Nuclear Waste Cleanup: DOE Needs to Better Coordinate and Prioritize Its Research and Development Efforts, Report to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, House of Representatives   [open pdf - 3MB]

From the Highlights: "R&D [research and development] has played an essential role in EM [United States Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management]'s efforts to clean up massive amounts of contamination from decades of nuclear weapons production and energy research. Such R&D has led to safer, more efficient, and more effective cleanup approaches. Prior studies have found that investments in R&D could reduce the future costs of EM's cleanup efforts, which have increased by nearly $250 billion in the last 10 years. However, funding designated for nuclear cleanup R&D has declined since 2000. GAO [Government Accountability Office] was asked to review EM's R&D efforts. This report examines (1) how EM identifies cleanup-related R&D needs, (2) how and the extent to which EM coordinates R&D across the EM complex, and (3) the extent to which EM prioritizes cleanup-related R&D efforts. GAO reviewed DOE [United States Department of Energy] and EM documents and interviewed EM site and headquarters officials and national laboratory representatives. In addition, GAO compared EM's coordination of R&D to leading practices for collaboration and compared EM's efforts to prioritize R&D with GAO's risk-informed decision-making framework."