Yucca Mountain: DOE Has Improved Its Quality Assurance Program, but Whether Its Application for a NRC License Will Be High Quality Is Unclear
Released: 2007-08-06T00:00:00

Letter

Background

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended, establishes a comprehensive policy and program for the safe, permanent disposal of commercial spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive wastes in one or more geologic repositories. The act charges DOE with (1) establishing criteria for recommending sites for repositories; (2) “characterizing” (investigating) the Yucca Mountain site to determine its suitability for a repository; (3) if the site is found suitable, recommending it to the President, who would submit a recommendation to the Congress if he agreed that the site was qualified; and (4) seeking permission from NRC to construct and operate a repository at the approved site. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, users of nuclear-power-generated electricity pay $0.001 per kilowatt-hour into a Nuclear Waste Fund, which may be used only to pay for the siting, licensing, and construction of a nuclear waste repository. In fiscal year 2006, DOE reported that the fund had $19.4 billion. DOE also reported that it had spent about $11.7 billion (in fiscal year 2006 dollars) from project inception in fiscal years 1983 through 2005 and estimated that an additional $10.9 billion (in fiscal year 2006 dollars) would be incurred from fiscal years 2006 to 2017 to build the repository.

Since the early 1980s, DOE has studied the Yucca Mountain site to determine whether it is suitable for a high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel repository. For example, DOE completed numerous scientific studies of water flow and the potential for rock movement near the mountain, including the likelihood that volcanoes and earthquakes will adversely affect the repository’s performance. To allow scientists and engineers greater access to the rock being studied, DOE excavated two tunnels for studying the deep underground environment: (1) a 5-mile main tunnel that loops through the mountain, with several research areas or alcoves connected to it, and (2) a 1.7-mile tunnel that crosses the mountain, allowing scientists to study properties of the rock and the behavior of water near the potential repository area. Since July 2002, when the Congress approved the President’s recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site for the development of a repository, DOE has focused on preparing its license application.

In October 2005, DOE announced a series of changes in the management of the project and in the design of the repository to simplify the project and improve its safety and operation. Previously, DOE’s design required radioactive waste to be handled at least four separate times by transporting the waste to the Yucca Mountain site, removing the waste from its shipping container, sealing it in a special disposal container, and moving it into the underground repository. The new repository design relies on uniform canisters that would be filled and sealed before being shipped, reducing the need for direct handling of most of the waste prior to being placed in the repository. As a result, DOE will not have to construct several extremely large buildings costing millions of dollars for handling radioactive waste. In light of these changes, DOE has been working on revising the designs for the repository’s surface facilities, developing the technical specifications for the canisters that will hold the waste, and revising its draft license application.

In accordance with NRC regulations, before filing its license application, DOE must first make all documentary material that is potentially relevant to the licensing process electronically available via NRC’s Internet-based document management system. This system, known as the Licensing Support Network, provides electronic access to millions of documents related to the repository project. DOE is required to initially certify to NRC that it has made its documentary material available no later than 6 months in advance of submitting the license application. NRC, Nevada, and other parties in the licensing process must also certify their documentary material was made available following DOE’s initial certification. This information will then be available to the public and all the parties participating in the licensing process. OCRWM currently expects to certify its material in the Licensing Support Network by December 21, 2007. In addition, OCRWM expects to complete the necessary designs and have the draft license application ready for DOE management’s review by February 29, 2008.

NRC is charged with regulating the construction, operation, and decommissioning phases of the project and is responsible for ensuring that DOE satisfies public health, safety, and environmental regulatory requirements. Once DOE files the license application, NRC will begin a four-stage process to process the application and decide whether to (1) authorize construction of the repository, (2) authorize construction with conditions, or (3) deny the application. As shown in figure 1, this process includes the following steps: Acceptance review. NRC plans to take up to 180 days to examine the application for completeness to determine whether the license application has all of the information and components NRC requires. If NRC determines that any part of the application is incomplete, it may either reject the application or require that DOE furnish the necessary documentation. NRC will docket the application once it deems the application complete, indicating its readiness for a detailed technical review.

Technical review. The detailed technical review, scheduled for 18 to 24 months, will evaluate the soundness of the scientific data, computer modeling, analyses, and preliminary facility design. The review will focus on evaluating DOE’s conclusions about the ability of the repository designs to limit exposure to radioactivity, both during the construction and operation phase of the repository (known as preclosure) and during the phase after the repository has been filled, closed, and sealed (known as postclosure.) If NRC discovers problems with the technical information used to support the application, it may conduct activities to determine the extent and effect of the problem. As part of this review, NRC staff will prepare a safety evaluation report that details staff findings and conclusions on the license application.

Public hearings. NRC will also convene an independent panel of judges— called the Atomic Safety Licensing Board—to conduct a series of public hearings to address contested issues raised by affected parties and review in detail the related information and evidence regarding the license application. Upon completion, the board will make a formal ruling (called the initial decision) resolving matters put into controversy. This initial decision can then be appealed to the NRC commissioners for further review.

NRC commission review. In the likely event of an appeal, the NRC commissioners will review the Atomic Safety Licensing Board’s initial decision. In addition, outside of the adjudicatory proceeding, they will complete a supervisory examination of those issues contested in the proceeding to consider whether any significant basis exists for doubting that the facility will be constructed or operated with adequate protection of the public health and safety. The commissioners will also review any issues about which NRC staff must make appropriate findings prior to the authorization of construction, even if they were not contested in the proceeding.

However, until DOE submits a license application, NRC’s role has involved providing regulatory guidance; observing and gathering information on DOE activities related to repository design, performance assessment, and environmental studies; and verifying site characterization activities. These prelicensing activities are intended to identify and resolve potential licensing issues early to help ensure that years of scientific work are not found to be inadequate for licensing purposes. DOE and NRC have interacted since 1983 on the repository. In 1998, they entered into a prelicensing interaction agreement that provides for technical and management meetings, data and document reviews, and the prompt exchange of information between NRC’s on-site representatives and DOE project personnel. Consistent with this prelicensing interaction agreement and NRC’s regulations, NRC staff observe and review activities at the site and other scientific work as they are performed to allow early identification of potential licensing issues for timely resolution at the staff level.

EPA also has a role in the licensing process––setting radiation exposure standards for the public outside the Yucca Mountain site. In 2001, EPA set standards for protecting the public from inadvertent releases of radioactive materials from wastes stored at Yucca Mountain, which are required by law to be consistent with recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences. In July 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that EPA’s standards were not consistent with the National Academy of Sciences’ recommendations. In response, EPA proposed a revised rule in August 2005. The director of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation Safety told us that EPA plans to finalize its rule this year. In addition, NRC must develop exposure limits that are compatible with EPA’s rule. NRC published a proposed rule which it states is compatible with EPA’s rule, received public comments in 2005, but has not yet finalized the rule. If EPA’s rule does not change significantly in response to public comments, NRC’s rule would not require major revisions either and could be finalized within months. However, if EPA’s final rule has major changes, it could require major changes to NRC’s rule, which could take more than a year to redraft, seek and incorporate public comments, and finalize, according to NRC officials.

DOE’s Schedule to Submit a License Application to NRC by June 30, 2008, Was Developed in Consultation with Yucca Mountain Project Managers

In July 2006, DOE announced its intent to file a license application to NRC no later than June 30, 2008. OCRWM’s director set the June 30, 2008, goal to jump-start what he viewed as a stalled project. OCRWM’s director told us that he consulted with DOE and contractor project managers to get a reasonable estimate of an achievable date for submitting the license application and asked OCRWM managers to develop a plan and schedule for meeting the June 30, 2008, goal. OCRWM’s director believes this schedule is achievable, noting that DOE had already performed a significant amount of work toward developing a license application. Specifically, DOE completed a draft license application in September 2005, but opted not to file it with NRC to allow more time to address the USGS e-mail issue, revise the repository’s design to simplify the project and improve its safety and operation, and consider revising its technical documents in response to the possibility that EPA would revise the radiation standards for the proposed repository. Table 1 shows the project’s major milestones.

DOE did not consult with external stakeholders in developing this schedule because there was no legal or regulatory requirement or compelling management reason to do so, according to senior OCRWM officials. However, these officials noted that the NRC review process includes extensive public hearings on the application, which will provide stakeholders with an opportunity to comment on and challenge the substance of the application. In addition, regarding other aspects of the program, senior OCRWM officials noted that they have often consulted with external stakeholders, including city and county governments near the proposed repository site, NRC, USGS, and nuclear power companies. OCRWM has also consulted with Nevada, the U.S. Department of the Navy, and other DOE offices. For example, in developing its standards for the canisters that will be used to store, transport, and place the waste in the repository, DOE consulted with the Navy and the nuclear power plant operators that generate the nuclear waste and will use the proposed canisters. In addition, DOE has worked with the local city and county governments near the repository to develop the plans for transporting the waste to the proposed repository.

OCRWM’s director has made the submission of the license application by June 30, 2008, the project’s top strategic objective and management priority. Accordingly, each OCWRM office has created business plans detailing how its work will support this objective. Furthermore, DOE has developed a license application management plan that incorporates the lessons learned from previous license application preparation efforts and works to ensure that the license application meets all DOE and NRC statutory, regulatory, and quality requirements. The plan establishes a process whereby teams assess the statutory and regulatory requirements for the license application, identify any gaps and inadequacies in the existing drafts of the license application, and draft or revise these sections. Since the license application is expected to be thousands of pages long, the plan divides the license application into 71 subsections, each with a team assigned specific roles and responsibilities, such as for drafting a particular subsection or approving a particular stage of the draft. Finally, the plan also creates new project management controls to provide oversight of this process and manage risks. For example, the plan details how issues that may pose risks to the schedule or quality of the license application should be noted, analyzed, and resolved, and how the remaining issues should be elevated to successively higher levels of management.

NRC Officials Are Uncertain Whether DOE Will File a High- Quality License Application That Will Facilitate Completion of a Timely Review

NRC officials believe it is likely that DOE will submit a license application by June 30, 2008, but will not speculate about its quality due to a long- standing practice to maintain an objective and neutral position toward proposed license applications until they are filed with NRC. According to NRC officials, NRC’s ability to review an application in a timely manner is contingent on the application being high quality, which NRC officials define as being complete and accurate, including traceable and transparent data that adequately support the technical positions presented in the license application. NRC has expressed concern about the lack of a rigorous quality assurance program and the reliability of USGS scientific work that DOE had certified before the USGS e-mails were discovered. Based on its prelicensing review, NRC recognizes that DOE is addressing problems with its quality assurance program and, by developing a new water infiltration model, is restoring confidence in the reliability of its scientific work.

When the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 gave NRC responsibility for licensing the nuclear waste repository, NRC staff began engaging in prelicensing activities aimed at gathering information from DOE and providing guidance so that DOE would be prepared to meet NRC’s statutory and regulatory requirements and NRC would be prepared to review the license application. NRC issued high-level waste disposal regulations containing criteria for approving the application and publicly available internal guidance detailing the steps and activities NRC will perform to review the application. NRC also established a site office at OCRWM’s Las Vegas, Nevada, offices to act as NRC’s point of contact and to facilitate prompt information exchanges. NRC officials noted that they have also been working for several years to communicate NRC’s expectations for a high-quality license application.

Although NRC has no formal oversight role in the Yucca Mountain project until DOE files a license application, NRC staff observe DOE audits of its quality assurance activities to identify potential issues and problems that may affect licensing. The NRC staff then report their findings in quarterly reports that summarize their work and detail any problems or issues they identify. For example, after observing a DOE quality assurance audit at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in August 2005, NRC staff expressed concern that humidity gauges used in scientific experiments at the project were not properly calibrated—an apparent violation of quality assurance requirements. Due in part to concerns that quality assurance requirements had not been followed, BSC issued a February 7, 2006, stop- work order affecting this scientific work. In June 2007, OCRWM project managers told us that because quality assurance rules were not followed, DOE could not use this scientific work to support the license application.

To facilitate prelicensing interactions, NRC and DOE developed a formal process in 1998 for identifying and documenting technical issues and information needs. As shown in table 2, issues were grouped into nine key technical issues focused mainly on postclosure performance of the geologic repository. Within this framework, NRC and DOE defined 293 agreements in a series of technical exchange meetings. An agreement is considered closed when NRC staff determines that DOE has provided the requested information. Agreements are formally closed in public correspondence or at public technical exchanges. As of June 2007, DOE has responded to all 293 of the agreements. NRC considers 260 of these to be closed. NRC considers 8 of the remaining 33 agreements to be potentially affected by the USGS e-mail issue that emerged in 2005. Their resolution will be addressed after NRC examines the new water infiltration analysis. NRC considers that the remaining 25 have been addressed but still need additional information. DOE has indicated that it does not plan any further responses on these agreements, and that the information will be provided in the June 2008 license application.

NRC determined that adding agreements to the original 293 was not an efficient means to continue issue resolution during prelicensing, given DOE’s stated intent to submit its license application, first in 2004, and now in 2008. NRC is now using public correspondence, as well as public technical exchanges and management meetings, to communicate outstanding and emerging technical issues. For example, NRC’s September 2006 correspondence provided input on DOE’s proposed approach for estimating seismic events during the postclosure period and requested further interactions on the topic. Also, since May 2006, NRC and DOE have conducted a series of technical exchanges to discuss such topics as DOE’s total system performance assessment model, the seismic design of buildings, and other DOE design changes. Other interactions are planned to ensure that NRC has sufficient information to conduct its prelicensing responsibilities.

DOE Has Made Progress in Implementing Our Quality Assurance Recommendations and Resolving Challenges We Identified

DOE is implementing the recommendations and addressing the challenges identified in our March 2006 report, but it is unclear whether the department’s actions will prevent similar problems from recurring. Specifically, in response to our recommendations that DOE improve its management tools, DOE has eliminated the one-page summary (or panel) of performance indicators and has revised its trend evaluation reports. DOE is supplementing these changes with more rigorous senior management meetings that track program performance to better ensure that new problems are identified and resolved. DOE has also begun addressing additional management challenges by independently reworking USGS’s water infiltration analysis, fixing problems with a design and engineering process known as requirements management, and reducing the high-turnover rate and large number of acting managers in key project management positions.

DOE Has Replaced or Improved Two Previously Ineffective Management Tools

Our March 2006 report found that two of the project’s management tools— the panel of performance indicators and the trend evaluation reports— were ineffective in helping DOE management to monitor progress toward meeting performance goals, detecting new quality assurance problems, and directing management attention where needed. In response, DOE has stopped using its panel of performance indicators and replaced them with monthly program review meetings—chaired by OCRWM’s director and attended by top-level OCRWM, BSC, Sandia, and USGS managers—that review the progress of four main OCRWM projects: (1) the drafting of the license application; (2) the effort to select and load documents and records into NRC’s Licensing Support Network; (3) work supplementing DOE’s environmental impact statement to reflect the October 2005 changes in repository design, which shift from direct handling of waste to the use of canisters; and (4) the development of a system to transport waste from where it is generated, mainly nuclear power plants, to the repository. In addition, DOE has developed the following four new, high- level performance indicators that it evaluates and discusses at its monthly program review meetings: safety, including injuries and lost workdays due to accidents at the project; quality, including efforts to improve OCRWM’s corrective action program, which works to detect and resolve problems at the project and the performance of the quality assurance program; cost, including actual versus budgeted costs, staffing levels, and efforts to recruit new employees; and culture, including the project’s safety conscious work environment program, which works to ensure that employees are encouraged to raise safety concerns to their managers or to NRC without fear of retaliation and that employees’ concerns are resolved in a timely and appropriate manner according to their importance.

Although DOE plans to develop additional performance indicators, these four simplified indicators have replaced about 250 performance indicators on the previous performance indicator panel. According to a cognizant DOE official, the previous performance indicator panel was ineffective, in part, because it focused on what could be measured, as opposed to what should be measured, resulting in DOE focusing its efforts on developing the performance indicator panel instead of determining how to use this information as a management tool. The monthly program review and the new performance indicators are designed to be more useful to OCRWM management by being simpler and more focused on the key mission activities.

DOE has also revised its trend evaluation reports to create new organizational structures and procedures that detail the processes and steps for detecting and analyzing trends and preparing trend evaluation reports for senior management review. DOE has appointed a trend program manager and implemented a work group to oversee these processes. Furthermore, as we recommended, the new trend program has an increased focus on the significance of the monitored condition by synthesizing trends projectwide instead of separating OCRWM’s and BSC’s trend evaluation reports.

To improve the utility of trend evaluation reports as a management tool, the procedures now identify the following three types of trends and criteria for evaluating them: Adverse trends are (1) repeated problems that involve similar tasks or have similar causes and are determined by management to be significant or critical to the success of the project; (2) repeated problems that are less significant but collectively indicate a failure of the quality assurance program, may be precursors to a more significant problem, or pose a safety problem; and (3) patterns of problems that management determines warrant further analysis and actions to prevent their recurrence.

Emerging trends are problems that do not meet the criteria for an adverse trend, but require actions to ensure that they do not evolve into an adverse trend.

Monitored trends are fluctuations in the conditions being monitored that OCRWM management determines do not warrant action, but each fluctuation needs close monitoring to ensure that it does not evolve into an emerging or adverse trend.

DOE has also implemented changes to its corrective action program—the program that provides the data that are analyzed in the trend evaluation program. The corrective action program is the broader system for recognizing problems and tracking their resolution. It is one of the key elements of the project’s quality assurance framework and has been an area of interest to NRC in its prelicensing activities. The corrective action program consists of a computer system that project employees can use to enter information about a problem they have identified and create a record, known as a condition report, and a set of procedures for evaluating the condition reports and ensuring these problems are resolved.

Regarding our broader conclusions that the OCRWM quality assurance program needed more management attention, in spring 2006, DOE requested a team of external quality assurance experts to review the performance of the quality assurance program. The experts concluded that 8 of the 10 topics they studied—including the corrective action program— had not been effectively implemented. Specifically, the team found that the corrective action program did not ensure that problems were either quickly or effectively resolved. Furthermore, a follow-up internal DOE study, called a root cause analysis report, concluded that the corrective action program was ineffective primarily because senior management had failed to recognize the significance of repeated internal and external reviews and did not aggressively act to correct identified problems and ensure program effectiveness.

In response, DOE has revised the corrective action program in an effort to change organizational behaviors and provide increased management attention. For example, DOE has restructured the condition screening team, which previously had poor internal communication and adversarial relationships among its members, according to a senior project manager. Similarly, a December 2006 external review of the quality assurance program found that OCRWM staff had focused its efforts on trying to downgrade the significance of condition reports to deflect individual and departmental responsibility, rather than ensuring that the underlying causes and problems were addressed. In response, DOE (1) reorganized the condition screening team to reduce the size of the team but include more senior managers; (2) identified roles, responsibilities, and management expectations for the team, including expectations for collaborating and communicating; and (3) formalized processes and criteria for screening and reviewing condition reports. The condition screening team now assigns one of four significance levels to each new condition report and assigns a manager who is responsible for investigating the problem.

In addition, DOE has restructured the management review committee, which oversees the corrective action program and the condition screening team. The management review committee is charged with, among other things, reviewing the actions of the condition screening team, particularly regarding the condition reports identified as having the highest two levels of significance. The management review committee also reviews draft root cause analysis reports, and any condition reports that could affect the license application. Whereas these functions were previously performed by BSC, the management review committee is now sponsored by OCRWM’s deputy director and includes senior DOE, BSC, and Sandia managers. DOE has also created written policies to clarify the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of the management review committee. The goal of these changes is to refocus management attention––with OCRWM’s deputy director serving as a champion for the corrective action program––and ensure that problems are resolved in a timely and efficient manner.

DOE Has Addressed Other Management Challenges

DOE has addressed to varying degrees three other management challenges identified in our March 2006 report: (1) restoring confidence in USGS’s scientific documents; (2) problems with a design and engineering process known as requirements management; and (3) managing a changing and complex program, particularly given the high turnover in key management positions. Specifically: USGS e-mail issue. DOE has taken three actions to address concerns about the reliability of USGS’s scientific work after a series of e-mails implied that some USGS employees had falsified scientific and quality assurance documents and disdained DOE’s quality assurance processes. Specifically, DOE (1) evaluated USGS’s scientific work; (2) directed Sandia to independently develop a new water infiltration model to compare with USGS’s model and reconstruct USGS’s technical documents; and (3) completed a root cause analysis, including a physical review of more than 50,000 e-mails and keyword searches of nearly 1 million other e-mails sampled from more than 14 million e-mails. DOE’s evaluation of USGS’s scientific work concluded that there was no evidence that the USGS employees falsified or modified information. DOE’s root cause analysis team concluded that there was no apparent widespread or pervasive pattern across OCRWM of a negative attitude toward quality assurance or willful noncompliance with quality assurance requirements. However, the analysis found that OCRWM’s senior management had failed to hold USGS personnel accountable for the quality of the scientific work, fully implement quality assurance requirements, and effectively implement the corrective action program. These internal studies and reports and Sandia’s independent development of a new water infiltration model are intended to restore public confidence in the water infiltration modeling work in the license application.

Problems with design control and the requirements management process. DOE has revised its design control and requirements management processes to address the problems that our March 2006 report identified. In addition, to gauge the effectiveness of these changes, DOE conducted an internal study called a readiness review, in which it determined that the changes in the processes were sufficient and that BSC was prepared to resume design and engineering work. Subsequently, in January 2007, DOE’s independent assessment of BSC and the requirements management process concluded that the processes and controls were adequate and provided a general basic direction for the design control process. DOE has also contracted with Longenecker and Associates to review the project’s engineering processes with the final report due in the summer of 2007.

Management turnover. DOE has worked to fill and retain personnel in key management positions that had been vacant for extended periods of time, most notably the director of quality assurance and the OCRWM project director. In addition, as part of an effort to change the organizational culture, OCRWM’s director has created a team to evaluate how to improve succession planning and identify gaps in the skills or staffing levels in OCRWM. However, DOE continues to lose key project managers, most recently with the departure of OCRWM’s deputy director. Furthermore, additional turnover is possible after the 2008 presidential election, when the incoming administration is likely to replace OCRWM’s director. Historically, new directors have tended to have different management priorities and have implemented changes to the organizational structure and policies. To address this concern, OCRWM’s director suggested legislatively changing the director position by making it a long-term appointment to reflect the long-term nature of the Yucca Mountain project.

Concluding Observations

The OCRWM director’s schedule for filing a repository license application with NRC by June 30, 2008, will require a concerted effort by project personnel. However, given the waste repository’s history since its inception in 1983, including two prior failed efforts to file a license application, it is unclear whether DOE’s license application will be of sufficient quality to enable NRC to conduct a timely review of the supporting models and data that meet the statutory time frames. DOE has taken several important actions to change the organizational culture of the Yucca Mountain project since the issuance of our March 2006 report. These actions appear to be invigorating, for example, the quality assurance program by focusing management attention on improving quality by resolving problems. However, for a variety of reasons, it has yet to be seen whether DOE’s actions will prevent the kinds of problems our March 2006 report identified from recurring or other challenges from developing. First, some of DOE’s efforts, such as its efforts to reduce staff turnover, are in preliminary or planning stages and have not been fully implemented. Therefore, their effectiveness cannot yet be determined. Second, improving the quality assurance program will also require changes in the organizational behaviors of OCRWM’s staff and contractors. OCRWM’s director told us that these types of cultural changes can be particularly difficult and take a long time to implement. Consequently, it may be years before OCRWM fully realizes the benefits of these efforts. Finally, as we have previously reported, DOE has a long history of quality assurance problems and has experienced repeated difficulties in resolving these problems.

Agency Comments

We provided DOE and NRC with a draft of this report for their review and comment. In their written responses, both DOE and NRC agreed with our report. (See apps. I and II.) In addition, both DOE and NRC provided comments to improve the draft report’s technical accuracy, which we have incorporated as appropriate.

Scope and Methodology

To examine the development of DOE’s license application schedule, we reviewed DOE documents related to the announcement and creation of the license application. We also reviewed the DOE management plan for creating the license application and other internal reports on the progress in drafting the application. We interviewed OCRWM’s director and other OCRWM senior management officials in DOE headquarters and its Las Vegas project office about the process for creating the schedule, including consultations with stakeholders. In addition, we observed meetings covering topics related to the license application schedule between DOE and NRC, the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials, and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. These meetings were held in Rockville, Maryland; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Arlington, Virginia.

To obtain NRC’s assessment of DOE’s readiness to file a high-quality license application, we obtained NRC documents—such as the status of key technical issues and briefing slides on NRC’s technical exchanges with DOE. We also attended NRC staff briefings for the Commission’s Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials, including a briefing on NRC’s prelicensing activities; reviewed meeting transcripts; and observed a NRC- DOE quarterly meeting and recorded NRC’s comments. In addition, we interviewed NRC’s project manager who is responsible for reviewing the postclosure portion of a license application, NRC’s on-site representative at the Las Vegas office, and other NRC regional officials. Furthermore, we interviewed the director of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation Safety regarding the status of EPA’s rulemaking to set radiation exposure standards for the public outside the Yucca Mountain site.

To determine DOE’s progress in implementing the recommendations and resolving the additional challenges identified in our March 2006 report, we reviewed prior GAO reports that assessed DOE’s quality assurance process and relevant DOE corrective action reports, root cause analyses, and other internal reviews that analyzed DOE’s efforts to improve its management tools and its corrective action program in general. We also reviewed related NRC documents, such as some observation audit reports. We observed NRC and DOE management meetings and technical exchanges in Rockville, Maryland, and Las Vegas, Nevada, that covered related issues. We also interviewed OCRWM’s director in DOE headquarters and senior managers at the Yucca Mountain project office in Las Vegas about their efforts to address our recommendations. Regarding the quality assurance challenges noted in our prior report, we reviewed a January 2007 GAO report discussing the USGS issue and reviewed DOE documents detailing their actions to restore confidence in the scientific documents. We reviewed internal DOE documents regarding requirements management and interviewed the program’s chief engineer in charge of resolving this issue. Finally, regarding staff turnover in key management positions, we reviewed OCRWM’s strategic objectives, business plan, and project documents and interviewed OCRWM’s director and other senior project managers about their efforts to improve succession planning.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of this report, we plan no further distribution of it until 30 days from the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees, the Secretary of Energy, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and other interested parties. We will also make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or gaffiganm@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. Key contributors to this report were Richard Cheston, Casey Brown, Omari Norman, Alison O’Neill, and Daniel Semick.

Appendix I: Comments from the Department of Energy

Appendix II: Comments from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission