Project Velocity, Henceforth Known as Modernizing DOE Operative Directives Initiative, Set to Revise or Eliminate 46 Safety Directives Amid Push For Rapid Nuclear Weapons Modernization
In July of this year, Tri-Valley CAREs shed light on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to move forward with Project Velocity, an initiative focused on significant rulemaking changes that put the public at risk. Project Velocity was an ambitious effort to rewrite dozens of internal directives governing the safety, construction, and oversight processes across the nuclear weapons complex.
The targeted directives generally were established following accidents, incidents and natural disasters where workers and or members of the public were harmed or put at risk of harm. DOE officials now view these precautions as “unnecessary red tape” that are slowing the nuclear weapons modernization mission delivery at its nuclear facilities.
On March 17, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), an independent oversight agency within the executive branch of the federal government, wrote a letter to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright raising concerns with Project Velocity. In this letter, DNFSB requested “(1) a briefing on all active efforts to revise, or pilot alternate versions of, any DOE Standards of Interest to the DNFSB, including plans to implement them at defense nuclear facilities; (2) a written report describing DOE’s desired method to furnish timely information and engagement on proposed changes to any DOE Standards of Interest to the DNFSB; and (3) drafts of ongoing revisions to any DOE Standards of Interest to the DNFSB, protected from public disclosure, as appropriate.” DNFSB’s enabling legislation, the Atomic Energy Act, requires that, “the Secretary of Energy shall fully cooperate with the Board,” and that, “DNFSB have “prompt and unfettered” access to defense nuclear facilities, personnel, and safety data.”
To date, DOE has yet to respond to DNFSB’s letter, meaning that DNFSB received no information or draft versions of any proposed changes to safety directives under Project Velocity. In other words, the DOE is shutting the oversight agency out of the decision making process in direct violation of the Atomic Energy Act that gives the DNFSB oversight authority!
On August 13, 2026, DOE officially announced updated operating directives to be implemented across the nuclear weapons complex, now referring to the initiative as the “Modernizing DOE Operative Directives Initiative,” as opposed to “Project Velocity.” Here, DOE refers to safety directives as “unnecessary barriers” and argues that getting rid of them will give “our scientists, engineers, and technicians more freedom to focus on the critical missions that matter most,” by which they mean new nuclear weapons as quickly as possible.
Overall, as announced on August 13, DOE made revisions to forty-six safety directives and cancelled four others. Amongst the four cancelled directives are DOE Order 231.1B, Environment, Safety, and Health Reporting; DOE Order 232.2A, Occurrence Reporting and Processing of Operations Information; and DOE Order 442.2, Differing Professional Opinions for Technical Issues Involving Environmental, Safety, and Health Technical Concerns. The amended directives can be viewed here, with the “Effective Date” listed as 8/5/2026.
Importantly, eighteen of the revised directives were present on the DOE Standards of Interest to the DNFSB list, and all four of the cancelled directives were present on the list as well. Again, DNFSB did not receive notice of these cancellations or drafts of the revisions, despite explicitly asking for this information in its March 17 letter.
On September 16, Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) wrote a letter to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright “calling out the dozens of changes being made to operating directives at DOE, which [are] jeopardizing the safety of work being done at DOE labs.” The Congresswomen demanded immediate restoration of three of the four cancelled orders (the three listed above), and requested justifications for the other forty-six changes, stating that, “the Department cannot execute such sweeping systemic changes across multibillion-dollar facilities without providing the empirical baselines, safety analyses, and governance frameworks that justify them.” Kaptur and Murray made twenty specific demands, including a list of all revised requirements with redline comparisons against their predecessors, descriptions of the processes used to develop and approve the revisions and cancellations, an explanation of the role of DNFSB in reviewing and approving the changes, specific explanations relating to the cancelled orders, descriptions of how DOE will identify unintended consequences of the revisions and cancellations, and more.
Their request cites a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report ordered by Congress that examined DOE’s earlier effort to streamline project management across the nuclear weapons complex that was updated in July of this year. The GAO report concluded that “[DOE] had not established specific goals or performance measures to evaluate the overall effectiveness of implementing the Secretary [of Energy’s] directed revisions.”
Kaptur and Murray echoed the GAO concern that DOE’s, “proposed streamlining could result in less reliable project cost estimates and late identification of cost and schedule overruns–wasting time and taxpayer resources.”
Overall, the Congresswomen argued that DOE is “revising or eliminating important requirements governing independent oversight, project management, quality assurance, conduct of operations, nuclear facility safety, worker training and qualification, occurrence reporting, environmental and occupational safety reporting, and the ability of Federal and contract employees to formally challenge technical safety decisions,” further stating that DOE must “demonstrate–not merely assert– that these changes will preserve effective Federal oversight and safety mechanisms.”
These regulatory rollbacks will apply to the nuclear weapons development work that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is leading, including the development of the new W87-1 warhead for the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and its work supporting new plutonium bomb core production for that weapon. It is inevitable that a decrease in safety regulations will correlate with less safe practices, potentially leading to increased risks to the public, defense nuclear facility employees, and the environment.
Tri-Valley CAREs will continue monitoring changes made under the Modernizing DOE Operative Directives Initiative (FKA “Project Velocity), and updating the public as new concerns arise. In the meantime, as Congresswomen Kaptur and Murray stated, it is imperative to recognize that “efficiency cannot come at the expense of independent oversight, reliable information, technical rigor, and the worker protections necessary […].”