The National Academies' National Research Council undertook this study in response to a request from the Under Secretary of Energy to provide strategic advice on how the Department of Energy could improve its Environmental Quality R&D portfolio. The committee recommends that DOE develop strategic goals and objectives for its EQ business line that explicitly incorporate a more comprehensive, long-term view of its EQ responsibilities. For example, these goals and objectives should emphasize long-term stewardship and the importance of limiting contamination and materials management problems, including the generation of wastes and contaminated media, in ongoing and future DOE operations.

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has approximately 400 million liters (100 million gallons) of liquid high-level waste (HLW) stored in underground tanks and approximately 4,000 cubic meters of solid HLW stored in bins. The current DOE estimate of the cost of converting these liquid and solid wastes into stable forms for shipment to a geological repository exceeds $50 billion to be spent over several decades (DOE, 2000). The Committee on Long-Term Research Needs for Radioactive High-Level Waste at Department of Energy Sites was appointed by the National Research Council (NRC) to advise the Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) on a long-term research agenda addressing the above problems related to HLW stored in tanks and bins at DOE sites.

In 1997, Congress, in the conference report, H.R. 105-271, to the FY1998 Energy and Water Development Appropriation Bill, directed the National Research Council (NRC) to carry out a series of assessments of project management at the Department of Energy (DOE). The final report in that series noted that DOE lacked an objective set of measures for assessing project management quality. The department set up a committee to develop performance measures and benchmarking procedures and asked the NRC for assistance in this effort. This report presents information and guidance for use as a first step toward development of a viable methodology to suit DOE's needs. It provides a number of possible performance measures, an analysis of the benchmarking process, and a description ways to implement the measures and benchmarking process.