PRESS RELEASE: New Transition Paper -- ECA Calls For Comprehensive Review of Department of Energy’s EM Cleanup Program
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM) must continuously examine its work and evolve. The Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) is calling on the next Administration to launch a comprehensive review of all aspects of the EM program.
In a paper that will be released September 12, 2024, Ensuring Long-Term Success: Recommendations for the Next Administration on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Mission, ECA outlines a series of recommendations for the next Administration to help ensure EM is well positioned for long-term success. While EM has made substantial progress in cleaning up sites over the past 35 years, decades of work remain to be completed, and the program faces substantial challenges in areas such as workforce development, waste disposal capacity and sustained relationships with local communities that can threaten continued success.
This review should include in-depth, and honest, assessments of the highest-risk issues at each site, as jointly agreed upon with federal and state regulators, Tribal nations and local governments; how DOE and EM are working with local governments on all aspects of cleanup, including long-term stewardship and future development strategies; how regulatory strategies and approaches are leading to tangible and lasting cleanup progress; how EM is ensuring it benefits from the best of private industry and maintains the necessary skilled workforce necessary for the long-term and how DOE is safely and effectively managing and disposing of all waste under its responsibility, among other issues.
ECA is also putting forward a set of recommendations for the new Administration to better ensure long-term cleanup success, including:
Establishing disposal paths for every type of radioactive and hazardous waste, including ensuring both private and public sites are available and utilized
Re-evaluating EM’s use of the end-state contracting model so that more funds are available for actual work
Ensuring regulatory agreements are reasonably achievable and balance short- and long-term needs
Improving workforce planning to address EM “brain drain” and long-term needs for skilled talent of all kinds
Continuing to focus on economic/energy development benefits
Maintaining robust local, state, tribal government and stakeholder engagement at each site
Clarifying DOE policy on how hazardous and radioactive materials discovered at “completed sites” will be addressed to ensure that the cleanup is protective of human health and the environment and the local community is not responsible for DOE’s legacy waste cleanup
Reconstituting a dedicated nuclear waste organization within DOE to address high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel issues
ECA will provide the paper to DOE-EM and the EPA on the morning that it is publicly released (09/12/2024). As always ECA stands ready to work with DOE on development and implementation of policy.
ECA’s paper will be available at www.energyca.org. For additional information, please contact Andres Ridge, ECA Program Manager, at 202-828-2321 or ajr@energyca.org.
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Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) is a non-profit membership organization of local governments adjacent to or affected by U.S. Department of Energy activities. The mission of ECA is to bring together local government officials to share information, establish policy positions, and promote community interests to address an increasingly complex set of constituents, environmental, regulatory, and economic development needs. Additional information is available at www.energyca.org.