- GAO says DOE has not defined what makes a contractor assurance system effective
- Hanford and Idaho contractors were rated “effective” despite poor performance and safety issues
- GAO recommended DOE set specific criteria and hold contractors accountable through contracts
The Government Accountability Office on Wednesday recommended that the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management define effectiveness criteria for contractor assurance systems, standardize oversight information and hold contractors accountable through contract mechanisms, following a review of cleanup operations at Hanford, Idaho and Los Alamos.
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What Did GAO Find at Hanford, Idaho and Los Alamos Cleanup Sites?
GAO reviewed contractor assurance systems at three Energy Department cleanup sites: Hanford, Idaho National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. Field offices at Hanford and Idaho rated their contractors’ systems “effective,” while Los Alamos reached no determination.
All three sites reported significant problems, including a Hanford review that found nearly 40 percent of sampled high-priority issues were improperly closed or poorly documented. Idaho’s contractor also reported 15 radiological events over eight months that put workers at risk of overexposure, and Los Alamos experienced a training program breakdown that triggered a 90-day stop-work order.
Why Doesn’t DOE Have Clear Criteria for Assurance System Effectiveness?
According to the report, neither DOE nor its Office of Environmental Management—dubbed EM—has defined what makes a contractor assurance system effective, despite a 2016 policy requiring such oversight.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board flagged the same gap in 2022, reporting that DOE lacked consistent, documented evaluation criteria with acceptable thresholds. A separate 2024 review by DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments found that contractors mismanaged 25 percent of a sample of roughly 4,000 safety issues across nine sites.
GAO stressed that without specific, measurable criteria, field office effectiveness determinations may be less informative and could hinder DOE’s ability to hold contractors accountable.
How Has EM Headquarters Handled CAS Oversight and Contract Accountability?
The government watchdog has found that EM headquarters has not implemented a field office oversight assessment schedule since 2020 and does not collect standardized information from assurance systems to spot complex-wide safety trends.
Officials said they instead rely on incident reporting and direct communication with field offices, but could not demonstrate how that information shapes oversight priorities.
Contracts at Hanford, Idaho and Los Alamos also lacked standalone performance categories or clear consequences tied to assurance system results. DOE concurred with all four recommendations and has set completion dates running through 2028.
How Does This Align With Other GAO Reviews of DOE’s Nuclear Cleanup Program?
DOE’s management and oversight of contractors has been on GAO’s High-Risk List since 1990, one of the longest-standing designations on the list. A May 2026 GAO report found DOE’s Office of Environmental Management understaffed, with total staff dropping 33 percent from fiscal 2023 through 2025 and vacancy rates reaching 45 percent, raising the stakes for contractor self-oversight.
