Departmental Representative to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

8.0 ANNUAL DOE REPORT TO CONGRESS ON DNFSB RELATED ACTIVITIES

The DR is responsible for compiling and disseminating an Annual Report to Congress for DNFSB related activities. This includes submitting the package for Secretarial-level signature and the needed coordination for that to happen. Among other items, the report typically includes:

1. Departmental Nuclear Safety Initiatives and Activities
2. Progress on Board Recommendations including rationale for any IPs that take over a year to complete,
3. Interface Activities
4. Topics of interest to Congress, and
5. Status of reporting requirements over the preceding year,

The DR assigns a team of DR personnel to initiate the report and then coordinates the development within the DR Office and DOE Program Offices (typically in August of each year). The DOE Program offices will solicit input from the field as appropriate. The Responsible Managers should provide the DR with a status update on Department’s actions in response to active Board recommendations. The Secretarial Officers, in conjunction with the POC, should provide technical input and concurrence review.

The Secretary submits an Annual Report to Congress on Departmental activities in response to Board activities each year at the same time the President submits the budget to Congress. The Annual Report to Congress will include the Board-related activities of the Department during the previous year. The President historically submits the budget to Congress ten working days following the President’s State of the Union address (i.e., during the first week of February).

For each active Board recommendation, if the IP has not been or is not expected to be complete within one year of plan issuance, the Annual Report can be used by the Responsible Manager to notify Congress that more than one year will be required for plan implementation. The notification should state the reasons for requiring more than one year to complete and the date when implementation is expected to be completed. The most recent approved Annual Report is found at https://ehss.energy.gov/deprep/archive/rpts2con.asp.

8.1 Bi-Annual Reports to Congress on Information Denials

Per statutory requirements and Section 5.a.(2) of Order 140.1A, if the Board requests access to information in written form, and the Secretary denies access to such information, the Secretary shall: 1) provide the Board notice of such denial in written form; and 2) not later than January 1 and July 1 of each year beginning in 2020, submit to the congressional defense committees a report identifying each such request denied by the Secretary during that period including the reason for the denial.

The DR’s office prepares the Bi-Annual Report, coordinating with the Program Interface to report on any instances of formal denials of information and access during the reporting period. The DR may also include information on the number of documents requested by the DNFSB during the reporting period in order to present a full picture of the scope of information DOE shares with the DNFSB. The Secretarial Officers, in conjunction with the POC, should provide technical input and concurrence review.