EM senior leaders met with stakeholders from eight cleanup sites across the DOE complex recently to discuss current and planned mission work and other topics from a jam-packed agenda during the two-day EM Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB) National Chairs meeting in Washington, D.C.

The representatives of advisory boards for the Hanford, Idaho, Nevada, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Paducah, Portsmouth and Savannah River field sites gathered with EM senior leaders, including Senior Advisor William “Ike” White and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Jeff Avery. They discussed the EM National Laboratory Network, international activities, technology development, EM’s Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program and the Community Capacity Building program, which is designed to help disadvantaged communities adjacent to EM sites where there is a substantial portion of the population living below the poverty level.

Many attendees said a highlight of the meeting was a budget simulation exercise conducted by the EM Office of Budget and Planning. Board members and meeting attendees were assigned roles, such as site managers, assistant secretary, and budget director, and worked through a mock budget scenario.

“This exercise gives stakeholders an opportunity to understand the inner workings that take place during a budget cycle,” EM Office of Budget and Planning Director Steve Trischman said.

The EM SSAB was created in 1994 to involve stakeholders more directly in EM cleanup decisions. The EM SSAB provides recommendations from a community perspective on site-specific and cross-complex EM cleanup activities. Since its inception, the EM SSAB has provided more than 1,700 recommendations to DOE and DOE has accepted or partially accepted 85% of them. Click here to learn more about the EM SSAB.

Original source can be found here.