The Department of Energy's Support for the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Part 2

Opening Statement By Chairman Brad Miller (Investigations & Oversight)

The Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL) served the Department of Energy, the communities affected by the site and the Nation for more than 50 years. It was, by any financial measure, a very inexpensive lab to operate. It would be hard to find a better return on investment anywhere in the Federal science complex.

The lab carried out a variety of missions on the Savannah River site that ranged from research on environmental remediation and data collection for regulatory compliance to education, outreach and long-term stewardship of the site. SREL’s work has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, done world-class science in a variety of environmental fields and brought the Savannah River site credibility with the local communities that is invaluable.

Very little about what has happened to SREL in the last two years makes any sense. The Department charged the site manager with negotiating a new cooperative agreement in June of 2005 but never told him what the Secretary of Energy expected the agreement to look like. Jeff Allison, the manager of Savannah River, came back to headquarters with an agreement for five years of support at $4 million a year, the Department chastised him and blocked the deal.

Instead, the Department micromanaged a new agreement that would guarantee $1 million a year plus as much as $3 million for needs of the site and the Department. This was supposed to be consistent with an agreement hammered out in June of 2005 and blessed by the Secretary. The site still believed they needed SREL and began working last November to identify projects that would be funded by the clean-up programs on site. While the site staff and SREL worked together on projects, headquarters was micromanaging the language in the final cooperative agreement – including language that said money would be contingent based upon “need, merit and availability of funds.”

The agreement was finally signed on December 1, 2007—two months into the current fiscal year. From that point on, headquarters dictated to the site how the agreement would be implemented. According to evidence gathered by staff, Mark Gilbertson was given the lead on overseeing the implementation of the cooperative agreement. He was given no guidance from his superiors, just their authority to act.

Mr. Gilbertson took that authority and then sent a very unusual, perhaps unprecedented, memo to the site manager on January 29, 2007 telling Mr. Allison that headquarters was going to oversee the implementation of the cooperative agreement. The memo also promised a scientific peer review of projects at the site to be conducted by headquarters and a “relevancy” review at the site itself.

On February 20, Mr. Gilbertson spoke with Ms. Yvette Collazo, who was the Assistant Manager on the site for Closure Projects, regarding how he wanted the site relevancy review to be conducted. He apparently told her that every proposal from SREL would have to be a “mission critical need in FY 2007.”

The DOE staff at the site worked with SREL to turn the original list of 35 projects into 26 specific tasks. Those same people then examined the list, through the filter established by Gilbertson and enforced by Collazo, and concluded that 6 of the 26 were deemed “mission critical needs” in the current fiscal year. The funding totaled $1.8 million—well below the $4 million that DOE and the site staff knew the lab needed to remain viable on site.

The idea that budget items pass through a “mission critical need” test sounds appropriately rigorous but nothing else in the Savannah River site is measured in that fashion. “Mission critical needs” is not a budgeting term or management term in Environmental Management. No one knows what it means. Collazo and Gilbertson implement the standard to require the spending to produce a tangible deliverable necessary to meet a regulatory need in the current fiscal year—more than half-the-way through that fiscal year. Three of the items on the task table had been approved for funding at the Savannah River National Lab, but were disapproved for SREL as not meeting a mission critical need in FY2007.

Very little work done at any research labs anywhere in the country would ever pass this test. Nothing funded by the National Science Foundation would ever pass such a test. Perhaps nothing funded by the National Institutes of Health would pass this standard. This standard and this process were invented by Gilbertson without oversight or review by his superiors apparently to ensure the lab would fail, a goal that may well have been approved by Gilbertson’s superiors. Gilbertson said as early as September of 2006 that the site only needed one lab: the Savannah River National Lab (SRNL). He believed SREL, which has a very different mission and a very different mix of staffing and assignments, should simply be folded into SRNL. Gilbertson was given the chance to see his preference made real.

In letters to the Hill and statements to the press, the Department said that there was a rigorous peer review. That is demonstrably untrue. There was no merit review, technical review or scientific peer review.

The Department claimed that the lab has had two years to become self-sufficient—meaning by implication that they would have to move away from DOE support, but this was never communicated to the lab in any way at any time. So far as the lab knew, the site wanted and valued the lab and intended to fund it. Not until headquarters intervened, did all this change.

Last October, Deputy Secretary Clay Sell said that the site could fund the full range of needs that Allison identified. In his briefing memo of May 20, 2005, Secretary Bodman was told that the lab would be able to pursue DOE program funding. We ask that the Department return to the guidance of Secretary Bodman’s memo and Deputy Secretary Sell’s internal guidance and get out of the way of the site. Local managers at the sites around the country know what they need to manage their sites and retain credibility with the community. Instruct Savannah River to release the funds that had been identified for SREL in this Fiscal Year, in the interests of the communities, the site, the Department and the Nation.

Opening Statement By Chairman Nick Lampson (Energy & Environment)

Good Morning. Welcome to the second hearing on the Cooperative Agreement between the Department of Energy and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

As I indicated in my opening statement two weeks ago, our Subcommittees are trying to understand why a laboratory with such a long and distinguished history of doing important, high quality work on the Savannah River Site has had to all but close its doors, when the ink is barely dry on the new Cooperative Agreement signed with the Department in December.

I find it difficult to believe the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and the University of Georgia would spend over one year negotiating an agreement that would result in the closure of this laboratory. There is simply no reason for DOE to discontinue funding for SREL. There are funds available. There is work to be done. SREL has the personnel and the experience to do the work. The laboratory has the support of the scientific community broadly and of the local community who rely upon the independent voice that SREL represents.

I believe the testimony today and the documents the Committee has reviewed over the past few weeks demonstrate the willingness of SREL and the University of Georgia to respond to DOE’s needs. It is clear from the documentation that Dr. Bertsch made a good faith effort to align the work of the laboratory with the needs of the Savannah River Site.

What is unclear is why the cooperative effort between Dr. Bertsch, on behalf of SREL, and the Savannah River Site Manager, Mr. Jeff Allison, to forge a new Cooperative Agreement that would be in the interest of both parties was scuttled at the end of the process? DOE has insisted they bargained in good faith with SREL and the University in establishing and carrying out the new Cooperative Agreement.

The documentation tells a different story. Apparently, DOE Headquarters gave no direction to Mr. Allison prior to assigning him the task of negotiating the new cooperative agreement, but once it was complete it is clear they were unhappy with the result of his efforts – a result that would have allocated $4 million per year to SREL for work at the Savannah River Site.

What result is DOE pleased with? A Cooperative Agreement with a scope of work that is relevant to the site and beneficial to the scientific and local communities, but that DOE never intends to fund, and a matrix of tasks that Dr. Bertsch compiled with site program managers to ensure that SREL’s work would support their respective needs, but that DOE also will not fund.

This situation is unacceptable. I believe DOE has bargained in bad faith and has decided, for unknown and perhaps unknowable reasons, to cut off funding for this laboratory and force them to close their doors, ending 50 years of a productive, beneficial relationship between the Savannah River Site and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.

DOE should release the funds for the work SREL proposed to do immediately. If the Department’s expectation is for this laboratory to become self-sustaining through other grants and contracts, SREL and the University of Georgia should be given an appropriate amount of time to make that transition. One year or less is not an appropriate amount of time.

Frankly, given the benefits that an independent laboratory like SREL provides to the site and the local community, I believe DOE should be looking to establish similar Cooperative Agreements with other Universities bordering DOE sites. The good will and public confidence associated with this type of arrangement are worth far more than the dollar value spent on the work.

The Savannah River Site needs SREL, DOE needs SREL, the local communities in Georgia and South Carolina need SREL, and frankly the nation needs SREL and more laboratories like it. DOE should abandon this misguided effort to close this laboratory, halt its important work, and violate the trust of the communities that border the Savannah River Site. There’s work to be done and SREL should be funded to do it.

Witnesses

Panel 1

1 - Mr. Clay Sell
Deputy Secretary Department of Energy Department of Energy
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Panel 2

2 - Ms. Karen Patterson
Chair Savannah River Citizens Advisory Board Savannah River Citizens Advisory Board
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1 - Dr. Paul Bertsch
Former Director, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory University of Georgia University of Georgia
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Panel 3

1 - Mr. Jeffrey Allison
Manager Savannah River Site Department of Energy Savannah River Site Department of Energy
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2 - Ms. Yvette Colazzo
Assistant Manager for Closure Project Savannah River Operations Office Department of Energy Savannah River Operations Office Department of Energy
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3 - Mr. Paul Gilbertson
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Engineering and Technology Office of Environmental Management Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management Department
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4 - Mr. Charlie Anderson
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Office of Environmental Management Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management Department of Energy
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Panel 4

1 - Dr. Raymond Orbach
Undersecretary for Science Department of Energy Department of Energy
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