Calendar Year 2020

In 1993, the President and Congress reaffirmed the moratorium on underground nuclear testing and directed
that a science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program be developed to maintain the nation’s stockpile of
nuclear weapons. The Department of Energy’s (Department) plan for the Stockpile Stewardship Program
describes it as one of the most complex, scientific-technical programs ever undertaken. The program
consists of surveillance, experimentation, computation, and production. Its focus is to maintain “high
confidence” in the safety and reliability of the stockpile without nuclear testing.c

During the 1970s and 1980s, about 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste was sent to the
Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) for temporary storage. In
1982, the definition of transuranic waste changed and, as a result, 25,400 cubic meters of this
waste was reclassified as mixed low-level waste. At that time, mixed low-level waste was
considered "orphan waste" since it had no identified path for disposal.
To address this situation, in 1995 the Idaho Operations Office (Idaho) decided to "blend-up" its
mixed low-level waste with about 39,500 cubic meters of transuranic waste so that all 65,000
cubic meters of waste could be disposed of as transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant (WIPP). Subsequent to Idaho's decision, the Department of Energy (Department) issued a
Record of Decision in 2000, which designated the Hanford and Nevada Test Sites as disposal
sites for mixed low-level waste. The objective of our audit was to determine whether Idaho
should continue with plans to dispose of its mixed low-level waste at the WIPP.

In response to a 1995 Office of Inspector General report entitled, Audit of Department of Energy's
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), Department of Energy officials stated
that the laboratory would offer unique interactive and synergistic scientific exploration
capabilities and would be equipped with state-of-the-art and first-of-a-kind equipment.
Subsequently, the Department constructed and currently operates the EMSL in Richland,
Washington. The $229 million EMSL opened in October 1997 as a National User Facility.
Under contract with the Richland Operations Office (Richland), Battelle Memorial Institute
(Battelle) operates the EMSL as well as Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.E179DAC6F; Ax

The Fiscal Year (FY) 1994 National Defense Authorization Act authorized the establishment of
Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response (HAMMER) Training and
Education Centers at Department of Energy sites to provide training for handling hazardous
materials. The legislation envisioned HAMMER training centers as user facilities for the
Department, other federal agencies, and regional response personnel. The only center built to
date is located at the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington. This center, opened in September
1997, has an average annual operating budget of $5.5 million.
Fluor Hanford, Inc. (Fluor), which operates HAMMER under a contract with the Department's
Richland Operations Office (Richland), maintains a small, in-house staff that is responsible for
day-to-day operations of the center. Industry experts and other external sources provide the
actual training. Since it was anticipated that Hanford employees would use only 50 percent of
the training center's capacity, Fluor established a marketing department to attract non-Hanford
customers. Through this mechanism, the Department and Fluor hoped to generate enough
revenue to make the training center self-sustaining. The objective of the audit was to determine
whether the marketing program for HAMMER has been effective.