1.2). DOE has acknowledged that its cleanup of the nuclear weapons complex is subject to regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states. Cleanup of DOE’s Weapons Complex Has Been Limited

Although DOE has spent significant sums on environmental activities, it has confined most of its efforts to preassessment or assessment actions, such as preparing reports, investigating sites, and submitting documents to regulators. Over 90 percent of the missed milestones were delayed by 30 days or more. In commenting on a draft of this report, DOE officials also noted that although the Department has not completed all of its milestones on schedule, it has performed a number of interim actions that were not part of its agreements with regulators. 4). Reliance on Milestones Discourages Strategic Focus

When DOE has been unable to renegotiate or has not sought to change unrealistic agreements or milestones, it has sometimes focused more on compliance than on cleanup. As DOE has found from past efforts, developing a cleanup strategy based on national priorities is a complicated process. At that time, we testified that “information and recommendations developed by the commission could help to clarify issues and form the basis for a national consensus in developing a comprehensive approach to cleaning up DOE’s facilities.”

		Conclusions

Cleaning up contamination at DOE’s facilities will not be easy because the risks to public health and the environment are large, the solutions to some problems are as yet unknown, the relationships between DOE and its stakeholders are often strained, and the gaps between the costs of the cleanups and the funds available for them are wide.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) progress in cleaning up its nuclear weapons complex, focusing on: (1) its use of environmental agreements with state and federal regulators; and (2) the effectiveness of its cleanup strategy.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) DOE has focused on collecting data and investigating sites, rather than the actual cleanup of sites; (2) DOE has only put a small amount of effort into physically cleaning up its nuclear weapons complex and has yet to complete the cleanup of a major facility; (3) although DOE is improving its timeliness, it missed over 20 percent of the milestones it agreed to complete through 1994; (4) DOE is likely to fall further behind schedule as funding tightens, costs increase, and more milestones come due; (5) DOE has had difficulty meeting some milestones because it signed unrealistic agreements with regulators; (6) DOE has been unable to renegotiate milestones due to past delays in meeting its commitments; and (7) future progress of DOE cleanup activities depends on the adoption of a national risk-based strategy that will maximize the limited resources available for cleanup.