EPA STAFF, ACTIVISTS RAISE FEARS OVER NUCLEAR WASTE PANEL NOMINEE

EPA STAFF, ACTIVISTS RAISE FEARS OVER NUCLEAR WASTE PANEL NOMINEE
2 November 2009
Superfund Report, SUFR, Vol. 23, No. 22
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EPA staff and activists are raising concerns over President Obama's nomination of Jessie Roberson to join a panel overseeing the Energy Department's (DOE) nuclear waste cleanup program, noting Roberson was head of the same program at the Bush DOE and often clashed with EPA and others on controversial cleanup policies.
The White House Oct. 14 announced Roberson's nomination to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), an independent federal agency that provides safety oversight of the former nuclear weapons manufacturing sites DOE's Office of Environmental Management (EM) is responsible for cleaning up. Roberson served as head of the EM office during former President George W. Bush's first term in office.
The Obama administration announcement touts Roberson's experience as an industry consultant -- including a stint as director of nuclear regulatory programs for the Exelon Corporation -- but does not mention her often controversial tenure as Bush EM assistant secretary, where she clashed with EPA, Congress and tribes.

While serving at DOE, Roberson pushed a policy known as risk-based end states (RBES), which aimed to emphasize a site's ultimate use when determining the extent of its cleanup. EPA, backed by activists, rejected the proposal on the grounds that other factors are also relevant when selecting a cleanup plan.
An EPA source says the policy was "one of the [most egregious examples] of Bush administration efforts to roll back regulations under Superfund" and raises concerns about Roberson returning to a position of authority over the issue by serving on the DNFSB. The board "is responsible for independent oversight of all activities affecting nuclear safety within DOE's nuclear weapons complex," according to its Web site, and among its powers is the ability to make recommendations to the energy secretary and to conduct investigations.

But former Bush EPA waste chief Marianne Horinko said in a recent interview that Roberson is a "superb manager" and "eminently qualified" for the DNFSB slot. Horinko, now an industry consultant, characterized suggestions Roberson's experience at DOE could make her unfit for DNFSB as "smoke and mirrors," and said she only recalled one policy disagreement with Roberson -- which was on the RBES policy advocated by the former EM chief.
In a 2003 letter to Roberson, Horinko wrote that "a myriad of social, cultural, technological, economic, local and other factors unique to each site [should] also play a role in determining the remedy." The RBES policy "appears to elevate risk above these other critical factors," Horinko wrote.
Horinko also raised concerns that the RBES policy sought to increase the use of containment -- as opposed to treatment and clean up -- as a means of addressing contamination, an approach she said could violate the Superfund law. "Such an approach may be interpreted to be inconsistent with the [Superfund law's] statutory preference for achieving permanent remedies and the protection of human health and the environment through treatment and elimination of the source of contamination," wrote Horinko (Superfund Report, March 17, 2003).
Nonetheless, "Other than the one disagreement" over the RBES policy, Horinko said she could not recall any other problems during Roberson's tenure at DOE, and supports the nomination.
A second EPA source however predicts both pros and cons to Roberson sitting on the board. It may be beneficial to have a nominee with first-hand experience of DOE cleanups, and some of the accelerated cleanup initiatives launched during Roberson's tenure did have benefits, the source says.
However, the source also says many DOE policy initiatives that Roberson was involved with were "grand ideas that did not come out well," noting that EPA had disputes with DOE over its attempts to implement the initiatives at some sites. The RBES initiative "started out as DOE basically claiming we're never going to use this site for anything else so we don't have to clean it up," the source says, and only after years of wrangling between the two agencies was EPA able to revert back to a more conservative approach at some sites.
A third EPA source says concerns about Roberson are "nothing personal" but that the RBES initiative was "extraordinary" in its aim to "provide cost savings at the expense of doing cleanup and meeting all kinds of regulations. Concerns about Roberson's nomination to DNFSB could be warranted, the source says, particularly if the board is faced with evaluating similar policies in the future.
One activist adds that environmentalists "fought daily" against Roberson's cleanup policies, adding that her new appointment compounds concerns environmentalists have already raised over the selection of Ines Triay -- also a Bush-era EM official -- to head the cleanup program for the Obama administration (Superfund Report, May 4.) Triay was sworn into office in May.
The activist points to recent news reports that DOE pressured DNFSB to delay a report suggesting an earthquake and resulting fire at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico could trigger deadly radioactive releases in explaining why environmentalists are concerned about the prospect of Roberson serving on the board. "How does someone with her history deal with pressure from her former agency to suppress criticisms of DOE problems for which she may have been substantially responsible?" the activist asks.
Roberson, whose nomination requires Senate confirmation, could not be reached for comment. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
RBES was not the only EM initiatives to spark criticism during Roberson's tenure. Regulators and Congress, along with activists and Indian tribes also fought against other cleanup policies Roberson championed.
In 2002, Roberson announced DOE would scale back its plans to use a process known as vitrification -- which encases nuclear waste in glass ----by 75 percent nationwide and replace it with an alternative process that environmentalists and scientists argued was less stable and less protective of human health. The switch also prompted legal questions and state sources argued the plan violated a requirement under an agreement between EPA and the state of Washington to use vitrification at the Hanford, WA cleanup site (Superfund Report, Feb. 18, 2002).
Roberson indicated DOE would look to switch to other methods, including one known as "grouting," which involves mixing radioactive wastes with concrete and keeping the mixture in either ditches or in the original waste storage tanks at Hanford. The move prompted a lawsuit from the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Snake River Alliance and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, alleging the plan violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (Superfund Report, March 18, 2002).
In addition, the grouting initiative also prompted EPA and state regulator objections at sites other than Hanford, the second EPA source notes, some of which took years to resolve.
Roberson also championed the Bush DOE's controversial accelerated cleanup incentive plan, which Senate appropriators in 2002 rejected after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) raised concerns about the plan. The lawmakers stripped Roberson of her authority to shift funds between accounts and sites, requiring that DOE seek Congressional approval before doing so.
The Bush DOE vowed to nonetheless continue to pursue the plan as the best course way to ensure faster cleanups. -- Douglas P. Guarino