[en] The Department of Energy (DOE) requires that all nuclear or non-nuclear facilities shall be designed, constructed and operated so that the public, the workers, and the environment are protected from the adverse impacts of Natural Phenomena Hazards including earthquakes. The design and evaluation of DOE facilities to accommodate earthquakes shall be based on an assessment of the likelihood of future earthquakes occurrences commensurate with a graded approach which depends on the potential risk posed by the DOE facility. DOE has developed Standards for site characterization and hazards assessments to ensure that a consistent use of probabilistic seismic hazard is implemented at each DOE site. The criteria included in the DOE Standards are described, and compared to those criteria being promoted by the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for commercial nuclear reactors. In addition to a general description of the DOE requirements and criteria, the most recent probabilistic seismic hazard results for a number of DOE sites are presented. Based on the work completed to develop the probabilistic seismic hazard results, a summary of important application issues are described with recommendations for future improvements in the development and use of probabilistic seismic hazard criteria for design of DOE facilities