Since the 1940s, DOE and its predecessor agencies have operated a nationwide complex of facilities used to research, design, and manufacture nuclear weapons and related technologies. DOE also conducts research in energy and sciences ranging from harnessing geothermal power as a renewable resource to the behavior of subatomic particles colliding at nearly the speed of light. Organizationally, DOE supports this broad range of activities with a diverse group of mission- based program elements. These include the Office of Science, charged with conducting basic science and technology research; the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile; and the Office of Environmental Management, which leads the department’s often complex and challenging effort to clean up nuclear, chemical, and other hazardous wastes. Environmental Management carries out its work at numerous DOE sites and facilities around the country, primarily through private entities that manage the facilities and work under contract to DOE. About 90 percent of DOE’s annual budget (which totaled about $27 billion in fiscal year 2010) goes to contracts with private firms. An extensive network of site offices directly oversees the work of these contractors. In 1990, GAO designated DOE’s contract management, including both contract administration and project management, at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. In the following two decades, continued ineffective oversight and poor contract management led to substantial cost overruns and lengthy delays on many projects overseen by DOE, in particular, the Office of Environmental Management. DOE has faced difficulties in developing realistic cost and schedule targets and then achieving them, in part because of challenges addressing complex technical issues, negotiating contracts, complying with regulatory issues, and ensuring safety. Recently, for example, factors such as these have delayed completion of Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant in Washington State. The project has been delayed by 8 years, while costs have escalated, more than doubling the initial estimate, from $4.3 to $12.2 billion. The treatment plant was one of nine major DOE construction projects, collectively valued at about $14 billion, that as of 2009 had exceeded both their original cost and schedule estimates. As we recently reported, DOE has taken steps to improve its contract and management activities, including in 2000 issuing its order 413.3A, which established a process for managing projects, from beginning to end. The order established five major milestones—or “critical decision points”—that span a project’s life, beginning with approval of need and ending with project completion. Order 413.3A specifies the requirements that must be met, along with the documentation necessary, to move past each milestone, including when a variety of independent reviews should occur to assess progress. Other steps DOE has taken include developing a root-cause analysis, a corrective action plan, and performance measures intended to help assess progress. Nevertheless, Environmental Management’s contract and project management activities remain on GAO’s list of programs or agencies at high risk for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. The Recovery Act is intended to promote economic recovery, make investments, and minimize or avert reductions in state and local government services. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Recovery Act would increase employment by about 1.2 million to 3.6 million jobs by the end of 2010. Enacted on February 17, 2009, the act directed that priority be given to projects that could be started quickly. The administration referred to such projects as “shovel-ready.” Projects funded by the Recovery Act must comply with section 1512 of the act, which requires funding recipients to report quarterly on a number of measures, including the amount of funds expended or obligated to projects or activities, and the number of jobs created. The act generally requires that all awarded funding must be obligated by September 30, 2010. Funds must be expended by September 30, 2015. In implementing environmental cleanup work under the Recovery Act, Environmental Management established several goals. These goals included creating jobs; reducing DOE’s “footprint,” or area with ongoing cleanup activity; reducing the life-cycle costs associated with hazardous waste cleanup; completing cleanup activities at three small sites; and meeting a number of regulatory cleanup deadlines that it might not otherwise meet. In addition, Environmental Management set an internal deadline to expend all Recovery Act funds and complete Recovery Act work by the end of fiscal year 2011. DOE generally chose to use Recovery Act funds for cleanup projects that could be quickly started and finished. The majority of the projects selected also had existing contracts, which allowed the department to update and validate new cost and schedule targets within a short time frame. At the time the Recovery Act was passed, DOE was well positioned to select projects that could be implemented quickly with Recovery Act funding. DOE officials said they had planning efforts under way since 2006, which were aimed at identifying relatively low-risk cleanup projects that could reduce DOE’s cleanup footprint and speed overall site remediation. Such projects included, for example, facility demolition, groundwater or soil remediation, or finishing work that could help accelerate site closure. These projects generally had contracts, including cost and schedule targets, in place; they used proven technologies, had secured needed regulatory approvals, and were therefore considered “shovel-ready.” (According to DOE officials, this focus on discrete, low- risk projects stemmed in part from lessons learned during a 2002 cleanup acceleration attempt, which ultimately did not work well for complex and costly projects.) In addition to its internal deadline to expend all Recovery Act funds and complete work by the end of fiscal year 20 other criteria—including job creation and reducing environmental risk— ese also influenced DOE’s selection. DOE officials said that in selecting th projects, they had to balance competing goals. For example, to begin and complete work quickly, they chose a portfolio of cleanup projects that may ultimately reduce DOE’s footprint—its physical presence—on the national landscape by 372 square miles (approximately 40 percent) but would not address the most dangerously radioactive and hazardous wastes and the environmental risks these wastes present. In all, DOE selected 84 projects at 17 DOE sites in 12 states for Recovery Act funding (see fig.1) with the majority of the money going to four sites— Hanford, Idaho National Laboratory, the Oak Ridge Reservation, and Savannah River (see app. III). The vast majority of projects had been included in the sites’ own work plans, such as groundwater remediation at Los Alamos National Laboratory, but some projects also represented work newly transferred from other program offices, such as remediation and demolition of a former weapons facility at Oak Ridge Reservation. In general, projects chosen for Recovery Act funding fell into four main categories of work: Decontaminating and demolishing facilities: for example, decontaminating and demolishing the K-33 building at the Oak Ridge Reservation. A two-level structure that covers 32 acres (see fig. 2) was constructed in 1954 to process and enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Although uranium enrichment operations ceased in 1985, the building’s piping and other equipment were not removed completely until 2005, and radiological and chemical contamination remains throughout the building. DOE had initially selected a different building for demolition, K- 27, which was also used to process and enrich uranium, but it found unexpectedly high levels of mercury contamination, complicating that cleanup. So in February 2010, DOE decided to instead demolish the K-33 building—a much larger building but a less-contaminated and less- complex cleanup project—at a cost of $65 million. Work began in April 2010. Given the delay in starting the project, site officials expect the project to be completed in 2012. Removing contamination from soil and groundwater: for example, removing and disposing of radioactive and hazardous contaminants from soil and groundwater at the Mound Site, a former production site for explosives and other weapons’ components. Production at the site ceased in 1995. The site’s contractor declared the physical completion of environmental cleanup of the site in July 2006, although a landfill remained, which DOE planned to monitor for contamination. Congress, however, directed further remediation of the landfill at the site. The project includes excavating and disposing of contaminated soils and backfilling the site. Although work began with base funding, the funding was insufficient to complete removal of the contamination. Recovery Act funding of $19.7 million was applied to the project to complete remaining work, with an expected site closure date of September 2010. Packaging and disposing of transuranic and other wastes: for example, characterizing and packaging transuranic wastes at multiple DOE sites for shipment to the department’s deep geologic repository for permanent disposal. (See fig. 3.) Transuranic wastes are typically discarded rags, tools, equipment, soils, or other solid materials that have been contaminated by radioactive elements, such as plutonium or americium. About 110,000 cubic meters of these wastes were generated mostly after 1970 and then stored at various DOE sites. Because these wastes remain radioactive for extremely long periods—hundreds of thousands of years in some cases—most are headed for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a deep geologic repository near Carlsbad, New Mexico, designed for transuranic waste disposal. Idaho National Laboratory plans to ship 160 transuranic waste containers—those containers that because of their high radioactivity, must be handled remotely—to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Supporting the maintenance and treatment of liquid tank waste: for example, upgrading the infrastructure used to stabilize and maintain the tanks that store chemical and radioactive waste at the Hanford Site. Projects funded through the Recovery Act are accelerating specific upgrades, such as installing new ventilation systems to prevent the buildup of hazardous and volatile gases produced in the tanks.