Waste of the Day: DOE Paid for Useless Asbestos Training

Topline: The Department of Energy spent $153,616 to train employees in asbestos safety between 2015 and 2022. But the company providing the classes was never certified by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning most of the training must be redone at a cost of $93,175, per a new inspector general report.

The asbestos safety classes came from a non-certified company

Key facts: The DOE pays the Battelle Energy Alliance to run the Idaho National Laboratory, known for its research on nuclear energy. Asbestos professionals at the lab must be trained according to strict guidelines laid out in a 1990 federal law, as is the case for every public building.

Battelle Energy Alliance has paid its subcontractor, D&D Environmental Consulting, for 8,000 hours of asbestos training for 236 employees since 2007. Last year, a whistleblower told the DOE inspector general that D&D’s accreditation from the EPA had expired in 2015.

It took Battelle Energy Alliance until 2022 to check if the teachers were certified, according to the audit. Battelle then hired a new, accredited company to give its employees a “refresher” on asbestos safety, even though federal law requires that the training start over from scratch.

Since then, asbestos professionals have completed 243 construction projects at the lab despite never being fully trained by an accredited professional, auditors found.

Now, the 147 asbestos specialists currently on the staff must be retrained, which auditors said will take 3,776 hours.

The Laboratory is an expensive proposition to begin with

Background: The DOE’s Idaho Operations Office is responsible for monitoring all contract performance at the Idaho National Laboratory. The office is run by Manager Lance Lacroix, who earned a salary of $189,000 last year, according to OpenTheBooks.com.

The laboratory racked up $1.82 billion in operating costs last year while employing over 6,000 full-time equivalents.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: If the federal government is going to spend 8,000 hours on training, it better get it right the first time around.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RCI and made available via RealClearWire.