Compliance Agreements Are of Three Main Types

The 70 compliance agreements at DOE sites vary greatly but can be  divided into three main types: (1) 29 are agreements specifically required  by CERCLA to address cleanup of federal sites on EPA’s national priorities  list of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites or by RCRA to address the  management of hazardous waste or mixed radioactive and hazardous  waste at DOE facilities, (2) 6 are court-ordered agreements resulting from  lawsuits initiated primarily by states, and (3) 35 are other agreements,  including state administrative orders enforcing state hazardous waste  management laws. This  agreement also addresses most of the cleanup activities that will occur at  that site. These agreements are typically  between DOE and states. Many of the milestones completed  either have been administrative, such as issuing a report, or have involved  completing some kind of step in the cleanup process, such as conducting  certain tests. Number of Completed Milestones Is Not a Good Measure of DOE’s Cleanup Progress, but Milestones Are Useful to Regulators

For several reasons DOE’s success in completing milestones on time is not  a good measure of progress in cleaning up the weapons complex. Specifically:    Many of the milestones do not indicate what cleanup work has been  accomplished. Because  the total number of milestones associated with those types of agreements  is not yet known, DOE’s overall progress in accomplishing the cleanup is  difficult to determine. DOE’s Budget Request Does Not Identify the Funding Needed to Meet Compliance Requirements

The president’s budget proposal for DOE, which is the version of the DOE  budget submitted to the Congress, does not specifically identify the cost of  complying with compliance agreements. As DOE headquarters officials adjust the budget amounts  in the process of reconciling various competing funding needs, the final  budget submitted to the Congress has, with few exceptions, no clear  relationship to the amounts sites estimated were needed to fund  compliance requirements. Agency Comments

We provided a copy of our draft report to the Department of Energy for  review and comment.
What GAO Found

The Department of Energy (DOE) spends between $6 billion and $7 billion annually to store, clean up, and monitor nuclear and hazardous waste at its sites. Various federal and state agencies with jurisdiction over environmental and health issues related to the cleanup are therefore involved in regulating and overseeing DOE's activities. Much of the cleanup activity has been implemented under compliance agreements between the DOE and these agencies. There are three types of compliance agreements governing DOE's sites: (1) legal requirements that address the cleanup of federal sites on the National Priorities List of the nation's most serious hazardous waste sites or that address treatment and storage of mixed hazardous and radioactive waste at DOE facilities; (2) court-ordered agreements resulting from lawsuits initiated primarily by states; and (3) other agreements, such as state administrative orders enforcing state hazardous waste management laws, that do not fall into the first two categories. Through the end of fiscal year 2001, DOE had completed 4,500 milestones, although for several reasons, the number of milestones is not a good indication of cleanup progress. Many of the milestones are administrative in nature, such as issuing a report. Also, some agreements allow for adding more milestones as time goes on, and because the total number of milestones associated with those agreements is not yet known, progress is difficult to determine. Finally, many of the milestones not yet due involve some of the most complex and costly cleanup work to be undertaken. The cost of complying with these agreements is not specifically identified in the DOE budget. Individual DOE sites include the cost of the compliance when preparing their initial budget requests, but as DOE headquarters officials adjust individual site estimates to reflect national priorities and to reconcile various competing demands, the final budget does not identify what portion of the request reflects compliance requirements. However, compliance agreements are site-specific and are not intended to provide a mechanism for DOE to use in prioritizing risks among various sites.