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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Committees: 

December 2012: 

Department of Energy: 

Better Information Needed to Determine If Nonmajor Projects Meet 
Performance Targets: 

GAO-13-129: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-13-129, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

As of February 2011, EM and NNSA remained on GAO’s high-risk list for 
contracting and project management. These two offices manage numerous 
construction and cleanup projects that each cost less than $750 
million and are called nonmajor projects. DOE requires its program 
offices to establish performance targets for the expected scope, cost, 
and completion date of each project before starting construction or 
cleanup. GAO has encouraged federal agencies to use strategic 
workforce planning to help them meet present and future mission 
requirements. Two key elements of workforce planning are to identify 
mission-critical occupations and skills and any current and future 
shortfalls in these areas. GAO was asked to examine the (1) extent to 
which EM and NNSA nonmajor projects have met their scope, cost, and 
completion date targets, (2) factors affecting EM’s and NNSA’s 
management of nonmajor projects, and (3) extent to which EM’s 
workforce plans identify mission-critical occupations and skills and 
any current and future shortfalls in these areas. GAO reviewed DOE 
documents and project data, examined EM workforce plans, toured 
selected DOE facilities, and interviewed DOE officials. 

What GAO Found: 

Of the 71 nonmajor projects that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 
Office of Environmental Management (EM) and National Nuclear Security 
Administration (NNSA) completed or had under way from fiscal years 
2008 to 2012, 21 met or are expected to meet their performance targets 
for scope, cost, and completion date. These projects included a $22 
million EM project to expand an existing waste disposal facility at 
the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee and a $199 million NNSA project 
to equip a radiological laboratory and office building at the Los 
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Another 23 projects did not 
meet or were not expected to meet one or more of their three 
performance targets for scope, cost, and completion date. Among these, 
13 projects met or are expected to meet two targets, including a $548 
million NNSA project to shut down a nuclear reactor in Russia for 
nonproliferation purposes; 8 projects met or are expected to meet one 
target; 1 project did not meet any of its targets; and 1 project was 
canceled. Of the remaining 27 projects, many had insufficiently 
documented performance targets for scope, cost, or completion date, 
which prevented GAO from determining whether they met their 
performance targets. EM and NNSA often did not follow DOE requirements 
for documenting these performance targets, making it more difficult 
for GAO and DOE to independently assess project performance. 

Several factors affected EM’s and NNSA’s management of their nonmajor 
projects that were completed or ongoing from fiscal years 2008 to 
2012. These factors included the suitability of a project’s 
acquisition strategy, contractor performance, and adherence to project 
management requirements. For example, EM officials managing an ongoing 
project to remediate soil and water at the Idaho National Laboratory 
used an acquisition strategy that tied incentives for the contractor 
to different performance milestones across the multiple subprojects 
within the contract, which will help the project meet its performance 
goals, according to EM officials. In contrast, NNSA encountered 
problems meeting its performance goals for a project to build an 
office building and radiological laboratory at the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory partly due to its acquisition strategy. According to NNSA 
project officials at the Los Alamos site office, the project team 
should have hired one contractor to design the project and solicited 
bids from other contractors to build the project rather than using the 
same contractor for both activities. The former strategy might have 
resulted in a more mature project design and more time to evaluate 
various contractors’ qualifications to construct the project, 
according to the NNSA project officials. 

EM’s workforce plans do not consistently identify mission-critical 
occupations and skills and current and future shortfalls in these 
areas for its federal workforce. In addition, many EM workforce plans 
indicate that EM may soon face shortfalls in a number of important 
areas, including project and contract management. EM officials said 
that they recognize these issues and have taken a number of steps to 
address them, including conducting a skills assessment to identify key 
occupational series to target for succession planning. However, the 
inconsistent terms used to describe mission-critical occupations and 
skills in EM’s workforce plans make it difficult for GAO and DOE to 
understand EM’s most critical needs regarding its workforce. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends that EM and NNSA clearly define, document, and track 
the scope, cost, and completion date targets for each of their 
nonmajor projects and that EM clearly identify critical occupations 
and skills in its workforce plans. EM and NNSA agreed with GAO’s 
recommendations. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-129]. For more 
information, contact David C. Trimble at (202) 512-3841 or 
trimbled@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Some Projects Have Met or Are Expected to Meet Their Performance 
Targets, but EM and NNSA Did Not Clearly Document Information Needed 
to Determine the Performance of Others: 

Several Factors Affect EM and NNSA in Managing Nonmajor Projects: 

EM's Workforce Plans Do Not Consistently Identify Mission-Critical 
Occupations and Skills or Shortfalls in These Areas: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments: 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Summary of Office of Environmental Management Nonmajor 
Projects Reviewed: 

Appendix III: Summary of National Nuclear Security Administration 
Nonmajor Projects Reviewed: 

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Energy: 

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Number of EM FTE Employees at EM Sites as of August 2012: 

Table 2: Expected or Completed Performance of 44 EM and NNSA Nonmajor 
Projects: 

Table 3: NNSA's Criticality Experiments Facility Project, Nevada 
National Security Site: 

Table 4: Extent to Which EM Workforce Plans Identify Mission-Critical 
Occupations and Skills and Shortfalls in These Areas: 

Table 5: Variations among Selected EM Workforce Plans in Identifying 
Mission-Critical Occupations and Skills: 

Table 6: Performance of 17 EM Nonmajor Projects: 

Table 7: Six EM Nonmajor Projects with No Performance Targets: 

Table 8: Four EM Nonmajor Projects with Incomplete Documentation of 
Performance Targets: 

Table 9: Three EM Nonmajor Projects with Modified Scope Targets: 

Table 10: Performance of 27 NNSA Nonmajor Projects: 

Table 11: Two NNSA Nonmajor Projects with No Performance Targets: 

Table 12: Seven NNSA Nonmajor Projects with Incomplete Documentation 
of Performance Targets or Final Cost: 

Table 13: Five NNSA Nonmajor Projects with Modified Scope Targets: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: NNSA Sites: 

Figure 2: EM Sites: 

Figure 3: The Five Critical Decisions in DOE's Project Management 
Process: 

Abbreviations: 

CD: critical decision: 

DOE: Department of Energy: 

EM: Office of Environmental Management: 

FTE: full-time equivalent: 

M&O: management and operations: 

NNSA: National Nuclear Security Administration: 

OAPM: Office of Acquisition and Project Management: 

PARS: Project Assessment and Reporting System: 

PBS: Project Baseline Summary: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

December 19, 2012: 

The Honorable Fred Upton: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Henry Waxman: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Energy and Commerce: 
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Cliff Stearns: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Diana DeGette: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations: 
Committee on Energy and Commerce: 
House of Representatives: 

Since 1990, we have reported that the Department of Energy (DOE) has 
suffered from substantial and continual weaknesses in effectively 
overseeing contractors and managing large, expensive, and technically 
complex projects. As of February 2011, DOE's two largest program 
offices--the Office of Environmental Management (EM) and the National 
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)--remained on our list of areas 
at high risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement for contracting 
and project management.[Footnote 1] Our recent reviews of these 
offices focused on major system acquisitions (or major projects), 
which include construction and environmental cleanup projects that 
each cost $750 million or more.[Footnote 2] However, these two offices 
also manage numerous projects that are smaller, less expensive, and 
less technically complex, called nonmajor projects, that each cost 
less than $750 million. 

EM and NNSA must manage their projects, including nonmajor projects, 
in accordance with DOE's order on project management, Order 413.3. 
[Footnote 3] The order defines DOE's project management principles and 
process, which consist of a series of management reviews and 
approvals, called "critical decisions," that are required to move a 
project forward from project planning and design to implementation. 
One important step in this process is the establishment and approval 
of a project's performance baseline, which represents DOE's commitment 
to complete a project with a specific scope of work at a certain cost 
and by a specific date. The performance baseline consists of three 
interrelated targets--scope, cost, and completion date. A project's 
scope defines its technical goals and includes targets for specific 
technical requirements that the project is to deliver at completion. 
[Footnote 4] For example, for a construction project, the scope 
defines in general terms what facilities and equipment will be 
purchased or upgraded, as well as the project's minimum capability to 
perform the desired function at completion. DOE program offices are to 
establish and approve a project's performance baseline before work can 
start. 

In our 2011 high-risk update, we noted that one of the top 10 issues 
facing DOE is having sufficient people and other resources to resolve 
its contract and project management problems.[Footnote 5] 
Specifically, we reported that, according to the department's 
analysis, DOE lacks an adequate number of federal contracting and 
project management personnel with the appropriate skills (such as cost 
estimating, risk management, and technical expertise) to plan, direct, 
and oversee the completion of a project. To help ensure that federal 
agencies have the personnel with the appropriate skills they need now 
and in the future, we and other organizations have encouraged federal 
agencies to use strategic workforce planning.[Footnote 6] In 
particular, in its Human Capital Assessment and Accountability 
Framework, the Office of Personnel Management specified, among its key 
elements of workforce planning, the need to develop workforce plans 
that identify (1) "mission-critical" occupations and skills that are 
essential to achieving an agency's strategic goals and (2) current and 
future potential shortfalls in these areas.[Footnote 7] In April 2012, 
we reported on issues related to NNSA's workforce planning efforts. 
[Footnote 8] Specifically, we reported that NNSA and its site 
contractors face shortages in qualified critically skilled candidates 
and an aging workforce. NNSA and its site contractors told us that 
they are engaged in workforce planning to avoid potential critical 
skill gaps, but NNSA did not expect to complete NNSA-wide workforce 
plans until 2013. 

In this context, you asked us to look at DOE's management of nonmajor 
projects. Our report objectives were to examine the (1) extent to 
which EM and NNSA nonmajor projects that were completed or ongoing for 
fiscal years 2008 to 2012 met their scope, cost, and completion date 
targets; (2) factors affecting EM's and NNSA's management of nonmajor 
projects during this period; and (3) extent to which EM's workforce 
plans identify mission-critical occupations and skills, as well as any 
current and future shortfalls in these areas. 

To determine the extent to which EM and NNSA nonmajor projects met 
their scope, cost, and completion date targets, we reviewed project 
performance information for 30 EM and 41 NNSA nonmajor projects that 
were either completed or ongoing from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 
2011 and for which EM had established performance targets. We also 
collected performance information for ongoing projects for fiscal year 
2012. The total estimated cost of these 71 projects is approximately 
$10.1 billion. We excluded (1) EM projects funded by the American 
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 because of a separate review 
looking at these projects, (2) information technology projects, and 
(3) operational activities.[Footnote 9] We relied on DOE Order 413.3 
for requirements on how scope, cost, and completion date targets are 
to be specified in a project's performance baseline. In assessing 
whether projects had achieved their scope, cost, and completion date 
targets, we followed Office of Management and Budget guidance and DOE 
performance metrics. Taken together, these sources state that a 
project achieves a satisfactory performance if it completes its scope 
target at less than 10 percent above its cost target and at less than 
10 percent past its completion date target. To evaluate factors 
affecting EM's and NNSA's management of nonmajor projects, we 
conducted structured interviews with EM and NNSA project officials for 
a subset of the 71 projects: a nonprobability sample of 10 EM projects 
and 10 NNSA projects that included completed and ongoing projects, 
with a wide range of project costs. While we cannot generalize from 
these interviews to all EM and NNSA projects, we chose these projects 
to provide examples of factors that affected EM's and NNSA's 
management of these projects. The interviews focused on aspects of 
project management, such as the preparation of project designs, risk 
assessments, and cost and schedule baselines, as well as adherence to 
DOE project management requirements. As part of these interviews, we 
conducted tours of two DOE facilities near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. To 
evaluate the extent to which EM's workforce plans identify mission-
critical occupations and skills and any current and future shortfalls 
in these areas, we examined EM's strategic workforce plans for its 
headquarters and site office staff, DOE's corrective action plan for 
contract and project management, and the Office of Personnel 
Management's Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework. We 
also interviewed DOE and EM officials with knowledge of EM's practices 
in workforce planning, including officials in EM's Office of 
Acquisition and Project Management and its Office of Human Capital and 
Corporate Services (Office of Human Capital). Appendix I presents a 
more detailed description of our scope and methodology. 

We conducted this performance audit from June 2011 to December 2012 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

NNSA--a separately organized agency within DOE--has primary 
responsibility for ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of 
the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.[Footnote 10] NNSA carries out 
these activities at eight government-owned, contractor-operated sites: 
three national laboratories, four production plants, and one test site 
(see figure 1). These sites, taken together, have been a significant 
component of U.S. national security since the 1940s. Contractors 
operate these sites under management and operations (M&O) 
contracts.[Footnote 11] These contracts provide the contractor with 
broad discretion in carrying out the mission of the particular 
contract, but grant the government the option to become much more 
directly involved in day-to-day M&O. Currently, NNSA's workforce is 
made up of about 34,000 M&O contractor employees across the eight 
sites, and about 2,400 federal employees directly employed by NNSA in 
its Washington headquarters, at offices located at each of the eight 
sites, and at its Albuquerque, New Mexico, complex. 

Figure 1: NNSA Sites: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated U.S. map] 

Kansas City Plant (Kansas City, Missouri); 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California); 
Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, New Mexico); 
Nevada National Security Site (Mercury, Nevada); 
Pantex Plant (Amarillo, Texas); 
Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, New Mexico; Livermore, 
California); 
Savannah River Site--Tritium Operations (Aiken, South Carolina); 
Y-12 National Security Complex (Oak Ridge, Tennessee). 

Sources: NNSA; Map Resources (map). 

[End of figure] 

DOE established EM in 1989 to address the legacy of 50 years of 
nuclear weapons production and government-sponsored nuclear energy 
research in the United States during the cold war. These activities 
generated large amounts of radioactive wastes, spent nuclear fuel, 
excess plutonium and uranium, thousands of contaminated facilities, 
and contaminated soil and groundwater. EM currently manages cleanup 
activities at 17 sites across the United States (see figure 2). EM's 
work at a single site can involve multiple activities to retrieve, 
characterize, treat, package, store, transport, and dispose of the 
waste, among other things. EM is also responsible for activities to 
disassemble, treat, package, store, transport, and dispose of the 
contaminated containers or processing lines/equipment used for weapons 
production or for storing or treating the waste. EM oversees and 
implements these activities through agreements with contractors who 
operate the nuclear weapons research and production sites and conduct 
cleanup activities at those sites. Some of EM's cleanup activities are 
located at DOE sites administered by NNSA. Currently, EM's workforce 
is made up of about 18,100 contractor employees at 17 sites, and about 
1,500 federal employees directly employed by EM at its Washington 
headquarters, site offices, and its Cincinnati, Ohio, Consolidated 
Business Center. 

Figure 2: EM Sites: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated U.S. map] 

Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton, New York); 
Energy Technology Engineering Center (Canoga Park, California); 
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, California); 
Hanford Site (Hanford, Washington); (includes the Richland Operations 
Office and the Office of River Protection); 
Idaho National Laboratory (Idaho Falls, Idaho); 
Moab (Grand County Utah); 
Nevada National Security Site (Mercury, Nevada); 
Oak Ridge Reservation (Oak Ridge, Tennessee); 
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Paducah, Kentucky); 
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Portsmouth, Ohio); 
Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, New Mexico); 
Savannah River Site (Aiken, South Carolina); 
Separation Process Research Unit (Niskayuna, New York); 
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Menlo Park, California); 
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (Carlsbad, New Mexico); 
West Valley Demonstration Project (West Valley, New York). 

Source: NNDA; Map Resources (map); EN (site information); 

[End of figure] 

As discussed earlier, EM and NNSA are required to manage their 
projects, including nonmajor projects, in accordance with DOE Order 
413.3. This order requires projects to pass through a series of 
critical decisions (CD), as illustrated in figure 3. In general, DOE 
management reviews and approvals at these decision points are to 
ensure that the project requirements are met. 

Figure 3: The Five Critical Decisions in DOE's Project Management 
Process: 

[Refer to PDF for image: process illustration] 

Critical decisions: 

Project planning and design: 

0: Identify need: 
Is there a mission-related need that can be fulfilled only by 
acquiring new facilities, technologies, or services? 

1: Define project: 
What project would meet the need, and roughly how much would it cost? 

2: Establish the baseline: 
What will be the project's committed scope, cost, and completion date 
targets? 

Implementation: 

3: Begin work: 
Are planning and design complete so that work can begin? 

4: Complete the project: 
Is the project complete or ready for operations? Were the scope, 
costs, and completion target dates met? 

Source: GAO and DOE. 

[End of figure] 

As figure 3 shows, at CD-2, DOE approves a project's performance 
baseline, which includes interrelated targets for scope, cost, and 
completion date. Scope is interrelated with cost and schedule because 
changes in one will affect the other two. Therefore, to determine 
whether a project has met its performance baseline at CD-4--which 
marks a project's completion--it is essential to have information on 
all three performance targets documented and approved at CD-2. For 
that reason, the order on project management requires DOE management 
to clearly identify a project's performance baseline in the document 
approving CD-2. In addition, the order requires projects to undergo an 
independent review--such as a review led by DOE's Office of 
Acquisition and Project Management (OAPM)--that assesses each 
project's cost estimate, schedule, and technical issues before CD-2 
approval.[Footnote 12] 

Over the past decade, EM has revised its approach to managing its 
cleanup activities in accordance with DOE Order 413.3. Historically, 
EM has organized and managed its work around similar waste types and 
activities. For example, EM organized soil and water remediation 
activities at each site under one project category--which EM referred 
to as a Project Baseline Summary (PBS). EM designated other PBSs for 
other activities at each site, such as decontaminating and 
decommissioning nuclear facilities and emptying radioactive waste from 
storage tanks. Each PBS had a numerical designation; for example, all 
activities for soil and water remediation were grouped under PBS 30. 
In 2003, EM began applying the project management principles contained 
in Order 413.3 to its PBSs. In 2007, EM, in conjunction with OAPM, 
issued guidance to better tailor Order 413.3 requirements to its PBSs. 
This guidance directed EM project managers to establish a life cycle 
baseline for PBSs that included the following three key parts: 

* prior year costs--the costs associated with completed cleanup work 
(starting in 1997), 

* near-term baseline--the cost and scope of planned cleanup work over 
a 5-year period (or for the duration of the cleanup contract if it was 
less than or exceeded 5 years), and: 

* out-year estimate--out-year estimates for cleanup work that extended 
beyond the near-term baseline. 

Using this approach, EM, in conjunction with OAPM, established near-
term baseline performance targets for 60 PBSs and 5 construction 
projects in 2007 and 2008. EM estimated that the total cost of these 
activities and projects was $50 billion. 

In 2009, EM began a restructuring process that divided its PBSs into 
smaller units of work--capital asset projects[Footnote 13] (which are 
required to follow DOE Order 413.3) and operations.[Footnote 14] 
According to its 2009 guidance, capital asset projects included 
construction and cleanup projects involving the construction phase of 
environmental restoration (such as soil and water remediation) and 
facility decommissioning and demolition. EM completed its 
restructuring effort by June 2010, at which point it had restructured 
its portfolio of PBSs into 70 capital asset projects and 92 
operations. EM estimated that the total cost of these projects and 
operations was $52.9 billion. 

Regarding workforce planning, EM uses a decentralized process under 
which EM's Office of Human Capital prepares a workforce plan for 
federal employees at its headquarters office and issues guidance to 
the EM site offices for them to use in developing site-specific 
workforce plans for their federal workforce. The guidance directs EM's 
site managers to develop workforce plans consistent with the 
requirements of Office of Personnel Management's Human Capital 
Assessment and Accountability Framework. The guidance also specifies 
that workforce plans should describe shortfalls and surpluses in 
skills that have been identified through ongoing analysis of site 
mission requirements and occupations most critical to site 
performance, among other things. EM's Office of Human Capital does not 
consolidate its headquarters plan and its site plans into a single 
plan. Instead, according to Office of Human Capital officials, all of 
its plans taken together comprise EM's overall strategic workforce 
plan. For fiscal year 2012, EM issued or planned to issue a total of 8 
workforce plans covering 1,460 full-time equivalent (FTE) federal 
employees, as shown in table 1.[Footnote 15] 

Table 1: Number of EM FTE Employees at EM Sites as of August 2012: 

Site: Richland Operations Office/Office of River Protection; 
Location: Washington State; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 398. 

Site: EM Headquarters[B]; 
Location: District of Columbia; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 329. 

Site: Savannah River Site; 
Location: South Carolina; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 291. 

Site: Consolidated Business Center and small sites[C]; 
Location: Ohio; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 194. 

Site: Oak Ridge Site; 
Location: Tennessee; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 74. 

Site: Carlsbad Field Office; 
Location: New Mexico; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 57. 

Site: Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office; 
Location: Ohio; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 50. 

Site: Idaho Operations Office; 
Location: Idaho; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 47. 

Site: Total; 
Number of FTE EM employees covered[A]: 1,460. 

Source: EM Office of Human Capital. 

[A] The FTEs are as of August 23, 2012. 

[B] Because the EM headquarters office had not issued its workforce 
plan, as of September 2012, we used the fiscal year 2011 workforce 
plan for this office to complete our analysis. 

[C] The EM Consolidated Business Center supports the safe cleanup of 
EM sites throughout the United States. The Consolidated Business 
Center's workforce plan covers EM federal employees at the Cincinnati, 
Ohio, location of the Center itself, as well as a small number of 
employees at sites with a minimal EM federal presence. 

[End of table] 

Some Projects Have Met or Are Expected to Meet Their Performance 
Targets, but EM and NNSA Did Not Clearly Document Information Needed 
to Determine the Performance of Others: 

Of the 71 EM and NNSA nonmajor projects we reviewed that were 
completed or ongoing for fiscal years 2008 to 2012, we were able to 
determine performance for 44 projects. Among these 44 projects, 21 
have met or are expected to meet all three of their performance 
targets for the scope of work delivered, cost, and completion date, 
while 23 have not met or are not expected to meet one or more of their 
three targets. The remaining 27 of the 71 projects we reviewed had 
insufficiently documented performance targets or had modified scope 
targets, among other things, which prevented us from determining 
whether they met or were expected to meet their performance targets, 
according to our analysis of DOE data. Determining whether projects 
fully met or partially met performance targets was difficult because 
EM and NNSA did not always follow DOE requirements for documenting 
these targets. DOE has taken steps to ensure that EM and NNSA more 
clearly document performance targets for their projects, but some 
problems persist. 

EM and NNSA Have Met or Are Expected to Meet All Performance Targets 
for Some Nonmajor Projects: 

Of the 71 nonmajor projects we reviewed, 44 projects--17 EM projects 
and 27 NNSA projects--had documented targets for scope, cost, and 
completion date, enabling us to determine their performance. Table 2 
shows the expected or completed performance of these 44 EM and NNSA 
nonmajor projects. 

Table 2: Expected or Completed Performance of 44 EM and NNSA Nonmajor 
Projects: 

EM: 

Completed projects; 
Met all three targets: 5; 
Met two out of three targets: 5; 
Met one out of three targets: 2; 
Did not meet any targets: 1; 
Total: 13. 

Ongoing projects[A]; 
Met all three targets: 1; 
Met two out of three targets: 2; 
Met one out of three targets: 0; 
Did not meet any targets: 1[B]; 
Total: 4. 

EM total: 
Met all three targets: 6; 
Met two out of three targets: 7; 
Met one out of three targets: 2; 
Did not meet any targets: 2; 
Total: 17. 

NNSA: 

Completed projects; 
Met all three targets: 12; 
Met two out of three targets: 5; 
Met one out of three targets: 3; 
Did not meet any targets: 0; 
Total: 20. 

Ongoing projects[A]; 
Met all three targets: 3; 
Met two out of three targets: 1; 
Met one out of three targets: 3; 
Did not meet any targets: 0; 
Total: 7. 

NNSA total: 
Met all three targets: 15; 
Met two out of three targets: 6; 
Met one out of three targets: 6; 
Did not meet any targets: 0; 
Total: Total: 27. 

Total: 
Met all three targets: 21; 
Met two out of three targets: 13; 
Met one out of three targets: 8; 
Did not meet any targets: 2; 
Total: 44. 

Sources: GAO analysis of EM and NNSA project documentation. 

[A] For purposes of this report, projects designated as "ongoing" had 
not reached CD-4 as of Aug. 29, 2012. However, EM provided updated 
information for three projects completed between Aug. 29, 2012, and 
Nov. 19, 2012. 

[B] One EM project was canceled, which we counted as an ongoing 
project for purposes of this table. 

[End of table] 

As the table shows, of the 44 projects for which we were able to 
determine performance, 21 projects met or are expected to meet their 
performance targets for scope, cost, and completion date. 
Specifically, 17 completed projects--5 EM and 12 NNSA projects--met 
all three of their performance targets. These projects included a $22 
million EM project to expand an existing waste disposal facility at 
the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee and a $469 million NNSA project 
to construct chemical, electrical, and other laboratories and 
workspaces at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. In 
addition, as of August 29, 2012, 4 ongoing projects--1 EM and 3 NNSA 
projects--were expected to meet all three of their performance 
targets, according to DOE estimates. These projects included a $77 
million EM project to construct two disposal units for storing waste 
at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and a $199 million NNSA 
project to equip the Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building 
at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to make it 
suitable for performing programmatic work. 

Table 2 also shows that 23 EM and NNSA projects did not meet or are 
not expected to meet one or more of their three performance targets. 
Of these 23 projects, 13 projects met or are expected to meet two of 
their three performance targets, and eight met or are expected to meet 
one of their three performance targets (see apps. II and III for more 
details). In addition, one project did not meet any of its performance 
targets. Specifically, EM's project to decontaminate and decommission 
the Main Plant Process Building in West Valley, New York, did not 
complete all of its planned scope of work when it was completed in 
October 2011, almost 4 months after its completion date target and 
more than $50 million over its cost target of $46 million. EM canceled 
the remaining project--Uranium-233 Disposition project, at the Oak 
Ridge Reservation in Tennessee--in December 2011 after spending 
approximately $225 million. (See appendix II and III for more details.) 

In assessing whether projects had achieved their scope, cost, and 
completion date targets, we followed DOE and Office of Management and 
Budget performance metrics.[Footnote 16] For the scope, DOE states 
that projects must be completed within their original scope target. 
For cost targets, Office of Management and Budget guidance and DOE 
performance metrics regard projects completed at less than 10 percent 
above their original cost targets as having achieved satisfactory 
performance. Regarding completion date, DOE's performance metrics do 
not address targets for completion. However, because Office of 
Management and Budget guidance includes performance standards for 
project schedule, we considered projects to be on time if they were or 
are expected to be completed at less than 10 percent past their 
original completion date targets. 

Inconsistent Documentation of Scope Targets, Among Other Things, Made 
Assessment of the 44 Projects' Performance Difficult: 

We encountered two major problems in assessing the performance of the 
44 projects described above, which made it more difficult for us and 
DOE to independently assess project performance. First, EM and NNSA 
did not consistently follow DOE requirements for documenting scope 
targets and tracking these targets using DOE's performance database. 
Second, EM did not always establish credible completion date targets 
or conduct required independent reviews when it restructured its PBSs 
in 2010. 

EM and NNSA Often Did Not Follow DOE Requirements for Documenting 
Scope Targets and Tracking These Targets in DOE's Performance Database: 

Establishing a clearly defined target for scope is critical for an 
agency to accurately track and assess a project's overall performance. 
In particular, a project's scope of work directly affects estimates of 
the project's cost and completion date. If the scope target is too 
broad or vaguely stated, it can be difficult to track whether or to 
what extent certain aspects of project scope were reduced or 
eliminated between CD-2 (when the baseline was established) and CD-4 
(when the project was completed), potentially affecting cost and 
completion date targets. Accordingly, since 2003, DOE Order 413.3 has 
required that information on scope targets be documented in a project 
execution plan as part of CD-2. The current order also requires a 
project's acquisition executive to sign a memorandum approving CD-2 
that contains this information.[Footnote 17] In addition, the order 
requires that information on scope targets, as well as other critical 
performance information, be entered into DOE's centralized database on 
project performance--the Project Assessment and Reporting System 
(PARS).[Footnote 18] This database, which is administered by OAPM, is 
used to track and report on project performance. 

However, EM and NNSA did not always follow the order's requirement on 
documenting scope targets, and we encountered the following problems 
when we attempted to identify scope targets for EM and NNSA projects: 

* Key project documents associated with CD-2 and identified in Order 
413.3--project execution plans and CD-2 approval memorandums--often 
did not contain information on scope targets. Instead, we had to 
obtain and review a variety of other project documents to try and 
locate this information. For example, we obtained information on scope 
targets for several EM and NNSA projects from briefing slides (i.e., a 
PowerPoint presentation) prepared for a DOE advisory board involved in 
reviewing and approving projects. We also used independent project 
review reports, documents describing the functional and operational 
requirements of the projects, and contractor documents that provided 
detailed descriptions of a project's scope of work, among other 
documents. (See appendix I for more details on our scope and 
methodology.) 

* The additional project documents that EM and NNSA provided to verify 
scope targets were often dated several months (or more) before or 
after the approval of CD-2. Because these documents were often not 
contemporaneous with the date when CD-2 was approved, we had 
difficulty determining whether any scope targets had changed during 
the interval. For example, we obtained information on scope targets 
for two EM projects from a project execution plan that was signed and 
dated almost 9 months after the CD-2 approval memorandum had been 
signed.[Footnote 19] (If documents were not dated within 1 year of CD-
2 approval, we did not consider them sufficient and reliable for 
purposes of determining scope targets.) 

* EM and NNSA often did not clearly or uniformly identify scope 
targets in their documents, instead providing this information in a 
variety of ways. For example, a NNSA project provided this information 
in briefing slides for a project advisory board under the headings 
"programmatic requirements summary" and "physical design summary." In 
cases where we were unable to clearly identify scope targets, we 
relied on EM and NNSA officials to identify the information that they 
considered to represent scope targets. 

OAPM has encountered similar problems in trying to identify scope 
targets for projects at CD-2 and track how well completed projects had 
met these targets at CD-4. Specifically, OAPM officials told us that 
DOE program offices may have documented a project's scope targets in a 
variety of project documents, such as a project execution plan or an 
acquisition strategy plan, rather than in an approval memorandum at CD-
2. As a result, OAPM officials said they occasionally must reconstruct 
a project's scope targets from other contemporaneous planning 
documents near the time of the CD-2 approval. In a few instances, they 
said that no audit trail exists to compare scope targets established 
at CD-2 with the scope targets cited in a project's CD-4 approval 
memorandum. In addition, an OAPM official told us that OAPM has not 
completed the process of locating and entering these data into PARS 
and continues to work with EM and NNSA to reconstruct project scope 
targets near the time of CD-2 approval. 

EM Did Not Establish Credible Completion Date Targets or Conduct 
Required Independent Reviews for Some Projects: 

We found two problems with the performance baselines of many projects 
that EM restructured from its portfolio of PBS activities in 2009 and 
2010. First, several projects did not have a credible completion date 
target. For example, EM's April 2010 memorandum approving CD-2 for the 
Zone 1 Remedial Actions project, located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, gave 
a target completion date of fiscal year 2017, which meant that the 
target completion date was at the end of the fiscal year (September 
30, 2017), according to EM officials. However, EM approved the formal 
completion of this project, via a CD-4 approval memorandum, on 
September 30, 2011--6 years ahead of the completion date target 
identified in the CD-2 approval memorandum. In explaining this 
difference, EM officials stated that they had linked the target 
completion date for this project to the end of the existing PBS near-
term baseline, which had been established before the restructuring 
process. According to EM officials, EM used this method because it 
already had a contract in place to conduct work activities associated 
with the PBS near-term baseline. Since the end of the PBS near-term 
baseline was to coincide with the end of the contract period, EM 
officials said that they did not think it would be appropriate to 
change the target completion dates. In addition, EM officials told us 
that they were more focused on finishing the scope of work for a given 
project within a specific dollar amount, and that it was not worth the 
additional expenditure of time and dollars to modify contracts to 
change the completion date. EM used this same methodology in 
establishing target completion dates for several other projects we 
examined. 

When we found that EM's practice of establishing target completion 
dates did not provide a meaningful benchmark for assessing project 
performance, we had to locate additional documentation to establish a 
more credible completion date target. For example, for the Zone 1 
Remedial Actions project, we reviewed additional documentation and 
decided that a more credible completion date target was December 15, 
2011. As a result, for this and other projects, the completion date 
targets we used to evaluate the performance of some projects are 
different than the ones that DOE uses in its PARS database. 

Second, EM often established a new performance baseline and approved 
CD-2 for a project without having the baseline reviewed by an 
independent team of experts, as DOE Order 413.3 requires. Among other 
things, the review team is responsible for examining a project's cost 
and completion date targets to ensure that they are credible and 
valid. However, EM did not conduct such reviews when it restructured 
some of the projects we examined. Instead, according to EM officials, 
EM relied on independent reviews conducted in the 2007 to 2008 time 
frame as part of the CD-2 approval process for PBS activities. In 
addition, EM officials said that it was not worth the additional 
expenditure of time and dollars to conduct new independent reviews for 
these projects. 

If EM had conducted new reviews as part of its restructuring process, 
it is possible that these reviews would have uncovered problems with 
some of the performance targets that EM had to correct later. 
Specifically, we identified two projects--the decontamination and 
decommissioning of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, 
Kentucky, and the Main Plant Process Building in West Valley, New 
York--for which EM had to significantly increase the cost targets it 
had approved 10 and 5 months earlier, respectively. In both cases, 
these cost increases were due to errors that EM project officials made 
in calculating total project cost. For example, for the Paducah 
Gaseous Diffusion Plant project, the project team did not incorporate 
additional project costs, including funds for contingencies and the 
contractor's fee, into the project's cost estimate. This omission 
resulted in underestimating the project's cost target by about $8 
million, or about 21 percent. In both cases, these errors increased 
the projects' cost targets and caused EM to miss the original cost 
targets, according to our assessment of performance. 

Limited Documentation or Changing Performance Baselines Complicates 
Evaluation of 27 Projects' Performance: 

We were unable to determine the extent to which 27 of the 71 nonmajor 
projects that EM and NNSA completed or had under way from fiscal year 
2008 through fiscal year 2012 had met their scope, cost, and 
completion date targets for four reasons. First, EM and NNSA did not 
establish a performance baseline for eight projects. Second, EM and 
NNSA did not provide documentation that fully identified one or more 
performance targets--including targets for scope, cost, and completion 
date--for eight projects. Third, NNSA did not fully document a final 
project cost or a current completion date for three projects. Fourth, 
EM and NNSA modified the scope targets of eight projects after CD-2, 
rendering the original performance targets unusable for purposes of 
assessing performance. 

EM and NNSA Did Not Establish a Performance Baseline for Eight 
Projects: 

EM and NNSA did not establish a performance baseline for a total of 8 
of the 71 nonmajor projects we reviewed that were completed or ongoing 
for fiscal years 2008 to 2012. Without a performance baseline, a 
project's performance cannot be assessed. Specifically, we found the 
following: 

* EM. EM did not establish a performance baseline for 6 of the 30 EM 
nonmajor projects we reviewed. According to EM documentation, when the 
office established near-term baselines for its PBS activities in the 
2007 time frame, it decided that it would not establish a baseline for 
a few projects that were near completion or for which physical work 
was essentially complete, and remaining costs were low. Because EM had 
essentially completed all physical work before fiscal year 2008 on the 
6 projects we identified, EM never established a performance baseline 
for these projects, according to EM officials. However, we included 
these projects in our review because EM did not formally approve the 
completion of these projects (via a CD-4 approval memorandum) until 
the 2010 to 2011 time frame, which meant that these projects would 
have been ongoing until that time. The combined cost of these 6 
projects is approximately $1.5 billion. (See appendix II for more 
details.) 

* NNSA. NNSA did not establish a performance baseline for 2 of the 41 
NNSA nonmajor projects we reviewed. According to NNSA documents and 
project officials, after a May 2000 wildfire damaged lands and 
buildings at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, NNSA formally 
authorized two emergency recovery efforts in July 2000. Because this 
authorization was granted outside of the critical decision process, 
NNSA did not establish formal performance targets for these projects. 
The combined cost of these two projects is $145 million. (See appendix 
III for more details.) 

EM and NNSA Did Not Fully Define and Document Performance Targets for 
Eight Projects: 

For 8 of the 71 nonmajor construction projects we reviewed, EM and 
NNSA did not fully define and document one or more performance targets 
for scope, cost, and completion date when they established and 
approved performance baselines for these projects at CD-2. 
Specifically, we found the following: 

* For EM, 2 of the 30 EM nonmajor projects we reviewed did not have 
clearly defined and documented targets for scope and completion date, 
1 project did not have a clearly defined and documented scope target, 
and 1 project did not have a clearly defined and documented completion 
date target. The combined cost of these 4 projects, 2 of which are 
ongoing, is estimated to be at least $182 million. (See appendix II 
for more details.) 

* For NNSA, 4 of the 41 NNSA nonmajor projects we reviewed did not 
have clearly defined and documented scope targets. The combined cost 
of these 4 projects, 2 of which are ongoing, is estimated to be $122 
million. (See appendix III for more details.) 

NNSA Did Not Fully Document Final Project Cost or Current Completion 
Date Target for Three Projects: 

For 2 of the 71 nonmajor projects we reviewed, NNSA did not fully 
document the final project cost at CD-4. The final cost has not yet 
been settled for these 2 projects due to pending litigation with the 
contractor. NNSA estimated the combined cost of these 2 projects, both 
of which have been completed, to be $195 million. In addition, for the 
Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Security Upgrades, Phase II project 
at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, NNSA and contractor officials 
have determined that the project's remaining construction costs will 
exceed the existing funds for the project and have halted work on the 
project. As a result, NNSA has not determined what the project's 
revised completion date target will be. 

EM and NNSA Modified Scope Targets for Eight Projects After 
Establishing Performance Targets: 

EM and NNSA modified the scope targets of 8 of the 71 projects we 
reviewed after approving them at CD-2. EM and NNSA used procedures to 
control and approve these modifications but did not establish new CD-2 
performance targets. As a result, the scope modifications rendered the 
original CD-2 performance targets unusable for assessing project 
performance. We consider a project's scope target to have been 
modified if, among other things, EM or NNSA increased the scope of the 
project after approving it at CD-2 or reduced the scope for 
programmatic reasons and provided a sound justification for this 
reduction. In contrast, if EM or NNSA reduced project scope solely to 
meet a project's cost target, we did not consider the scope target to 
have been modified; rather, we considered the scope target not to have 
been met. (See apps. II and III for more information.) 

Projects for which EM or NNSA had modified the scope target sometimes 
exceeded expectations. For example, an NNSA project to build a highway 
at the Nevada National Security Site had an original scope target of 
19.2 miles of highway and a cost target of about $14 million, but the 
project team completed an additional 12 miles of highway at an 
incremental cost of about $4 million, ahead of the original completion 
date target. However, because the scope target changed, the total cost 
of the project also changed, which made it unfair to judge the 
project's performance against its original cost target. 

Table 3 provides an example of a NNSA project for which we consider 
the scope target to have been modified. 

Table 3: NNSA's Criticality Experiments Facility Project, Nevada 
National Security Site: 

Date: Dec. 2005; 
Document: NNSA memorandum approving CD-2; 
Cost target: $145; 
Completion date target: 1Q FY 2010; 
Scope target: The scope includes the following: 
* modifications of part of the unoccupied portion of the Device 
Assembly Facility to (1) accommodate the installation of four critical 
assembly machines that will be transferred from Technical Area 18 of 
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, (2) provide office space and a 60-
seat conference room, (3) provide two vault rooms for storage of 
materials, and (4) provide two control rooms; 
* disassembly and decontamination of critical assembly machines, then 
transporting and reassembling them at the Device Assembly Facility; 
and; 
* modifying the Entry Guard Station to accommodate additional 
personnel during construction. 

Date: March 2006; 
Document: Project execution plan; 
Cost target: $145 million; 
Completion date target: November 2009; 
Scope target: The scope includes work associated with buildings in the 
Device Assembly Facility, each of the four critical assembly machines, 
and the Entry Guard Station, among other things. 

Date: February 2007; 
Document: NNSA memorandum approving CD-3D; 
Cost target: $149 million; 
Completion date target: Not specified; 
Scope target: The 60-seat conference room, part of the baseline scope, 
is eliminated. NNSA originally needed the conference room to host the 
International Atomic Energy Agency's training and exercise activities. 
Later, NNSA decided to host these activities at Los Alamos National 
Laboratory facilities, eliminating the need for the conference room. 

Date: August 2007; 
Document: NNSA memorandum approving a baseline change; 
Cost target: $150 million; 
Completion date target: 3Q FY 2010; 
Scope target: The memo notes the elimination of the 60-seat conference 
room and "the associated scope of work, such as the leach field," from 
the project's scope. Attachments to the memo note that other, new 
scope was added to the project and that therefore additional scope 
deletion may be needed to "realign the cost and the schedule with the 
available funds." 

Date: March 2011; 
Document: NNSA memorandum approving a baseline change; 
Cost target: $154 million; 
Completion date target: June 15, 2011; 
Scope target: The memo states that project scope includes the 
successful completion of all design/engineering, construction, machine 
relocation, control system installation, acceptance testing and 
operational readiness reviews for four criticality assembly machines. 

Date: May 2011; 
Document: NNSA memorandum approving CD-4; 
Cost target: $151 million; 
Completion date target: May 11, 2011; 
Scope target: The memorandum contains contradictory information. It 
lists the full scope approved at CD-2 and states that the 60-seat 
conference room was eliminated from project scope, but it also states 
that the full project scope approved at CD-2 was completed. 

Source: GAO analysis of NNSA project documentation. 

[End of table] 

DOE Has Taken Steps to Ensure Its Projects Have Better Defined and 
Documented Scope Targets, but Problems Persist: 

We have previously reported on problems with the way DOE documents and 
tracks the scope of its projects, and DOE has taken actions to address 
this issue. In a 2008 report on DOE's Office of Science, we noted 
concerns within DOE that projects sometimes had overly broad 
definitions of scope, making it difficult to determine the effects of 
a change in project scope.[Footnote 20] To address this issue, we 
recommended that DOE consider whether it could strengthen its project 
management guidance to help ensure that each project's scope is 
clearly and sufficiently defined. DOE generally agreed with our 
recommendation and revised Order 413.3 in November 2010 to establish 
clearer requirements for identifying and documenting project scope at 
CDs 2 and 4. Specifically, the revised order requires a project's 
acquisition executive to clearly identify the scope target in the 
documentation approving CD-2. In the documentation approving CD-4, 
when a project is declared complete, this official must clearly 
identify the scope accomplished and compare this scope with the target 
established at CD-2. 

To determine whether NNSA and EM had improved their documentation of 
scope targets since DOE revised Order 413.3, we identified two 
nonmajor projects for which NNSA and EM established performance 
targets in 2011. These projects are NNSA's Sanitary Effluent 
Reclamation Facility Expansion project at the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory and EM's Purification Area Vault project at the Savannah 
River Site. In reviewing project documentation, we found that both 
NNSA and EM had provided information on targets for scope, cost, and 
completion date in their memorandums approving CD-2. In particular, 
NNSA's approval memorandum identified the following scope targets: (1) 
expand the existing Sanitary Effluent Reclamation Facility capacity to 
treat 300 gallons per minute of product water in an 18-hour day; (2) 
provide a 400,000-gallon product water storage tank, which provides a 
consistent supply of water to the cooling towers in the event the 
facility is off-line for maintenance; and (3) provide additional 
evaporation capacity. These scope targets provide a quantitative 
measure of how the project is to perform at completion, as required by 
DOE's order. 

However, we found problems with the way EM documented the scope target 
for its Purification Area Vault project. EM's approval memorandum 
provided a high-level description of the project's scope, stating that 
the project will modify an existing portion of the K-Area Complex at 
the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to accommodate a vault; 
implement passive and active fire protection features as identified in 
the project fire hazards analysis; and install a new heating, 
ventilation, and air conditioning system. However, the scope target 
cited in the approval memorandum did not provide sufficient detail for 
measuring scope performance at project completion and, therefore, it 
may be difficult for an independent reviewer to accurately assess 
project performance. Specifically, we found the following: 

* The first part of the scope target--construct a secure storage 
location for holding at least 500 containers--provides a quantitative 
measure of how the project is to perform at completion, as required by 
DOE's order. The second part of the scope target--attain CD-4 approval 
for storage of containers--does not provide a quantitative measure and 
instead reflects a stage in DOE's critical decision framework. 
Therefore, only one part of the scope target can be used to 
independently measure project performance regarding scope. 

* The scope target only captures some of the elements of scope 
contained in the high-level scope description. As a result, the effect 
of any changes to these other elements of scope on project performance 
is unclear. For example, if EM decided not to fully implement the fire 
protection features identified in its hazards analysis, it is not 
clear whether EM or an independent reviewer would consider the project 
to have met its scope target. 

* Only the scope target--as opposed to the other elements of scope in 
the high-level scope description--is currently being tracked in DOE's 
centralized database for project performance. Given the other issues 
we identified with this scope target, an independent reviewer relying 
solely on information in DOE's database may not have enough 
information to assess the project's performance accurately. 

Several Factors Affect EM and NNSA in Managing Nonmajor Projects: 

Several factors affected EM and NNSA in managing their nonmajor 
projects that were completed or ongoing from fiscal years 2008 to 
2012. According to our interviews with project officials, these 
factors included the suitability of the acquisition strategy, 
contractor performance, and adherence to project management 
requirements. 

Acquisition Strategy: 

Because EM and NNSA carry out their work primarily through agreements 
with private contractors, a project's acquisition strategy is a 
critical factor that affects the ability of these offices to properly 
manage their nonmajor projects. According to DOE guidance, an 
acquisition strategy is the high-level business management approach 
chosen to achieve project objectives within specified resource 
constraints. The acquisition strategy is the framework for planning, 
organizing, staffing, controlling, and leading a project. As part of 
this framework, agency officials have to choose the most appropriate 
contract alternative for a given project. Alternatives can include the 
use of multiple contractors to perform different tasks or the use of a 
prime contractor (such as the M&O contractor at a DOE site), who would 
be responsible for awarding subcontracts for different tasks. In 
addition, agency officials should identify the use of special 
procedures, such as the use of a "design-build" contract, whereby a 
single contract is awarded for both design work and construction, or 
the use of a "design-bid-build" contract, whereby separate contracts 
are awarded for the design and construction. 

Some EM and NNSA officials told us that the acquisition strategy was 
an important factor in the successful management of their projects. 
For example, EM retained a prime contractor to manage the Soil and 
Water Remediation-2012 project at the Idaho National Laboratory using 
a contract containing incentives based on cost and schedule 
performance. According to project officials, the fee structure under 
this acquisition strategy is relatively simple and gives the project 
team flexibility to tie incentives to different performance milestones 
across the multiple subprojects within the contract. These officials 
said that this contract structure has been a very effective tool in 
achieving performance goals. EM expects this project to meet its cost 
target of $743 million and its completion date target of September 
2012, and officials said that they expect the contractor to receive 
its incentive fee, as called for in the contract. 

Other EM and NNSA officials cited the existence of an inadequate 
acquisition strategy as having a negative effect on the performance of 
their projects. For example, according to NNSA project officials at 
the Los Alamos site office, the M&O contractor at the Los Alamos 
National Laboratory decided to construct the Radiological 
Laboratory/Utility/Office Building project using a design-build 
acquisition strategy with a single prime subcontractor responsible for 
both design and construction. This approach was chosen based on the 
M&O contractor's experience with constructing office buildings. 
However, the project also involved the construction of a radiological 
laboratory, which entailed the use of rigorous documentation standards 
to show that the project can meet nuclear quality assurance standards, 
among other things. Officials of the NNSA site office said that one of 
their key lessons learned would be to use a design-bid-build 
acquisition strategy if they had to manage a similar project in the 
future. The use of a design-bid-build contract would have offered 
several advantages over a design-build contract, according to these 
officials. First, it would have allowed NNSA staff more time to 
develop more robust project specifications and a more mature project 
design before having contractors bid on the construction of that 
design. Second, NNSA staff might have had more time to evaluate bids 
from contractors to see if they had the skills to construct the 
project. Third, with a more mature design, NNSA might have been able 
to reduce the number of federal staff and the time spent overseeing 
the project. This project was completed in June 2010, a few months 
after its completion date target. Its cost target was $164 million; 
however, the final cost of this project has not been determined 
because of ongoing litigation. According to the officials of the site 
office, NNSA withheld the M&O contractor's performance incentive fee 
as a result of less than desirable contractor and subcontractor 
management during the design and construction of the facility. 

DOE has previously identified ineffective acquisition strategies as 
being among its top 10 management challenges. Specifically, in its 
2008 root cause analysis, DOE reported that its acquisition strategies 
and plans were often ineffective.[Footnote 21] DOE also reported that 
it does not begin acquisition planning early enough in the process or 
devote the time and resources to do it well. 

Contractor Performance: 

Because contractors carry out the work associated with EM and NNSA 
nonmajor projects, contractor performance is a fundamental factor 
affecting EM's and NNSA's management of these projects. According to 
EM and NNSA project officials, poor contractor performance was a 
significant factor impeding their ability to successfully manage 
nonmajor projects. Among other things, officials cited concerns with 
finding qualified contractors that understood DOE's nuclear safety 
requirements and maintained adequate internal control processes. 
Examples are as follows: 

* Nuclear Facility Decontamination & Decommissioning - High Flux Beam 
Reactor Project, Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York: This 
project was completed in December 2010, more than a year ahead of its 
completion date target, and at a cost of $16 million, which was 31 
percent higher than its cost target of $12 million. EM officials 
stated that the major factor increasing costs was that the contractor 
did not properly prepare for and pass internal safety reviews, which 
were necessary to demonstrate the contractor's readiness to begin 
removal and disposal of key reactor components. Because the contractor 
required more time than originally planned to prepare for and pass 
internal safety reviews, work on the project was delayed, and the 
total project cost increased. Officials did not explain why the 
project was completed well ahead of its completion date target despite 
the delays encountered. Officials stated that one of the most 
important lessons learned was to better ensure earlier in the process 
that the contractor had a rigorous process in place (e.g., procedures 
and training) to demonstrate that their personnel were ready to 
perform the decontamination and decommissioning work. Because EM's 
cleanup work at Brookhaven National Laboratory is performed under the 
Laboratory Management and Operations Contract under the purview of 
DOE's Office of Science, EM officials said that they have provided 
information to the Office of Science to be included in the 
contractor's overall performance evaluation. 

* Nuclear Facility Decontamination & Decommissioning - Separations 
Process Research Unit Project, Niskayuna, New York: EM established a 
cost target of $79 million for this ongoing project.[Footnote 22] In 
September 2010, a contamination incident occurred while the contractor 
was performing open air demolition of a building at the site. 
According to DOE's incident report, the contamination incident had two 
root causes: (1) the contractor failed to fully understand, 
characterize, and control the radiological hazard; and (2) the 
contractor failed to implement a work control process that ensured 
facility conditions supported proceeding with the work. As a result of 
this incident, as well as weather-related issues, the project has 
exceeded its cost target, and the project's final cost and completion 
date depend on the outcome of negotiations between DOE and the 
contractor, according to project officials. 

* Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Security Upgrades Project, Phase 
II, Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: This ongoing project 
is expected to meet its cost target of $245 million but not its 
completion date target of January 2013. NNSA used a design-bid-build 
acquisition strategy for this project, with one contractor responsible 
for designing the project, and another contractor responsible for 
construction activities. According to project officials, during the 
construction phase, the building contractor had to stop work when it 
discovered errors with the design of the project. Specifically, 
officials told us the designs contained an erroneous elevation drawing 
that did not adequately account for the presence of a canyon and a 
pipeline containing radioactive liquid waste on the north side of the 
project site. In addition, other construction subcontractors, whose 
work was to be performed in sequence, had to wait to begin their work. 
As a result of these problems, the design contractor spent 
considerable time redesigning the project, according to project 
officials, and NNSA has had to award additional funding and schedule 
time to the construction contractors to compensate for the inadequate 
design. All told, officials told us the additional costs resulting 
from redesign and the delay of construction ranged from $15 million to 
$20 million. In addition, NNSA and contractor officials recently 
determined that the project's remaining construction costs will exceed 
the existing funds for the project and have halted work. As a result, 
NNSA has not determined what the project's revised completion date 
target will be. 

Adherence to Project Management Requirements: 

Effective project management also depends on having project officials 
consistently follow DOE's project management requirements. Among other 
things, these requirements are aimed at ensuring that projects (1) 
have a sufficiently mature design before establishing performance 
targets and beginning construction activities; (2) have had their 
earned value management systems certified for more accurate reporting 
on performance;[Footnote 23] (3) undergo a review by an independent 
group of experts before beginning construction activities; and (4) 
maintain an adequate process to account for any significant changes to 
the project's scope, cost, or completion date targets (known as a 
change control process). DOE has previously identified adherence to 
project management requirements as among its top 10 management 
challenges, stating in its 2008 root cause analysis that the agency 
has not ensured that these requirements are consistently followed. 
That is, in some instances, projects are initiated or carried out 
without fully complying with the processes and controls contained in 
DOE policy and guidance. 

We found a similar problem with adherence to DOE project management 
requirements in some of the projects we reviewed, although these 
problems were more often associated with EM projects than with NNSA 
projects. Specifically, in half of the 10 EM projects we reviewed in 
depth, officials cited a lack of adherence to project requirements, 
particularly not having a sufficiently mature design when establishing 
performance targets and beginning work activities, as a significant 
factor impeding their ability to manage projects within the 
performance baseline. 

For example, EM's project to convert depleted uranium hexafluoride 
into a more stable chemical form at two locations--Paducah, Kentucky 
and Portsmouth, Ohio--was completed in November 2010, more than 2 
years after its completion date target and more than $200 million over 
its cost target of $346 million. A lessons-learned report, completed 
in 2009 at the request of DOE, concluded that DOE's critical decision 
process had become a "mere rubber stamp of approval."[Footnote 24] It 
stated: "In the end, the … Project had results consistent with its 
level of definition at the time of project commitment and execution 
start. Future DOE projects will likely demonstrate similar performance 
unless they are better defined at the start of detailed design and 
they follow not only the letter of DOE's [critical decision] process, 
but also its spirit." According to EM officials, EM withheld the 
construction contractor's incentive fee due to its poor performance. 

In contrast, among the 10 NNSA projects we reviewed in depth, several 
NNSA project managers credited adherence to project management 
processes as contributing positively to project performance. The 
advantages of adhering to project management processes are illustrated 
by one of the projects we reviewed--the Ion Beam Laboratory project at 
Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico. This project--to use ion 
beams to qualify electronics and other nonnuclear weapon components 
for use in the nuclear stockpile--was completed ahead of schedule in 
September 2011 at a cost of $31 million, which was 22 percent lower 
than its cost target of $40 million. Project officials stated that 
implementing a procedure to control any changes to the performance 
baseline and a Baseline Change Control Board served as the foundation 
to manage all changes to ensure that cost, schedule, and technical 
aspects were evaluated to meet the mission of the project. In 
addition, project officials made active use of earned value management 
data, with several officials noting that applying earned value 
management principles on a regular basis assisted the project team in 
taking management actions to keep the project on track. For example, 
the Sandia Project Manager provided monthly reports to Sandia senior 
managers and the federal project director to communicate the project's 
progress, the accomplishment of milestones, financial outlays, project 
issues, and appropriate corrective actions. Owing to the project's 
success in meeting its performance targets, NNSA did not withhold any 
fee from the contractor. 

EM's Workforce Plans Do Not Consistently Identify Mission-Critical 
Occupations and Skills or Shortfalls in These Areas: 

EM's eight workforce plans for its federal workforce do not 
consistently identify (1) mission-critical occupations and skills and 
(2) current and future shortfalls in these areas. As shown in table 4, 
of the eight EM workforce plans, one fully identifies both mission-
critical occupations and mission-critical skills; another four plans 
identify either mission-critical occupations or mission-critical 
skills, but not both; and four of the eight plans identify current and 
future shortfalls in mission-critical occupations. 

Table 4: Extent to Which EM Workforce Plans Identify Mission-Critical 
Occupations and Skills and Shortfalls in These Areas: 

Office submitting plan: EM Headquarters; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: 
Partially; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: Yes. 

Office submitting plan: Savannah River Operations Office; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: 
Partially; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: Yes. 

Office submitting plan: Portsmouth/Paducah Site Office; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: 
Yes; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: Yes. 

Office submitting plan: Richland Operations Office and Office of River 
Protection[C]; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: No; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: No. 

Office submitting plan: Carlsbad Field Office; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: No; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: No. 

Office submitting plan: Idaho Operations Office; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: 
Partially; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: No. 

Office submitting plan: Oak Ridge Office; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: No; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: No. 

Office submitting plan: Consolidated Business Center; 
Does the plan identify mission-critical occupations and skills?[A]: 
Partially; 
Does the plan identify current and future shortfalls in mission-
critical occupations?[B]: Yes. 

Source: GAO analysis of EM workforce plans. 

[A] "Yes" means that a plan identified both mission-critical 
occupations and mission-critical skills; "partially" means that a plan 
identified either mission-critical occupations or mission-critical 
skills, but did not identify both; and "no" means that a plan did not 
identify either mission-critical occupations or mission-critical 
skills. Because not all of the plans used the exact terms "mission-
critical occupations" or "mission-critical skills," we considered 
other phrases used in the plans when determining whether to apply a 
"yes," "partially," or "no" designation. 

[B] "Yes" means that a plan identified current and future shortfalls 
for "mission-critical occupations" or functions described in 
equivalent terms. 

[C] These collocated offices submitted their plans jointly. The plans 
present information separately for each office. 

[End of table] 

EM's workforce plans may not consistently identify mission-critical 
occupations and skills and shortfalls in these areas in part because 
EM's Office of Human Capital has not established a consistent set of 
terms that all EM sites use to define and describe mission-critical 
occupations and skills, according to our analysis. Instead, the five 
EM workforce plans that identified or partially identified these 
occupations and skills (as shown in table 4) used different terms to 
identify them. The plans also differed in the number and type of 
occupations or skills identified as mission-critical. For example, two 
plans identified three such occupations and skills, while another 
identified 20 different job series associated with 40 different 
position titles. Table 5 shows the variations in mission-critical 
occupations and skills identified in these five EM workforce plans. 

Table 5: Variations among Selected EM Workforce Plans in Identifying 
Mission-Critical Occupations and Skills: 

Office plan: EM Headquarters; 
Terminology used in plan: Mission-critical area; 
Description: The plan identifies 3 mission-critical areas (and their 
associated job series): engineer (series 801); physical scientist 
(series 1301); and contracting and acquisition specialist (series 
1102). 

Office plan: Savannah River Operations Office; 
Terminology used in plan: Mission-critical occupation; 
Description: The plan identifies 10 different job series associated 
with mission-critical occupations: 0110 ("Economist"); 
0201 ("Human Resources Specialist"); 0511 ("Auditor") 0801 ("General 
Engineer"/"General Engineer (Facility Representative)"); 0804 ("Fire 
Protection Engineer"); 0840 ("Nuclear Engineer"/"Nuclear/Criticality 
Safety Specialists and Facility Engineers"); 0850 ("Electrical 
Engineer"); 1102 ("Contract Specialist"); 1301 ("Physical Scientist/ 
"Physical Scientist (Facility Representative)"); and 2210 
("Information Technology Specialist/Series"). 

Office plan: Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office; 
Terminology used in plan: Critical technical capabilities/areas 
requiring additional support; 
Description: In the workforce plan's section on Critical Technical 
Capabilities, the plan identifies "the areas requiring additional 
support" and requests additional staff in each. It identifies 7 such 
areas: (1) Project/Program Management, (2) Contracting, (3) Safeguards 
and Security, (4) Environment, Safety and Health, (5) Quality 
Assurance, (6) Technical Writer/Editor, and (7) Human Resources. 

Office plan: Idaho Operations Office; 
Terminology used in plan: Mission-critical position; 
Description: The plan identifies 3 mission-critical positions: deputy 
manager, assistant manager, and federal project director. The plan 
also identifies 25 "competencies" but does not list any as being 
critical or mission-critical. 

Office plan: Consolidated Business Center; 
Terminology used in plan: Mission-critical occupation; 
Description: The plan identifies 20 different job series as 
constituting "mission-critical occupations." These job series, in 
turn, are associated with 40 different position titles. The position 
titles identified include Program Manager, General Engineer, and 
Contract Specialist. 

Source: GAO analysis of EM workforce plans. 

[End of table] 

When we brought the issue of inconsistent terminology to the attention 
of EM officials, they agreed that it would be useful to establish a 
consistent set of terms for mission-critical occupations and skills 
and told us that they plan to address this issue in the fiscal year 
2013 planning cycle. However, we note that EM's guidance to its site 
offices already instructed them to describe shortfalls and surpluses 
in the skills most critical to site performance; nonetheless, not all 
site offices did so. 

Notwithstanding the variations in terms for mission-critical 
occupations and skills in EM's workforce plans, many of the plans 
indicate that EM's federal workforce may soon face shortfalls in a 
number of important areas, including project and contract management. 
Examples are as follows: 

* The Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office's plan states that the office 
will need more staffing, including in project management and 
contracting, to meet mission needs in future years. Specifically, the 
plan notes that 31 percent of its current federal workforce could 
retire by fiscal year 2017, including up to 67 percent of its contract 
specialists and up to 64 percent of its general engineers. 

* The workforce plan for EM headquarters, issued in July 2011, stated 
that 26 percent of its federal workforce was currently eligible to 
retire, with an additional 22 percent of the workforce projected to 
become eligible for retirement by fiscal year 2015. The EM 
headquarters plan projected that 60 percent of contracting officers 
would be eligible for retirement by fiscal year 2015. 

* The Idaho Operations Office workforce plan states that a significant 
number of federal employees in leadership and mission-critical 
positions were already eligible for retirement at the end of fiscal 
year 2011, but the plan does not specify the number or positions of 
these employees. 

* The Carlsbad Field Office workforce plan indicates that both of that 
office's "contract/procurement specialists" will be eligible to retire 
by fiscal year 2017, along with 10 of its 15 general engineers. 

* The workforce plan for the Office of River Protection, which manages 
the storage, retrieval, treatment, and disposal of tank waste at the 
Hanford Site in Washington State, projects that the office will face a 
61 percent shortfall in "contracting" and a 53 percent shortfall in 
"project management" by fiscal year 2017. 

EM officials said that they recognize the need to better identify 
mission-critical occupations and skills and shortfalls in these areas, 
and that they have taken a number of steps to address these issues. 
For example, officials in EM's Office of Human Capital told us that 
they conducted a skills assessment in 2010 that helped EM identify key 
occupational series to target in its succession planning efforts. In 
addition, officials in this office told us that they are actively 
engaged in mitigating the risk of having a large number of EM federal 
employees retire in the near future by developing a voluntary 
separation incentive plan and voluntary early retirement plan. If 
employees eligible for retirement participate in this plan, EM could 
fill vacated positions with younger employees who could develop their 
skills in future years. Moreover, officials in EM's Office of 
Acquisition and Project Management told us that to ensure that each 
project team has the skilled staff it needs to meet project goals, 
they consult with the EM officials in charge of each project team, 
consider the project's execution plan, and use DOE staffing guidance 
as a tool to inform staffing decisions.[Footnote 25] 

EM officials also said that EM sites serve diverse functions and that, 
therefore, some variation in the workforce plans and their 
descriptions of mission-critical occupations and competencies is to be 
expected. Nonetheless, without a workforce plan or summary document 
presenting a consistent set of occupations and skills that are 
critical to every site office's mission, such as project and contract 
management, it is difficult for DOE and us to understand EM's most 
critical current and future human capital needs. 

Conclusions: 

The 71 nonmajor projects that we reviewed cost an estimated $10.1 
billion and are critical to DOE's mission to secure the nation's 
nuclear weapons stockpile and manage the radioactive waste and 
contamination that resulted from the production of such weapons. EM 
and NNSA are making some progress in managing these projects. For 
example, we identified some NNSA and EM nonmajor projects that used 
sound project management practices, such as the application of 
effective acquisition strategies, to help ensure the successful 
completion of these projects. However, some contract and project 
management problems persist. Specifically, both EM and NNSA have 
approved the start of construction and cleanup activities for some 
nonmajor projects without clearly defining and documenting performance 
targets for scope, cost, or completion date in the appropriate CD-2 
documentation, as required by DOE's project management order. In 
addition, EM and NNSA have not consistently tracked project 
performance, particularly for scope, in DOE's centralized database for 
tracking and reporting project performance, as required by DOE's 
project management order. Moreover, EM has approved new performance 
targets for projects without ensuring that these targets are reviewed 
by an independent team of experts, as required by DOE's project 
management order. Without clearly defining and documenting a project's 
performance targets and tracking performance against these targets 
through project completion, and without ensuring that projects are 
independently reviewed, neither DOE nor we can determine whether the 
department is truly delivering on its commitments when its contractors 
complete work on its projects. 

Problems also persist regarding DOE's workforce--specifically, its 
current and potential shortfalls in federal personnel with the skills 
necessary to manage its contracts and projects, an issue that has 
received attention in our high-risk list. EM recognizes the need to 
address this issue and has taken steps to do so, such as conducting 
succession planning based on an assessment of key skills, as well as 
having EM's Office of Project Management consult with EM's project 
teams to ensure that the project teams have the skilled personnel they 
need to execute projects successfully. However, EM does not 
consistently identify in its workforce plans the occupations and 
skills most critical to the agency's mission, as well as current and 
future shortfalls in these areas. This issue is compounded by EM's 
decentralized planning process, in which site offices produce their 
own workforce plans that do not use consistent terminology and are not 
aggregated centrally by EM headquarters into a single workforce plan 
or summary document. Some variation among site-specific workforce 
plans is to be expected, but EM officials have stated that it would be 
useful to establish a consistent set of terms for mission-critical 
occupations and skills and told us that they plan to address this 
issue in the fiscal year 2013 planning cycle. That said, previous EM 
guidance for workforce planning specified that the plans describe 
shortfalls and surpluses in the skills most critical to site 
performance, but not all of EM's plans did so. Without a summary 
document or single workforce plan presenting a consistent set of 
occupations and skills that are critical to every site office's 
mission, such as project and contract management, using consistent 
terms, it is difficult for DOE or us to understand EM's most critical 
current and future human capital needs. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To ensure that DOE better tracks information on its nonmajor projects, 
including the extent to which these projects meet their performance 
targets, and that EM consistently identifies mission-critical 
occupations and skills, as well as any current and future shortfalls 
in these areas, in its workforce plans, we recommend that the 
Secretary of Energy take the following five actions: 

* Ensure that the department clearly defines performance targets--
including targets for scope, cost, and completion date--for each of 
its projects and documents the targets in appropriate CD-2 
documentation, as is required by DOE's project management order. 

* Ensure that the department tracks the performance of its projects 
using the performance targets, particularly scope, it establishes for 
its projects, as is required by DOE's project management order. 

* Ensure that each project is reviewed by an independent team of 
experts before the department approves performance targets, as is 
required by DOE's project management order. 

* Direct EM to develop a summary document or a single workforce plan 
that contains information on mission-critical occupations and skills, 
as well as current and potential future shortfalls in these areas, for 
all EM sites. 

* Ensure that EM follows through on its plan to address the use of 
consistent terms across all EM sites for mission-critical occupations 
and skills. 

Agency Comments: 

We provided a draft of this report to DOE for review and comment. In 
written comments, DOE agreed with our recommendations. DOE's written 
comments are reprinted in appendix IV. DOE also provided technical 
clarifications, which we incorporated as appropriate. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the 
Secretary of Energy, the appropriate congressional committees, and 
other interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at 
no charge on the GAO website at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, 
please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or trimbled@gao.gov. Contact 
points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs 
may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix V. 

Signed by: 

David C. Trimble: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

To determine the extent to which the Department of Energy's (DOE) 
Office of Environmental Management (EM) and National Nuclear Security 
Administration (NNSA) nonmajor projects have met their scope, cost, 
and completion date targets, we obtained performance information on 71 
nonmajor projects. These 71 nonmajor projects included 30 EM projects 
and 41 NNSA projects that were either: (1) completed (i.e., reached 
critical decision 4) from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2011 or (2) 
ongoing from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2011 and for which EM and 
NNSA had established performance baselines at critical decision 2. We 
also collected performance information for ongoing projects for fiscal 
year 2012. The total estimated cost of these 71 projects is 
approximately $10.1 billion. The names and locations of these 71 
projects are provided in apps. II and III. We excluded the following 
types of projects from our review: (1) major projects, or those 
projects that each cost more than $750 million; (2) EM projects funded 
entirely by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 because 
of a separate GAO review looking at these projects; (3) information 
technology acquisitions; and (4) operational activities.[Footnote 26] 
We identified these projects using DOE's Project Assessment and 
Reporting System (PARS). To assess the reliability of PARS data, we 
interviewed officials about the system and reviewed relevant 
documents. On the basis of this information, we determined that the 
system has adequate and sound controls for entering and maintaining 
data. We also conducted electronic testing on the specific data fields 
of interest, including cost, schedule, and scope targets. We 
determined that the cost and schedule data were complete and 
sufficiently reliable for our purposes; however, we found the scope 
data to be incomplete. Through interviews with officials, we 
ascertained that the scope data were not missing because of a system 
or data entry problem; instead, because EM and NNSA had not 
consistently identified and documented scope targets for the 71 
projects we reviewed, these data could not be entered into PARS. 
Therefore, we obtained data on project scope, cost, and schedule 
directly from EM and NNSA officials. 

For the 71 nonmajor projects, we reviewed selected documents providing 
information about the projects' targets for scope, cost, and 
completion date. We relied on DOE Order 413.3 for requirements on (1) 
specifying the scope, cost, and schedule targets for a project's 
performance baseline and (2) documenting the performance baseline. 
[Footnote 27] Using these requirements, we reviewed the relevant 
documentation (including critical decision memoranda and project 
execution plans) and compared the performance targets established for 
scope, cost, and schedule with the actual performance of completed 
projects and the expected performance of ongoing projects. For 
completed projects, we compared the performance targets for scope, 
cost, and schedule--as documented in critical decision 2 (CD-2) 
approval memorandum and project execution plans--with the completed 
scope, actual costs, and approval dates as documented in critical 
decision 4 (CD-4) approval memorandum. For ongoing projects, we 
compared the performance targets for scope, cost, and schedule with 
DOE project performance reports; we also had officials from EM, NNSA, 
and DOE's Office of Acquisition and Project Management review 
performance information as of August 29, 2012. In cases where key 
project documents--including the CD-2 and CD-4 approval memoranda and 
project execution plans--did not identify all three performance 
targets for scope, cost, and completion, we requested and reviewed 
alternative project documents. These included, among other things: 
independent project review reports; briefing slides prepared for DOE 
advisory boards; contractor work packages; DOE documents listing the 
functional and operational requirements of projects; memoranda used to 
request approval of changes to project baselines; final acceptance 
reports documenting that contractors delivered project requirements; 
and DOE quarterly and monthly status reports on ongoing projects. When 
reviewing alternative project documents, we requested documents dated 
as close to CD-2 and CD-4 as possible. If documents were not dated 
within 1 year of CD-2 approval, we did not consider them sufficient 
and reliable for purposes of determining scope targets. 

In keeping with our prior work, and in recognition of Office of 
Management and Budget guidance and DOE's project performance goals, we 
characterized nonmajor projects that met or exceeded (or are expected 
to meet or exceed) their cost and schedule targets by less than 10 
percent as completed within budget and on time, whereas we considered 
projects that exceeded (or will exceed) their targets by 10 percent or 
more to be over cost or late.[Footnote 28] In addition, we considered 
whether a project had successfully met its scope target. Projects that 
reduced their scope target to meet their cost targets were considered 
not to have met their scope targets. In a few cases, EM and NNSA 
increased the scope of work associated with a project after 
establishing performance targets at CD-2; in these cases, we noted 
that these projects had been modified and did not calculate whether 
they had met or exceeded their original cost and schedule targets. 

To evaluate factors affecting EM's and NNSA's management of nonmajor 
projects, we selected a nongeneralizable sample of 20 out of the 71 
projects--including 10 EM projects and 10 NNSA projects--for more 
detailed review. The names of these 20 projects are provided in apps 
II and III. Results from nonprobability samples, including our sample 
of 20 projects, cannot be used to make inferences about EM's and 
NNSA's overall project performance or generalized to projects we did 
not include in our sample. We were interested in gathering information 
on the selected projects to identify material factors that may not 
exist across all projects but could help us understand EM's and NNSA's 
organization strengths and potential challenges. We selected these 20 
projects to ensure that our sample included completed and ongoing 
projects, with a wide range of project costs. Together, the 20 
projects represented about $4.1 billion, or approximately 41 percent, 
of the total value of the 71 projects. 

For these 20 projects, we developed a structured interview template to 
identify the key factors that affected the management of these 
projects. We used three primary sources in developing this structured 
interview template--GAO's cost guide, DOE's Order 413.3, and DOE's 
guidance document on conducting project reviews.[Footnote 29] The 
structured interview template focused on certain aspects of project 
management, such as the preparation of project designs, risk 
estimates, and cost and schedule targets, as well as the adherence to 
DOE project management requirements. We pretested the structured 
interview template during a site visit to the Y-12 National Security 
Complex and the Oak Ridge Reservation near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. At 
each site, we selected six projects and interviewed relevant EM and 
NNSA federal project directors and other knowledgeable staff using the 
structured interview template. Based on our pretesting, we revised the 
structured interview template and conducted 20 interviews with the 
relevant EM and NNSA federal project directors and other knowledgeable 
staff to gather their perspectives on their projects' performance and 
reasons for it. 

To evaluate the extent to which EM's workforce plans identify mission-
critical occupations and skills and any current and future shortfalls 
in these areas, we examined EM's strategic workforce plans for its 
headquarters and site office staff, DOE's corrective action plan for 
contract and project management, and the Office of Personnel 
Management's Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework. 
Specifically, we obtained the eight EM workforce plans, prepared by EM 
headquarters, the Consolidated Business Center, the Richland 
Operations Office and Office of River Protection (which manage 
operations at the EM site in Hanford, Washington), the 
Portsmouth/Paducah Site Office, the Savannah River Operations Office, 
the Idaho Operations Office, the Carlsbad Field Office, and the Oak 
Ridge Office. We reviewed these plans in their entirety, and also 
searched for relevant terms, to determine the extent to which the 
plans identified mission-critical occupations and skills and any 
current and future shortfalls in these areas. In addition to our 
document review, we interviewed DOE and EM officials with knowledge of 
EM's practices in workforce planning, including officials in EM's 
Office of Acquisition and Project Management and Office of Human 
Capital and Corporate Services. We conducted these interviews to 
determine how EM develops its workforce plans and to obtain EM 
officials' points of view regarding the state of the EM workforce. 

We conducted this performance audit from June 2011 to December 2012 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Summary of Office of Environmental Management Nonmajor 
Projects Reviewed: 

We obtained and reviewed performance information on 30 EM nonmajor 
projects that were either completed or ongoing from fiscal year 2008 
through fiscal year 2012. Table 6 summarizes this information for 17 
EM projects for which we could determine performance. Table 7 
summarizes this information for 6 projects for which EM did not 
establish performance targets. Table 8 summarizes this information for 
4 EM projects with incomplete documentation of their performance 
targets, which meant that we could not determine performance. Table 9 
summarizes this information for 3 projects for which EM modified the 
scope after establishing performance targets for these projects, 
rendering the original performance targets unusable for purposes of 
assessing performance. 

Table 6: Performance of 17 EM Nonmajor Projects: 

Site: Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois: 

Project: Building 301 Hot Cell Decontamination and Demolition; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $18 million; Final: $14 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (19%);
Completion date[B]: Target: 5/20/2009; Final: 2/23/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 28%. 

Site: Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York: 

Project: Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor, Nuclear Facility 
Decontamination and Decommissioning; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $54 million; Final: $74 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 37%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2012; Final: 8/31/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (2%). 

Project: High Flux Beam Reactor, Nuclear Facility Decontamination and 
Decommissioning[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $12 million; Final: $16 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 31%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2012; Final: 12/20/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (57%). 

Site: Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho: 

Project: Sodium Bearing Waste Treatment[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $462 million; Final: $571 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 24%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 7/31/2010; Final: 4/11/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 32%. 

Project: Soil and Water Remediation--2012[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $743 million; Final: $480; million 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (35%);
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2012; Final: 9/26/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Site: Nevada National Security Site, Nevada: 

Project: Solid Waste Stabilization and Disposition; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $30 million; Final: $29 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (4%);
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2008; Final: 11/23/2009; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 63%. 

Site: Oak Ridge Reservation, Tennessee: 

Project: Cell 6 Expansion[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $31 million; Final: $22 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (29%);
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/24/2011; Final: 6/24/2011; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Project: K-25 Decontamination and Decommissioning; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $479 million; Current: $1.397 billion; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 191%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2017; Current: 12/31/2015; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (31%). 

Project: Soil and Water Remediation--Offsites; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $13 million; Final: $11 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (22%);
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2012; Final: 9/10/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (80%). 

Project: Tank W1A; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $48 million; Current: $51 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 7%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/7/2011; Current: 9/30/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 52%. 

Project: U-233 Disposition--Building 3019[D]; 
Status: Canceled; 
Scope[A]: Target not met; 
Cost[B]: Target: $240 million; Final: $225 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: Not applicable;
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/18/2014; Final: not applicable; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: Not applicable. 

Project: Zone 1 Remedial Actions; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $19 million; Final: $19 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 1%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/15/11; Final: 9/30/2011; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (14%). 

Site: Paducah, Kentucky: 

Project: Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Conversion[D, E]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $346 million; Final: $580 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 68%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/30/2008; Final: 11/12/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 46%. 

Project: Nuclear Facility Decontamination and Decommissioning--Paducah 
Gaseous Diffusion Plant; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $30 million; Final: $35 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 17%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/12/2012; Final: 9/27/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (8%). 

Site: Savannah River Site, South Carolina: 

Project: Saltstone Disposal Unit 2; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $32 million; Final: $33 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 3%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 11/30/2012; Final: 6/27/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (19%). 

Project: Saltstone Disposal Units 3 & 5[D]; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $77 million; Current: $77 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0;
Completion date[B]: Target: 7/31/2014; Current: 7/31/2014; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Site: West Valley, New York: 

Site and project: Main Plant Process Building Decontamination and 
Decommissioning[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Target not met; 
Cost[B]: Target: $46 million; Final: $100 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 117%;
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/30/2011; Final: 10/26/2011; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 22%. 

Source: GAO analysis of EM project documentation. 

[A] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish a performance 
target for scope at critical decision 2. In cases where these targets 
were not clearly documented, we worked with agency officials to 
identify equivalent targets. For completed projects, "met target" 
means that the project completed all work associated with its scope 
target as documented at critical decision 4; "target not met" means 
that the project did not complete all work associated with its scope 
target as documented at critical decision 4. For ongoing projects, 
"meeting target" means that the project is expected to meet its scope 
target, based on DOE's projections as of Aug. 29, 2012. 

[B] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish performance 
targets for cost and completion date at critical decision 2. In cases 
where completion date targets were not clearly documented, we worked 
with agency officials to identify equivalent targets. For completed 
projects, the final cost is documented at critical decision 4, and the 
date of the memorandum approving critical decision 4 reflects the 
formal completion of the project. For ongoing projects, the current 
cost and completion date reflect DOE's projections as of Aug. 29, 2012. 

[C] To determine the extent to which each project finished or is 
expected to finish under or over its target cost, we computed the 
percentage change from the target cost to the final or current cost. 
To determine the extent to which each project finished or is expected 
to finish before or after its target completion date, we computed the 
percentage change from the planned project length (the period between 
DOE's approval of critical decision 2, which is not shown in the 
table, and the target completion date) to the actual or projected 
project length (the period between critical decision 2 and critical 
decision 4). 

[D] Part of our nongeneralizable sample of 10 EM nonmajor projects 
selected for in-depth review. 

[E] This project also includes construction activities at Portsmouth, 
Ohio. 

[End of table] 

Table 7: Six EM Nonmajor Projects with No Performance Targets: 

Site: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California; 

Project: Soil and Groundwater Remediation, Operable Units 1-8; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $125 million; 
Completion date: 6/10/2010. 

Site: Miamisburg, Ohio; 

Project: Nuclear Facility Decontamination and Decommissioning; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $505 million; 
Completion date: 4/25/2011. 

Project: Soil and Water Remediation; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $250 million; 
Completion date: 4/25/2011. 

Project: Solid Waste Stabilization and Disposal; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $265 million; 
Completion date: 4/25/2011. 

Site: Pantex Site, Texas; 

Project: Soil and Water Remediation; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $76 million; 
Completion date: 2/1/2010. 

Site: Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico; 

Project: Soil and Water Remediation; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $235 million; 
Completion date: 6/10/2010. 

Source: GAO analysis of EM project documentation. 

[End of table] 

Table 8: Four EM Nonmajor Projects with Incomplete Documentation of 
Performance Targets: 

Site: Grand County, Utah; Status: [Empty]. 

Project: Moab Uranium Mill Tailings - Capital Assets[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $41 million; Final: $39 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (3%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: undefined; Final: 7/16/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: Unable to determine. 

Site: Niskayuna, New York: 

Project: Nuclear Facility Decontamination and Decommissioning-
Separations Process Research Unit[D]; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Target undefined; 
Cost[B]: Target: $79 million; Current: to be determined; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: Unable to determine; 
Completion date[B]: Target: undefined; Current: to be determined; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: Unable to determine. 

Site: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: 

Project: Corrective Actions-Canon de Valle; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Target undefined; 
Cost[B]: Target: $53 million; Current: $53 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0; 
Completion date[B]: Target: undefined; Current: undefined[E]; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: Unable to determine. 

Site: Oak Ridge Reservation, Tennessee: 

Project: ETTP Main Plant Area Decontamination and Decommissioning; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Target undefined; 
Cost[B]: Target: $19 million; Final: $11 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (43%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2011; Final: 9/30/2011; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Source: GAO analysis of EM project documentation. 

[A] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish a performance 
target for scope at critical decision 2. In cases where these targets 
were not clearly identified and documented at critical decision 2, we 
listed these targets as "undefined." For ongoing projects, "meeting 
target" means that the project is expected to meet its scope target, 
based on DOE's projections as of Aug. 29, 2012. 

[B] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish performance 
targets for cost and completion date at critical decision 2. In cases 
where these targets were not clearly identified and documented at 
critical decision 2, we listed these targets as "undefined." For 
completed projects, the final cost is documented at critical decision 
4, and the date of the memorandum approving critical decision 4 
reflects the formal completion of the project. For ongoing projects, 
the current cost and completion date reflects DOE's projections as of 
Aug. 29, 2012. 

[C] To determine the extent to which each project finished or is 
expected to finish under or over its target cost, we computed the 
percentage change from the target cost to the final or current cost. 
To determine the extent to which each project finished or is expected 
to finish before or after its target completion date, we computed the 
percentage change from the planned project length (the period between 
DOE's approval of critical decision 2, which is not shown in the 
table, and the target completion date) to the actual or projected 
project length (the period between critical decision 2 and critical 
decision 4). In cases where we were unable to make these calculations, 
we listed the percentage as "unable to determine." 

[D] Part of our nongeneralizable sample of 10 EM nonmajor projects 
selected for in-depth review. 

[E] Because we were unable to determine the completion date target for 
this ongoing project, we listed the current estimate of the completion 
date target as "undefined." 

[End of table] 

Table 9: Three EM Nonmajor Projects with Modified Scope Targets: 

Site: Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho: 
Project: Nuclear Material Stabilization and Disposition; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope modification: The original scope target was to dispose of around 
300 items of special nuclear material. The project was able to 
refurbish and reuse existing containers to ship two subsets of the 
original scope off-site, which resulted in significant cost savings. 
EM used these savings to dispose of additional special nuclear 
material items. EM decided to continue storage of one item when the 
only receipt location (Nevada National Security Site) could not 
receive the item within the project period. According to EM officials, 
the item will be disposed of in fiscal year 2013; 
Cost[A]: Final: $6 million; 
Completion date[A]: Final: 4/30/2010. 

Site: Miamisburg, Ohio; 
Project: Soil and Water Remediation-OU-1; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope modification: In 2005, Congress directed DOE to perform 
additional remediation and appropriated $30 million. DOE believed this 
amount to be inadequate to complete full excavation of the OU-1 area 
and directed the contractor to sequence the remediation in accordance 
with a list of priorities. Additional funding was provided in 2007 and 
2009 to completion additional remediation work; 
Cost[A]: Final: $47 million; 
Completion date[A]: Final: 4/25/2011. 

Site: Savannah River Site, South Carolina; 
Project: Purification Area Vault; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope modification: The original scope target was to modify a room in 
an existing facility to accommodate at least 500 containers of special 
nuclear material. Subsequently, EM decided to increase the amount of 
storage space associated with this project, which increased the 
project's overall completion date target; 
Cost[A]: Current: $27 million; 
Completion date[A]: Current: 12/31/2014. 

Source: GAO analysis of EM project documentation. 

[A] For completed projects, the final cost is documented at critical 
decision 4, and the date of the memorandum approving critical decision 
4 reflects the formal completion of the project. For ongoing projects, 
the current cost and completion date reflects DOE's projections as of 
Aug. 29, 2012. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Summary of National Nuclear Security Administration 
Nonmajor Projects Reviewed: 

We obtained and reviewed performance information on 41 NNSA nonmajor 
projects that were either completed or ongoing from fiscal year 2008 
through fiscal year 2012. Table 10 summarizes this information for 27 
NNSA projects for which we could determine performance. Table 11 
summarizes this information for 2 projects for which NNSA did not 
establish performance targets. Table 12 summarizes this information 
for 7 NNSA projects with incomplete documentation of their performance 
targets or final cost, which meant that we could not determine 
performance. Table 13 summarizes this information for 5 projects for 
which NNSA modified the scope after establishing performance targets 
for these projects, rendering the original performance targets 
unusable for purposes of assessing performance. 

Table 10: Performance of 27 NNSA Nonmajor Projects: 

Site: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California: 

Project: Tritium Facility Modernization; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $13 million; Final: $13 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 8/31/2009; Final: 9/30/2009; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 2%. 

Site: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: 

Project: Demolition of Building South Mesa-43; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $30 million; Final: $15 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (50%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 8/31/2012; Final: 10/11/2011; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (55%). 

Project: TA-55 Reinvestment Phase I; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $27 million; Final: $19 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (28%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/31/2010; Final: 6/30/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (14%). 

Project: Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility, 2nd Axis 
Refurbishment & Commissioning; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Did not meet target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $90 million; Final: $90 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 5/16/2008; Final: 5/16/2008; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Project: Demolition of PF-41; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $13 million; Final: $11 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (15%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 10/18/2008; Final: 9/30/2008; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (5%). 

Project: National Security Sciences Building Phase II Site Office 
Building Replacement; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $12 million; Final: $12 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 2%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2008; Final: 9/30/2008; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Project: Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building Equipment 
Installation; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $199 million; Current: $199 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (0); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/30/2013; Current: 6/30/2013; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Project: Sanitary Effluent Reclamation Facility; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $16 million; Current: $16 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2012; Current: 12/21/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 14%. 

Site: Nevada National Security Site, Nevada: 

Project: Building B-3 Remediation, Restoration, and Upgrade; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $19 million; Final: $17 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (12%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 3/31/2008; Final: 3/20/2008; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (2%). 

Project: Replace Fire Stations No. 1 & No. 2; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Did not meet target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $32 million; Final: $35 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 8%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: March 2009; Final: 9/30/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 32%. 

Site: Pantex Site, Texas: 

Project: Electrical Distribution System Upgrade; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $13 million; Final: $16 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 25%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/22/2008; Final: 12/28/2009; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 31%. 

Project: Gas Main and Distribution System Upgrade; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $11 million; Final: $10 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (9%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 3/31/2010; Final: 6/4/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 7%. 

Project: High Explosive Pressing Facility; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $81 million; Current: $145 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 80%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/30/2012; Current: 9/30/2016; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 43%. 

Site: Rochester, New York: 

Project: OMEGA Extended Performance[E]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $99 million; Final: $99 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 4/30/2008; Final: 5/6/2008; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Site: Russia: 

Project: Seversk Plutonium Production Elimination Program; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Did not meet target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $387 million; Final: $363 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (6%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/31/2008; Final: 9/26/2008; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (7%). 

Project: Zheleznogorsk Plutonium Production Elimination Program[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Did not meet target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $571 million; Final: $548 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (4%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/31/2010; Final: 7/5/2011; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 9%. 

Site: Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico: 

Project: Ion Beam Laboratory[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $40 million; Final: $34 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (14%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/30/2012; Final: 9/7/2011; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (22%). 

Project: Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $519 million; Final: $469 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (10%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 5/31/2011; Final: 4/11/2008; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (57%). 

Project: Test Capabilities Revitalization (Phase II); 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Not meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $53 million; Current: $58 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 10%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2013; Current: 3/17/2014; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 8%. 

Project: Z-Machine Refurbishment Project[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $90 million; Final: $91 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 1%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 11/30/2006; Final: 10/2/2007; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 28%. 

Site: Savannah River Site, South Carolina: 

Project: Waste Solidification Building[D]; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $345 million; Current: $380 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 10%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2013; Current: 6/30/2014; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 13%. 

Site: Y-12 National Security Site, Tennessee: 

Project: Beryllium Capability Project; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $36 million; Final: $35 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (3%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 4/21/2010; Final: 10/14/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 12%. 

Project: Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $251 million; Final: $549 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 119%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 4/30/2008; Final: 3/12/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 29%. 

Project: Nuclear Facility Risk Reduction; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $76 million; Current: $76 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/7/2015; Current: 12/7/2015; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 0. 

Project: Potable Water System Upgrade; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $62 million; Final: $58 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (6%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/29/2010; Final: 9/23/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (0). 

Project: Security Improvements Project; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $72 million; Current: $51 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (29%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 6/30/2014; Current: 10/01/2013; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (18%). 

Project: Steam Plant Life Extension; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $62 million; Final: $60 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (3%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2010; Final: 6/14/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (11%). 

Source: GAO analysis of NNSA project documentation. 

[A] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish a performance 
target for scope at critical decision 2. In cases where these targets 
were not clearly documented, we worked with agency officials to 
identify equivalent targets. For completed projects, "met target" 
means that the project completed all work associated with its scope 
target as documented at critical decision 4; "target not met" means 
that the project did not complete all work associated with its scope 
target as documented at critical decision 4. For ongoing projects, 
"meeting target" means that the project is expected to meet its scope 
target, based on DOE's projections as of Aug. 29, 2012. 

[B] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish performance 
targets for cost and completion date at critical decision 2. For 
completed projects, the final cost is documented at critical decision 
4, and the date of the memorandum approving critical decision 4 
reflects the formal completion of the project. For ongoing projects, 
the current cost and completion date reflect DOE's projections as of 
Aug. 29, 2012. 

[C] To determine the extent to which each project finished or is 
expected to finish under or over its target cost, we computed the 
percentage change from the target cost to the final or current cost. 
To determine the extent to which each project finished or is expected 
to finish before or after its target completion date, we computed the 
percentage change from the planned project length (the period between 
DOE's approval of critical decision 2, which is not shown in the 
table, and the target completion date) to the actual or projected 
project length (the period between critical decision 2 and critical 
decision 4). 

[D] Part of our nongeneralizable sample of 10 NNSA nonmajor projects 
selected for in-depth review. 

[E] NNSA approved CD-2 for this project in August 2004. However, in 
February 2006, NNSA expanded the scope of the project and increased 
its cost and completion date targets, in accordance with congressional 
direction. We used the new congressionally directed performance 
targets in measuring the performance of this project. 

[End of table] 

Table 11: Two NNSA Nonmajor Projects with No Performance Targets: 

Site: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: 

Project: Cerro Grande Rehabilitation - 1.1: Physical Damage & 
Destruction; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $95 million; 
Completion date: 10/30/2007. 

Project: Cerro Grande Rehabilitation - 1.2: Restoring Services; 
Status: Complete; 
Cost: $50 million; 
Completion date: 10/30/2007. 

Source: GAO analysis of NNSA project documentation. 

[End of table] 

Table 12: Seven NNSA Nonmajor Projects with Incomplete Documentation 
of Performance Targets or Final Cost: 

Site: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: 

Project: Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Radiological 
Laboratory/Utility/Office Building[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Met target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $164 million; Final: to be determined[E]; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: Unable to determine; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 1/31/2010; Final: 6/24/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 8%. 

Project: Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Security Upgrades Project 
Phase II[D]; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Meeting target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $245 million; Current: $245 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 0; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 1/24/2013; Current: to be determined; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: Unable to determine. 

Project: Power Grid Infrastructure Upgraded; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Target undefined; 
Cost[B]: Target: $20 million; Final: $16 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (22%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 12/31/2007; Final: 10/18/2007; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (8%). 

Project: Waste Management Risk Mitigation[D]; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Did not meet target; 
Cost[B]: Target: $31 million; Final: to be determined[E]; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: Unable to determine; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/30/2004; Final: 3/25/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 77%. 

Site: Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico: 

Project: Heating System Modernization, TA-1; 
Status: Complete; 
Scope[A]: Target undefined; 
Cost[B]: Target: $59 million; Final: $56 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: (5%); 
Completion date[B]: Target: 1/17/2011; Final: 12/16/2010; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: (2%). 

Site: Y-12 National Security Site, Tennessee: 

Project: Oven Consolidation; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Target undefined; 
Cost[B]: Target: $23 million; Current: $29 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 27%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 8/30/2012; Current: 5/21/2013; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 20%. 

Project: Production Microwave Deployment; 
Status: Ongoing; 
Scope[A]: Target undefined; 
Cost[B]: Target: $18 million; Current: $22 million; 
Percentage over (under) cost target[C]: 23%; 
Completion date[B]: Target: 9/8/2011; Current: 12/31/2012; 
Percentage over (under) completion target[C]: 35%. 

Source: GAO analysis of NNSA project documentation. 

[A] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish a performance 
target for scope at critical decision 2. In cases where these targets 
were not clearly identified and documented at critical decision 2, we 
listed these targets as "undefined." For ongoing projects, "meeting 
target" means that the project is expected to meet its scope target, 
based on DOE's projections as of Aug. 29, 2012. 

[B] DOE Order 413.3 requires a project to establish performance 
targets for cost and completion date at critical decision 2. For 
completed projects, the final cost is documented at critical decision 
4, and the date of the memorandum approving critical decision 4 
reflects the formal completion of the project. For ongoing projects, 
the current cost and completion date reflects DOE's projections as of 
Aug. 29, 2012. 

[C] To determine the extent to which each project finished or is 
expected to finish under or over its target cost, we computed the 
percentage change from the target cost to the final or current cost. 
To determine the extent to which each project finished or is expected 
to finish before or after its target completion date, we computed the 
percentage change from the planned project length (the period between 
DOE's approval of critical decision 2, which is not shown in the 
table, and the target completion date) to the actual or projected 
project length (the period between critical decision 2 and critical 
decision 4). In cases where we were unable to make these calculations, 
we listed the percentage as "unable to determine." 

[D] Part of our nongeneralizable sample of 10 NNSA nonmajor projects 
selected for in-depth review. 

[E] The final cost of this project has not been determined due to 
ongoing litigation. 

[End of table] 

Table 13: Five NNSA Nonmajor Projects with Modified Scope Targets: 

Site: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: 

Project: TA-55 Reinvestment Phase II A; 
Status: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: Ongoing; 
Scope modification: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: The 
original scope target included an upgrade of fire protection features 
for multiple gloveboxes at Technical Area 55. Subsequently, a new 
safety analysis indicated that only one glovebox needed to be 
upgraded, prompting NNSA to reduce the scope and cost of this project; 
Cost[A]: Current: $14 million; 
Completion date[A]: Current: 9/27/2013. 

Project: TA-55 Reinvestment Phase II B; 
Status: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: Ongoing; 
Scope modification: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: The 
original scope target included an upgrade of fire protection features 
for multiple gloveboxes at Technical Area 55. Subsequently, a new 
safety analysis indicated that only one glovebox needed to be 
upgraded, prompting NNSA to reduce the scope and cost of this project; 
Cost[A]: Current: $11 million; 
Completion date[A]: Current: 12/16/2013. 

Site: Nevada National Security Site, Nevada: 

Project: Criticality Experiments Facility[B]; 
Status: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: Complete; 
Scope modification: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: The 
original scope target included a 60-seat conference room. 
Subsequently, NNSA eliminated the conference room and added new fire 
suppression features to the scope target; 
Cost[A]: Final: $151 million; 
Completion date[A]: Final: 5/11/2011. 

Project: Mercury Highway Construction; 
Status: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: Complete; 
Scope modification: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: The 
original scope target called for the construction of a 19.2-mile 
highway at an estimated cost of $14 million. The project team 
completed the original scope plus an additional 12 miles at an 
additional cost of $4 million but ahead of the original completion 
date target. According to NNSA officials, the original bid submittals 
exceeded the available budget allowance. The project scope was 
reduced, and the project was issued for proposal. During this period, 
the construction market was much more favorable to NNSA and, as a 
result, NNSA was able to increase the scope for considerably less cost; 
Cost[A]: Final: $18 million; 
Completion date[A]: Final: 12/16/2009. 

Site: Pantex Site, Texas: 

Project: High Pressure Fire Loop[B]; 
Status: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: Ongoing; 
Scope modification: Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico: The 
original scope target included the replacement of 16,000 feet of 
piping, valves, and hydrants. Subsequently, NNSA added the replacement 
of high-pressure tanks, pumps, and pump houses, as well as an 
additional 3,350 feet of piping, to the original scope target. 
According to NNSA officials, when the project was initially issued for 
proposals, the construction market was unfavorable to NNSA, and the 
bid prices were higher than the budget allowance. This resulted in a 
reduction in scope. When the reduced scope was issued for proposal, 
market conditions had changed and were more favorable to NNSA, and the 
bids were lower than the budget allowance. The scope that was 
originally removed was reinserted into the project; 
Cost[A]: Current: $42 million; 
Completion date[A]: Current: 12/23/2013. 

Source: GAO analysis of NNSA project documentation. 

[A] For completed projects, the final cost is documented at critical 
decision 4, and the date of the memorandum approving critical decision 
4 reflects the formal completion of the project. For ongoing projects, 
the current cost and completion date reflects DOE's projections as of 
Aug. 29, 2012. 

[B] Part of our nongeneralizable sample of 10 NNSA nonmajor projects 
selected for in-depth review. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Energy: 

Department of Energy: 
National Nuclear Security Administration: 
Washington, DC 20585: 

November 19, 2012: 

Mr. Mark Gaffigan: 
Managing Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 
Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20458: 

Dear Mr. Gaffigan: 

Thank you for the opportunity to review the Government Accountability 
Office's (GAO) draft report, Better Information Needed to Determine if 
Non-Major Projects Meet Performance targets, GAO-13-129. I understand 
the GAO was asked to examine (I) the extent to which Office of 
Environmental Management (EM) and National Nuclear Security 
Administration (NNSA) non-major projects have met their scope, cost 
and completion date targets; (2) factors affecting EM's and NNSA's 
management of non-major projects; and (3) the extent to which EM's 
workforce plans identify mission critical occupations and skills and 
any current and future shortfalls in these areas. We have reviewed the 
draft report and the related recommendations for executive action, and 
I am pleased to provide a consolidated response on behalf of EM and 
NNSA. 

We appreciate the GAO's efforts to review our projects and recognize 
the difficulty in applying the objective standards of DOE Order 413.3B 
to the complex projects managed by EM and NNSA from an audit 
perspective. Due to factors such as changes to scope, cost and 
schedule which are common, justified and allowed by DOE 413.3B, given 
the unique nature of many of our projects, it is difficult to evaluate 
many projects against "original" cost and schedule and without 
applying more subjective analysis to evaluate final results and 
outcomes, Without this additional analysis, it is possible that a 
reader of the report who doesn't have a complete understanding of the 
nuances of technical project management requirements could draw 
inaccurate conclusions regarding our internal ability to evaluate 
projects. Given the specific and limited compliance-based methodology 
of the audit, we believe it is important to clarify that both NNSA and 
EM have confidence in and believe we have demonstrated our ability to 
effectively evaluate project performance throughout the critical 
decision process. 

With that said, we acknowledge that we can continue to improve and do 
more to ensure transparency in our project management activities. As 
such, we agree with the GAO's draft recommendations and have attached 
out initial response which outlines our intended actions to address 
the recommendations, along with "General Comments" to clarify and 
highlight additional work EM is doing in the project management arena. 
I also understand you have received under separate cover, technical 
comments from the NNSA Internal Control Director, providing suggested 
changes to enhance the factual accuracy and clarity of information 
presented in the report. 

If you have any questions regarding this response, please contact Dean 
Childs, Director, Internal Control, at (301) 903-1341. 

Signed by: 

[Illegible] for: 
Cynthia A. Lersten: 
Associate Administrator For Management and Budget: 

Enclosure: 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

David C. Trimble, (202) 512-3841 or trimbled@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, Dan Feehan, Assistant 
Director; Sandra David; Robert Grace; and Jason Holliday made key 
contributions to this report. Also contributing to this report were 
John Bauckman; Jennifer Echard; Cindy Gilbert; Steven Lozano; Minette 
Richardson; Cheryl Peterson; and Carol Hernnstadt Shulman. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] See GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 16, 
2011). 

[2] See GAO, Department of Energy: Major Construction Projects Need a 
Consistent Approach for Assessing Technology Readiness to Help Avoid 
Cost Increases and Delays, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-336] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 27, 
2007); and GAO, Nuclear Waste: Action Needed to Improve Accountability 
and Management of DOE's Major Cleanup Projects, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1081] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 26, 
2008). Environmental cleanup projects decontaminate and demolish 
buildings, remove and dispose of contaminated soil, treat contaminated 
groundwater, and stabilize and dispose of solid and liquid radioactive 
wastes. 

[3] Order 413.3 was issued in 2000 and was revised, most recently in 
November 2010. It is now referred to as Order 413.3B, Program and 
Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets. In this 
report, we use DOE Order 413.3 to refer to the version of DOE Order 
413.3B in effect at the time. This order applies only to capital asset 
projects, which have defined start and end points and exclude 
operational activities such as repair and maintenance. 

[4] DOE Order 413.3 uses the term "key performance parameters" to 
describe a project's specific technical requirements, which can be 
expressed in terms of capacity, quantity, or processing rate, among 
other things. 

[5] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278]. 

[6] See GAO, Workforce Planning: Interior, EPA, and the Forest Service 
Should Strengthen Linkages to Their Strategic Plans and Improve 
Evaluation, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-413] 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2010). 

[7] OPM's framework can be found at 73 Fed. Reg. 23012-49 (Apr. 28, 
2008). OPM issued proposed regulations that would treat the material 
in the framework as guidance (see 76 Fed. Reg. 47516-18 (Aug. 5, 
2011)); the proposed regulations have not been finalized. 

[8] GAO, Modernizing the Nuclear Security Enterprise: Strategies and 
Challenges in Sustaining Critical Skills in Federal and Contractor 
Workforces, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-468] 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 26, 2012). 

[9] See GAO, Recovery Act: Most DOE Cleanup Projects Are Complete, but 
Project Management Guidance Could Be Strengthened, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-23] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 15, 
2012). 

[10] NNSA was created in 1999 under Title 32 of the National Defense 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-65, § 3201 et 
seq. 

[11] M&O contracts are agreements under which the government contracts 
for the operation, maintenance, or support, on its behalf, of a 
government-owned or -controlled research, development, special 
production, or testing establishment wholly or principally devoted to 
one or more of the major programs of the contracting federal agency. 
Federal Acquisition Regulation, 48 C.F.R. § 17.601. 

[12] OAPM is located within DOE's Office of Management and is 
responsible for issuing guidance related to DOE Order 413.3 and 
conducting independent project reviews for projects costing $100 
million or more, among other things. Before a departmental 
reorganization in June 2012, the Office of Program Management within 
OAPM was referred to as the Office of Engineering and Construction 
Management. We use OAPM to refer to the Office of Engineering and 
Construction Management in this report. 

[13] DOE defines capital asset projects as projects with defined start 
and end points in which the federal government acquires or uses land, 
structures, equipment, or intellectual property (for 2 years or more). 
Capital asset projects include the environmental remediation of land 
to make it useful. 

[14] EM defines operations, which we did not review in this report, as 
noncapital asset activities such as (1) the stabilization, packaging, 
storage, transportation, and disposition of waste and nuclear 
materials; (2) the operation of environmental remediation systems, 
such as groundwater treatment systems; (3) postconstruction and 
postclosure care of remediated land burial sites; (4) long-term 
environmental stewardship, including environmental monitoring and 
institutional controls; and (5) facility shutdown and deactivation 
activities. 

[15] An FTE consists of one or more employed individuals who 
collectively complete 2,080 work hours in a given year. Therefore, 
both one full-time employee and two half-time employees equal one FTE. 
Because the EM headquarters office had not issued its workforce plan, 
as of September 2012, we used the fiscal year 2011 workforce plan for 
this office to complete our analysis. 

[16] For DOE's performance metrics, see U.S. Department of Energy, 
Contract and Project Management: Root Cause Analysis and Corrective 
Action Plan Closure Report: Final (Washington, D.C.: February 2011). 
In this report, we use the phrase "scope target" to include targets 
for key performance parameters, as specified in DOE Order 413.3. For 
Office of Management and Budget performance metrics, see Capital 
Programming Guide: Supplement to Office of Management and Budget 
Circular A-11: Planning, Budgeting, and Acquisition of Capital Assets 
(Washington, D.C.: August 2011). 

[17] According to DOE Order 413.3, an acquisition executive is the 
individual designated by the Secretary of Energy to integrate and 
unify the management system for a program portfolio of projects and 
implement prescribed policies and practices. The acquisition executive 
is also responsible for approving the appointment of a project's 
federal project director, among other things. 

[18] DOE introduced PARS in 2001 as a Web-based system for collecting 
and analyzing current performance data for projects costing more than 
$5 million. In October 2010, according to DOE officials, DOE 
introduced an updated version of PARS. 

[19] These projects are the Saltstone Disposal Unit 2 and the 
Saltstone Disposal Units 3 & 5 projects. 

[20] GAO, Department of Energy: Office of Science Has Kept Majority of 
Projects within Budget and on Schedule, but Funding and Other 
Challenges May Grow, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-641] (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 
2008). 

[21] DOE, Root Cause Analysis: Contract and Project Management 
(Washington, D.C.: April 2008). 

[22] According to EM officials, this project has a target completion 
date of fiscal year 2012. Based on our review of project 
documentation, we did not find this target to be credible but were 
unable to locate a more credible target. 

[23] An earned value management system is an integrated set of 
policies, procedures and practices to objectively track true 
performance on a project or program. It represents an integration 
methodology that is able to provide an early warning of performance 
problems while enhancing leadership decisions for successful 
corrective action. 

[24] Independent Project Analysis, Incorporated, A Lessons Learned 
Evaluation of the DUF 6 Project: 2ND Revised Final (Ashburn, VA: March 
2009). 

[25] EM's project teams consist of federal project directors, 
scientists, and others who manage each individual EM project. DOE's 
staffing guidance (DOE Guide 413.3-19, Oct. 12, 2011) includes a 
staffing model, which provides a recommended range of project 
staffing, based on specific project attributes, and a proposed 
distribution of staffing by project functions, based on the project 
type and project phase. 

[26] See GAO, Recover Act: Most DOE Cleanup Projects Are Complete, but 
Project Management Guidance Could Be Strengthened, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-23] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 15, 
2012). 

[27] DOE has revised Order 413.3 several times over the past decade. 
We reviewed five versions of DOE Order 413.3, the earliest of which is 
dated October 2000. 

[28] See [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-641]; Office 
of Management and Budget, Capital Programming Guide: Supplement to 
Office of Management and Budget Circular A-11: Planning, Budgeting, 
and Acquisition of Capital Assets (Washington, D.C.: August 2011); and 
U.S. Department of Energy, Contract and Project Management: Root Cause 
Analysis and Corrective Action Plan Closure Report: Final (Washington, 
D.C.: February 2011). 

[29] See GAO, GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide: Best Practices 
for Developing and Managing Capital Program Costs, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-3SP] (Washington, D.C.: March 
2009); U.S. Department of Energy, Program and Project Management for 
the Acquisition of Capital Assets, Order 413.3B (Washington, D.C.: 
Nov. 29, 2010); and U.S. Department of Energy, Project Review Guide 
for Capital Asset Projects, Guide 413.3-9 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 
2008). 

[End of section] 

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