former
workers at the three gaseous diffusion plants and expand the program to provide
medical surveillance of current workers. By October 2001, the expanded program
will provide medical screening to 5,750 current and former workers to determine
the presence and prevalence of worker adverse health effects from workplace
exposures.
National Environmental Policy Act
The NEPA office
ensures that DOE complies with the National Environmental Policy Act and, in
doing so, provides a process that enhances managers' decision making, builds
public trust, and minimizes the cost and time for document preparation. In
Fiscal Year 2001 the office will provide compliance assurance and policy reviews
and exercise quality control in the preparation of approximately 15 major
environmental impact statements (EISs), including the Surplus Plutonium
Disposition Final EIS and Record of Decision; Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant Site-Wide
Draft EIS; Idaho High-Level Waste and Facilities Disposition Final EIS; and
Civilian Nuclear Energy Research and Development and Isotope Production
Programmatic (including Fast Flux Test Facility) Draft EIS. The FY 2001 funding
request is $2.0 million, the current level of funding.
Management and Administration Program Direction
Support
functions of the Office of Environment, Safety and Health, including overall
resource management, budget planning and execution, training, personnel, travel,
and the working capital fund, make up the EH Office of Planning and
Administration. This includes funding for the federal staff of 308 Full Time
Equivalents. Major activities include: Information management and data bases
that support the Office of Environment, Safety and Health including reporting,
tracking and trending systems, and the EH Technical Information Services.
Technical training to maintain and improve the technical competence and skill
mix of EH staff. Fiscal Year 2001 budget request is $52.6
million. FY 2000 funding is $53.8 million.
Mr.
Chairman, that completes my statement. I would be pleased to answer questions
from members of the Subcommittee.
END
LOAD-DATE: March 3, 2000
