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Mission and Functions
Mission
The Office of Environment, Safety
and Health Evaluations evaluates environment,
safety, and health (ES&H) programs and integrated
safety management (ISM) throughout the Department
to determine the status and provide feedback to line
management for needed improvements. These activities
are undertaken to ensure adequate protection of the
public, workers, and the environment at DOE sites.
Functions
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Conducts oversight of the adequacy of DOE environment,
safety and health policy and programs, including
the implementation of safety-related quality assurance
requirements.
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Conducts multidisciplinary environment, safety
and health program inspections that focus on performance
throughout the Department. These inspections focus
on the implementation of ISM at major DOE sites
and include examination of management systems
and environment, safety and health programs related
to all DOE activities and all facility life cycles,
including design, nuclear facility authorization
basis, construction, operation, deactivation,
decontamination, decommissioning, and environmental
restoration. These inspections also evaluate the
effectiveness of line management oversight activities.
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Conducts focused short-notice inspections of
environment, safety and health policy and program
implementation as necessary to further evaluate
and follow up on performance trends at selected
sites and facilities.
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Selects focus areas for review based on inspection
results, operational data, ongoing initiatives,
and/or external feedback. These areas are reviewed
both corporately and at a sampling of sites to
determine best practices, crosscutting issues,
and opportunities for improvement. The results
are published in reports and provided to HSS for
follow-up.
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Provides feedback to Departmental line organizations
on environment, safety and health performance
and determines the adequacy of corrective actions
developed in response to this feedback.
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Communicates the results of these appraisals
to appropriate authorities, including DOE senior
management and stakeholders such as Congress.
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Conducts briefings to apprise senior DOE and
contractor managers and stakeholders (including
the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, citizen
advisory boards, and Congress) on the results
of appraisal activities and on environment, safety,
and health performance.
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Coordinates with the Office of Price-Anderson
Enforcement when appraisal activities identify
potential noncompliance with the Rule consistent
with the Price-Anderson Amendments Act.
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Maintains a broad internal and external perspective
on trends by providing national and international
representation on environment, safety, and health
professional organizations.
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Performs special studies to evaluate issues,
adverse safety performance, or trends at selected
sites.
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Plans and conducts regular evaluations of safety
management policies, programs and ISM implementation
throughout the Department. These evaluations take
the form of integrated safety management inspections,
focused reviews, follow-up reviews, and reviews
of historical environment, safety and health practices,
whose scope encompasses all aspects of operations,
from development and institutionalization-including
implementation of management systems-to working
level (e.g., review of specific projects, design
activities, observation of work activities, and
assessment of essential safety systems and nuclear
facility authorization basis). Reviews evaluate
management effectiveness against laws, Code of
Federal Regulation Rules, Departmental requirements,
and specific environment, safety and health performance
standards.
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Publishes the results of inspections and focused
reviews in reports, and where appropriate, apply
the Office of Independent Oversight color rating
system to evaluate overall site performance. Identify
areas of effective performance, weaknesses, safety
issues, and opportunities for improvement, and
in doing so, promote improved ISM implementation
and environment, safety, and health performance.
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Reviews associated corrective action plans for
adequacy, monitors implementation progress, and
conducts follow-up evaluations to determine the
status and effectiveness of corrective actions.
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Validates environment, safety, and health evaluation
results and safety issues with DOE and contractor
line management and staff.
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Develops an annual report for the Secretary on
the overall status of ISM and identifying strengths,
best practices, common weaknesses and opportunities
for improvement.
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