largely ignored over the last 50 years. The department is faced with doing so during an especially tight budget climate. CBO recommends that understanding of risks and costs better would be the best way to determine priorities for allocating the scarce cleanup funds. It also recommends investing more heavily in technology development, delaying technically difficult projects, and cutting overhead costs to improve the efficiency of cleanup efforts. In addition, new management systems might help the Department of Energy and Congress track the performance of cleanup projects.

Complex Cleanup: The Environmental Legacy of Nuclear Weapons Production , OTA (U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment), 1991. OTA-O484. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.

Environmental Management 1995: Progress and Plans of the Environmental Management Program, February 1995, US Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management. The report identifies 1994 accomplishments in the topics established as goals of the Environmental Management Program :

• Eliminate and manage urgent risks in the system.

• Emphasize health and safety of workers and the public.

• Establish a system that is managerially and financially in control.

• Demonstrate tangible results.

• Focus technology development on overcoming obstacles to progress.

• Establish a stronger partnership between the Department and its stakeholders.

National programs and site summaries provide an overview of the activities in environmental regulation, waste management, environmental restoration, technology development, nuclear-material and -facilities stabilization, safety and health, risk management and priority-setting, and public accountability and outreach.

Hanford Integrated Planning Process: 1993 Hanford Site Specific Science and Technology Plan. Pacific Northwest Laboratory. 1993. U.S. Department of Energy Richland Operations Office Report DOE/RL-93-38 . Richland, WA.

Health and Ecological Risks at the US Department of Energy's Nuclear Weapons Complex: A Qualitative Evaluation. Consortium for Environment Risk Evaluation (A Tulane/Xavier Program for the US Department of Energy). CERE Interim Risk Report. March 1995.

Independent Technical Review of the Brookhaven National Laboratory Environmental Restoration Program. June 1995. US Department of Energy, Chicago Operations Office, chartered an Independent technical review team to assess the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Environmental Restoration Program on the basis of commercial business practices and metrics and to recommend improvements and BNL practices, processes, or performance differed substantially. The overriding environmental-restoration goal in the commercial realm was defined to protect human health and the environment within the legal framework and within costs and schedules while providing immediate, open communication with interested and affected parties. In industry, protecting the ability to make money was considered paramount, so liability was often reduced quickly by investments in environmental activities. The team provided recommendations for business-process improvements and commercial environmental-restoration strategies.