[DOE LETTERHEAD]

 

National Nuclear Security Administration

 

September 10, 2003

 

The Honorable John T. Conway

Chairman

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board

625 Indiana Avenue, NW

Suite 700

Washington, DC 20004-2901

 

Dear Mr. Chairman:

 

This letter is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) interim response to your letter dated July 9, 2003, which requested, “NNSA’s plans and schedules for addressing or rejecting the recommendations made by the Senior Technical Advisory Panel during the past 3 years, and to institutionalize the separation in time for the NESS and readiness reviews.”

 

The NNSA is in the process of doing the following with regard to the utilization of the Senior Technical Advisory Panel (STAP):

 

1.      Mr. Gene Ives is conducting an independent review of the current STAP process.  We have asked him to evaluate the hiring criteria, contracting authority, performance measurements, safety study contributions, and overall value added.  We expect Mr. Ives to give us an unbiased review of how we are utilizing the STAP today and how he believes we can best utilize their expertise in the future.

 

2.      Upon completion of Mr. Ives’ independent review, the STAP Charter will be rewritten and will be approved by the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Military Application and Stockpile Operations.  Our intention is to ensure we manage the STAP in such a way as to continually update/improve the Nuclear Explosive Safety Study (NESS) process.

 

3.      We anticipate having a path forward by the end of September 2003 and will respond back to you by October 7, 2003.

 

We will also address your concerns regarding previous STAP recommendations in our response.  Both the NNSA Service Center and the Pantex Site Office have been working to implement some of the previously submitted recommendations.

 

With regard to your concern about separating the NESS and readiness reviews, we will review this process and will let you know of our decision by October 7, 2003.

 

If you have questions, please contact me or have your staff contact Chuck Westfall of my staff on 301-903-4051.

 

Sincerely,

 

David E. Beck

Assistant Deputy Administrator

for Military Application

and Stockpile Operations

Defense Programs