Re: DOE cleanup in testimony

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Paul and group,

[resending -- every time this breaks its because "From" is at the beginning of 
a line -- which also means I can TRY to catch it, and do when its a "forward"
with the address line -- but this time.... ] 

  From several requests, I'm sending the testimony.  The remainder doesn't
touch on cleanup issues. Perhaps in the future it could be made retrievable at 
romulus? (or if I had a pointer at the server it originally came from I would
tell people how to get it "from the horse's... (unh... Congress or DOE or ?)"  
(There is also the Don Hodel testimony.) 

(I considered only sending the "remainder, but then if anyone wanted to "pass
it on" it would need to be patched together again, soo..... 

> to paraphrase Paul Harvey
> 
> "the rest of the story, please"
> 
> 
> PAUL SKIERKOWSKI                        OOOOO
> ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY SERVICES          O     O
> UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA                 O  U  O  U
> 905 ASP AVE., ROOM 112                 O  U  O  U
> NORMAN, OK  73019-0420                 O  U  O  U
> 405-325-1015   FAX - 7238               OOUOO   U
>                                           U     U
> PAUL@ESS-LAN.STUDIES.UOKNOR.EDU            UUUUU
> 
Regards, Jim

-------------forwarded message-------------

:From:   IN%"bobek@WPI.EDU"  "Leo Bobek" 25-MAY-1995 14:20:16.57
To:     IN%"jmuckerheide@delphi.com"  "Jim Muckerheide"
<snip>
<credit to Leo Bobek and Robert Mulder>
Jim,

Thought you might find these of interest.  Some of it may also be of 
interest to Radsafe, but I cant see spamming everyone with the entire 
testimonys.

Leo

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 24 May 95 12:34:02 EDT
From: Robert U. Mulder <rum@kelvin.seas.virginia.edu>
<snip>
 - Tuesday, May 23, 1995
     House Government Management Subcmte Hearing: Donna Fitzpatrick -
      Prepared Remarks

                        PREPARED STATEMENT OF
                         DONNA R. FITZPATRICK

       BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT
  SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

                        TUESDAY, MAY 23, 1995

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Donna R.
Fitzpatrick. From 1983 to 1990, I served in various capacities at the
U.S. Department of Energy, including assistant secretary for
conservation and renewable energy, assistant secretary for management
and administration, under secretary, and acting secretary. I am now
president of Radiance Services Company, a technology development and
licensing firm in Bethesda, Maryland, and I am an outside director on
the boards of Sandia Corporation, which is the Lockheed Martin
subsidiary for the management of Sandia National Laboratories, and
Stone & Webster, Inc., an international engineering and construction
firm. Both Lockheed Martin and Stone & Webster are contractors with
the Department of Energy. My testimony is mine and does not
necessarily represent the views of any of these organizations.

I appreciate the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee about
the future of the Department of Energy (DOE). The agency is a complex
organization with a proud history in the development, manufacture, and
maintenance of nuclear weapons, basic science research, and energy
technology development. It has also been burdened with some programs
which may have outlived their usefulness. I agree with those who say
that it is time to take a serious look at the DOE's mission and
structure.

To assist the subcommittee in making a detailed analysis of DOE, I
would like to offer some thoughts which are applicable to the federal
government in general and DOE in particular. My testimony will address
five topics: principles for determining what activities the federal
government should undertake; the role of the Congress in determining
federal activities; some serious management problems in the federal
civil service; the kind of scientific research which should be
supported by the federal government; and the future of the national
laboratories. I will then suggest a framework for restructuring the
Department. This is not the forum for detailed answers, which I do not
have. There is a vigorous discussion on these matters and I doubt that
all the right answers have yet emerged. It would be a mistake to take
precipitous action before allowing this discussion to come to some
conclusions.

What activities are proper for the federal government?

We are finally coming to the realization that the federal government
cannot do everything that anyone wants it to do. But the limitation on
government should not be determined by what it can do, but by what it
should do. This country was founded on the principle that the powers
of government were limited so as to preserve the greatest possible
liberties for the people. It follows that what the people can do for
themselves, either individually or in voluntary associations, should
not be done by the government. If something must be done by
government, it should be done by the lowest level which can do it
efficiently and effectively, keeping the activity as close as possible
to the people. The federal government is the actor of last resort,
because the federal government necessarily acts through coercion,
including taxation, and easily falls under influences which are remote
from the common interests of the people and largely invisible to them.
I will try to apply these principles in.discussing what research
activities are appropriate for federal funding.

What is the role of Congress in determining federal activities?

Within the limits of the Constitution, the answer is "Everything." The
executive agencies can do little not directed, at least implicitly,
and funded by the Congress. The courts can only apply the laws written
by Congress or, thanks to ambiguities left in legislation, drive their
own interpretive trucks through the law. It is not an accident that
Article One of the Constitution concerns the legislative power of the
United States. We have three branches in our government, each with its
own powers and responsibilities, but they are not equal. The Congress
is far more powerful than the other two, because it controls the
purse, it directs the Executive, and it can even limit the
jurisdiction of the Judiciary.

The Congress has gotten into the habit of leaving a good deal of its
legislative authority to the regulatory powers of executive agencies
and the interpretative whims of the courts. It complains about the
results, but does not always seem to realize where the problem starts.
For example, the Department of Energy is now spending billions of
dollars per year to clean up the nuclear weapons production complex.
Congress, like everyone else, is shocked by the projected costs of
$200 billion or more. What do we get for all this treasure? Is it
necessary to safeguard public safety? The answer is certainly no. The
cleanup is being driven by standards imposed in federal legislation
which have little to do with actual risk to the public. They really
have more to do with the current and changing state of chemical
detection technology. It is hardly too simple to say that the law and
regulations require that if we can detect it, we have to get rid of
it, even if there is no practical risk to the public. This is
Congress's doing and only Congress can cure it.

It is heartening to see that today's Congress is willing to examine
what has become of its handiwork, begin to remedy some problems, and
perhaps even resist the never-ending temptation to do just a little
something nice for someone.

Two ways to improve management of federal agencies
Federal agencies are being asked to improve their performance and
efficiency and to undertake significant downsizing. Under present
personnel rules in the civil service, these are to some extent
mutually exclusive goals. Personnel rules make it extremely difficult
and time-consuming for a federal manager to remove a poorly performing
employee, especially if the employee is willing to utilize all
available grievance procedures. The manager must weigh the risk that
the employee will do just that before even embarking on a serious
disciplinary action.

The difficulty of dealing effectively with the less than satisfactory
worker encourages another common problem. When downsizing comes, it is
easiest to allow it to happen as much as possible by attrition and
allowing early outs: paying people to choose to leave. Unfortunately,
this is expensive and encourages the best people to leave, because
they have the most opportunities in the private sector. The method is
all too familiar and amounts to an abdication of responsibility for
effective management, but it is sometimes the most attractive
alternative left to a federal manager. I hope that the Congress will
correct these difficulties so that federal managers will be free to do
what many know they should do: after the mission and activities of the
agency are determined, select the bare minimum of the best available
employees to carry out the mission, regardless of accumulated
seniority. Let everyone else go. It means that people will have to
take responsibility for real decisions, but that is what they have to
do in the world of the taxpayers.

What kind of research should the federal government support?

We are in the midst of a lively discussion concerning the level of
federal support for scientific research and what kinds of research are
appropriate for federal funding. This is a perennial issue with
particular importance today.

I think that the federal government should support basic science
subject to reasonable peer review and competition.

 There are many projects which cannot be funded by the private sector
but are beneficial for our understanding of ourselves and the world we
live in. The Hubble space telescope, certain facilities such as light
sources and particle accelerators, and the human genome project are
examples. I think that applied research should be funded to develop
technologies for the government's own use, particularly defense and
other national security needs, not to benefit particular companies or
industries or to manage economic sectors. Of course, the government
uses almost everything the ordinary consumer uses, so this guideline
could easily dissolve into meaninglessness. Also, many technologies
developed for particular governmental applications have become
commercial successes, such as computers and jet airplanes, but that
was not why they were supported. Indeed, there was an almost complete
failure to foresee the impact of computers.

The government does not have an especially good record of choosing
successful technologies for private sector use. It could be argued
that many private investments also fail, but at least they are freely
made by people who choose to take the risk. Allocation of risk capital
should be left to the private sector. It is enough for the government
to support research for its own use and to cooperate with industry
investments In those areas which are precompetitive and related to and
supportive of government missions. This is good for the government
researchers and good for the economy.

What should be done with the national laboratories?

One of the DOE's most important functions is the management of the
national laboratories which grew out of the Manhattan Project, the
post-WWIl development of nuclear weapons, the development of nuclear
reactors for naval propulsion and civilian power production, and the
need for nationally funded research in the basic sciences. The
continued management of the national laboratories is a vital
consideration in any reorganization of the Department of Energy.

The national laboratories should not be viewed as task-oriented job
shops. They are, in fact, a unique national asset and each has its own
history, mission, and capabilities in both physical facilities and
expertise which are often not available elsewhere in the country or
even the world. The laboratories have nurtured a spirit of research
which ranges beyond immediate practical problems to explore
fundamental science in physics, chemistry, and biology. The defense
program and energy technology programs have supported development of
innovative materials, electronics, systems design, computational
modeling, data acquisition and diagnostics, and many other areas which
were pioneered in the laboratories and proved very useful to American
industry. Similarly, the Department and the laboratories have been
valuable sources of information and analysis on such issues as global
wanning, ozone depletion, environmental impacts of various energy
technologies, and radon risks. Unfortunately, their disciplined
scientific approach to these issues has not always, or even often, won
the political day, but the Congress and the nation should know that
the resource is there and should be used.

The fruits of this research have had invaluable practical benefits,
much of which was completely unforeseeable. The laboratories' success
is due precisely to the fact that they can maintain a variety of
skills and facilities which are symbiotic and synergistic: they
nurture one another and provide enhanced productivity and creativity.
While the laboratories can no doubt benefit from some thoughtful
trimming, dismantling them or letting them suffer slow death from
neglect would be a tragedy.

The three laboratories responsible for nuclear weapons design,
development, and maintenance have competencies which are unique and
irreplaceable. Their focus is shifting from weapons design, testing,
and assembly to the disassembly of many weapons, the long-term
maintenance of the remaining stockpile, and many activities
contributing to nonproliferation efforts. Many of the skills necessary
for the weapons program are now finding applications in industry and
this should be encouraged without losing sight of the laboratories'
basic mission.

The national laboratories represent a huge investment which has
already been made. If they are allowed to deteriorate or become merely
job shops for either government or private interests, an invaluable
resource will have been irretrievably lost and a national investment
squandered. The nation should remain committed to maintaining both
their spirit and their capabilities. Perhaps this can best be done by
maintaining ownership of the laboratories in an independent subcabinet
agency.

What should be done with the Department of Energy?

This brings me to the specific subject of this hearing: what to do
with the Department of Energy. Abolishing the DOE does not abolish any
of the real tasks assigned to it. We still have to maintain our
nuclear weapons stockpile. (I would like to refer the subcommittee to
testimony being given today by AI Narath, Director of Sandia National
Laboratories, before the House Committee on National Security,
Subcommittee on Military Procurement, for an explanation of what this
entails.) The Department and some of the laboratories have an
important role in nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The permanent
storage of high level waste from civilian power reactors will remain a
federal responsibility. We must also continue, and improve, the
cleanup of the weapons production complex. The national laboratories
and suitable programs in basic and applied research must be managed.
Some of these programs have not been immune to politically motivated
projects and others are due for reevaluation.

No doubt other programs should be transferred or abolished. The
surviving oil price control enforcement actions should go to the
Department of Justice for wrap-up and any functions of the Energy
Information Administration which are useful and not available
elsewhere could be transferred. All loan guarantee and grant programs
and demonstration projects should be shut down. The power marketing
administrations should be privatized. The Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission is not really part of the Department and can be left as an
independent agency.

The essential and continuing functions of the Department might well be
managed by an independent, subcabinet agency. It is vital for the
health of the weapons laboratories that they continue their
participation in non-weapons programs because the reduced weapons
program will not be sufficient to support the skills and facilities or
attract the talent needed for the weapons program itself. Without a
multiprogram approach, the weapons laboratories and the nation would
lose the benefits of symbiosis and synergy which they now enjoy.
Therefore, the nuclear weapons program and civilian research should
not be separated in different agencies. It is also essential that the
laboratories clearly belong to and remain the responsibility of a
full-fledged executive agency. Problems of micromanagement can and
should be addressed (a severe reduction in force would help
immensely), but without an agency sponsor, the laboratories would
compete destructively, drift, and starve.

The new agency, whether cabinet or subcabinet, should report to the
bare minimum of Congressional committees and subcommittees, not the
two dozen or more which have historically held jurisdiction. The armed
services committees and defense appropriation subcommittees should
retain jurisdiction of the nuclear weapons program and there should be
one set of authorization committees and appropriation subcommittees
for the other functions.

The Department of Energy and its predecessors have a proud history of
accomplishments which have been vital to our national security and
contributed to our prosperity. Not everything has been done flawlessly
and there are lessons to be learned from both policy and operational
errors, but the goal today should be to identify and nourish the
assets we still need and free them to fulfill their potential.

                                 END
-- 
Regards,


Robert U. Mulder
Director U.Va. Reactor Facility
& Assoc. Prof. Nuclear Engineering

(804) 982-5440
rum@Virginia.EDU