has been established to carry out these activities. These countries’ programs appeared to have greater accountability and more effective management than OCRWM’s. The Board recommended a thorough, independent review of the OCRWMmanagement structure to help eliminate inefficiencies in the program (ibid.). In the 1994 “Developing the Transportation System,”OCRWM examined several organizational structures for the transportation system, utilizing contractors to differing degrees. The options identified in the document were as follows: • DOE owned, DOE managed, DOE operated; • DOE owned, DOE managed, contractor operated; • DOE owned, contractor managed, contractor operated; • Contractor owned, contractor managed, contractor operated; and • Federally-chartered corporation (DOE 1994c, p. 3-26). OCRWM released versions of its draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Acquisition of Waste Acceptance and Transportation Services for the OCRWM in November 1997 and September 1998 (DOE 1998a, p. 1). In the draft RFP, OCRWM proposed utilizing four Regional Servicing Contractors, each responsible for waste acceptance and transportation activities in a specific servicing region. While this approach would allow OCRWM to delegate many transportation- related activities to a private contractor, the programwould retain responsibility for stakeholder interactions, policy decisions, final route selections, and providing Section 180(c) funds to states and tribes through which shipments would travel. The requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act would also be carried out by OCRWM (ibid., p. C-3). At the time the first draft RFP was published, the four regional groups had recently reached consensus on three key transportation issues at a joint meeting, and these issues were included in the Midwestern states’ comments on the draft RFP. The four regions agreed that privatization could benefit the transportation program as long as OCRWM were to maintain control over the institutional program. The Midwest therefore praised OCRWM’s decision to retain responsibility for stakeholder interactions. The regions had also agreed that route selection should be carried out by OCRWM and the states, and thus the Midwestern states’ comments expressed support for OCRWM’s decision to retain control over final route selection (MRMTC 1998). The final area on which the four regions had reached consensus was transportation planning. The states advocated the position that for all of DOE’s transportation programs involving radioactive materials, the department should have a consistent approach to resolving issues with the states. The regions believed that theWGAWIPP PIG should serve as the model for all DOE transportation planning. The Midwestern states expressed concern that the approach detailed in OCRWM’s RFP, under which each Regional Servicing Contractor would develop its own transportation plan, would be fragmented, inefficient, and unnecessarily burdensome to the states (MRMTC 1998). OCRWM incorporated several of the comments it received on the November 1997 RFP in a draft RFP issued in September 1998. At
that time OCRWM did not solicit additional comments because it planned to further revise the draft document once a repository site was selected and approved (DOE 1998a). In 2005, OCRWM undertook a “Benchmarking”project in order to identify, document, and better understand best practices for radioactive materials logistics enterprises. The goal of the project was to help OCRWM in developing a national transportation program for shipping spent fuel from reactor sites to a federal repository. The first phase of the benchmarking project examined logistics operations for WIPP, the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, and the FRR program. In 2007, OCRWM published the “Project Status Report and Interim Findings” from its benchmarking project. Two relevant areas that were examined in the report were the transportation business model, including management organization, and contract management and outsourcing (DOE 2007c). The benchmarking report’s key findings with regard to management organization were as follows: 1) build multidisciplinary teams to manage logistics; 2) include representatives from the origin and destination sites on logistics teams; 3) keep logistics management hands-on and delegation chains short to allow the organization to respond rapidly and effectively when issues arise with transportation operations (DOE 2007c). With regard to contract management and outsourcing, the benchmarking report found that OCRWM should consider federal experience with outsourcing strategies. Activities that are not typically outsourced by federal agencies included stakeholder relations, contracting with origin and destination sites, and responsibility for the safety, security, and reliability of the transportation system. OCRWM concluded that mission-critical elements of the logistics enterprise should remain under control of the federal agency (ibid.). Developing a transportation system by which to ship radioactive waste from origin sites to a federal repository or interim storage site will require competent management and adequate, sustained, and predictable funding. Qualified parties that have examined this issue have concluded that OCRWM’s transportation program will need to be given greater autonomy to complete its mission and greater access to the Nuclear Waste Fund. At least one, and possibly both, of these changes will require congressional action. It is in the best interest of the states, as well as OCRWM, for the transportation program to be well-managed and well-funded. Two key decisions have yet to be made regarding the transportation program’s management structure, the first of which is whether the transportation program should remain within OCRWM or be handed over to a private or quasi-private entity. If the transportation program stays within OCRWM, the program will need to determine the extent to which it will contract with private companies for the provision of transportation services. The states feel strongly that certain key responsibilities should remain with OCRWM, and the states would presumably be involved in OCRWM’s decisions regarding which activities should be provided by contractors. If it retains control of the transportation program and receives the necessary funding, OCRWM would do well to continue its benchmarking efforts related to logistics management.
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