Two federal agencies recently signed the Interagency Environmental Technologies Office Memorandum of Understanding. They are the U.S. Department of Interior and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are expected to sign the MOU soon.
Signing the MOU gives federal agencies the framework for establishing policy and administrative methods that will permit cooperation and coordination among participants charged with environmental technology research and development. It does not, however, alter the statutory authorities of any of the participants, nor is it meant to interfere with the basic responsibilities of each agency for independent action.
The IETO group works to foster public-private partnerships in stimulating technological innovation and promoting U.S. leadership in global environmental stewardship. Its work can eliminate redundancy and save taxpayers' money by offering a framework for cross-cutting approaches to issues such as mixed waste and expedited site characterization. IETO will also allow private sector participation in demonstrations and other prototype projects that will lead to broad-based technology application across agencies; expedited public, regulatory, and user acceptance; and eventual commercialization of newly developed environmental technologies.
IETO is now holding bi-weekly technical and steering meetings. Held on Wednesdays, the technical meetings begin at 12:30 p.m. and are open to all federal employees, contractors, and guests. Steering meetings, open only to federal employees, begin at 2:30 p.m. The meetings began on Wednesday, January 11, with a presentation on Contaminant Analysis Automation. The speakers were Linton Yarbrough of the U.S. Department of Energy, Robert Hollen of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Rebecca Rubin of the Institute for Defense Analysis.
