Mr. EHLERS [presiding]. Thank you very much, Mr. Magwood. In case the audience is wondering if you're not familiar with procedures here, we have a vote on on the Floor and that's resulted in evaporation of Committee members. I will chair the meeting until Mr. Calvert returns and that way we can vote in shifts, so we can continue with our testimony and not detain you any more than necessary. Next, Mr. Brush.

STATEMENT OF MR. PETER N. BRUSH, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY, AND HEALTH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Mr. BRUSH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to appear before you again this year to present the Fiscal Year 1999 budget request for the Office of Environment, Safety, and Health. Our request of $150 million reflects a 6 percent reduction from the level of funding appropriated last year. We have reduced use of support service contractors in all of our programs and will have in 1998 completed two major projects: the state health agreement program and the Hanford thyroid disease study. At the same time, we have realized continued success in addressing the serious challenges of the Department in Environment, Safety, and Health and, with support from the Congress, develop necessary tools to enhance those environment, safety, and health programs.

As part of our mission of protecting the safety and health of workers, the public, and the environment near DOE operations, we are seeking to be in the forefront of scientific advances in many fields related to nuclear engineering, radiation protection, and health physics. Some of these are highlighted in my written testi

mony.

Mr. Chairman, the key to a safe and healthy workplace is the integration of safety, health, and environmental protection into every operating budget of every DOE site and into the daily responsibilities of every line manager in the Department. The major tool we have for achieving and maintaining a marked improvement in safety throughout DOE is integrated safety management.

Secretary Peña has demonstrated his strong support for integrated safety management, and under his leadership the Department has made major progress in making it a reality in our daily work. All major contracts signed since September 1997 including those for Brookhaven National Laboratory, Hanford, and Oak Ridge are now required to contain clauses for integrating safety within the work performed with flowdown of safety requirements to subcontractors. Environment, safety, and health clauses have been incorporated into 13 of the 17 major contracts across the Department, and all these contracts will contain such clauses by 1999. I would like now to turn specifically to the three business lines directly funded or performed by the Office of Environment, Safety, and Health. Our program is governed by the imperative to prevent accidents, illnesses, and environmental damage, and focuses on identifying and resolving the serious work-related hazards associated with DOE current and planned operations. All of our efforts are designed to help managers target the most urgent risks; use limited resources efficiently, and do work effectively.

First, we are responsible for the only independent environment, safety, and health oversight program in the Department, one that is focused on the effectiveness of the management's environment, safety health, safeguards, and security programs. Under this budget line, we also enforce nuclear safety rules as required by the Price-Anderson Amendments Act of 1988.

Second, in our Technical and Operational Assistance program, experts in various safety, health, and environmental fields work in direct partnership with field and line program managers to improve performance. We are responsible for several critical Department-wide safety services. For example, we carry out technologybased operational analyses; we develop and coordinate DOE-wide safety management systems, and we assure DOE-wide attention to National Environmental Policy Act requirements.

Our third and largest budget item covers health studies. We sponsor epidemiologic studies of radiation health effects and the environmental and occupational health impacts of DOE operations. National and international investigations of the relationships between exposure to radiation and chemicals and consequent health effects among worker and community populations are the key to designing effective prevention strategy. The goal of the studies is to target areas where intervention could prevent worker disease or exposure, lead to more scientifically-accurate health standards for radiation-associated work, and address the health concerns of workers and communities.

Mr. Chairman, those are our three principal business lines, and I appreciate the opportunity to summarize them, and I would be happy to answer your questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Brush follow:]

STATEMENT OF

PETER N. BRUSH

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY

ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY AND HEALTH

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIORNMENT

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

FEBRUARY 25, 1998

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to present the Fiscal Year 1999 budget request for the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Environment, Safety and Health (EH). As the attached chart shows, this year's request is a six percent reduction from the level of funding appropriated last year. We realized significant savings by continuing to reduce use of support service contractors in all of our programs, and the successful and scheduled completion of two major health projects in 1998, the state health agreement program and the thyroid disease study in the community near the Hanford site. At the same time, we have realized continued success in addressing serious challenges and, with support from the Congress, developed necessary tools to enhance the environment, safety and health programs of DOE.

An Investment In Science

Secretary Peña has described the Department's Fiscal Year 1999 budget request as “eighteen billion dollars in investments to provide America with a technical and scientific infrastucture required to meet the challenges for the next century.” As part of its mission of protecting the safety and health of workers, the public and the environment near DOE operations, the Office of Environment, Safety and Health - the Department's source of technical expertise in all issues related to safety and health - has been in the forefront of scientific advances in many fields related to nuclear engineering, radiation protection and health physics. Seven of these are highlighted below.

Radiation Protection Standards. What is known today regarding health risks from acute radiation exposure results from studies of the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These studies are jointly sponsored by Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare

and the Office of Environment, Safety and Health through the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. As the longest and most important continuous study of radiation health

effects in the world, it has also provided the framework for worldwide radiation protection standards and practices.

Preventing Beryllium Disease. DOE is developing new standards to prevent chronic beryllium disease, an incurable, degenerative disease of the lungs caused by exposure to beryllium, a light metal used in nuclear weapons manufacture. In July of last year, Secretary Peña issued a Department policy that set a goal of no more cases of CBD from DOE operations. The Department will issue a rule to codify this policy in November 1998. An ongoing DOE-sponsored research program supports the scientific community's efforts to enhance methods of early detection of the disease and to pursue emerging options for

treatment.

NASA's space missions carrying plutonium. As part of its work on the Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Panel, EH has conducted nuclear safety reviews for the 1989 Galileo mission, the 1990 Ulysses mission, the Pathfinder mission to Mars and Cassini mission to Saturn in 1997. The controversy surrounding the Cassini mission stemmed from its use of radioactive plutonium as a source of electric power -- equal to that released by all nuclear tests from all countries since the first nuclear explosion in 1945. Responding to a Presidential Directive, a five-agency panel (representing DOE, NASA, DOD, EPA, and NRC) performed an independent study of the nuclear risk for this launch that concluded that the risks from plutonium releases were quite low.

Vulnerability Assessments. EH-led vulnerability studies on the Department's spent fuel, toxic chemicals, Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium storage and handling across the complex provided the baseline information for safe management of these materials. The methodology and criteria used in the assessments was based on physical, chemical, toxic and nuclear properties and hazards of the stored materials, engineered features for their