Joyce L. Connery, Chair

Thomas A. Summers, Vice Chair

DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES

SAFETY BOARD

Washington, DC 20004-2901

January 24, 2024

The Honorable Jennifer M. Granholm

Secretary of Energy

U.S. Department of Energy

1000 Independence Avenue, SW

Washington, DC 20585-1000

Dear Secretary Granholm:

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) safety directives provide requirements and 

guidance for designing, constructing, operating, and managing safety programs at DOE’s defense 

nuclear facilities. The processes to develop and maintain these directives are described in DOE 

Order 251.1, Departmental Directives Program, which underpins DOE’s standards-based 

approach to nuclear safety.

In 2023, DOE began revising the current version, DOE Order 251.1D, with the goal of

improving DOE’s directives processes. However, the proposed revision, draft DOE Order 

251.1E, lacks fundamental requirements related to the development, revision, and 

implementation of DOE directives. In many cases, these requirements existed in DOE Order 

251.1D, but were removed with the justification that the requirements were cumbersome or were 

not being effectively implemented. While the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (Board) 

supports DOE’s goal of improved directives processes, it is vital for DOE Order 251.1 to contain

the right set of requirements to support DOE’s standards-based organization.

The Board understands revision of this order is in its final stages. The Board advises that 

the draft order be revised to address the five concerns noted in the enclosure before it is issued. 

Pursuant to 42 United States Code § 2286b(d), the Board requests a report and briefing from 

DOE within 60 days from the date of this correspondence regarding DOE’s path forward on the 

revision to this order.

Sincerely,

Joyce L. Connery

Chair

Enclosure

c: Ms. Ingrid Kolb, Director, DOE Office of Management

Mr. Joe Olencz, Director, DOE Office of the Departmental Representative to the DNFSB
1

ENCLOSURE

Issues with Draft DOE Order 251.1E

The processes to develop and maintain U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) directives are 

described in DOE Order 251.1, Departmental Directives Program, which is managed by the 

DOE Directives Program in the Office of Management. 

Background. DOE began revising DOE Order 251.1D after the Deputy Secretary issued 

a memorandum to heads of departmental elements on March 31, 2023, focused on improving the 

DOE directives process. The revision of DOE Order 251.1D removed a significant number of

fundamental requirements related to the development, revision, and implementation of 

directives, with the primary justification being that these requirements were either cumbersome 

or were not being effectively implemented. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s 

(Board) staff provided substantial comments on the proposed revisions and discussed them with 

DOE. While DOE resolved some of the staff’s comments, the Board still has significant safety 

concerns with draft DOE Order 251.1E.

Discussion. The Board has identified the five significant safety concerns discussed 

below with the current version of draft DOE Order 251.1E.

Prioritization Criteria—In order to determine which DOE directives needed to be 

revised or developed, DOE Order 251.1D contained a list of prioritization criteria. These

prioritization criteria included items such as critical nuclear safety updates and critical safety 

issues. Draft DOE Order 251.1E does not include the prioritization criteria for revising DOE 

directives and did not include any other requirements to ensure that safety directives remain 

accurate and current. In discussions with the Board’s staff, the Directives Program Office 

indicated that the reason for this removal was that many of the Offices of Primary Responsibility

(OPR)1 were not following the criteria. Further, the Directives Program Office stated it cannot 

force OPRs to develop or revise their directives. The Board notes that many DOE directives 

have not been updated in more than five years, and some for much longer. While the draft order 

states OPRs must provide a list of planned directives actions for the coming year to the 

Directives Program Office, the draft order does not have criteria for how OPRs select directives 

for action. DOE Order 251.1 should contain requirements to drive appropriate directive actions 

to address safety issues. This could be prioritization criteria, or a mandatory review cycle (e.g., 

once every five years) for safety directives to ensure reviews for accuracy and relevancy occur 

on a regular basis.

Core Directives Processes—The draft order lacks some key directives process 

requirements and defined terms, some of which were removed from the current version, DOE 

Order 251.1D. Instead, the draft order requires the Directives Program Office to develop 

1 The “OPR” term is used in draft DOE Order 251.1E and replaces the term “Office of Primary Interest (OPI)” used 

in the current version, DOE Order 251.1D. DOE intends to use “OPR” going forward to refer to the DOE office 

responsible for originating a directive and maintaining its accuracy and currency.
2

Directives Review Board2 (DRB)-approved processes (e.g., administrative changes, expedited 

revisions, a prioritization process) for implementing the requirements within this order and 

making them available on a website. The order should explicitly state and define these 

processes, even if implementation details are retained on a website. In addition, some key 

implementation details should be contained within the order as requirements. For example, DOE 

Order 251.1E should contain a requirement for the OPR to engage with stakeholders during 

development of the first draft, and the review and comment period of directive revisions. This 

requirement would improve transparency and inclusiveness of the directives development

process and ensure that stakeholders’ concerns are considered. As another example, given the 

vital role of subject matter experts in ensuring DOE safety directives are accurate and 

comprehensive, the order should include a required process to define and assign subject matter 

experts who possess sufficient knowledge and capabilities to be involved with each directive 

revision. 

During discussions with the Board’s staff, the Directives Program Office noted that these 

processes are maintained on the directives website to allow for flexibility when parts of the 

process change. DRB will review and approve changes to processes maintained on the website, 

but other stakeholders lack visibility into those changes, and are not afforded the opportunity to 

provide feedback. While this may be appropriate in some instances, the processes discussed 

above should be explicitly included in the order to prevent changes without appropriate levels of 

review and approval.

Communication between Directives Writers and Users—Ensuring that directives are 

implemented effectively is a key element of a directives program. DOE Order 251.1D had a 

requirement for DRB to seek feedback on implementation of new or revised directives after they 

had been fully implemented. This requirement was removed in the draft order. During 

discussions with the Board’s staff, the Directives Program Office indicated that this requirement 

was not being met and that this may be due to a lack of active communication between directives 

writers and those who are responsible for implementing those directives. Instead, the Directives 

Program Office indicated it would be up to those implementing the directives to identify any 

implementation issues and, at their discretion, communicate the issues back to OPR through their 

directives point of contact. The Board is concerned with this observation, as a lack of effective 

communication between directives writers and users of safety directives could result in not 

identifying potential implementation issues. Removal of this requirement is not the appropriate 

response to the lack of communication between writers and users of directives. The requirement 

to seek feedback on the implementation of a new or revised directive should be retained and 

DOE should ensure that it is met to drive effective communication.

Invoked Technical Standards—If a DOE directive invokes a technical standard, then the 

standard becomes a requirements document in accordance with the applicability and conditions 

described in the invoking directive. Invoked technical standards are essentially as important as 

directives, but DOE provides limited information on invoking standards. DOE Order 251.1D

and the proposed revision define invoked technical standards (DOE technical standards and 

2 DRB is the group of senior executives charged with ensuring the DOE Directives Program contains directives that 

enhance DOE’s ability to achieve its mission goals in a safe, secure, and cost-effective manner. DRB advises as 

well as concurs, on individual directives before the Deputy Secretary approves them for final issuance.
3

voluntary consensus standards (VCS)) and assign responsibilities regarding these standards. 

However, there is no process for determining which standards should be invoked, who is 

responsible for making that decision, and what criteria are appropriate for determining when to 

invoke standards. Due to insufficient information on categorizing invoked safety-related 

technical standards, it is difficult to maintain a consistent approach, which could result in 

inadequate safety requirements, and preferred DOE methods may not be implemented or 

updated. As examples, DOE Standard 1066, Fire Protection, and DOE Standard 1195, Design

of Safety Significant Safety Instrumented Systems Used at DOE Nonreactor Nuclear Facilities, 

are two safety-related DOE standards that are not invoked. DOE Order 251.1E should contain 

additional information on the process used to invoke safety-related technical standards, including 

clear criteria for when invoking technical standards is appropriate. 

Decoupled Order and Invoked Technical Standards—Invoked standards may be 

revised, however, there is no requirement that drives a subsequent revision to the DOE order that 

invokes a revised standard. Therefore, a DOE order may invoke an outdated standard. DOE 

Order 251.1D has the requirement that if a draft order invokes a standard that is in draft form, 

those revisions must be coordinated concurrently. This requirement was removed in draft DOE 

Order 251.1E, and the Directives Program Office indicated this was due to delays in issuing 

revisions of DOE orders caused by delays in revising DOE technical standards. However, even 

if this requirement were retained, it would only deal with cases in which both the order and 

standard were being revised concurrently and would not address the overall concern that an 

invoked standard could be revised with no subsequent revision to the associated order.

There should be a requirement to revise the corresponding DOE order soon after an 

invoked DOE technical standard is issued to ensure that field offices and site contractors are

implementing the newest versions of safety-related technical standards. In the case of VCSs, the 

Board acknowledges that DOE may choose not to invoke a new revision of a VCS. 

Nevertheless, there should be a requirement to at least evaluate an invoked VCS soon after it is 

revised, to determine whether a DOE order should be revised to invoke the revised VCS. 
1. 

2. 

AFFIRMATION OF BOARD VOTING RECORD

SUBJECT: RFBA by Chair Joyce Connery - DOE Order 251.1

Doc Control#: 2024-100-0010

The Board acted on the above document on 01/25/2024. The document was Approved.

The votes were recorded as:

APRVD DISAPRVD ABSTAIN NOT 

PARTICIPATING COMMENT DATE

Joyce L. Connery 01/22/2024

Thomas Summers 01/22/2024

This Record contains a summary of voting on this matter together with the individual vote sheets, views 

and comments of the Board Members.

Nicole Thomas-Hawkins

Board Operations Specialist to the Board

Attachments:

Voting Summary

Board Member Vote Sheets
DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD

NOTATIONAL VOTE RESPONSE SHEET

FROM: Joyce L. Connery

SUBJECT: RFBA by Chair Joyce Connery - DOE Order 251.1

Doc Control#: 2024-100-0010

DATE: 01/22/2024

VOTE: Approved

COMMENTS:

None

Joyce L. Connery
DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD

NOTATIONAL VOTE RESPONSE SHEET

FROM: Thomas Summers

SUBJECT: RFBA by Chair Joyce Connery - DOE Order 251.1

Doc Control#: 2024-100-0010

DATE: 01/22/2024

VOTE: Approved

COMMENTS:

None

Thomas Summers