[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 110-160]
NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX MODERNIZATION
__________
HEARING
BEFORE THE
STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
JULY 17, 2008
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STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
RICK LARSEN, Washington MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
JIM COOPER, Tennessee MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts
Rudy Barnes, Professional Staff Member
Kari Bingen, Professional Staff Member
Zach Steacy, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2008
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, July 17, 2008, Nuclear Weapons Complex Modernization... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, July 17, 2008.......................................... 55
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THURSDAY, JULY 17, 2008
NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX MODERNIZATION
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
.................................................................
Everett, Hon. Terry, a Representative from Alabama, Ranking
Member, Strategic Forces Subcommittee.......................... 2
Tauscher, Hon. Ellen O., a Representative from California,
Chairman, Strategic Forces Subcommittee........................ 1
WITNESSES
Aloise, Gene, Director, Natural Resources and Environment
Division, Government Accountability Office..................... 39
D'Agostino, Hon. Thomas P., Administrator, National Nuclear
Security Administration; Dr. George H. Miller, Director,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Dr. Michael R.
Anastasio, Laboratory Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory;
Dr. Thomas O. Hunter, President and Director, Sandia National
Laboratories; Dr. Stephen M. Younger, President, National
Security Technologies, LLC; J. Greg Meyer, President and
General Manager, Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Pantex,
LLC; Vincent L. Trim, President, Honeywell Federal
Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T), LLC; Darrel P. Kohlhorst,
President and General Manager, Babcock & Wilcox Technical
Services Y-12, LLC; Dennis Hayes, General Manager, Defense
Programs, Washington Savannah River Company, beginning on page. 4
Kelley, Marylia, Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs............ 41
Robinson, Ambassador C. Paul, President Emeritus of Sandia
Corporation and Former Laboratories Director, Sandia National
Laboratories................................................... 45
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Aloise, Gene................................................. 120
Anastasio, Dr. Michael R..................................... 76
D'Agostino, Hon. Thomas P.................................... 59
Hayes, Dennis................................................ 116
Hunter, Dr. Thomas O......................................... 82
Kelley, Marylia.............................................. 133
Kohlhorst, Darrel P.......................................... 108
Meyer, J. Greg............................................... 95
Miller, Dr. George H......................................... 71
Robinson, Ambassador C. Paul................................. 141
Trim, Vincent L.............................................. 103
Younger, Dr. Stephen M....................................... 88
Documents Submitted for the Record:
A Future Vision for NNSA's National Security Laboratories.... 151
Four charts submitted by Mr. D'Agostino...................... 152
Tri-Valley CAREs Public Comment and Analysis on Draft Complex
Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental
Impact Statement, Parts One and Two........................ 156
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Everett.................................................. 199
Mr. Spratt................................................... 202
Ms. Tauscher................................................. 199
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Ms. Tauscher................................................. 205
Mr. Wilson................................................... 226
NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX MODERNIZATION
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Strategic Forces Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Thursday, July 17, 2008.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ellen Tauscher
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Ms. Tauscher. Good morning. This hearing of the Strategic
Forces Subcommittee will come to order.
Today, we will consider the National Nuclear Security
Administration's (NNSA) plan for modernizing the nuclear
weapons complex, what the NNSA calls its plan for a Complex
Transformation.
I want to welcome our first panel of distinguished
witnesses, starting with the Administrator of the NNSA, Under
Secretary Tom D'Agostino.
It is a pleasure to have you back before the subcommittee,
Under Secretary, and thank you very much for all the
cooperation and all the great work you and the thousands of
people that you represent do every day for the American people.
Following the Administrator's testimony, we will be joined
at the witness table by the team of experts that manage and
operate the NNSA nuclear weapons complex, whom I will introduce
at that time.
This topic has not received the attention it deserves. The
maintenance and modernization of the nuclear weapons complex is
a prerequisite to the continuing success of the science-based
Stockpile Stewardship Program.
For more than a decade, the Stockpile Stewardship Program
has enabled us to successfully maintain the safety, security
and reliability of our Nation's nuclear deterrent without
underground nuclear tests.
The Nation's success in this endeavor is a marvelous story
and, frankly, it is not well enough publicized. But even where
there is recognition of the effectiveness of the stewardship
program, there is not always a recognition of the challenges of
extending that success.
With today's hearing, I want to have a frank discussion of
what it takes in terms of both fiscal, physical and human
capital to sustain and expand the success of the stewardship
program.
The backdrop for this discussion, of course, is the larger
debate over the United States' nuclear weapons policy. I am as
eager as anyone for a 21st century update to our nuclear
weapons policies. That is why I led the effort last year to
create the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of
the United States.
I believe the Commission will foster and frame a national
discussion on the role of nuclear weapons in assuring our
national security. But as the Chairman of the Commission, the
former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, has noted, even as we
try to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons, we must be
realistic about the length of that process.
It will take us decades. And so over that timeframe, we
must ensure that the Stockpile Stewardship Program remains
viable, which means we cannot simply sit on our hands and watch
buildings erected during the Manhattan Project crumble, if in
their absence, we have no space to do the work that stewardship
requires.
And it means that we cannot lay off thousands of scientists
and engineers and then expect to do the science and technical
work that stewardship requires.
Our responsibilities are greater than that, and that is why
we have called this hearing today.
With that, let me turn to my very good friend, our ranking
member, the distinguished member from Alabama, for any comments
he might have.
And before I turn to Mr. Everett, we don't have many other
hearings planned for the rest of this year. We expect that we
may be out in September. I am going to begin my process of
saying goodbye to my friend.
Mr. Everett is going to be retiring this year. He has had a
number of years of distinguished service on this committee. He
chaired this subcommittee. The little I know about being a
chairman, I have learned from Mr. Everett. He is a great
American and a great Alabaman, and I now yield time to the
ranking member.
STATEMENT OF HON. TERRY EVERETT, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA,
RANKING MEMBER, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. Everett. Well, I don't know quite how to follow that. I
appreciate my good friend and chairman's comments. And what I
can say is she is one of the brightest people I have ever
worked with, and I appreciate her dedication to the issues that
we face with this subcommittee, which are often, frankly,
conflicts and sometimes controversial--often controversial.
And you know, we are handling missile defense, all the
overhead satellites and so forth, and then nuclear weapons. So
I very much appreciate the partnership that we have had over
the years in taking a look at these critical issues for the
Nation. So thank you very much.
Ms. Tauscher. You are welcome, Mr. Everett.
Mr. Everett. And I would also like to extend a warm welcome
to our witnesses. We have some exceptional brain trust with us
today. I thank you for all your service and your dedication to
what you do.
We start down this path--we started down this path in April
of 2006 when this subcommittee held a hearing on the
Department's future plans for the nuclear complex--weapons
complex. I think revisiting this topic is essential, and I
thank the chairman for calling this meeting, which is critical
and important and timely.
I echo many of the concerns that she has. Our nuclear
weapons complex is aging and our Nation's cadre of nuclear
experts is aging. Without modernizing the infrastructure and
fostering a new generation of nuclear experts, we put at risk a
key portion of our Nation's defense, our strategic nuclear
deterrent.
Two years ago, this subcommittee was concerned that despite
numerous studies there had been little change and almost no
actual transformation. Since then, NNSA has put forward a plan
for Complex Transformation.
Its vision is to achieve a smaller, safer, less expensive
complex--makes a lot of sense. However, there are a lot of
questions about the particular course of action put forward by
NNSA, and many are trying to understand how Complex
Transformation relates to other nuclear policies and program
issues being debated in Congress.
Let me put forward some of the questions now and ask you to
address them in your testimony. If you don't have time, then we
will get to them in the questions and answers, starting with:
What facility and infrastructure projects should move forward
regardless of the future--on policy and size of the composition
of the stockpile?
How does the plan ensure long-term health for the
stockpile--program?
How does the plan rebuild human capital, as the chairman
mentioned, across the nuclear enterprise in manufacturing,
design, science, et cetera?
How does the plan meet the military's need for a more
responsive infrastructure and its need for weapons that are
more reliable, safe and secure?
How would Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) benefit the
complex, and would it affect our transformation plan?
How does NNSA fund transformation with a relatively flat
budget?
Last, for our second panel in particular, is there a better
business model?
What questions aren't we asking that we should be asking?
Congress has before it some challenging nuclear policy and
program issues that we do have--have many implications for the
complex, and I am hopeful that the strategic commission that
the chairman led the way in establishing last year will help to
inform our decision-making on these issues.
However, I believe our Nation will continue to maintain a
strong nuclear deterrent, particularly as long as others
maintain or seek nuclear capability. And our allies rely on our
extended nuclear deterrent.
A strong deterrent requires a strong infrastructure and
workforce, and I fear without moving forward on modernization
now, we risk weakening the stockpile we have been--that we have
and jeopardizing our options for the future.
Again, thank you all for being here.
And I thank the chairman for calling this meeting at this
time and for her leadership in the Commission. Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Everett.
Under Secretary D'Agostino, the floor is yours. As we have
received your prepared statement in advance, it will be entered
into the record.
I want to thank you again for delivering, once again, a
very comprehensive review of the accomplishments and the
challenges facing the complex. We welcome your remarks and the
floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS P. D'AGOSTINO, ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL
NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION; DR. GEORGE H. MILLER,
DIRECTOR, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY; DR. MICHAEL
R. ANASTASIO, LABORATORY DIRECTOR, LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL
LABORATORY; DR. THOMAS O. HUNTER, PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR,
SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES; DR. STEPHEN M. YOUNGER,
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES, LLC; J. GREG MEYER,
PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, BABCOCK & WILCOX TECHNICAL
SERVICES PANTEX, LLC; VINCENT L. TRIM, PRESIDENT, HONEYWELL
FEDERAL MANUFACTURING & TECHNOLOGIES (FM&T), LLC; DARREL P.
KOHLHORST, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, BABCOCK & WILCOX
TECHNICAL SERVICES Y-12, LLC; DENNIS HAYES, GENERAL MANAGER,
DEFENSE PROGRAMS, WASHINGTON SAVANNAH RIVER COMPANY
Mr. D'Agostino. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And Chairman Tauscher, Ranking Member Everett, members of
the subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to
discuss U.S. nuclear weapons policies and our programs.
I would also like to take a brief moment as well to thank
Ranking Member Everett for his great leadership on NNSA issues.
I understand this is, in all likelihood, your last
testimony--or last hearing as members of this important
committee, and I want to thank you on behalf of the NNSA and
all of us out in the field for everything you have done for us
and for the Nation as a whole. We really appreciate your
support.
I would also like to acknowledge the representatives that
we assembled behind me. These are the folks that work on our
programs and our stockpile and our deterrent--not only that, on
nonproliferation and counterterrorism issues.
They spend their days and sometimes evenings and weekends
working on these programs, worrying about them, and I
appreciate your opportunity--the opportunity to have them come
forward to show--talk to you about what they know.
My written testimony, as you mentioned, goes into
considerable detail on our vision shift from a 21st century--or
from a Cold War era nuclear weapons complex to a 21st century
national security enterprise. Both of those sets of words are
different, and they are on purpose, but they are different.
But what I want to convey today is that this vision of a
smaller, safer but modern nuclear security enterprise is well
thought out and is first based on requirements that we have
received from the Department of Defense (DOD).
Second, based on our ability to retain the human capital
that is unique and world-class in performing their mission.
And third, there is an urgency to act now to sustain key
infrastructure capabilities necessary to maintain our
deterrent.
As we discuss these issues today, we must remember that the
transformation of the stockpile and enterprise is, in some
effect, already taking place.
The first chart we have here before us shows the
significant reductions in deployed strategic nuclear warheads
that have occurred, and as planned for the future.
As you know, the Moscow Treaty and President Bush's
unilateral cuts to the nuclear weapons overall stockpile, which
is now half of what it was when he took office--we really don't
have a large Cold War weapons stockpile anymore.
And since we don't have a large Cold War arsenal, we don't
need the large Cold War complex that supported that arsenal and
was so important to our Nation's security over the many decades
in the past.
And we have plans to reduce both the square footage of the
complex to be more efficient and to focus on the capabilities
needed to support future national security needs.
A question has been raised by some individual--individuals
that this Administration has not articulated an underlying
strategy for our strategic posture.
And in response to that, in March of 2008, just this year,
Secretaries Bodman and Gates provided Congress a detailed,
classified white paper entitled ``National Security and Nuclear
Weapons in the 21st Century.''
The document describes what type of deterrent strategy is
needed; articulates the size and nature of the stockpile to
correspond to that strategy; and three, articulates the type of
infrastructure needed to support that stockpile into the
future.
As you know, we are the only declared nuclear state that is
not, in fact, currently modernizing its infrastructure.
Over the past three years, we have been aggressive in our
efforts to analyze, describe and perform environmental studies
associated with the type of security enterprises needed to meet
the future requirements.
As you can see from the stack of papers here, this isn't an
approach we have taken idly. This is not a PowerPoint analysis.
This is detailed business-case analyses, environmental analyses
as required, and the team spent a couple of years, actually,
pulling all this together.
And it is remarkably detailed and thorough, and I am very
proud of actually the work that they have done on each of these
potential options.
The draft ``Complex Transformation Supplemental
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement'' was published and
posted in January of this year for public comment, and we are
systematically in the process of considering well over 100,000
oral and written comments on the documents, and those are the
bottom 2 documents I have here.
[The information referred to is retained in the committee
files and can be viewed upon request.]
Mr. D'Agostino. My intention ultimately is to make a
decision in 2008 on this three-year effort in order to continue
on a viable path that will support the next Administration and
the recommendations of the Congressional Commission on
Strategic Posture, whose origin is from this very subcommittee.
And I think the idea is to mesh the Record of Decision with
the recommendations, so that the Commission has the
opportunities, and I would call the space in order to make the
recommendations appropriate to Congress and the next
Administration. I think actually the synergy is quite nice
here.
As Members of Congress can appreciate, change can be
unsettling, and the recent budget-driven dislocations and
involuntary separations that have impacted this program have
been very hard on employee morale and retention of younger
staff members.
When I announced the release of the ``Complex
Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact
Statement,'' I highlighted that scientific and engineering
expertise are essential for the 21st century mission of our
deterrent and nonproliferation missions.
In addition, Secretary of Energy Bodman signed out a lab
vision paper most recently setting forth the strategic mission
of NNSA's three national security laboratories and the Nevada
Test Site (NTS) to be able to respond to evolving 21st century
global security threats.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 151.]
Mr. D'Agostino. Enabled by our core weapons-related
programs, these same individuals can and are using their skills
in other areas of national security importance, such as
nonproliferation programs, research and development (R&D),
nuclear counterterrorism, and support to the intelligence
community (IC).
Simply put, it is that understanding of nuclear materials
and properties, weapons and their effects, that supports these
other critical national security needs out into the future.
Regarding the physical transformation of our important
plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) capabilities, we
need to make decisions and investments today in order for the
sustainment of the strategic deterrent out into the future.
Key construction projects such as the Uranium Processing
Facility (UPF) at Y-12 and the Chemistry and Metallurgy
Research Replacement (CMRR) project at Los Alamos are critical
to sustain the uranium and plutonium capability that is
necessary for any stockpile configuration and to continue
nonproliferation and nuclear counterterrorism activities.
Outside independent entities such as the Defense Nuclear
Facility Safety Board (DNFSB) have noted that it is critical
that the NNSA move quickly to replace uranium processing
facilities located at Y-12 and the current Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research (CMR) facility at Los Alamos.
Over the last three years alone, NNSA has received about a
dozen letters from the defense board citing concerns with the
outdated Cold War-era uranium and plutonium operations.
The board, as you know, is uniquely qualified to provide
sound, independent, technical judgment with respect to safety
and operations. And let me highlight one example.
The defense board wrote just this year, in May, that they
are ``concerned about the NNSA's ability to ensure safe
operations of the CMR facility at Los Alamos, which may be
essential for fulfilling NNSA's national nuclear security
mission. Given the facility's age and seismic fragility, some
upgrades may cost-prohibitive or impractical.''
With respect to the relationship between the new facilities
and the size of our stockpile, our investment in these projects
is both sound and based on analysis of current and likely
future scenarios.
The reality is neither our workforce numbers nor facility
square footage scale linearly with the size of the stockpile.
In today's era of small stockpiles, the required square footage
in a modern, well designed facility to provide essential
capabilities frequently provides just the sufficient minimum
capacity for our work.
So just being able to maintain the capability is usually
enough for the capacity that is required.
This may be best shown on the second chart labeled ``Future
Uranium Facility Requirements,'' and I will walk us through the
chart, if I could.
The Uranium Processing Facility is a facility that we are
currently designing--we are not building it right now; we are
going to wait--we have to wait for our appropriate
authorization, of course--to function within various production
ranges which are correctly tied to likely future scenarios.
And we have considered scenarios from 0 up to about 150
units per year as a range or so. There is a title here labeled
``Baseline.'' It is the second one from the left--is at the 50
to 80 level, consistent with the white paper, classified white
paper, that has been up here since March.
So in the end, this Uranium Processing Facility will
replace a series--not just one, but a whole series of 50-year-
old buildings, Cold War-era buildings, down in Tennessee.
It is being filled, as I said, to meet the modest
requirements consistent with the white paper, 50 to 80, not an
MPF-like number which could be considerably higher.
And these are secondary. These are the components. It is
actually the production piece. The bottom bar, which as you can
see is almost two-thirds--or particularly on the column on the
left is--that blue-shaded area just represents the minimum
space required just to satisfy--not produce anything, just to
take care of our deterrent, due to surveillance work that is
needed; in fact, also to do work for Naval Reactors, the Naval
Nuclear Propulsion program, to do the nonproliferation work,
because as you know we are downblending a lot of highly
enriched uranium, and do--and also do work for others in
isotope production for scientific activities.
So whether we build--to take the capacity required to build
one more, one secondary--this is the production part--is that
first yellow bar on--on the left there. So you see, just to
make one secondary requires an increment of space.
So whether you build 1 or 50 to 80, it is a very small
variance in range. And in the end, what it shows is that what
we are trying to do is make sure that our designs are flexible
and such that just the required capacity to make one requires a
certain amount of capability.
In the end, this uranium processing facility, just space-
wise, will be about half of what the Cold War-era space was
overall total, which was spread out across and, more
importantly, will allow us to consolidate our security areas.
Let me just take a minute, if I could, to focus on
plutonium. The ability to work on and analyze and produce
plutonium pits is essential to maintaining a deterrent and
cannot be performed outside of the NNSA.
Our current research, surveillance and manufacturing
capabilities require and rely right now on old nuclear
facilities. Last year, after a 10-year effort, we were finally
able to reconstitute an interim production capability in a 30-
year-old facility.
But just as important, our current research and analytical
building, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility that
is essential to maintaining the stockpile, dates back to the
early 1950's. It is well beyond its economic lifetime, and it
is quickly approaching end of safe operations.
The question is, what will happen if we do not transform
and just maintain the status quo; I think the short answer is
that we will reach a point where the NNSA will be unable to
maintain our deterrent, not produce anything--we are not even
getting to that point of producing, just unable to maintain the
deterrent, because of the work that we have to do with the
surveillance activities.
Every year, the costs to maintain and secure and operate
our facilities and infrastructures continues to rise, yet our
program to sustain our infrastructure, to support a reduced
stockpile is cut through the appropriations process.
An independent group of scientists that advises the
Government, the JASONs, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board, and the Defense Science Board have all issued reports or
findings over the past several years highlighting the need for
NNSA infrastructure improvements and modernizations.
The last two charts that you will see--and we will show--
the first one will be the Y-12 before and after chart, and then
the second one that will follow will be a future capabilities
chart--kind of give you an idea of our overall approach.
At Y-12, we are going to consolidate all the highly
enriched uranium functions into 2 buildings, and take it from
the 80-plus acres that we have right now into about 15 acres.
So the image on the left shows the current image, and it
may be hard to see from the rostrum--I apologize. The image on
the right shows how a Y-12 of the future could look. You will
notice a lot more green space, because we are going to be
actually shrinking that security footprint down close to 90
percent.
That will save a lot of money, and it will drive our
maintenance costs down, and it will make the operations of the
Y-12 facility a lot more efficient, instead of having
activities spread out over a much larger area.
That core strategy--and if I could get the next chart--is
going to be applied across the complex. This idea of
consolidating capabilities--and over the next 10 years, by
consolidating capabilities, what we are going to have is
special nuclear materials (SNM) going from 7 sites to 5 sites
in the future, with significantly smaller security footprints;
consolidating mission functions across the enterprise, since
our capacity requirements are no longer at Cold War levels;
closing or transferring weapons activities from about 600
buildings or activities, most of those by 2010; and reducing
the square footage of facilities to supporting--that support
weapons-only mission functions by more than 9 million square
feet, so the idea of going from about 36 million square feet to
25 million square feet or so of space.
[The charts referred to can be found in the Appendix on
page 152.]
And ultimately, in the end, as Administrator, I am
responsible for sustaining our capabilities to support the
commitment to maintaining the lowest number of nuclear weapons
consistent with our security requirements.
I have taken a long, hard look at the weapons complex over
many years and where I think it needs to be consistent with our
future requirements. The need to change is urgent, as you have
described.
We must act now to adapt for the future and stop pouring
money into an old Cold War weapons complex that is too big and
too expensive.
Assuming we all agree that for the foreseeable future the
Nation has a need for a credible strategic deterrent, then we
will need a national security enterprise that is safer for our
workers than those used during the Cold War, regardless of the
configuration of the stockpile.
And perhaps more important, our dedicated workforce is the
key to transformation and its success. Their expertise
constitutes a key element of our Nation's security, and we must
work to provide them the tools and facilities in order to
perform their mission.
Thank you very much, and I will be happy to take any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. D'Agostino can be found in
the Appendix on page 59.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you very much, Tom.
Now I would like to ask the impressive, hard-working team
behind you to join you at the witness table, and I would also
like to welcome each of them.
Dr. Michael Anastasio, Director of Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL).
Mr. Dennis Hayes, General Manager, Defense Programs,
Washington Savannah River Company (WSRC).
Dr. Thomas O. Hunter, President and Laboratories Director,
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL).
Mr. Darrel P. Kohlhorst, President and General Manager,
Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services at Y-12.
Mr. J. Greg Meyer, President and General Manager, Babcock
and Wilcox Technical Services, Pantex.
Dr. George H. Miller, Director, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (LLNL).
Mr. Vincent Trim, President, Honeywell Federal
Manufacturing and Technologies, LLC, which manages and operates
the Kansas City Plant.
And Dr. Stephen Younger, President, National Security
Technologies, LLC, which manages the Nevada Test Site.
Thank you, each and every one of you, for being here and
for the many, many people that you represent, all hard-working
Americans. And thank you for working with us on the logistics
of this hearing, and we look forward to our discussion with
you.
I am going to start with a question for Administrator
D'Agostino.
I commend you for noting the importance of maintaining the
science and laboratory base of the complex and for announcing
the laboratory vision for the future.
At the same time, there have been literally thousands of
laid-off staff from the national labs over the last two years.
What specific steps do you plan to take to ensure that the
critical human capital on which the Stockpile Stewardship
Program depends is not permanently undermined?
Mr. D'Agostino. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a
number of critical steps. The most important one, from my view,
is exercising with the real work that we have in place right
now. I think there is real work in the complex that the folks
are doing, and to keep people focused on that work and make
sure that they understand that I believe it is important, that
the Nation believes it is important work.
Folks out in the field--and I can let them speak for
themselves. It is my impression, based on talking to a lot of
people, that they pay attention to what Congress does. They pay
attention to what we do here. They read our testimony. They
listen in on these testimonies. And they read the paper.
And the thing that worries me the most is the sense that
the Nation does not care about this capability that has kept it
so safe. So, a specific step from my standpoint is to
reemphasize that this is important. I appreciate the
subcommittee's understanding of their responsibilities in this
area.
Most specifically, you mentioned the Secretary putting out
the lab vision for the future, which addresses the laboratories
and the Nevada Test Site, and ultimately really extends to the
rest of the nuclear security enterprise.
But ultimately, that vision is--vision is important, and
that vision described what I have talked about as making sure
that we can go off and support other agencies as possible.
But a vision is nothing unless it is implemented, and so
the view--my view is to implement that vision. This year, what
I can do is engage in what I have called ``strategic
partnership agreements'' with other federal agencies for
commitment of resources over multiple years of time that our
directors can plan on arriving and to do critical work for
these other agencies.
And I hope within the next two months to be able to
announce such a partnership, specific partnership, that is new
and different from the past, and that maintains a long-term
stability in a particular area. And if that works, we are going
to continue to look at other areas where we can do more of
that.
Ms. Tauscher. Let's talk about the Life Extension Programs,
because it has been argued that the LEPs, as they are called,
for our nuclear weapons have, on occasion, exceeded the limits
of simply refurbishing them. That is not my understanding, and
I would like to clarify this for the record.
Do Life Extension Programs add any new military
capabilities to our nuclear weapons?
Mr. D'Agostino. Ma'am, our Life Extension Programs are
focused on, of course, first of all, extending the life,
because components do change, but focused on safety, security
and reliability-type functions.
This is not about making a new weapon at all. The focus in
many cases on safety and security--maybe a good example is the
W76, where there--we focused on safety by adding the dual
strong link mechanism, because we want to make sure that our
weapons, where we can--make them safer than what we have had.
Technology has changed over the last 30 years.
With respect to reliability, fuses and--our fuses changed a
little bit on the W76, because the radar technology has changed
dramatically over 30 years. So why not put in a 21st century
radar instead of a 1970's or 1980's radar in the system,
duplicating exactly that it was done?
But in the end analysis, what we are talking about is, you
know, the exact same warhead. It has got the same mission that
it had before. It has got the same yields that it had before to
make sure it meets the same military characteristics that the
Defense Department had originally set out.
It is carried on the same platform; it is carried on the
same delivery vehicle, potentially the same targets. I am sure
the target set has changed a little bit. But in essence, it is
the same warhead. So this is not about enhancing performance,
or increasing yield, or making it a hard and deeply buried type
of a thing at all.
Ms. Tauscher. So effectively, Life Extension Programs are
what they actually are said to be, life extension programs.
They are not meant--they are not and do not change the
performance, change the yield, change the military mission.
Nothing in the Life Extension Program can be constituted as
improving the weapon, other than in the sense that you are
extending the life of the weapon.
Mr. D'Agostino. That is right. And other than the fact
that, in some cases--this probably doesn't apply to the W76,
but some of our older systems have vacuum tubes in them. You
can't buy those anymore. They don't exist in many cases. You
would probably have to go on eBay or something like that.
We are not going to do that, of course. We are going to use
modern technology to replace that.
Ms. Tauscher. There are people in the room that are too
young to know what vacuum tubes are.
Mr. D'Agostino. Okay, I apologize. I am dating myself, I
guess.
Ms. Tauscher. I have a question for Dr. Miller, Director
Miller.
What will the National Ignition Facility (NIF) contribute
to the Stockpile Stewardship Program? And what specific areas
of uncertainty regarding nuclear weapons performance will the
NIF help resolve? It is the largest laser in the world, isn't
it?
Dr. Miller. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. When we did
nuclear testing, there were several major areas that we did not
have fundamental scientific understanding of. Many of these
have been pointed out in a variety of studies and reviews,
including the Defense Science Board.
Let me call these ``the grand challenges of nuclear weapons
physics.'' NIF is the only facility that allows us, in an
experimental sense, without a nuclear weapon, to address all of
the phases of a nuclear weapon that occur after the high
explosive goes off and it goes into what we call the ``nuclear
phase.''
So the temperatures and the densities that occur, like
occur in the center of the sun, would be achievable in NIF.
And so issues of boosting, which the Defense Science Board
called the largest challenge in weapons physics energy
balance--there are about four of them that are addressable by
NIF.
They will allow us validate and understand how to do the
simulations accurately so that we will enhance our confidence
and move further away from the need to do nuclear testing.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Miller can be found in the
Appendix on page 71.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
My final question is for Dr. Anastasio, the Director of Los
Alamos lab.
If CMRR Nuclear Facility is not built, what are the
consequences to the Stockpile Stewardship Program and to other
national security functions, such as nuclear forensics?
Dr. Anastasio. Thank you, Madam Chairman. The CMR, as
Administrator D'Agostino said in his comments, is a capability
that we use to--for the country to underwrite our stockpile
stewardship activities.
The Chemistry and Metallurgical Research facility is old.
It came online in 1952. And the capabilities there are
essential to carry out our mission. One example is in the
Stockpile Stewardship Program, periodically we bring weapons
back from the military, take them apart and do forensics on the
components in that weapon.
One of those is we actually take the pits apart and take
samples out of the pit, take pieces out, and we use our
analytic and metallurgical capabilities, our R&D scientific
tools in this facility, to look at that material and see how is
it aging, is it changing, can we project and predict its life
and the issues that may or may not arise. So that surveillance
activity is actually done in this facility.
Of course, it also supports other missions. Besides our
stockpile stewardship, we do a lot of work to support
nonproliferation activities, counterterrorism activities,
nuclear forensics, as you identified, and even the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space missions are
supported by the activities that go on in that building.
So it is an essential capability that must be maintained
somehow, but it is getting so old that it is very--and sits on
an earthquake fault. It is difficult for us to continue to meet
the evolving modern standards of safety and security.
So building a replacement facility for it is a way to
sustain that capability in a practical sense.
And then the last point is, of course, it is part, as well,
of the laboratories' transformation efforts to get to a
smaller, more secure, more efficient footprint.
And as an example, the new facility will be over 100,000
square feet smaller. It will be relocated inside a consolidated
nuclear area at the laboratory which is much more easy to have
a security protection perimeter for. And we will be
accommodating the activity that is going on now at the Lawrence
Livermore Lab.
So it is a way to make us more safe, more efficient and
more secure, at the same time continuing to carry out both our
stockpile stewardship mission and to support many of the other
national security activities of the lab.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Anastasio can be found in
the Appendix on page 76.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Dr. Anastasio.
I am happy now to yield to the ranking member for such time
as he may consume.
After Mr. Everett is finished, we will go to member
questions under the five-minute rule, and we would expect that
we will have two rounds because we have such a large panel and
we want to be able to get as much out of you as we can.
So I am happy to yield to Mr. Everett.
Mr. Everett. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. D'Agostino, you touched on this briefly during your
testimony, but what facility and infrastructure projects should
move forward regardless of future decisions on policy and size
and composition of the stockpile?
You also touched on the ``why,'' but also re-touch on the
``why.''
Mr. D'Agostino. Yes, sir. I will kind of answer it in two
ways. From the large sense, it is important for those
projects--all those projects that provide the bare minimum
capability that is required to maintain a deterrent, should go
forward regardless of size.
Now, size should be considered, of course, but if, for
example, a--to maintain a deterrent, I need to maintain a
uranium capability. That doesn't mean I should build multiple
uranium capabilities. I ought to have at least one good one. If
I don't have one good one, I need one good one.
So I focus it on, is this a matter of capability or
capacity? And my first priority is to maintain capability,
because without capability, I can't maintain our deterrent.
The capacity part could come later, whether we need a
second one or a third one. So I have to have kind of one of
everything. And then I have to have it sized such that it
allows for flexibility based on the bipartisan commission--the
strategic commission that is reviewing it right now.
So I am sizing it from like--from the--I am going to need
one warhead up to where we currently are right now, and it
turns out that because, in many cases, just having one of
something means that you can actually build more than one of
something, that is probably where we are going to end up.
But specifically, the CMR replacement facility, because our
plutonium capability and path forward is not sustainable.
At Lawrence Livermore, for example, we have a plutonium
capability. It is in a multi-decade-old facility, but it is
also being surrounded by a community that is just growing right
around it. That is not a plan that is sustainable. It doesn't
make sense, costs a lot of money.
And as Dr. Anastasio described up at Los Alamos, we are in
an old facility there. So between the two, I only need one, and
that is the CMR replacement facility.
At Y-12, it is about uranium, and I described the idea of
getting to fewer--consolidating our uranium capability. And
that philosophy can be carried forward kind of across the
nuclear weapons complex.
But those are the two main ones right now that I am very
uneasy about, because we are not on a good path, and we are on
a very expensive path, and ultimately--you know, unless we
fully support these functions or these facilities.
Mr. Everett. To what degree would--to what degree would
NNSA's Complex Transformation plans be altered based on whether
it pursues a Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) strategy or
continues the Life Extension Program strategy?
Mr. D'Agostino. If the Nation decided it wanted to pursue
that strategy, our plans could be altered probably in a couple
of main areas.
One is beryllium. Our plans for the future don't include
beryllium, particularly beryllium metal, and then the oxides.
But the idea of--that is a capability I won't have to maintain.
Right now, we don't have a capability to do a significant
amount of work with beryllium, and we don't actually want to do
that into the future. So a reliable replacement approach that
considers getting rid of some of these materials allows me to
not have to worry about beryllium anymore.
There is a heavy metal that is produced down and
manufactured down in Tennessee that we would currently have to
maintain. It is a mile-long production process stream down at--
down there. It is in very old buildings, as well.
It is not highly enriched uranium, but if we didn't pursue
another approach, I would need to maintain that capability and
not have to rebuild that.
So these are important, but they are marginal activities, I
think. At a bare minimum, what I want to do is make sure that
the plans we have in place sustain a capability to provide
options for the strategic commission and the next
Administration, so they can move forward down--down whatever
path the Nation ultimately decides it wants to go in the long
run.
Mr. Everett. How does NNSA propose to fund Complex
Transformation, given what many, and perhaps most believe to be
a flat budget?
Mr. D'Agostino. Okay. There are a number of steps. I will
describe a couple of key ones, and then I could probably
provide a more--a longer answer. I don't want to take up too
much time.
But the key couple of steps that we are already putting in
place is material consolidation. By consolidating material--
let's say, for example, the work that we currently have under
way at Lawrence Livermore to move plutonium, significant
quantities of plutonium, that require his higher level security
out--could save about $30 million a year.
So that is real money. That is significant. Those are
resources that can be put back into infrastructure. And we are
not just doing it at Livermore. In fact, we have completed that
job at Sandia. In the past, Sandia required a much larger
security force, and most recently, within the last 12 months,
we finished the job of moving those materials out.
We have opportunities at the Nevada Test Site, because it
is a very remote location, to do work there that could
potentially reduce our security costs elsewhere.
Right now, the NNSA spends over $800 million in security
costs. It is money well spent, but there is a much more
efficient way to do that.
And there are other mechanisms, such as consolidating
contracts, looking at doing supply chain management in a
different way, which is already under way right now. We have
demonstrated savings of $5 million a year through this concept
called reverse auctions, and we are expecting that to grow
significantly this upcoming year.
And so these contractors have saved a lot of money by
looking at business in a different way and working together
more than just focusing on being completely independent of each
other.
So there is some good things there, and I am confident that
we can fund a significant part of this. And we are going to
have to balance our workload, there is no question about it,
with respect to facilities.
Mr. Everett. Largely, the savings from base closure
commissions have not necessarily materialized. And I would--
when you give us--I would ask for a more detailed explanation
and the underpinning of why you reached the analysis that you
did----
Mr. D'Agostino. Okay.
Mr. Everett [continuing]. On this.
Mr. D'Agostino. I would be glad to do that.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
beginning on page 199.]
Mr. Everett. Thank you, Ms. Chairman.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Everett.
We are about to go to five-minute questioning from members.
I would just like to note for the record that the unfortunate
passing of former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow--his
memorial service is now--has led some members obviously to not
be here, and many of them will submit questions for the record,
and obviously we extend to the Snow family our deepest
condolences.
We go to Mr. Loebsack of Iowa for five minutes.
Mr. Loebsack. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I am going to
pass.
Ms. Tauscher. We go to Mr. Wilson for five minutes.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And thank all of you for being here today. I am
particularly happy to see Mr. Hayes. I am very pleased to,
along with Congressman Gresham Barrett, to represent the
Savannah River Site (SRS).
And I had the background--I particularly appreciate your
service. I was Deputy General Counsel at the Department of
Energy (DOE) several decades ago, but I appreciate your
dedication and service for our country.
And indeed, the Savannah River Site has been located in
South Carolina for the last--since the early 1950's, and it has
had a terrific record of service. It has been so appreciated by
the community. There is just strong community support.
And indeed, I just want to thank Mr. Hayes for his
leadership to continue the strong feelings that the people of
South Carolina and Georgia have for the Savannah River Site.
Mr. D'Agostino, as we are approaching issues, the Senate
Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee included $22
million in their bill to expand the Advanced Retirement and
Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) mission, to bridge the gap
between when MOX and the disassembly and conversion facility
opens.
Does SRS have the ability to help bridge this gap using
existing facilities and material currently on or destined for
the site?
Mr. D'Agostino. Mr. Wilson, that is--they do. In fact, we
are evaluating that right now. We are looking at this from a--
kind of a nuclear security enterprise response.
We recognize the workforce at Savannah River, at the
Savannah River Site, is dedicated. They know what they are
doing. They have worked with plutonium, and they are part of
our solution set as we look to figure out how do we bridge that
gap between the startup of the MOX facility and the--and the--
you know, bridge that gap between the Pit Disassembly and
Conversion Facility (PDCF) project and the startup of the
facility.
And my important view is we need to have the oxide material
to keep MOX running, because I want to--I want to get all of
the value out of that facility.
Mr. Wilson. We certainly support your goal.
The NNSA has determined that there is a need to--has it
determined there is a need to expand the mission of ARIES?
Mr. D'Agostino. That is right. In other words, right now,
our current plan doesn't--because we expected there to be not
much of a multiyear gap, and the reality is that because of
funding profiles, there have been some shifts as a result of
moving projects back and forth and not full funding that have
caused the gap to widen.
So we are going to have to do a little bit more, most
likelihood, in the ARIES process. But ultimately, in the end,
what we are trying to figure out is what makes sense in the
long run.
Mr. Wilson. And on funding, is this additional $22 million
appropriation for ARIES necessary at this point?
Mr. D'Agostino. I actually don't know the answer to that
question, Mr. Wilson. I think it just came out recently. What
we are trying to do is figure out what is the right thing to do
programmatically and then figure out then what are the
resources we need and where do we need the resources in order
to support the ultimate goal of downblending the 34 metric tons
(MT) of plutonium.
And then, of course, just last year the Secretary added
nine more metric tons of plutonium to the batch, if you will,
that is going through, and we are looking at ways to continue
to add more material to be downblended.
And so I don't know if this is the right amount of money.
But that is something that we are going to analyze and that Bob
Smolen, who runs Defense Programs--he is the Deputy
Administrator there--that is--he has got a team of people,
including Savannah River, to look at that.
Mr. Wilson. And of great importance to the community, how
does an expanded ARIES mission fit into the--NNSA's vision for
the new weapons complex?
Mr. D'Agostino. Well, I think it really kind of depends on
whether the expansion of ARIES where it currently exists is the
right--is the right approach. We haven't made that
determination.
I think my goal ultimately is to make sure that--I mean,
right now, ARIES is an activity that is being conducted, but we
don't think it has got that pace and rate that is going to
actually cover the gap.
So in the end, we want a permanent solution, because what
we have got is the 34 metric tons, plus 9 metric tons, plus
potentially another sizeable piece or slice of plutonium that
we are going to add to the capability.
And you know, all of that material, whether it is 50 tons
or not, or more, will be part of the answer, the business-case
answer, that we will come up with.
Mr. Wilson. And in conclusion, under DOE Project Management
Order DOE-0413.3A, a full evaluation of the alternative
analysis is required before making a decision. Are there plans
to initiate a full analysis of alternatives?
Mr. D'Agostino. Absolutely. Right now, the Pit Disassembly
and Conversion Facility--what we call Critical Decision 2,
where we establish our baseline, is scheduled--it is probably
going to happen January timeframe or early next year.
That 413 order requires us to reevaluate the previous
critical decisions. And the previous critical decision is to
reexamine all options, because it is important before we commit
resources that we know that we are on the right path, and so we
will do that as part of DOE 413, sir.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
Five minutes to Ms. Tsongas of Massachusetts.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you.
And thank you all for your testimony. There is many of you
up there, but I am going to address this question again to Mr.
D'Agostino. Sorry.
In the wake of recent Department of Defense nuclear
mishaps, select independent reviews have highlighted an erosion
across the nuclear enterprise. To what extent has this erosion
materialized within the nuclear weapons complex? And how do
NNSA's Complex Transformation plans address this?
Mr. D'Agostino. Okay. Thank you very much for your
question. I think that is a great question. It reflects
something that I have--we have been thinking about for the last
number of years, actually.
We in this business have been--pay close attention to the
Defense Department and work closely with them. About two years
ago, the Defense Science Board wrote a report which described
concerns about the infrastructure and attention on strategic
issues such as these. In that report, there are recommendations
for both the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense
to undertake.
Secretary Bodman, as part of that, because he was briefed
out by General Welch, who headed up that report, in fact--he
talked to the Secretary of Defense at the time and actually had
a meeting with him, with the Deputy Secretary--took those
actions very seriously and made a number of changes to our
organizational structure and I think drove a tremendous amount
of focus on the Department of Energy side.
We initiated a program called ``Getting the Job Done,''
which focused on 10 specific items to restore the capability,
to meet Defense Department needs. There was a bit of
reorganization where the site office organizations that had
previously reported up in the organization were shifted back
down to Defense Programs.
And in this case, I have got Air Force General, retired,
Bob Smolen, in that job. He is tightly connected with the new
Air Force leadership and has showed them what we have done and
provided recommendations to the Air Force on how to address
that.
One final point is that as a result--Admiral Kirk Donald is
dual hatted. He reports into the NNSA, to me, as well as to the
Department of the Navy. He was the admiral that led the
investigation for Secretary Gates and had shared what his
lessons learned were as a result of his investigation.
And Bob Smolen and I have chartered an independent group
led by Bill Desmond, who was the former Chief of Defense
Nuclear Security, to make sure and evaluate those lessons
learned from the Defense Department--let's make sure we bring
them back here in the National Nuclear Security Administration
and make sure that we are doing the right thing and that we
have covered all our bases.
That review is underway right now and is expected--I expect
to get some feedback--Bob Smolen and I expect to get some
feedback in the October timeframe, roughly, this fall, because
we want to take action, if any is needed, this year on that
path forward.
Ms. Tsongas. Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Do you yield back?
Ms. Tsongas. I do.
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Spratt for five minutes, Mr. Spratt from
South Carolina.
Mr. Spratt. Well, thank you all for your presence and for
your testimony.
Is the five-site complex that you now have in mind
dependent on the RRW? Is it modeled around that particular
focal point?
Mr. D'Agostino. No, sir. The consolidation of materials to
five sites--I think is maybe what you are referring to--is
independent on whether--what approach we use for the future
stockpile, whether we maintain a life extension strategy or
look to add enhanced safety and security via other methods.
Our view is that we need to consolidate our material for a
couple of reasons. Efficiency right now is--and cost savings
are huge parts of that.
And plus there is the safety and security aspect. If the
material is in fewer locations it is easier for us to protect,
and it is easier to make sure that that workforce is trained
and know how to work on that on a day-to-day basis, versus
trying to spread that capability around at too many sites.
Mr. Spratt. Since you speak of capital cost, can you give
us an idea of what the likely capital cost is going to be, the
incremental costs over and above your typical capital budget?
Mr. D'Agostino. Right now, we spend on the average of--our
capital budget in the NNSA averages somewhere between $250
million to $450 million per year, depending on the year,
because it goes up and down depending on the projects that we
have overall.
We expect that this modernization effort is probably going
to increase that baseline to about $600 million, $650 million
per year, so on the order of $150 million to $200 million per
year more.
So our focus is to drive down costs through better-business
practices, through consolidation of materials across the
complex, through supply-chain management----
Mr. Spratt. But the incremental cost is $150 million to
$200 million a year?
Mr. D'Agostino. Roughly. And it depends on a couple of
things. It depends on--there is unknowns out there. One is this
Critical Decision 2 where we establish a performance baseline.
That is kind of the--my contract with my contractors, if you
will, saying you agree to provide this building at this date
for this time for this amount of money on this rate of
expenditure.
Both the Critical Decision 2's for the two facilities that
we are talking about, the UPF and the CMRR--we haven't reached
those points yet.
The CMRR Critical Decision 2 won't happen until we do a
little bit more preliminary design work, until the year 2010,
and that is something that the laboratory is working on fairly
aggressively. And the UPF is a little bit--is downstream as
well.
When we get those Critical Decision 2's, we will have to
marry-up and make sure that our cash flow is supported by our
existing budget, and that will be--that is the work that will
have to happen.
Mr. Spratt. You indicate that you would anticipate removing
about 600 buildings and facilities?
Mr. D'Agostino. What we would do--yes. Some of those
buildings and facilities are actually just underutilized and
not needed anymore, so we would take them down. Yes, sir.
Mr. Spratt. How many of them have contamination costs,
cleanup costs, associated with them?
Mr. D'Agostino. I don't have that--I don't have that
accurate number on the top of my head. I would like to take
that for the record, if I could. But what--there are a number
of these facilities, for example, that have very little
contamination and are fairly simple to take down.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 202.]
Mr. D'Agostino. And our fiscal year 2009 request
established a funding line--requested a funding line for--
called Transformation Disposition--in other words, dismantling.
And this is not heavily contaminated buildings.
There is a smaller subset of facilities that we are going
to be working with our Environmental Management (EM)
organization to see, you know, how we are going to do that. And
that work--it really depends on the alternative. I have a draft
plan that is out in public right now.
When we get to the record of decision point, when we have
agreement on what we will do, then we are going to sharpen our
pencils on those particular points and figure out which ends up
on which side of the line and how we want to move forward.
Mr. Spratt. Okay.
I have a couple more questions that I will come back to.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Spratt.
I am happy to go to Mr. Reyes for five minutes, Mr. Reyes
of Texas.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
My questions are along the same lines as Mr. Spratt. Mr.
D'Agostino, because the consensus is pretty much that we are
going to be seeing pretty flat budgets in the foreseeable
future, probably the next decade.
Mr. D'Agostino. Right.
Mr. Reyes. So I have got some concerns that go back to when
I was the ranking member and Mr. Everett was the chairman, from
several perspective.
Number one, as you go through this process of eliminating
these buildings that--that aren't being used, and take into
consideration the cleanup and all these other things, for me
security has to be an issue.
And so I am wondering, given the budget, given the
challenge and given the transformation, how are you going to be
able to reconcile that, or what is the plan to be able to
provide and maximize security, given the challenges we have
seen in the recent past?
Mr. D'Agostino. On the security piece of it, within the
security budget, the Defense Nuclear Security Program, there is
a line on research and development and technology insertion. In
other words, it is the idea of doing security differently, not
doing it--doing less security, but doing it from a different
standpoint.
And there are a number of technologies that are being
looked at to be implemented--Remotely Operated Weapons systems,
for example--that can reduce the overall level of costs, since
the cost in security is over $800 million a year.
So this is not about less security. This is about doing it
a little bit differently, because the biggest costs of security
ultimately are the costs associated with maintaining a very
large workforce. And the more guard stations there are that
exist out there, the more numbers of guards that you have to
maintain those and the like.
There are some activities that are being considered across
the complex, some of my colleagues may be able to provide some
specific examples of security technologies that they have been
able to actually implement in their areas.
We know that we can save $30 million by shifting the
Superblock facility at Livermore from a Category I/II facility
to a Category III/IV facility, because--and that is--that is a
pretty significant cost.
We know in Texas, for example, at the Pantex plant, we can
look at Zone 4, which is a remote weapons storage site for
plutonium and the like, and that if we move some of that
underground, and we have got capabilities across the complex,
we can change the security posture dramatically.
So right now at Pantex, we protect two very large areas,
Zone 4 and Zone 12. If it were reduced down to one, I think the
costs of security savings there are in the multiple tens of
millions of dollars per year.
And those are the areas that we are going to go
aggressively after to try to drive that efficiency in the
program, because we recognize--I recognize that, you know,
there is not a--there is not enough room to add, if you will, a
large multi-hundred-million-dollar line on top of everything
else. It is just not affordable.
So we have to look at doing business differently, and that
is one--that is our third strategy, is change the way we do
business.
Mr. Reyes. Well, some of the concerns that I have--and
again, predicated on the experience that I have had in--
particularly in this committee as a ranking member--is that we
don't cut corners, that we don't--that I guess the--because one
of the big issues that we identified previously was the culture
of some of these facilities was that, you know, we are
scientists, we don't have to worry about security that much,
that is somebody else's--that is somebody else's concern.
So cutting corners, the challenge that we have with the
budget, the understanding that there was a commitment made to
this committee, or the subcommittee, that training on an
ongoing basis to make sure that there is--the workforce is
sensitized to security and the breaches that we have
experienced in the past, that that doesn't fall by the wayside.
You know, in tough budget times, unfortunately, one of the
first things that go--that goes is training, and that is an
important part of this piece, given the track record of some of
these facilities.
So, I hope you keep the subcommittee informed of this
ongoing--because it sounds like it is an ongoing and fluid plan
that is evolving, so that we can, I guess, make sure that those
concerns are addressed.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. D'Agostino. Yes, sir.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Reyes.
I am going to go to questions before we go to Mr. Larsen.
I would like to talk--ask a question of Dr. Hunter from
Sandia.
Following the competitions for the contracts to manage and
operate Livermore and Los Alamos laboratories in the last few
years, some have begun to question whether for-profit entities
are ideally suited to manage these institutions.
Should the business model of governance of the national
laboratories be a consideration in Complex Transformation?
Dr. Hunter. Thank you, Madam Chairman--very important
question, one that we spend a lot of time thinking about,
because we--we like to look at our--for instance, our role at
Sandia and ask, ``What is the best way in which we can support
the Government?''
I would like to make just a couple of points about how I
feel about that and then directly address your question about
for-profits.
I think an essential ingredient which can't be bought at
any price but which is critical moving forward is that each of
the institutions be an institution committed to national
service, that their primary and fundamental role is we are
about national service, and all of our decisions and all of our
incentives for decisions are about how we serve the Nation
best.
Second, it is very important that the incentives and the
roles and the leadership of the institutions think about how to
have both, not either, and not a balance, but both excellence
in operations, including security, and excellence in science, a
quest to try to maximize and provide both at the best possible
level.
And then getting more directly to your question, each
institution, each person who leads and each person who has a
responsible position, has to feel accountable for what they do.
They have to feel accountable to this value of national
service. They have to feel accountable to the fact that they
must deliver.
And with the accountability, and the feeling of
accountability must go the authority to deal with it and the
proper balanced role of what--who does what in the institution
and who does what with respect to the Federal Government.
And then last, the dominant criteria should be the
stewardship of its people and the people, as reflecting on
other comments, have to be felt to be valued and respected and
supported.
You cannot buy, and it is a good thing--you cannot buy
people who know and care about nuclear weapons. They have to be
created. They have to be invested in. They have to be
supported.
If you put all those together, I think it does not matter
so much about profit or for-profit. What matters is what--what
is the ethos or the value statement of the institution, how is
it supported, and how is it managed, and how does the Federal
Government then respond by acknowledging the accountability and
the incentives that go with it.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hunter can be found in the
Appendix on page 82.]
Ms. Tauscher. That is a great answer. Thank you.
Dr. Younger, of the Nevada Test Site, in your testimony you
suggest that the Device Assembly Facility (DAF) at the Nevada
Test Site is underutilized.
What additional Stockpile Stewardship Program or national
security activities could be supported there, and what sort of
modifications, if any, would be required to enable such work,
and what would they cost?
Dr. Younger. Thank you. The Device Assembly Facility is
currently being modified to house the Critical Experiments
Facility that was formerly located at TA-18 at Los Alamos. That
will result in considerable security savings while providing a
full capability for the Nation.
When that modification is complete, we will still have
40,000 square feet of empty space--the Device Assembly
Facility, at a time when nuclear capable space costs
approximately $65,000 per square foot to build. That could be
used for a variety of missions.
We are looking at the possibility of augmenting--not
replacing, certainly, but augmenting weapons disassembly in the
DAF, or small lot special case disassemblies.
There are a variety of plutonium operations that could be
conducted in the DAF--business-case warrants, including
surveillance, including an augmentation to the ARIES process at
Los Alamos, and including other plutonium operations.
The typical cost for the modification of the DAF, since it
is a fully capable nuclear facility today, and since security
is already paid for by other missions--and I might add that the
DAF is considered one of, if not the most, secure facilities in
the DOE complex.
The cost of modification for a major mission would be
between $100 million and $300 million, which is considerably
less than construction of a facility.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Younger can be found in the
Appendix on page 88.]
Ms. Tauscher. Just as an aside, many of our colleagues and
I, with Administrator D'Agostino, took a tour of many parts of
the complex a few months ago, and I think one of the most
fascinating things that the American people don't understand,
which is why this narrative that we are building is so
important, is when you go to the Nevada Test Site, which--I
would recommend you change your name.
When you go to the Nevada Test Site, it is a warren of
busyness. There is so much stuff going on there. You have got
so many other things that you're doing that are very
important--homeland security, national security--so much going
on there.
And I think that most people think that when you go to the
Nevada Test Site you are moving away the cobwebs because it
hasn't been used for so long. And the truth is, it is a dynamic
facility.
And I think it is very important that we continue to get
the message out of all the other work that is being done there.
And I am not kidding about changing the name.
Dr. Younger. I cordially invite----
[Laughter.]
Dr. Younger. I cordially invite all the members of the
committee to visit the site that is currently in Nevada that
will shortly be renamed.
Ms. Tauscher. We will be back.
And also, we went to Pantex, and we have J. Greg Meyer
here, who is from Pantex, and we would just like to talk a
little bit about the operations and workload at Pantex.
And would it be altered if the decision on Life Extension
Programs was life extension programs only, or if we moved to
something that was similar to the RRW strategy? What kind of
workload would Pantex have? Would it be altered, and the
mission that you have there at Pantex?
Mr. Meyer. The exact mission would not change in terms of
assembly/disassembly, but the mix of that workload would. But
right now, if--we do a number of different weapons systems,
both lifetime extension programs, as well as dismantlements, as
well as surveillances.
If the decision was made to do only LEPs, we would then
focus very heavily on that and continue to do dismantlements,
and then surveillances as necessary.
If we were going to go down the RRW path, on the other
hand, we would probably not do LEPs or surveillances to the
same extent. We would be building one new weapons system, RRW,
but doing very heavily dismantlement work.
Bays and cells at Pantex are multifunctional in that sense.
They don't wear out. We basically stage the tooling appropriate
and do the training, so the workforce would be about the same.
The training would be slightly different, especially if it is
RRW.
With RRW, since it is--it would be a new design--actually,
we are working--we have been invited to participate with the
laboratories and give some of the actual production input so
that design would have our inputs in and make the assembly/
disassembly process easier for us.
But the flexibility of the Pantex lab would support either
role.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Meyer can be found in the
Appendix on page 95.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you very much.
And I have got a question for Vincent Trim of the Kansas
City Plant.
The decision was made to build a new facility at Kansas
City. Talk very briefly, if you can, about how--what the
process of evaluation was to make that decision? Assumably, the
decision to build the new facility was--included cost savings,
and if you could just tell us a little bit about why the
decision was to build the facility as opposed to consolidation?
Mr. Trim. Certainly. The current facility was built in the
late 1940's and is approximately 3.3 million square feet. We
believe the mission only requires roughly 1.2 million square
feet of manufacturing space, so it is a pretty easy business
case when you look at the cost of maintaining a Cold War
structure, security, maintenance and a whole host of costs that
go along with that.
We had independent groups look at the business case, and
primarily, the driver is that maintaining the capability is
also about maintaining the talent that exists.
We are more than just assemblers of nuclear--or builders of
components. We have engineers, and we bridge that gap between
design and manufacturability at the Kansas City Plant.
But the business case is very compelling and will yield
$100 million a year in savings when we hit rate production and
get into the new facility in 2012. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Trim can be found in the
Appendix on page 103.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you. I have questions for Mr. Kohlhorst
and for Mr. Hayes, but I will hold them till after Mr. Larsen
of Washington asks his questions for five minutes.
Do you want to pass?
Mr. Larsen. Yes, I will pass.
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Kohlhorst, how are you? The Y-12 plant in
Tennessee--the planned Uranium Processing Facility is being
designed to accommodate potential shifts in our strategic
weapons policy, I assume.
Can you tell us a little bit about how that is being done
and how you are facilitating the kind of flexibility that may
be needed?
Mr. Kohlhorst. Certainly, Madam Chairman. Working through
the preliminary and concept designs of that facility, we have
made sure that the maximum flexibility is there for changes in
the stockpile, changes in the workload.
The facility is being designed with all the correct safety
systems and security systems built into the facility so that if
these changes come about, we are prepared to move processing
equipment, reconfigure the processing lines, add capability
where we need it, reduce it in other areas.
It is a general--it is a very general manufacturing
facility on the inside of the processing area, although it has
some--some nuclear safety systems that surround it that keep us
safe no matter what we--so all of those are being taken into
consideration as we do the design.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kohlhorst can be found in
the Appendix on page 108.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hayes, what should the NNSA and Congress do to ensure
that DOE planning for plutonium disposition at Savannah River
Site--what do we do to make sure it is synchronized with the
NNSA's Complex Transformation plans?
Mr. Hayes. Good morning. I think the activities that Tom
talked about before that are currently underway will ensure
that the activities going on at Savannah River and with a
broader perspective the NNSA are accounted for.
We have several key experts at Savannah River, with years
of plutonium experience, participating in complex councils to
make sure that that information is communicated.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hayes can be found in the
Appendix on page 116.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
Mr. Spratt for a second round for five minutes?
Mr. Spratt. You may have answered this before, and I was
listening to the testimony and reading the briefing memorandum
at the same time. But what is the current plan for the location
of the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility? Is it slated to
go to Savannah River, or will it--is it being considered for
location elsewhere?
Mr. D'Agostino. I will take that, Mr. Spratt. Our current
plan is to build a Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility at
Savannah River.
The activity that we have underway this year is to make
sure that the MOX Facility that we are also building at
Savannah River has the material--the feedstock it needs to keep
operating, because we don't want to operate it just for a short
period of time and then have it shut down for a couple years
while it waits for the PDCF to finish construction.
So that is, you know, the--this discussion on the ARIES
line was to--to make sure we fill the gap, if you will, or mind
the gap, and make sure that that gap gets filled, or that that
gap gets filled by modifying some facilities at Savannah River
to fill the gap.
Whether it gets done at Los Alamos to fill the gap, or
Nevada to fill the gap, that business case is under way. But
the program of record, and our path forward on PDCF is to build
it at Savannah River.
Mr. Spratt. One of the necessary facilities you have
indicated will be plutonium production. And I have been through
TA-55 a couple of times, and each time we have been--seen that
facility, we have been told it has a production capacity of 1
shift and a maintenance shift, I think, of about 50 pits a
year.
Is that not adequate for the stockpile that we are
envisioning for the future?
Mr. D'Agostino. Mr. Spratt, that is absolutely right. It is
adequate for the stockpile we are envisioning, 50 to 80 pits
per year. And maybe Dr. Anastasio can add on at the end of this
to clarify my statements, since his--the expertise exists at
both--at Los Alamos and Livermore.
But in order to do what I would call basic surveillance--in
other words, take care of our current stockpile, do the
analytical chemistry and material characterization work, the
TA-55 complex, which you just described, relies on this other
building, which is not located there, to do the chemistry work.
And it is that other building that is very old that we are very
worried about.
But the 50 to 80 pits per year, which is part of our
current requirement in our classified paper--the laboratory
believes that with changes--it would require some changes
internally--glove boxes and lathes and things like that--that
it could happen.
Maybe----
Dr. Anastasio. Yeah, Mr. Spratt, to amplify a little bit,
the existing PF-4, which is in the TA-55 that you have visited
in the past--we believe we had adequate space to support all
the stockpile stewardship mission that we have, including up to
a production capacity of 50 to 80 pits per year.
We will have to do some reconfiguration of the glove box
lines and so forth that is inside that building, but it will
not--and of course, we have to do normal upgrades to maintain
that facility over time. But we believe there is--we are
convinced that there is adequate space and capability for that.
That gives me the opportunity to also say the replacement
building for CMR that we are contemplating, which would be co-
located there within the same security perimeter, again will
give us the opportunity to get more efficiency for security,
and more effective.
But also, that is not a facility that we will use to do pit
production, so we will not be doing Pit Protection in the new
facility we are trying to build. It is just the capability to
do the analytic chemistry and the metallurgy that goes along
with our surveillance as a--and all the other missions that we
carry out.
We believe that that facility is needed regardless of
whether we make 0 pits per year or 50 to 80 pits per year. That
production role will go on in the existing PF-4 that you have
seen.
Mr. Spratt. One final question, if I may. We have talked
all morning about facilities, bricks and mortar, but the real
essence of this complex is people, and attracting in the next
generation the kind of people you have had in prior
generations.
Do you build that concept into the design of this? Are you
looking for missions you can accommodate with your new
facilities complex that will be attractive, like the NIF at
Livermore? Is this part of your planning? And how do you
attract in the next generation the talent you have been
accustomed to?
Mr. D'Agostino. Mr. Spratt, I will start with the federal--
the answer on the federal side. And I may, if you permit, ask
one of--somebody to comment on the contractor side, because
there is multiple programs.
On the federal side--in fact, we may even have in the room
some of--we have a program called the Future Leaders Program,
where every year we go out and recruit from universities and
colleges all over the country to bring in top talent in both
engineering and business practices, about 30-some-odd per
class.
We are into our fourth class right now--did the graduation
not too long ago. And it is fantastic to have young folks come
in with different ideas on how to--how to work things. These
are people that are very smart.
I have asked them to make sure to not rely on the way we
currently do business; if they have got a question, to ask it.
And in many cases--one gentleman in particular took a look at
how we look at safety data, and because we compile a tremendous
amount of data that our--these eight sites pull together--and
we have been analyzing it for years in a certain fashion.
And these young folks came in there and say, ``Well, what
about looking at it this way?'' And it is amazing what we learn
by that--just that one experience. So we are very much
energized on the Federal side to bring in fresh talent on that
standpoint. It is pretty exciting to see, actually, getting
folks in like that.
If I may, I could ask some of the other panel members to
comment on your question.
Ms. Tauscher. Briefly.
Dr. Anastasio. Sure. I would----
Mr. D'Agostino. Any takers?
Dr. Anastasio. Run down the line.
As an example, some of the new capability that--in place,
like our new Road Runner computer that is the fastest computer
in the world now, at Los Alamos, brings in talent because it
is--it is the same capability that you need to use to do any
kind of high-performance computing.
It enables us to do our global climate modeling and
understand much better La Nina, El Nino kinds of weather,
because of water patterns in the Pacific that we can now
analyze with much more resolution.
At the same time, just this summer, we have over 1,000
students at Los Alamos. We average about 350 postdoctoral
students per year at the laboratory as our pipeline, and it is
still a very high-quality set of workforce.
So it is these other programs that we do that is the window
of the--for the students to want to come to the laboratory and
become part of all these other activities.
Dr. Miller. Let me just step back a step. I think
fundamentally--this is the comment that Tom Hunter made
earlier. Fundamentally, people come to the laboratory to serve
the Nation. They need to know that what they do is valued by
the country. They also like the laboratory because we are given
a set of scientific and technical challenges on behalf of the
country that they find exciting. And it is a stable work
environment.
All of those things have to do, in a very fundamental way,
with the way Congress and the Administration look at the
laboratory and make use of the talents of the laboratory.
And those underlying issues, or overarching issues if you
care to think of them that way, are really as fundamental as
the particular programs that we have.
Ms. Tauscher. Tom, did you want to say something?
Dr. Hunter. Thank you, Madam Chair, if I may, just briefly.
This is not a dilemma for these institutions only. This is a
dilemma for the Nation.
And one important and, I think, essential way to look at
these laboratories is we are not a small player now. We are a
large player in where the Nation goes on its commitment to
science and engineering.
And these institutions stand at the very forefront of that
today. We have to make sure that continues to be the case in
the future, and we promise them just two simple things: If they
come to these institutions, they can work on the Nation's
security, and they can also work at the forefront of their
scientific fields. We must maintain that as we go forward.
Mr. Trim. Madam Chair, from a plant perspective, I think
attracting talent is highly dependent on the impression these
graduates have on the commitment to the complex, the
recapitalization of the complex. And pivotal is the reframing
of the mission to encompass a national security mindset. And I
think that really resonates with people who want to serve the
Nation and be part of the mission.
Mr. Meyer. I would like to add that it is a challenge at--
especially in Amarillo. We have got a geographic challenge that
some of the other sites don't have, and you have been there,
Madam Chair and others.
And it is a relatively modest site, so we recruit very
heavily among university students and bring them on as interns
and actually recruit them at that point and pay for them--their
last year's tuition reimbursement.
Three or four years later, those people have clearances,
they have good experience, and they are somewhat tired of the
Amarillo social life, and so they are ready to move on to
bigger and better things.
So we do have a retention problem that--and again, we--we
are keeping up with it, but it is a continual battle, so--but
we recognize that that is clearly our legacy. That is where we
need to focus.
Mr. Kohlhorst. Just a quick comment. Y-12 has just kicked
off an apprentice program. Fifty new apprentices, and we had
2,610 applicants. We have a manufacturing academy where we
reach out to high schools, work with high schools; we have an
exchange program with a community college.
So all of us at plants are looking at that critical--making
sure we have the pipeline full, making sure we have folks ready
to step in as we see our population moving far more toward----
Dr. Younger. I will conclude by saying that the Nevada Test
Site can help with Amarillo's social problems.
Ms. Tauscher. I was just going to recommend that.
[Laughter.] Exchange programs. It is, what stays in Las Vegas
obviously stays in Las Vegas.
Dr. Younger. But seriously, as Dr. Miller said, it is all
about mission. And people come to the Nevada Test Site because
they believe they are doing something important for the Nation
and they are doing technically excellent and interesting work.
So, so long as there is important mission to be done, I
feel confident we will attract the best in the Nation.
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Hayes, I assume you concur with all that.
Thank you, Mr. Spratt.
Mr. Everett.
Mr. Everett. Thank you, Ms. Chairman.
Very interesting conversation. I know that in many of the
fields that we have advanced science and engineering that we
have a lot of problems in finding people to go into those
fields, young people.
And I was wondering a couple things. Number one, how many
of those applicants that you have, or those working for you are
foreign born, and what troubles does--what does that present
embedding them? And also, in the overall picture, everybody
included, are you having a lot of trouble getting clearances
for them?
Mr. D'Agostino. I will start off on that. On the federal
side, we don't--we don't have, I think, the same types of a
problem. We have been recruiting to make sure we get a diverse
workforce coming in at that young age.
That is really important to us, because it is these
different backgrounds that people bring to the table that allow
us to look at problems in a different way, and ultimately
solutions really arise out of that.
We do have a challenge on security clearances. That is
ultimately a responsibility of the government to grant those,
and it has had--does have an impact. It ends up being a cost
impact. I think both the labs and plant directors here could
probably give an anecdote to describe the type of impact that
it has.
But my sense is that we have started trying to be smarter
in how we hire to make sure that we do some pre-screening up
front so we don't bring people in and then have them sit and do
kind of unclassified work for a year while we try to get them a
clearance, then find out that there was a problem in their
background.
So a lot of it has to do--and we flushed out a lot that,
particularly in this organization that is a federal
organization called Office of Secure Transportation, where we
have a number of federal agents--these are Government Federal
agents that protect the material and the warheads as they move
around the country.
So it has been a challenge. Money fixes it to a certain
extent, but we don't want to throw money at something if we can
fix it from an operational standpoint.
And it might be worth getting some input from the field
on--with respect to the other parts of your question, sir.
Dr. Miller. I think the fundamental problem is a--is a
problem at the national level.
The country is failing to graduate the numbers of
scientists and engineers, particularly in physical sciences,
that it needs to sustain its level of economic competitiveness.
There was an article in the paper just this week about that.
At the graduate level, in--you know, increasingly large
fractions of Ph.D.s are foreign-nationals, not that they are
not U.S. citizens. They are not U.S. citizens, not that they
are foreign born. They are not U.S. citizens.
So far, we have been able to sustain our workforce. We have
a program at Livermore called the Lawrence Fellows, which is a
very prestigious postdoc program. A large fraction of the very
best Ph.D.s that we see are foreign-nationals.
And so it is a--again, it is widely recognized as a
fundamental problem of the country. We see the impact. It is
manageable to date, but I think it is something that is of
major consequence.
Dr. Anastasio. Madam Chair, if I could just add one other
comment, please.
Ms. Tauscher. Surely.
Dr. Anastasio. That another concern I have with the future
of science is if you look at the trends that we are already
seeing that concern me for the future, if we look at NNSA, as
we think of the budget--I think of it in three pieces--hands
on, dealing with the stockpile, dealing with the
infrastructure--we have talked a lot about today--and the
science that underpins all the judgment we have to make about
confidence in our deterrent.
As the stockpile ages and gets older, it takes more of our
hands-on effort to take care of it and be confident about it.
We have talked about the investment we need to make to
recapitalize the complex. If we have a relatively flat budget,
as you have--this committee has indicated--if those two
elements are growing and we have a flat budget, that means that
the piece in the middle, the science, is going to get squeezed
out.
And that is a big concern of mine, that the workforce
understands that. They feel that in a very visceral way. And
can we keep the workforce we have today and still recruit the
very best for the future? I am very worried about that trend.
And as we are sorting through policy decisions on the
direction, like the Commission you have in place, I really urge
Congress to make sure that we do whatever we can to sustain
that level of science we can in the interim so that we don't
lose this quality workforce we have today.
Ms. Tauscher. Before we go to Mr. Hunter, Mr. Everett, if
you would yield for a second----
Mr. Everett. Sure.
Ms. Tauscher [continuing]. Do you have a raw number of what
the throughput of engineers, for example, or postdocs in
physical sciences that--that the labs and the complex need in
the next five years, say, what the throughput is, what number
it is?
Because I think the Congress, and I think this subcommittee
particularly would be very interested in working with our
colleagues in other committees and certainly working with the
Secretary of Education to understand exactly what it is we need
to do to galvanize the forces necessary to begin to increase
the number of Americans that are going through these classes
and taking these courses.
Mr. D'Agostino. Well, I can give you a--just in--but we
will take that--because I think we want to give you a complete
answer.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 199.]
Mr. D'Agostino. An anecdote, if you will. There is 2,500
federal employees in the NNSA. We have done surveys and we have
checked it with our employees: Who is retirement-eligible?
There is a difference between retirement-eligible and actually
retiring, as we all recognize. And as economic times change,
that has an impact.
But retirement-eligible employees we have about 40
percent--40 percent to 43 percent of our workforce, depending
on what discipline they are in, whether they are engineers or
business, are going to be retirement-eligible. And a number of
those have indicated that they will actually retire.
In fact, that is why we have started our Future Leaders
Program, which will probably just hope to stem the tide, but it
won't change the tide. That tide is going.
So doing quick math, it is anywhere from 800 to 1,000
people, out of 2,500. That is a pretty significant portion that
we are worried about. The average age of the workforce is--you
know, it is about 49 years old, roughly or so. And we are
driving that down with the younger folks, but it is still a
problem.
Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Hunter, I think I interrupted you.
Mr. Everett, you still have time.
Dr. Hunter. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I will try to
respond to both questions, if I could.
First, to the question of numbers, we can always estimate
anything as scientists and engineers. But roughly speaking,
roughly speaking for our institution, we look at our five-year
plan. Scientists and engineers, roughly, it is about 300 per
year. So you could argue maybe similar to Tom's number, 1,500
or so to 2,000 people over the next 5-year period would have
expected to leave, and in--under a stable picture, which we
see--if there is a stable picture, then it would be
replacements.
Back to the question, though, of the general availability,
you asked how many specifically were foreign-nationals. In our
case, very few, just--in only very special cases of
international science engagement or special fields outside the
classified area--you would have a few employees.
We do allow them to be permanent employees under very
special cases, but very few are actual employees that are not
citizens.
The other issue that--adding on to what Dr. Miller said--
was not only is the Nation not graduating enough science and
engineers that are--that are--that are citizens, we do not have
an adequate representation of both women and minorities in our
physical sciences graduate programs.
And so we have to work very--we work very hard in all those
fields to try to seek out and find the best talent, but the
Nation needs to do more.
We have a lot of programs to do that. We are actively
engaged on campuses all across the country. But it will be a
challenge under any case, on the best of conditions, for any
institution like these, who lead the country in the areas of
physical sciences.
Mr. Everett. Thank you.
Michael, I think I detected a subtle--not-so-subtle plea
for not a flat budget in your answer. [Laughter.]
For our two directors of Los Alamos and Livermore, how will
those labs continue to exercise their peer review functions as
Complex Transformation, consolidation of missions and functions
takes place?
Dr. Miller. I think this is a very important--very
important issue, particularly since the country is committed to
no further nuclear testing. The best the Government can get is
the truly independent answers of--from Livermore and Los Alamos
on any particular question.
So I think it is very--it is very important. It is
something that Mike and I both spend a lot of time looking at.
Through the annual assessment process, we do provide input to
each other, so the people at Livermore provide input to Mike on
the things that Mike is responsible for. He provides input to
me on things that I am responsible for.
I personally believe that this process could be
strengthened by requiring that each laboratory do a complete
analysis of the entire stockpile every year so this process can
be strengthened. I think it is vitally important that it be
strengthened.
And the way we--again, the way we do the peer review is--is
we work very hard at maintaining where it is important--
independent capabilities in the computer simulations that we
do, in many of the different kinds of experiments that we do to
validate them.
So, we work very hard at making sure that we maintain that
independence, because it is so critical to this.
Dr. Anastasio. Yeah, I would just say I agree with what he
said. And actually, your comment to me--I think there is other
ways to deal with the issue without increasing the budget, but
it really relies on having a strategy--a policy strategy for
the country.
Once we have that, I think we can work with the Congress
and the Administration to come up with an approach to deal with
the future that, you know, we can do with reasonable cost, but
it really depends on what that policy direction looks like.
And my plea was until we have that, let's hang in there and
not do anything too detrimental to the science until we get
that sorted out.
Mr. Everett. Well, we would surely look forward to those
savings that--that Director D'Agostino said that are
forthcoming.
And for our two directors that I addressed the question to,
I won't take any further time here, but I would really
appreciate any more specific detail on how you will continue to
do that--not the fact that you talk to each other and that sort
of thing. But thank you very much.
Dr. Anastasio. We will be happy to get you something for
the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
beginning on page 199.]
Ms. Tauscher. If I could engage the ranking member for a
second, what I heard Director D'Agostino say was not
necessarily more money but more predictability.
Mr. Everett. I think that is a fair assessment.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Everett.
Mr. Franks of Arizona for five minutes.
Mr. Franks. I am not getting ahead of anyone here, am I,
Madam Chair?
Ms. Tauscher. Well----
Mr. Franks. They have already asked questions?
Ms. Tauscher [continuing]. Mr. Larsen----
Mr. Franks. Okay. All right.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I guess I just first want to suggest that there is not too
many nuclear physicists up here on the panel, and there may be
some things about tritium and uranium and plutonium that we
still have to learn.
And those of you in the R&D field have done some amazing
things, and I think that the fact that you are--have been able
to certify our weapons here for this long, with the
supercomputer capabilities and the modeling that you have done,
is really nothing short of astonishing, in spite of some of the
challenges that you have laid out here related to getting new
recruits into the system.
And of course, Mr. D'Agostino, your efforts to consolidate
work and realize efficiencies as we do this transformation to a
new complex--I have got to tell you, those are pretty tall
orders, so I have got two questions, because I know some of you
will answer both of them.
How can we on this panel help you in your effort to
maintain and gain the necessary personnel to do the amazing
work that you do? I mean, this is a--you guys are the--I have
said many times, you are the hidden, front line of freedom,
because a lot of times people don't see what you do, but it is
vital to all of us. So, how can we help you with that?
And secondarily, in terms of the efficiency--or
inefficiencies, perhaps I should say, in the old complex that
we are trying to transform here, what are the most glaring
inefficiencies that you would postulate here, and how can we
best facilitate or help you in the endeavor to correct some of
those things?
Mr. D'Agostino. Okay. I will start off, if I could, Mr.
Franks, and open it up just a little bit.
That is a great question. In fact, I think the subcommittee
has started down the path by helping drive to a national
consensus--the stability that the lab directors had talked
about is actually vitally important.
The workforce, whether it is federal or contractor
workforce, does pay close attention. They want to know that the
Nation values its work. They want to--and--because that is--
that is their job. That is what motivates them. That is what
drives them.
So being the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, of course, is
essentially what we are really talking about here. You are in
absolutely the right position to send the signal that--that
there is a consensus on what the Nation should be doing in
these areas, and that there is a sense of stability, because it
does come down to being able to bring in the right kind of
people.
We can have the best computers in the world, the best
lasers in the world, the best experimental sites in the world,
but ultimately in the end it comes down to getting those A-plus
students in here to operate those facilities.
And that is all based on stability, because people make
decisions that way, as you know, sir. And so the path forward
that we have right now, the evaluation of the--both Secretaries
have sent up a classified document describing our security
policy and strategy.
We have got a--the bipartisan commission that is coming
forward to take a look at strategic issues. Kind of the melding
of those two activities--and until we get a broader consensus
that carries forward for both parties and spreads across,
making sure that the support to the existing infrastructure,
which we consider fragile at this point, is maintained.
And so I appreciate the committee's support in that area.
I would ask, are there any other comments? Okay. No?
Dr. Hunter. If I could comment----
Ms. Tauscher. Sure.
Dr. Hunter [continuing]. Just very briefly, I think there
are a couple areas that you have already begun nicely,
Congressman. That is, first, to recognize the important--help
us recognize the important role that the people and
institutions play in this--in national security, and then,
wherever possible, encourage and enable an objective, fact-
based national debate about what needs to happen in terms of
policy, as this committee has done so well.
And then at every possible avenue, encourage the role that
we might play in support of these broader national agenda
themes, such as the competitiveness of our scientists and
engineers and the role we must play in broader national
security.
Mr. Franks. Madam Chair, if I might just follow up.
Then in terms of the greatest insufficient aspects or areas
that you think our existing complex is falling short, and the
areas that you hope to address in the transformation process
here, what do you consider to be your most significant
challenges?
And is there a time--this is not a very fair question,
because I know your mission, essentially, is to provide a
responsive infrastructure that will give the arsenal of freedom
a safer, more secure and more reliable weapons.
That said, is there a time that we are approaching in the
country to where, with the existing aging of the arsenal, that
you feel like certification is going to be a significant
problem? And what can we do to head that off in the days that
we have now?
Mr. D'Agostino. Okay. In the near term, I have got the list
of typically half a dozen to a dozen items that I worry about
all the time. And it kind of depends on which is number one at
the particular time.
But they are basically--the list is fairly consistent, and
I will give you a couple of the things that worry me the most
right now--and that is a sustainable plutonium strategy. I
don't think we--I know we are not on a path that provides
sustainability.
We have a plan to de-inventory Lawrence Livermore, which I
think makes sense in the long run from a cost standpoint. And
so we are starting to move plutonium out of Livermore.
At the same time, I don't have consensus--I will say
Congress broadly, if you will, I mean, from an appropriations
process, that this replacement capability at Los Alamos will
get built.
So at some point, either myself or the person that follows
me in this job will have to decide, do we need to stop
consolidating special nuclear material, because we don't--we
can't get consensus to rebuild that plutonium capability at Los
Alamos, and therefore I have got to go with my next best
facility, and that is one in California.
But that goes against some other things about what is right
for--from a safety and security standpoint. So plutonium
infrastructure is one that kind of bubbles--is always in my top
five at any given point in time.
You are absolutely right on the continued aging of our
stockpile. In an unclassified setting, I could--I can say that
we--and the lab directors will comment on this specifically--
but that, you know, things do age, and we do have problems that
come up every year. And right now, we are able to address
those, but there will--there may come a time that we don't know
if we will be able to address all of our problems.
Right now, we can, and it is actually because of the
support this committee has given over a number of years that
has allowed us to bring in the tools and the people to make
sure we can do that.
Mike or George?
Dr. Miller. I would just step back to an earlier theme. My
biggest concern is sustaining the investment in the science and
technology infrastructure, because that underpins everything.
You know, the people at these three laboratories provide
the ability to make decisions about plutonium, or uranium, or
facilities, or the stockpile.
Now, that intellectual capability is the fundamental basis.
Mike and I have both over the last 2 years lost over 2,000
people each.
Dr. Anastasio. Each.
Dr. Miller. Each. A substantial number of those are people
with critical skills that are relevant Under Secretary
D'Agostino's mission. That infrastructure, as many
infrastructures are, is fragile.
And so that is my biggest concern, is sustaining that
infrastructure because it is the underpinning of the country's
policy, whatever direction it chooses to go.
Dr. Anastasio. Could I just add to that, Madam Chairman?
Ms. Tauscher. Yes.
Dr. Anastasio. I agree with what George said completely
that the premise of stockpile stewardship in the absence of
nuclear testing to minimize our need ever to go back was to
have a more fundamental science-based understanding to guide
our insights and judgments.
And what I fear is the trend, is to move away from that at
the same time--and this is the part I would like to add--is
that if you look at the stockpile--and we had a classified
discussion with this subcommittee some months ago, and I think
you got to see some of the specifics.
But as time goes on, as these weapons systems age, as we go
and act--take action to--to deal with those issues as they
come, we are moving further and further away. We are making
small changes that are accumulating.
Even if we do Life Extension Programs, as that progresses
forward, I worry that the stockpile legacy--Cold War stockpile
we continue to try to refresh will be harder and harder for us,
will require more and more science to be able to have that
confidence when you have systems that were designed to be low-
margin.
And as our uncertainty about the changes we are making
starts to grow over time and accumulates, I worry that we
should be increasing the science focus in that kind of a world,
and yet the trend feels as if we will be moving in the opposite
direction.
And so it is the two things together, I think, that worry
me the most.
Mr. Franks. Well, thank you all very much.
And thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Tauscher. I think Tom just wanted to say something
quickly.
Dr. Hunter. Yes, and I will be very brief. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
I don't know if there is a time that is predictably, but I
know there is an indicator of the time when we have passed the
point when it is due, and that is when we have leadership in
the laboratories who do not have the intellectual and intuitive
sense about what it takes to honestly assess and certify
weapons. They do not have the incentive or the value-base to
make factual, objective opinions.
Ms. Tauscher. I think Mr. Reyes has some questions.
Mr. Reyes. Yes, just on a couple of issues.
The first one, just to follow up on Dr. Hunter's comment in
terms of diversity and particularly, you know, in STEM fields--
science, technology, engineering and math--which is a--has been
a priority for Congress, I am one of the co-chairs of the
Diversity Caucus that is working to facilitate programs and
efforts to get more minorities into STEM.
And I know, having had the opportunity to visit all the
labs, that you work with historically black colleges (HBCs) and
Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs). Are you doing--and this
is for the directors--are you doing any more in--by way of
outreach to the HBCs and HSIs to increase that?
And second, we are probably going to have some hearings--
the Tri-Caucus Group, the Asian-American, the Hispanic Caucus
and the Black Caucus together--on how we can work on this
issue. And we may ask you to come and testify. So we will be in
touch.
It probably won't be this year because of the election year
and--but we have that on the radar scope.
The other question that I have is--deals with energy. And
whether we are talking about nuclear, or getting better gas
mileage, or whatever, are our labs doing anything in that area?
And if you would answer, I would appreciate that.
Dr. Hunter. Thank you, Congressman. It is a very important
question, but it gets back to this comment that all of us made
earlier about the labs having this inherent science and
engineering foundation that can contribute in other areas of
national security, of which energy is a dominant one, I think.
Yes, we are actively engaged in energy. We anticipate more
programs in that area. We are working everything from the
details of the combustion process and how to make cars more
efficient and better environmentally compatible, to making
engines work better, to using sunlight to helping nuclear
energy be safe and secure and more proliferation-resistant--a
broad range of programs.
But these laboratories are uniquely positioned to
contribute in many of those areas because of the skillbase that
has been developed in nuclear weapons and applied to those
other areas.
Dr. Miller. Yeah, I think the answer to both of your
questions is yes. We are continuously expanding our
interactions with the historically black colleges and Hispanic
colleges.
We bring faculty to the labs for summer--for summer
research, and so we have a very broad set of problems--projects
and outreaches to a wide segment of the university community.
And as Tom said, we have very, very broad programs in
energy, again, using supercomputers to design more
aerodynamically efficient trucks and cars, all the way to the
use of the National Ignition Facility as a source of--as a
source of energy, doing the research that would allow us to
meet that promise, and essentially everything in between.
So we have a lot of--today they are small programs because
the government's investment is typically small. They were very
large in the 1970's when there was an energy crisis.
But the fundamental point is the one that Tom made, which
is the underlying science and technology is ideally suited to
take on these broader set of national issues.
Dr. Anastasio. If I could add to those things, and then I
would--I think Steve Younger has some comments, as well.
On your first question about the diversity, yes, we are
actively working with the historically black and Hispanic
colleges. In northern New Mexico, we are also doing additional
things, like our math and science academies as an example.
We are trying to get to the students when they are younger
to try to encourage them to consider math and science and
engineering as a field. And so for me, a key is to try to get
the teachers in the middle schools and high schools who teach
science and math.
We have them come--as an example, come to the lab and get
engaged with our scientists and to try to get that passion and
excitement about what modern science is like and help them come
with modules that they can use in the classroom to teach
students at whatever level they are teaching at. I think that
is also a fruitful way--and again, in northern New Mexico we
deal with a very diverse population and are trying to get them
interested in these careers--a lot of scholarship programs, et
cetera.
Back to the other question about our participation, I agree
with my colleagues on that. I would just add another thought,
which is that I think these laboratories are rather unique in
the country in another way.
We have breadth and depth in science and engineering that
is hard to find anywhere else. But we have one other thing--is
we are institutions that span discovery, fundamental science,
all the way through applied science to building demo products
that can be transferred to industry.
That full spectrum of activity goes on at these
institutions, and they are--now that we don't have a Bell Labs
anymore and those kinds of places in industry, these are some
of the few places left in the country that have that kind of
capability.
And so when you are thinking of these ideas of energy or
other related kinds of things, not only do we have that breadth
and depth of talent, but we know how to take discovery science
and translate it all the way into a real product that American
industry could go use for the advantage of the American people.
Dr. Younger. Congressman, I created and continue to chair
the Diversity Council, Nevada Test Site. It is interesting that
very early on, we focused on education as the dominant concern
of diversity. And we have taken a comprehensive approach,
starting with elementary schools, building science labs in
local schools that never had them, particularly in impoverished
areas.
We bring high school interns into the company to show them
what it is like to have a technical job to interest them in
going into a technical field.
When they get to college, we provide a large scholarship
program to the local community and also to the children of our
employees.
And we have also started an employee scholarship program
focused on minorities that will help them get the education
sometimes they haven't been able to get because of their
economic circumstances.
We serve on advisory boards of black colleges and
universities, and those with large Hispanic content. So we go
everywhere, from kindergarten through graduate school, to
encourage people to go into fields that are relevant to the
national security--focus on.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Tauscher. Tom.
Dr. Hunter. Mr. Congressman, I didn't mean to not respond
to your other question about--I think your question was about
minority engagement. I thought we had closed that topic, but
let me just say, you ask a very important question.
And my simple response would be that we are very aware of
the situation nationally. We are very engaged in the national
scene. We are doing a lot, but not enough, and we would be
happy to support your efforts in a broader committee framework.
Mr. Reyes. Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Under Secretary D'Agostino, thank you for
your appearance today.
And, gentlemen, thank you very much for your appearance
today. Please extend, on behalf of the committee, our thanks to
the thousands of people--patriotic, hard-working Americans--
that work in the complex, our very best thanks, and tell them
to continue their hard work, please.
And behind you, many of you, are your staffs that have--
that provide the committee and the members with constant
support while you are back at your facilities. We want to thank
them very much. We know that they had a lot to do with your
appearances today and the great testimony we had.
We have a second panel that we are about to see, so thank
you again very much, Under Secretary.
We are going to take a strategic pause to change out our
folks, and if we could ask the second panel to come forward,
please.
Thank you very, very much.
Mr. D'Agostino. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate
it. Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Our pleasure.
We are about to start our second panel. We thank the panel,
the second panel, for their indulgence.
We had, as you know, a lot of people on the first panel.
But we want to make sure that you understand how important we
think you are, too. And we very much thank you for coming to
testify before the committee.
I want to welcome our expert witnesses on the second panel.
We have Mr. Gene Aloise, Director of Natural Resources and
Environmental Division of the General Accountability Office
(GAO).
My constituent and friend, Marylia Kelley, Executive
Director of Tri-Valley CAREs.
And Ambassador Paul Robinson, President Emeritus of the
Sandia Corporation.
As this panel demonstrates, the subcommittee is determined
that our conversations about these critical national issues are
inclusive and dynamic.
Mr. Aloise, the floor is yours. We have your prepared
statement, so we welcome any summary of your remarks that you
might have.
Mr. Aloise. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Tauscher. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF GENE ALOISE, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT DIVISION, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Aloise. Madam Chairman and members of the subcommittee,
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the National Nuclear
Security Administration's plans to transform the Nation's
nuclear weapons complex.
Over the past decade, NNSA has invested billions of dollars
sustaining the Cold War nuclear weapons stockpile and
maintaining the aging and outdated facilities that make up the
nuclear weapons production infrastructure.
Modernizing the complex to be more responsive to a smaller
nuclear deterrent offers NNSA the potential to save billions of
dollars by consolidating special nuclear material into fewer
facilities and avoiding operations and maintenance (O&M) costs
by vacating buildings that are well past their design life.
Transforming the complex, however, will be a daunting and
expensive task. Existing facilities that maintain the current
stockpile must remain operational during the transition to new
facilities. NNSA must also take steps to minimize the potential
safety, security and environmental impacts of relocating
operations and constructing new infrastructure.
In the face of these challenges, we believe that there are
four actions that are critical to successfully transforming the
weapons complex.
First, DOD will need to establish clear, long-term
requirements that define the types and quantities of nuclear
weapons needed in the stockpile.
Second, after DOD establishes its requirements, NNSA will
need to develop accurate estimates of the costs of
transformation.
Third, NNSA will need to develop and implement a
transformation plan with measurable milestones.
And fourth, NNSA's Office of Transformation must have the
authority to enforce its decisions and be held accountable for
them.
With regard to clear requirements for the stockpile, in our
view, before any plans for a new weapons complex can be
finalized, DOD and NNSA must determine the number and types of
warheads that are needed.
While DOD and NNSA have considered a variety of scenarios
for the future composition of the stockpile, including new
warhead designs, a final decision on the size and composition
of the future stockpile has not been made.
With regard to cost estimates for transformation, our work
shows that NNSA had difficulty developing realistic, defensible
cost estimates, especially for large, complicated projects.
For example, in March 2007 we reported that 8 of the 12
major construction projects DOE and NNSA were managing had
experienced cost increases ranging from almost $80 million to
$8 billion. These increases resulted largely from poor
management and contractor oversight.
Regarding a transformation plan, we do not yet know whether
NNSA will decide to rebuild the complex at its existing sites
or to consolidate operations at new locations.
Regardless of its choice, however, NNSA will need to
develop a plan with clear, specific and realistic milestones
that it can use to evaluate progress and that the Congress can
use to hold NNSA accountable.
Finally, we have found that a key practice for successfully
transforming an organization is to ensure that top leadership
sets the direction, pace and tone for the transformation.
Although NNSA has organized an Office of Transformation to
oversee its efforts, it remains to be seen whether the office
has sufficient authority to enforce its decisions.
In conclusion, Madam Chairman, regardless of the approach
chosen to modernize the weapons complex, any attempt to change
such an extremely complicated enterprise must be based on solid
analysis, careful planning and effective leadership.
Tracking NNSA's progress in these four critical actions
that we have identified provides a framework for the Congress
to continue its vigilant oversight and to hold NNSA accountable
for its efforts.
Madam Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this
concludes my statement. I would be happy to respond to any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Aloise can be found in the
Appendix on page 120.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Aloise.
Before I give the floor to Marylia Kelley, I would like to
commend you for your leadership on the issues before us today.
Additionally, you have been a tireless advocate for the
former Department of Energy workers who seek compensation from
the Government for the illnesses they contracted in the course
of their service to the Nation.
You are, frankly, a force of nature. And at home in
Livermore, you are someone that I enjoy working with, and I
really appreciate you being here. It has been a pleasure to
work with you on the environmental and quality of life issues
that you bring to the floor constantly on behalf of my
constituents.
The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF MARYLIA KELLEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TRI-VALLEY
CARES
Ms. Kelley. Thank you, Madam Chairperson, and thank you to
the subcommittee for inviting me here.
I am Marylia Kelley. As mentioned, I am executive director
of the Livermore, California-based Tri-Valley CAREs and have
been since the group was founded in 1983.
I ask that my written testimony be entered into the record.
Ms. Tauscher. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Kelley. And I am going to attempt to summarize and
excerpt here today.
My testimony will focus on three areas. First, the National
Nuclear Security Administration's Preferred Alternative for
Complex Transformation.
Second, a stockpile management alternative that will better
assure the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear
weapons stockpile at lower cost, reduced scientific risk and
superior nonproliferation benefit.
And third, some specific alternative and recommendations
for the future of nuclear materials and specific sites.
The NNSA has stated that Complex Transformation is the
agency's ``vision for a smaller, safer, more secure and less
expensive nuclear weapons complex.''
Beneath the rhetoric, Complex Transformation calls for a
significant revitalization of the nuclear weapons complex. The
plan's centerpieces include a new larger plutonium complex at
the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico and a new Uranium Processing
Facility at the Y-12 plant in Tennessee.
According to the draft 2008 Programmatic Environmental
Impact Statement (PEIS), Complex Transformation is based--
based--on the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). Yet Congress
has already mandated that the next Administration prepare a new
posture review.
Thus, the NNSA's plan, when it is completed will be dead on
arrival, based on yesterday's policy, not forward-looking
vision.
The NNSA calls its Complex Transformation plan ``more
secure.'' But as I will discuss in the Livermore lab section
that follows, this plan keeps thousands of pounds of plutonium
and highly enriched uranium in a vulnerable, untenable
situation at Livermore lab until 2012.
Then NNSA proposes to move the plutonium twice in service
of Complex Transformation. This is not a plan that
appropriately prioritizes the security of nuclear materials.
Finally, the NNSA insists that the plan will be less
expensive. But as you heard in the previous round of
questioning, they don't have a cost estimate. And in fact, the
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement does not contain a
cost estimate. Independent cost estimates begin at about $150
billion and go up from there. The NNSA has said that the
Reliable Replacement Warhead program, or RRW, ``will be the
enabler for stockpile and infrastructure transformation.''
Since Congress has prudently cut the RRW budget since then, the
NNSA has begun submerging the role of RRW in Complex
Transformation.
Make no mistake, however. The development of new and/or
significantly modified nuclear weapons remains at the heart of
the Complex Transformation approach, whether through RRW or a
successor design program.
The plan end-runs both the Commission that this
subcommittee was instrumental in enabling through the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2008 and the aforementioned
new Nuclear Posture Review coming up.
The NNSA has received between 115,000 and 120,000 public
comments, spoken comments, comment letters on the draft
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Complex
Transformation. This outpouring of comments represents a public
referendum against the Preferred Alternative.
In sum, Complex Transformation is wrong policy, enabling
new nuclear weapons programs that run counter to U.S.
nonproliferation aims; wrong direction, building unneeded
nuclear weapons facilities; wrong priorities, costing $150
billion or more, and failing to quickly secure the Nation's
most vulnerable nuclear materials; and wrong timing, putting
the cart of new bomb-building capabilities before the horse of
new policy and posture reviews.
The public has roundly rejected this plan. Congress has cut
funds for some of its aspects. And the NNSA tells me it will
release the final PEIS and execute a record of decision this
fall. That is also what you heard from Administrator
D'Agostino.
In so doing, the NNSA willfully ignores an alternative
approach to managing the nuclear weapons stockpile that is
technically, politically, environmentally and fiscally superior
to the agency's Preferred Alternative.
So let me say a few words about curatorship. Curatorship
focuses--it is an alternative. It focuses on careful
surveillance, analysis and refurbishment of the actual weapons
in the arsenal rather than pushing the envelope on new research
and development, as is the case with the present Stockpile
Stewardship Program and, to an even greater extent, the
proposed RRW path.
Under curatorship, only if NNSA's surveillance activities
demonstrate compelling evidence that a component had degraded
or would soon degrade, and further analysis indicated that such
degradation would cause significant loss of safety or
reliability, would NNSA replace that affected part.
The replacement would be remanufactured as closely as
possible to the original design, so changes to weapons would be
minimized using the curatorship approach.
One significant outcome of curatorship is that less
uncertainty would be introduced into the stockpile over time
than is the case with the present RRW program--I am sorry, the
present Stockpile Stewardship Program or with RRW.
And you heard Los Alamos Lab Director Mike Anastasio say
that he is worried that the incremental changes that are
introduced into the weapons with stockpile stewardship over
time may cause certification problems. Curatorship would
minimize this by minimizing changes.
The curatorship will reduce the NNSA's environmental
footprint and its operating costs. Under curatorship, NNSA
would close numerous facilities that use high explosives,
tritium and other hazardous materials beyond what is in the
Complex Transformation Preferred Alternative.
Curatorship would rein in costs. Right now, if you look at
the annual budget, the NNSA spends about 50 percent of the
Weapons Activities budget each year on R&D. Under curatorship,
that would drop to about 20 percent.
The curatorship approach to managing the nuclear weapons
stockpile builds on an impressive lineage that I want this
subcommittee to understand.
It stands on basic concepts advocated by Norris Bradbury,
who was the Los Alamos Lab Director from 1945 to 1970; Carson
Mark, the former head of Los Alamos Lab's Theoretical Division;
Richard Garwin, former nuclear weapons designer and current
JASON and occasional testifier before this and other
committees; Ray Kidder, senior staff scientist and former
weapons designer at Livermore lab, and others.
In recent years, the curatorship approach has been further
developed by Dr. Robert Civiak, who some of you know, because
he was with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) until
1999.
And it has also been evaluated recently by Livermore lab
staff, including Dr. Roger Logan, who served as head of the
lab's stockpile work until recently.
I would further ask that Tri-Valley CAREs' much more
detailed 42-page comment on curatorship and Complex
Transformation be entered into the record.
Ms. Tauscher. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 156.]
Ms. Kelley. Thank you.
I would like to quickly end with a sample of alternative
approaches and recommendations for specific sites. And first,
Livermore lab.
As Madam Chairwoman knows, but maybe the rest of you don't
know, my community as well, the main site at Livermore sits on
little more than one square mile, with homes and apartments,
including my home, built right up to the fence line. Suburban
neighborhoods lie only about 800 yards from the lab's
Superblock and thousands of pounds of plutonium and highly
enriched uranium.
Tri-Valley CAREs has long held concerns regarding the
safety and security of nuclear materials at Livermore lab. This
spring, the Department of Energy undertook a series of security
drills at Livermore lab, including a force-on-force test, in
which a tactical security team played the role of an attacking
force in order to see how the lab's security would respond.
The mock terrorist team's objective was to get to the
nuclear material and hold the ground long enough to construct
an improvised nuclear device. A second scenario involved the
would-be attackers stealing plutonium for use at a later date.
While NNSA has yet to respond to Tri-Valley CAREs' Freedom
of Information Act request for unclassified records regarding
that security drill, the information we have gathered from
multiple sources so far is that the mock terrorists succeeded
in both of objectives.
Remember, you have got 10,000 people on one square mile--
that the Livermore lab workforce and subcontractors--1,000 or
so people across the street at Sandia, and thousands of us in
the community right up to the fence line. Imagine what that
means.
Tri-Valley CAREs concludes that the plutonium and highly
enriched uranium at Livermore lab is not secure, nor can it be
made secure due to the compactness of the site, its 600
buildings that are cheek-to-jowl, and the close proximity of
the densely populated neighborhood.
We oppose the NNSA proposal to leave these materials at
Livermore lab through 2012, as outlined in the draft Complex
Transformation PEIS.
Our colleagues at the Project on Government Oversight
(POGO) have released a report that suggests they should get it
out by--and can get it out by 2009. Our research shows early
2010 at the earliest in terms of safe packaging and removing
that material.
In addition to removing special nuclear material from the
lab, any forward-looking plan for the future of the complex
would conclude that there is no need to maintain two full-
service nuclear weapons design labs. It is entirely feasible to
transition Livermore lab to new missions.
This is the path, in my organization's view and in my own,
and based on the numerous conversations I have had with
Livermore lab folks, this is the true path to jobs and job
security, is diversifying and changing the mission.
Nonproliferation, research on global climate change, non-
polluting renewable energy technologies and other science in
the national interest would replace weapons R&D at Livermore.
Livermore would maintain a small weapons footprint with
about a two dozen select staff supporting curatorship, about
the same number, about two dozen, providing that peer review
that was discussed in the first panel on certification and
doing certification tasks.
The security costs would plummet. This is very necessary in
making Livermore lab competitive in attracting research
projects. My understanding is for every $100,000 FTE right now,
it costs about $400,000 to $450,000. We need to reduce the
security footprint in order to make Livermore lab a competitive
place to do other science in the national interest. And I am
convinced that that can be done.
Next, very quickly, Los Alamos lab--Tri-Valley CAREs
opposes Complex Transformation's proposal to expand Plutonium
Pit Production at Los Alamos lab from the current 20 pits per
year to up to 80 plutonium bomb cores per year. And in this
regard, we note that the proposed CMRR nuclear facility portion
should not be built. If the Nation is doing curatorship for a
declining arsenal, no additional capability is needed. So
likewise, at Y-12, the Uranium Processing Facility should not
be built.
I want to conclude----
Ms. Tauscher. You are really over time, so if you can
conclude soon.
Ms. Kelley. Okay. I will conclude with a couple of
sentences from my paragraph on the Kansas City Plant.
Here, the NNSA is poised to privatize a key part of the
nuclear weapons complex which will circumvent the ability of
Congress to authorize--this committee's ability to authorize--
and also Congress' ability to appropriate funds.
The plan is to build and operate a new Kansas City Plant
under a leaseback arrangement. Alternatives were given short
shrift. NNSA and the General Services Administration (GSA) have
undertaken activities that appear to support a predetermined
outcome, which is a violation of law.
It also appears that they have violated the OMB
antideficiency guidelines, and we ask that Congress ask the GAO
to investigate the lease arrangement and agency actions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kelley can be found in the
Appendix on page 133.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you very much.
Ambassador Robinson, President Emeritus of the Sandia
Laboratories, thank you so much for being with us again. You
have appeared before the subcommittee many times. Your service
to the American people is significant and very much
appreciated.
Your statement has been submitted for the record, and we
would appreciate your summation of your statement, since we are
about to have votes in about 15 minutes and we want to be able
to get to questions. Thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR C. PAUL ROBINSON, PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF
SANDIA CORPORATION AND FORMER LABORATORIES DIRECTOR, SANDIA
NATIONAL LABORATORIES
Ambassador Robinson. Madam Chairman, let me just highlight,
then, a couple of issues. I think we are all three here in
agreement on one point, and that is the 2001 Nuclear Posture
Review does not provide good guidance to move ahead with the
complex reconfiguration.
There are some fundamental flaws, I think, in what was
done. A mixing of conventional forces and nuclear forces, which
really don't mix well, was made and it sort of froze our
planners in place, worrying about how do we do that.
Nuclear weapons and our deterrent force is something to
prevent war, not to fight wars. And this confusion of a global
strike needs to be reconsidered and get us back on the right
course of preventing wars as the main reason for this complex.
The time since I have retired, I have served on a number of
government panels, including more in the DOD. I am currently
serving on the Nuclear Command Control Comprehensive Review. I
served on the Nuclear Capability Study, which Johnny Foster and
General Welch chaired. And we had a lot to say then about
problems both in DOD and DOE, but more in their integration or
lack thereof, that I believe is a very, very serious issue for
us to draw this complex together. It has always been a problem.
It has been good at times. Then it wanders apart. But we are in
a particularly bad disconnect between the agencies at the
moment.
I did want to say to this committee I was present, I
believe, at the birth of the concept of RRW. And General Welch,
who is the Chairman of the Strategic Advisory Group for the
Commanders Strategic Command, had challenged the lab directors
at a meeting and said, ``Look, we are in an interim state where
we are all trying to see if we can develop stockpile
stewardship so we would not have to test weapons, but there is
no proof yet that that is going to work, and there is a
safeguard on the table that says if we go into a future
President and say, `Mr. President, we have got a serious
problem with the stockpile, we have had to take systems off
alert, we believe we are going to have to test to fix whatever
problems have been discovered,' '' he said, ``Well, every
President in the future--have to exist that you might be coming
in next week with such a conversation.''
And the challenge he then gave was, ``What could you be
doing now that could lessen that likelihood?'' And that really
began the thinking process to give birth to what is the
Reliable Replacement Warhead concept.
I was disappointed that there were discussions in the
Congress saying, ``Well, these people may be trying to do
something to force nuclear testing.'' I assure you, it was
quite the opposite motivation. It is what can we do to
forestall the date.
And I believe the approach is a reasonable one--genetic
diversity, so that nothing in one leg of the stockpile is
likely to fail, that you would have to go in and request
permission for a nuclear test. It is a very good strategy and
one worthwhile for our Nation to be pursuing in these
circumstances in which we are in today.
The question of the Preferred Alternative--I said in my
testimony I have mixed reaction. They have done some good
things. It is certainly much improved over the plan of the
Complex 2030, but still, without specific guidance that only
the Defense Department can prepare in detail, what stockpile is
it we are going to work with?
And then, last place an emphasis on fixing problems that
are going to arise in the stockpile, whatever we do, whether it
is life extension, whether it is Reliable Replacement Warheads.
These are the oldest components in our history of nuclear
weapons, the very oldest today, and they are only going to
continue to age.
So what can we do to prepare ourselves in the best
position? Our deterrent does remain the best insurance policy
for this Nation against a major war, and I am concerned we have
got to preserve it for the future. Thank you very much, Madam
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Robinson can be found
in the Appendix on page 141.]
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you.
I am going to reserve my time, and Mr. Larsen, who has not
had a chance to ask some questions--I will yield him five
minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Madam Chair.
It is Aloise?
Mr. Aloise. Aloise, yes.
Mr. Larsen. Aloise. Mr. Aloise, your fourth point in the
GAO study regarding successful transformation requires a strong
Office of Transformation. Did you make a determination about
whether NNSA needs an Office of Transformation at all in order
to implement any of these changes?
Mr. Aloise. Well, yeah, our thinking is we believe it does,
but our recommendation was that it report directly to the
Administrator. Right now, it reports to the Office of Defense.
Mr. Larsen. Office of----
Mr. Aloise. Defense Programs.
Mr. Larsen. Okay.
Ms. Tauscher. DP.
Mr. Larsen. DP.
Mr. Aloise. And our thinking was it would have to have the
authority and the support of the organization to be worthwhile,
the authority to make decisions and the authority--and the
responsibility to be accountable for those decisions.
Mr. Larsen. The office itself?
Mr. Aloise. Yes.
Mr. Larsen. And it currently does not?
Mr. Aloise. It remains to be seen.
Mr. Larsen. Can you explain that?
Mr. Aloise. Well, it doesn't report directly to the
Administrator, so once it starts making decisions, we will have
to take a look at that.
Mr. Larsen. Okay. And it does seem a difficult thing so
long as policymakers and us in Congress and the Administration,
presumably the future Administration--we haven't set long-term
requirements for the weapons stockpile.
And so I understand the debate we are having here about
either going the wrong way, as Ms. Kelley has suggested, or
getting it half right, perhaps, as Ambassador Robinson has
suggested. Until we decide what we want for a stockpile, it
makes it difficult.
Ms. Kelley, I didn't gather from your testimony, though,
what specific comments you had with regards to the sprawling
complex that we have now. You just said--well, I don't want to
characterize it as all negative.
But it sounded to me like your views, and your group's
views on where they are headed was all negative, but none of
the issues you brought up had to do with the issue that--part
of the issue we have is consolidating facilities so that we are
not spending money on things we are not using or to be best--
money can be better spent if we had things closer together.
Can you address that issue?
Ms. Kelley. Certainly. One of the things I was trying to
get across, and it was difficult with excerpting, is that if
the Nation were to go to a strategy that was closer to
curatorship, that you could have actually much more
consolidation than you have with the Preferred Alternative
under Complex Transformation.
The Preferred Alternative under Complex Transformation has
significant numbers of new facilities, and I talked
specifically about the----
Mr. Larsen. Right.
Ms. Kelley [continuing]. CMRR nuclear facility portion in
particular and the Uranium Processing Facility.
So my group challenges the idea that you actually need to
build these new facilities with all kinds of flexibility, which
you heard in the first panel--too expensive, and if you are
curating the existing arsenal and you are going down in the
arsenal numbers, they are not needed.
We certainly do not propose leaving the entire complex, as
it now exists, in place. So there is a certain starting point
agreement that we have with, say, Tom D'Agostino.
But in the name of consolidating, they are moving from
eight NNSA sites to eight NNSA sites once this is fully
implemented. You still have eight sites. You have plutonium at
a couple less sites. You have new facilities. So we are
suggesting it is not really the consolidation that the country
needs. We need a much more----
Mr. Larsen. Well, I guess I would also say, moving from
eight sites to eight sites doesn't mean there hasn't been
consolidation. It is probably not a fair assessment of
consolidation.
If there are eight smaller sites, or five smaller sites
within that eight, and--and the--and the facilities on those
sites are smaller as well, it seems to be moving toward
consolidation. I would be careful about comparing eight to
eight.
Ms. Kelley. And we think that--that you could get more
consolidation if, for example, the Livermore mission could--
could change----
Mr. Larsen. Change outright.
Ms. Kelley [continuing]. Could change outright, although we
would retain that peer review. We would retain a curatorship
force of a couple dozen specialists and also----
Mr. Larsen. With the--I am sorry.
Ms. Kelley [continuing]. A certification force.
Mr. Larsen. With the short time I have left, Ambassador
Robinson, can you give me some perspective that you have on
consolidation and the curatorship idea?
Ambassador Robinson. Well, the program that was started in
the early 1990's with the proposal to go under a test-ban
moratorium----
Mr. Larsen. Right.
Ambassador Robinson [continuing]. Science was at its core.
It was science-based stockpile stewardship. There are a number
of things that are empirical in nuclear weapons.
We do not have an adequate explanation to be able to depend
upon large supercomputers and modeling codes. And everyone
dedicated themselves to trying to develop that science
understanding.
The curatorship approach would throw that out and say,
``Well, we just won't worry about whether we understand it or
not. We will just try the best we can do to not make any
changes and hope for the best.'' I don't think that is the
right approach.
I think that is not likely to lead to a suitable outcome
and make it more likely that we would have doubts in our
strategic deterrent force and more likely that we would be
requesting the ability to test to prove out the force.
Mr. Larsen. Just quickly, Mr. Aloise, in conclusion, have
you looked at--were you responsible at all for looking at any
of the alternatives that NNSA looked at as they prepared
their--their impact statement?
Mr. Aloise. No, sir, we didn't.
Mr. Larsen. Okay. All right.
Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
Mr. Everett.
Mr. Everett. Thank you, Ms. Chairman.
Dr. Robinson, the military has a--in the world that we live
in, in the foreseeable future, with almost every country we
know getting involved in nuclear weapons, and with many of our
allies such as Britain, France, others like China, the military
continues to need a--have a requirement for a more responsive
infrastructure with more reliable, safe and secure weapons, I
believe.
Let me ask you, if we would like to do something about
bringing down the stockpile even further--we have done a good
job for the Moscow Treaty. And if we would like to get to the
hedge weapon, would it not make sense that we--and I don't want
to put words in your mouth. I am asking you the question.
Would it make sense for us to continue down the path of RRW
that does--absolutely does not increase yield or anything like
that, that guarantees a safe weapon?
Would the military--they don't want to give up those hedge
weapons right now, and I can understand why. But if they had
something like RRW, would this not be a way to further reduce
the stockpile of hedge weapons?
Ambassador Robinson. I believe that was our intent from the
first, yes, sir.
I should have probably added, I had the bitter experience
when I headed the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos early
in my career--I had to make such a call to the commander of
then Strategic Air Command to take a certain class of weapons
off-alert and targeting because of a serious problem that had
been uncovered. I remember every second of that day and relive
it--would not like to relive it again.
We need some alternatives that we can have confidence that
we are not betting our country on a system we can't be sure of.
I believe having a variety of designs will instill confidence
to make sure we aren't taking a full deterrent force off-alert.
I do have problems about the strategy besides the 2001
Nuclear Posture Review. The weapons we developed were for a
different time and place. The yields of most of our weapons are
so high today that we are self-deterred from even considering
their use. And so some of the things you can do with a RRW
program--and we have done it with the existing weapon force in
the past with secondaries--is go to lower yields, more
appropriate to deter some of the rogue states which are now
becoming nuclear.
I think the Cold War stockpile is incredible to consider as
a deterrent force for that. But we can do that without having
to do nuclear tests. You can go lower in yield. You just can't
go higher.
Mr. Everett. Finally, just a comment. I do worry about the
rogue states. I also worry about the non-actor--non-actor
states----
Ms. Tauscher. Non-state actors?
Mr. Everett [continuing]. Terrorists, especially when we
get to a point where we get launch vehicles such as the ones
SpaceX is working on that--for $7 million to $10 million, and
which can reach low orbit with a nuclear weapon and destroy
basically an awful lot that this--the United States in
particular depends on more than any other country, both--not
our--not only our military but our economy also.
I do worry about that, as well as rogue states. And I will
have some questions for the record.
Thank you.
Ms. Tauscher. Thank you, Mr. Everett.
Mr. Aloise, thank you for your great work. We really
appreciate it. If one assumes a relatively flat budget line for
the NNSA Weapons Activities, are the NNSA's Complex
Transformation plans affordable and executable?
Mr. Aloise. Well, if you look at the Preferred
Alternative--we look at that basically as modernization in
place.
Ms. Tauscher. Right.
Mr. Aloise. And the first thing they are going to have to
do is get their stockpile requirements. They are going to have
to know--NNSA has to know what it needs to right-size to before
it does anything.
While it is doing that, it has to maintain the current
complex. And if there are cost increases and schedule delays in
the Life Extension Program, like there has been in the past,
that is going to affect funding in the future.
And there are red flags already with the CMRR and the UPF.
Two years ago when I testified on this subject, it was--the
CMRR estimate was $840 million. Today, it is $2 billion. We
don't have any confidence in those estimates.
The UPF ranges from $1.4 billion to $3.5 billion. We don't
have any confidence in those estimates. So, the NNSA has to
come up with good, supportable, verifiable cost estimates based
on a--stockpile numbers.
Ms. Tauscher. I appreciate that.
Ambassador Robinson, in your statement you state that the
primary purpose for nuclear weapons must be for deterring
conflicts, while the purpose of conventional forces is
fighting. I agree with that.
If the mission of the nuclear weapons is limited to
deterrence--and I agree with it--do you see opportunities to
reduce the number of deployed weapons below the level specified
by the Moscow Treaty? And do you have any idea what those
constraints might be?
Ambassador Robinson. The Moscow Treaty only limits a
particular class of weapons, and there was a new counting rule
put into place that strategically deployed systems, or systems
that are not on alert, and the full class of tactical nuclear
weapons, which are very, very large----
Ms. Tauscher. Very large.
Ambassador Robinson [continuing]. In Russia, are not
covered. I think we need to look at the whole counting scheme
in your question, and we have not done that yet.
Ms. Tauscher. I agree with you.
Ms. Kelley, in your testimony you stated, ``Under
curatorship, only if the NNSA's surveillance activities
demonstrated compelling evidence that a component had degraded
or could soon degrade, and further analysis indicated that such
degradation could cause a significant loss of safety or
reliability would NNSA replace the affected part. The
replacement would be remanufactured as close to the original
design as possible.''
That sounds like the Life Extension Program to me. If you
don't think it is the Life Extension Program, what do you think
curatorship is, and why isn't it the Life Extension Program?
Ms. Kelley. We believe that curatorship is the Life
Extension Program as it should be, not as it presently is.
Ms. Tauscher. Tell me the difference.
Ms. Kelley. Yes. And I want to start by showing--and I
realize it is pretty difficult from here--a view graph. This is
from the Sandia stockpile life study. The curatorship really
depends, at its heart, on a really good program.
You said what do I like--a really good program that is
headquartered at Sandia, Albuquerque, at Livermore, Los Alamos,
and Pantex also participate in the DOE surveillance and
evaluation program, or now NNSA surveillance and evaluation
program.
And this is 30 years worth of actual experience with U.S.
nuclear weapons in the stockpile. And it shows without a doubt
that the most problems--and they are called ``actionable
defects''--that is the lingo--which are the ones that could
impact safety or reliability, and so you do go out and fix
them--that you get between 61 and 29 of them the first 3 years.
So, any time you make a significant change or put a new
design in the arsenal, you have to fix a lot of things, because
mostly these are design flaws or production flaws and not sort
of aging flaws.
And then as the arsenal ages, you are talking about one to
seven, one to nine per year. And you notice after 30 years, it
is not a bathtub curve going back up--so that curatorship would
really depend much more heavily than the Stockpile Stewardship
Program does--it includes it but doesn't really depend on it
heavily--the surveillance and evaluation program.
And it would do the actionable defects. It would----
Ms. Tauscher. I still don't understand.
Ms. Kelley. Okay. So----
Ms. Tauscher. The only time a weapon is--is tinkered with,
so to speak, is when there is something wrong with it.
Ms. Kelley. And----
Ms. Tauscher. So if there is only--so you are effectively
changing the name. You are saying your program is called
curatorship. We are saying we have got that. It is called
lifetime--Life Extension Program.
Ms. Kelley. Okay. And----
Ms. Tauscher. But I don't understand what--it seems to me
you are suggesting that life extension--I don't want to put
words in your mouth, but it seems you are suggesting that life
extension does more than what you are characterization
curatorship does, and what I am telling you is your curatorship
is life extension.
Ms. Kelley. Administrator D'Agostino sort of briefly, in
his answer in the first panel said that there are times when
new parts are put into a warhead because we are taking
advantage of advances in certain kinds of technologies.
Ms. Tauscher. What he said was----
Ms. Kelley. And he----
Ms. Tauscher [continuing]. Because we don't make vacuum
tubes anymore----
Ms. Kelley. Yes.
Ms. Tauscher [continuing]. Because we don't, you know----
Ms. Kelley. And under curatorship you would--you would sort
of hew to the design--the original design more closely. For
example, in the unclassified literature for the W76----
Ms. Tauscher. So you are suggesting that you would keep
vacuum tubes in a weapon system.
Ms. Kelley. Or you would do something that would--that
would hew more closely to the original design, for example. In
the unclassified literature----
Ms. Tauscher. So answer this question. Vacuum tubes--
unavailable. What do you--and so you are going to take them
out.
Ms. Kelley. And so you are going to look at that and you
are either going to do vacuum tubes or something more like it.
Ms. Tauscher. Can't get vacuum tubes.
Ms. Kelley. In the W76, the unclassified literature
suggests that they are changing the height of burst. So he said
it doesn't--that they are not changing the yield, and that may
be, but there are significant changes that are----
Ms. Tauscher. But that is not a performance criteria. That
does not change the performance of the weapon. It is something
that is an effect of having to put new machinery in because
what is in there is obsolete, not available, not reliable,
can't find it, you know, whatever.
Ms. Kelley. And what I am trying to say is that in the name
of doing that there are changes that do not need to be made to
weapons systems as they go through the Life Extension Program.
Ms. Tauscher. But I think that that----
Ms. Kelley. And that curatorship would----
Ms. Tauscher. But that is a mistake. To assert that there
are things being done to these weapons that are not responsive
to some obsolescence of a part, some degradation of a part,
some question of its performance I think is wrong, because that
is not what Life Extension Programs do.
And keeping in mind that the fences around life extension
are pretty enormous--no change to the mission, no change to the
platform, no change to the yield, no change to the constitution
of the weapon--i.e., no change of performance.
So life extension can't be--cannot be asserted by anybody
to be a program that enhances the performance of the weapon.
That is not what it does. It enhances the reliability of the
weapon.
Ms. Kelley. I think that if--if you think that changing the
height of burst of a weapon isn't changing its performance,
that that is--you know, it is difficult to talk about these
issues, but that is debatable.
Ms. Tauscher. Well, let me ask Dr. Robinson,
hypothetically.
Ambassador Robinson. Height of burst is something the
military controls, and it is completely within their control at
all times and always was. So, it is not an inherent part of the
weapon. And we haven't changed the height of burst spectrum. It
was all available. It is still available today.
As I listen to this conversation, one of the things that I
think could help enrich it is the fact that a modern U.S.
weapon, nuclear weapon, has about the same number of parts as a
new Toyota, about 3,800--3,800 parts. I can't give you the
exact number here, but it is something under 50 parts are with
the nuclear system itself, the so-called physics package, and
the rest are all Sandia responsibilities for the maintenance,
the non-nuclear package, the arming, fusing, firing and an
enormous----
Ms. Tauscher. Radar.
Ambassador Robinson [continuing]. Plethora of safety
devices to make sure they never go off in an accident.
We do test all of those other parts than the nuclear parts,
and that is why most of the actions are taken, is when we see a
problem we do, indeed, fix it. And that is the bulk of the work
that goes on in life extension.
Ms. Tauscher. But life extension inherently is not
performance enhancement.
Ambassador Robinson. Correct.
Ms. Tauscher. It is reliability assurance.
Ambassador Robinson. And safety assurance, yes.
Ms. Tauscher. Right. Okay.
And that is, I think--I think that is an issue where we
should--we should try to find congruence. You know, I think
that what you are proposing as curatorship is life extension.
And I think that if we could agree on that, then there are
lots of other things where we could work, certainly on removing
plutonium and things, where this subcommittee has worked
significantly to accelerate, to add money, to make demands and
move the plutonium, for example, out of Livermore.
We could work significantly on that. But I don't think it
is productive for us to take life extension, which is the most
enormously successful program that we have had to maintain the
deterrence of our nuclear weapons, which is still part of the
military requirement of this country, as of now and probably
into the not-too-distant future, and--and quibble around the
edges of it, when I think that there is a lot of work that
really needs your energy and your attention.
Ms. Kelley. Well, part of the difference in the two
approaches is the--is that the science-based stockpile
stewardship approach places such a premium on pushing the
envelope of nuclear weapons science, and curatorship--I mean,
we actually said, ``Well, what does the weapon need?'' We
understand what the weapons scientists want. What does the
weapon need?
And it is a program that tries to look at that issue, and
so that you get a program that is based more on the test data,
more on modeling that has to do with conformance to the test
data. It is much more focused on the weapons themselves.
And that distinction, when you play it out in terms of--of
what kind of new facilities or modernized facilities has an
impact. So we are not trying to come up with a program that has
a different moniker for the same thing.
We are really trying to look more narrowly at what the
weapon needs to maintain the existing safety and reliability,
to maintain it as close as possible to the warhead that was
fully tested in Nevada as a method for ensuring that we don't
return to nuclear testing, so you don't lock the weapons away
and also lock the codes away, and potentially get into a
situation some years down the road where they are a bit
bollixed up.
Ms. Tauscher. Well, I would join with my comments--with the
comments of my esteemed and distinguished ranking member that
he was teasing out of Ambassador Robinson. I think that you
have to take this to its natural conclusion.
When we have this military requirement, when we have the
moratorium, which I certainly support--I would be supportive of
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) being ratified.
Ms. Kelley. Right.
Ms. Tauscher. Probably not going to happen any time soon.
But while we have these weapons, and while we are taking
them down--and I think we are doing a lot of good work in
dismantling them. We have issues about tactical and what are we
going to do with the Moscow Treaty.
While we have this military requirement, and we have this
deterrent strategy, which I support, you have to have weapons
that the military is going to believe are going to do their
mission.
If you are not going to have a science-based program that
extends their life while at the same time not enhancing
performance, but does what we believe stockpile stewardship
does, what concerns me is that what you are proposing looks
more like a hospice program than it does keeping their life
going.
And what worries me is that you are going to find that you
are going to have a military that stands up and says, ``You
better test.'' And that is not where we want to go.
Ms. Kelley. And I am worried----
Ms. Tauscher. So there is a sweet spot--there is a sweet
spot here that--that I think we are trying to find, and once
again, I encourage your work. I encourage you to consider, you
know, pushing the envelope.
But I think that--I am not sure it is productive, as some
of the other things that you have done, to quibble about
curatorship versus life extension, when life extension is the
gold standard.
Right now, we are concerned about in the next generation
that we are going to be able to maintain without testing, but
it has worked for a very long time. It is, I think, where most
people want to be until we make a decision we don't need
weapons.
We are not going to unilaterally disarm in a multilateral
world where weapons are proliferating, but I think--I think
that this is, once again, a very important conversation.
We have got votes. I apologize that we are going to have to
close the hearing. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you very
much for your service. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Ms. Kelley. Thank you. I am honored that you invited me,
and thank you very much.
Ms. Tauscher. Of course. Of course. Thank you.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
July 17, 2008
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
July 17, 2008
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. TAUSCHER
Mr. D'Agostino. The NNSA has not completed a review of what the
sites in the Complex will need for personnel in five years, but we will
have a clearer picture after the findings from the Congressional
Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States (Section 1062
of the FY 2008 National Defense Authorization Act) are reported, as
well as from the FY 2009 Nuclear Posture Review (Section 1070 of the FY
2008 National Defense Authorization Act). Based on an assumption of
steady state requirements, we can make some rough projections about the
needs of the Complex in five years. We have projections from the sites:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) expects about 625 career
employee scientist and engineer terminations in the next five years.
The number of expected career employee new hires or conversions from
pos-doc or limited term positions is 500. LANL expects to lose about
625 career employee scientist and engineer terminations in the next
five years. LANL has historically relied largely on postdocs for many
of its hires. However, the number of post-doc applications selected for
consideration in 2003 was 279, competed with 175 in 2008, a significant
decline due to budget constraints. From 2006 to 2008, the percentage of
LANL post-docs who were U.S. citizens has been steady at 39%, compared
with 52% in 2000, a significant decline.
Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has over 6,400
employees of which more than 2750 are scientists and engineers. The
laboratory expects 1007 career employee scientist and engineer
separations in the next five years and a like number of hires LLNL's
post-doc population has remained constant from 2004 through 2000.
However rates of conversion to permanent employees dropped from an
average of 22 percent in 2004 to 3.8 percent in 2008. Almost seventy
percent of the post-docs are U.S. citizens. Over 75 percent of LLNL's
scientists and engineers have a master's degree or higher, with 50
percent having a PhD.
Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) projects from a total of almost
4000 scientists and engineers a total attrition of approximately 950
scientists and engineers over the next five years. The hiring estimate
is 150-200 technical staff per year, or 750 to 1000 engineers and
scientists over a five year period. Of these, 40% will have PhDs, 35%
masters, and 20% bachelors and other degrees. For both attrition and
hiring, Sandia's California site is projected to account for 13%. The
total number of Sandia's employees is greater than 8400.
National Security Technologies (NSTec) reports the Nevada Test Site
currently has 450 scientists and engineers and estimates attrition of
175 and hiring of 200 over the next five years. One fourth of the
engineers have a master's or PhD, as do half of the scientists.
The Kansas City Plant expects to lose 300 technical workers out of
a total of 648 in the next five years and plans to replace 80-100%
(240-300). Most are expected to be bachelor-degreed engineers, a third
masters, and a few PhDs.
The Pantex Plant has 524 scientists and engineers and anticipates a
6% annual attrition for the next five years. To maintain a static
technical workforce, 157 scientists and engineers with bachelors or
masters degree must be hired over that period.
______
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. EVERETT
Mr. D'Agostino. The NNSA has diligently worked over the past two
years performing technical reviews and business case analyses of
transformation alternatives. The business case analyses covered costs,
risks, and benefits of each major alternative. These studies also
included life cycle costs of alternatives; costs of decommissioning,
deactivation, and decontamination of closure sites and facilities; and
cash flow analyses. The selected preferred alternative in the Draft
Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact
Statement (SPEIS) was typically the lowest cost and lowest risk option
based on both our internal and independent business case analyses.
These business case analyses were made available for public review on
the web at http://www.complextransformationspeis.com in January 2008.
Updated business case studies will be made available with the Final
SPEIS.
In our business case and environmental analyses for each major
modernization alternative, an internal Integrated Project Team (IPT)
was established to perform a business case analysis. Typically, this
work proceeded in parallel with an evaluation by a non-NNSA independent
review team. We evaluated consolidation options that could have
resulted in closure of up to two major sites (Pantex in Texas and Y-12
in Tennessee). However, we did not select these consolidation options
because extensive internal and independent analyses indicated that of
higher lifecycle costs and higher risks for time periods extending
through 2060. For example, the Department of Defense, Office of the
Secretary of Defense, Cost Analysis Improvement Group reported to me in
a January 10, 2008 memo that a ``Consolidated Nuclear Production Center
(CNPC) proposal is less cost effective than modernizing the existing
nuclear weapon production facilities.'' [See page 15.]
Dr. Miller. Great care must be taken during the anticipated
transformation activities to ensure that foundation of our confidence
in the stockpile, achieved through the independent scientific
approaches to identifying and resolving issues offered by two-
Laboratory competition, be sustained and nurtured. Pursuing
efficiencies such as a single simulation code system for both
Laboratories or dictating common approaches to solving complex problems
would destroy this foundation. Similarly, eliminating Livermore's
expertise in a basic material like plutonium would cripple the peer
review process. Appropriate consolidation of facilities is a valid and
important step; however, consolidating expertise would create
unacceptable risks. A more general concern is that during complex
transformation the foundational science and technology of the
Laboratories will be squeezed out by the large capital investments
required for transformation and the work required to maintain the
existing stockpile. The planned reduction of the Laboratories
capabilities by an additional 20 to 30% is a cause for great concern.
The United States has maintained confidence in the safety,
security, and performance of its nuclear deterrent through a
scientifically competitive process involving Los Alamos and Livermore
for over 50 years. This process of managed competition, collaboration,
and peer review has been essential because it has never been possible
to fully test the nuclear explosive package in all of its delivery
configurations and anticipated environments. With the current
restrictions on any nuclear testing and the potential for ratification
of a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, this process, which
provides the government with independent, expert advice on questions of
national importance is more essential than ever.
At its core, this process relies on having truly independent
experts--trained people with experimental capabilities and
computational simulation codes--who have the tools to do independent,
hands-on work on particular issues and provide that independent
scientific judgment to the government. Historically, this independent
expertise was developed through the design, engineering, production,
and maintenance of separate systems that made up the U.S. nuclear
stockpile. Each Laboratory has its own process, culture, and
organization for addressing stockpile challenges. These dissimilarities
led to truly independent scientific approaches and continue to provide
critical ``checks and balances'' in the process of maintaining the
nation's stockpile. The cooperative competition between LANL and LLNL
has yielded different approaches that gave us different weapons, new
technologies, and solutions to difficult challenges. Examples of these
are the modern, nuclear-safe, small weapon architectures; insensitive
high explosives; fire safe designs and materials, and modern security
features including active protection systems and permissive action
links. The two laboratories have developed different specializations,
resulting in unexpected discoveries, faster troubleshooting of
problems, and cost savings.
Today's system of peer review proceeds at several levels.
Each Laboratory retains responsibility for part of
the overall stockpile: LANL has responsibility for the B61,
W76, W78, and W88. LLNL has responsibility for the W62, W80,
B83, W84, and W87. During the Annual Assessment process each
Laboratory does extensive experiments, evaluations, and
calculation of the systems for which it is responsible. Within
each Laboratory, ``red teams'' review the results of this
analysis and provide comments to the Director. The other
Laboratory also provides comments based on its expertise, but
generally a Laboratory without primary responsibility does not
provide any significant calculations, experiments, or
evaluations to the other Laboratory. Based on the work done by
his own Laboratory and the comments from the ``red team'' and
the other Laboratory, the responsible Laboratory Director
provides his annual assessment.
Frequently, when there is a particularly complicated
or important Significant Finding or manufacturing issue, both
Laboratories provide independent assessments based on extensive
analysis, experimentation, and calculations. For example,
assessment of the aging effects in plutonium received this
level of peer review.
Sometimes both Laboratories do extensive analysis,
experimentation, calculations, and evaluations of an entire
system and provide independent input to the government. The W76
Dual Revalidation and the competition for the Reliable
Replacement Warhead proceeded along this line.
The current Annual Assessment process could be significantly
strengthened by requiring that each Laboratory do an extensive
evaluation--including independent calculations and experiments--of the
entire U.S. nuclear stockpile. Each Laboratory's stockpile evaluation
would be provided to the responsible Laboratory Director for inclusion
in his annual assessment of the systems for which he is responsible. I
believe that adding this more comprehensive peer review process is the
single most important action that we could take to improve confidence
in the nuclear deterrent in the absence of nuclear testing. [See page
33.]
Dr. Anastasio. The ability of the United States to sustain a safe,
secure and reliable stockpile in the absence of testing rests on the
ability of the 2 physics laboratories--Los Alamos and Lawrence
Livermore--to carry out a comprehensive suite of experimental,
analytical and computational activities that provide data needed by
scientists and engineers to determine the overall health of the
stockpile. These judgments however must be subject to a robust peer
review process. The challenge will be to conduct technically credible
inter-laboratory peer review.
The experimental, computational and analytical tools that have
evolved with the maturation of the Stockpile Stewardship Program are
the same tools that are essential to the future conduct of technically
credible inter-laboratory peer review. Simple reviews of data,
technical reports and subject matter expert analyses do not constitute
the type of inter-laboratory peer review that is needed to sustain
confidence in the stockpile in the future. A Laboratory conducting peer
review must be able to conduct its own experiments, simulate nuclear
processes using its own codes and models and complete its own analysis
of the results unconstrained by the perspectives of the other
Laboratory. This will not be easy nor inexpensive, but I believe it is
the prudent course for the Nation.
NNSA's proposal to transform the complex has 4 fundamental
objectives: Advance the science and technology base that is the
cornerstone for long-term national security--nuclear deterrent,
nonproliferation, counter terrorism and energy; transform the nuclear
deterrent-smaller, safer, more secure, reliable without underground
nuclear testing; transform to a modernized, cost-effective Complex; and
create an integrated, interdependent enterprise that employs best
business practices to maximize efficiency and minimize costs. NNSA's
proposal creates several centers of excellence that directly impact on
the ability of the two physics laboratories to carry out their
challenging peer review functions. Specifically, both Los Alamos and
Lawrence Livermore are designated as centers of Excellence for Nuclear
Design and Engineering; and Supercomputing.
This consolidation must be accomplished carefully and thoughtfully
to avoid unacceptable risk to the Stockpile Stewardship Program and,
derivatively, the ability of the Laboratories to conduct technically
credible inter-laboratory peer review.
It is critical that the current and anticipated tools of stockpile
stewardship are available to both Laboratories to enable inter-
laboratory peer review. These tools include the Dual Axis Radiographic
Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) Facility, the National Ignition Facility
(NIF), the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR)
project, Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), the Los Alamos
Plutonium Facility, the Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility (WETF),
supercomputing capabilities (Blue Gene and Road Runner) commensurate
with the scale of issues that will have to be addressed and the many
smaller but no less important experimental and analytical capabilities
at the Laboratories. And, above all else, motivated scientists and
engineers will have to be recruited, trained and given challenging,
meaningful work to preserve our ability to conduct technically credible
inter-laboratory peer review.
Finally, a new approach to inter-laboratory peer review is needed.
Director Miller and I agree that each Laboratory must provide the
necessary teclmical transparency that would enable continuous inter-
laboratory peer review of each nuclear warhead. This fundamentally
alters the classic inter-laboratory peer review process, which was
executed to assess discrete events or decisions. Implementation of such
an approach will require leadership, additional resources and careful
management, and is essential to sustain our long term confidence in the
United States' nuclear deterrent. [See page 33.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SPRATT
Mr. D'Agostino. Currently, there are eight facilities within the
list of 600 Assets which are considered process contaminated and have
been proposed for transfer to DOE Environmental Management (EM). The
eight facilities are located at the Y-12 National Security Complex and
some of them are still operational. Six of the eight facilities have
been proposed for transfer within the next five years while the
remaining two are available for transfer after 2014.
There are approximately six to eight additional operating
facilities in the list of 600 Assets that are potentially process
contaminated. As the plans for transformation of the complex mature and
the facilities declared excess become more defined, the facilities will
be characterized to determine contamination and scheduled for
disposition. [See page 19.]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
July 17, 2008
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TAUSCHER
Ms. Tauscher. Why did NNSA reject the concept of a Consolidated
Nuclear Production Center (CNPC), such as proposed in the 2005 SEAB
report? If funding were not a limiting factor, would that be the
preferred option?
Mr. D'Agostino. NNSA did not select a Consolidated Nuclear
Production Center (CNPC) because extensive internal and independent
analyses indicated the concept of a CNPC as proposed in the 2005
Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) report was both a higher cost
and higher risk approach. The SEAB task force underestimated three
important factors: (1) the cost of replacement facilities at a new
site, (2) the value of infrastructure at existing sites that would have
to be replicated at a new site, and (3) the cost of transitioning
operations to a new site (e.g., workforce development at new site).
Business case analyses indicated there would be no positive lifecycle
cost return on investment before 2060. While near-term budgets would
have been a challenge, the lack of a lifecycle cost advantage means
that a CNPC would not be our preferred option even if funding were not
a limiting factor.
The Department of Defense, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Cost
Analysis Improvement Group reported to me in a January 10, 2008 memo
that a ``Consolidated Nuclear Production Center (CNPC) proposal is less
cost effective than modernizing the existing nuclear weapon production
facilities.'' This is consistent with all our analyses of a CNPC. While
many individual facilities require modernization, the net present value
of existing buildings and structures at our eight sites is still
measured in tens of billions of dollars and thus modernization is the
preferred alternative.
Ms. Tauscher. Has the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA) resolved concerns over the seismic safety of the proposed
Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) facility?
Mr. D'Agostino. Yes. The CMRR design conforms to rigorous modern
seismic design requirements for nuclear facilities and its site is
fully characterized. The seismic design approach was reviewed and
endorsed by external reviewers, including the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board. The CMRR seismic design requirement derives
from the recently completed probabilistic ground motion studies
(approximately 2 years ago); resulting in setting the CMRR peak
vertical acceleration at 0.52 g (1 g is the acceleration of gravity on
the surface of the earth, which is approximately 9.8 meters per second
per second). This value is higher than the prior acceleration value of
0.31 g used as the site-wide design parameter. The value was updated
based on recent geological information that reveals that the Los Alamos
area had been subjected to larger earthquakes in the distant past than
had been previously understood.
The CMRR facility is designed to withstand earthquakes. This is a
significant improvement compared to the existing CMR structure. CMR was
designed to the building code in effect in the late 1940's before the
current rigorous requirements for the design and construction of
nuclear facilities existed and before the seismicity in the area was
understood. In particular, CMR is built atop a seismic fault that was
not discovered until well after the building was erected. Seismic
engineers have reached a consensus opinion that CMR would not withstand
severe but plausible earthquakes. For this and other safety reasons,
NNSA has concluded that CMR can not be relied upon as a long-term asset
in the Complex.
Ms. Tauscher. Some have asserted that the CMRR is essentially a
plutonium pit production facility. Please explain to the subcommittee
the stockpile stewardship activities that will be housed in the CMRR,
and their relationship, if any, to pit production. Please also
describe, for each activity, the analysis conducted that led the NNSA
to conclude that performing that activity in the CMRR--rather than in
any other existing or planned NNSA facility--was the most cost-
effective alternative.
Mr. D'Agostino. The Chemical and Metallurgical Research Replacement
(CMRR) is a support facility for a number of programs requiring
analytical chemistry support. Currently, these capabilities are
performed in a 60 year old building that has numerous safety issues and
needs to be replaced. CMRR is not a plutonium pit production or
manufacturing facility. Pit manufacturing is conducted and will
continue to be conducted in the Technical Area 55 Plutonium Facility
(TA-55/PF-4).
The following Stockpile Stewardship activities may or will be
supported by the CMRR-Nuclear Facility analytical chemistry and
material characterization activities:
Directed Stockpile Work (DSW):
--Pit Surveillance
-- Milliwatt Radioactive Generators Surveillance
--Special Recovery Line
-- Plutonium Measurements for Above Ground Experiments
--Subcritical Experiments
--Pit Manufacturing
Campaigns:
--Material Readiness
--Enhanced Surveillance
--Primary Certification
--Dynamic Materials Properties
--Advanced Radiography
-- Certification in Hostile Environments
Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities:
-- Materials Recycle and Recovery
In addition, the facility will have the capability to provide
analytical chemistry and material characterization support to other
national security programs, including:
--Pit Disassembly and Conversion
--Arms Control and Nonproliferation
--Nuclear Materials Stewardship
--Nuclear Materials Stabilization
--Advanced Fuels
-- Waste Isolation Pilot Project Characterization Work
The CMRR-Nuclear Facility will also provide nuclear materials
storage in support of all programs.
The major analytical chemistry and materials characterization
processes housed in the CMRR-Nuclear facility and supporting all
programs are:
-- Assay Measurements
-- Isotropic Mass Spectrometry
--Trace Element Analysis
--X-Ray Fluorescence and X-Ray Diffraction
--Radiochemistry
-- Analytical Chemistry
-- Materials Characterization
-- Sample Management
--Standards and Quality Control
--Waste Accountability and Handling
Pit production uses all the processes above except x-ray
diffraction and waste accountability and handling.
The analysis and rationale for performing activities in CMRR is
that no other adequate facility exists at Los Alamos, with the
exception of TA-55/PF-4 which does not have sufficient floor space nor
the facility infrastructure, to provide the large and varied amount of
chemical activities required to support the myriad programs listed
above. The current Chemical and Metallurgical Research (CMR) facility
is an aging facility with operational, seismic, and safety issues which
make it cost prohibitive to upgrade to required safety standards.
Therefore, building a new CMRR facility was found to be the most cost-
effective alternative. A decision to not build CMRR will require
contingency plans to relocate workloads. This may cause delays in other
areas of Complex Transformation.
Ms. Tauscher. NNSA has stated a requirement to produce 50 to 80
pits per year. Can you explain the rationale for this requirement, and
the relationship between the sizing of the CMRR facility and the
planned pit production rate?
Mr. D'Agostino. The requirement comes from the Department of
Defense, not the NNSA. A key factor in a responsive nuclear
infrastructure is the rate at which it can refurbish existing warheads
or produce replacement warheads. Currently, the production of plutonium
pits is the most constraining limitation on capacity. Needed pit
production capacity will depend on stockpile size and composition,
performance margins of warhead types comprising that stockpile, and the
viability of pit reuse options. Uncertainties in each of these factors
make it difficult to assess definitively future required pit production
capacity. Currently, we have a very small sustainable production
capacity at the Los Alamos Technical Area 55 (TA-55) facility as
supported by the current Chemical and Metallurgical Research (CMR)
facility, which could be as much as 10 pits per year (ppy) if CMR
operates as desired or as little as zero if CMR is unavailable for a
protracted duration. A rate of 10 ppy, we believe, is insufficient to
support the stockpile for the long term for several reasons:
-- Our best estimate of minimum pit lifetime is 85-100 years.
While this exceeds previous estimates, degradation from
plutonium aging still introduces uncertainty in overall system
performance, particularly for lower margin systems. As the
stockpile continues to age, we must plan to replace
considerable numbers of pits in currently stockpiled weapons.
-- If a future decision is made to field replacement warheads,
we will require expanded pit production capacity to introduce
sufficient numbers of warheads into the stockpile.
-- At significantly smaller stockpiles than today, we must
anticipate that an adverse change in the geopolitical threat
environment or a technical problem in the stockpile could
require manufacture of additional warheads on a relatively
short timescale.
A variety of future pit production alternatives have been evaluated
as part of the planning for transforming the nuclear weapons complex
infrastructure. The best economic and technical alternative is to
retain and build on the existing production facilities at Los Alamos.
In light of the uncertainties, the NNSA program, recognizing the range
of potential stockpile requirements and differences in pit types, is
planning on achieving a production capacity of about 50-80 pits per
year by 2017. This capacity has the potential to support smaller
stockpile sizes than today, particularly if coupled with potential
reuse of pits.
In addition to providing required analytical chemistry support to
numerous other programs, the Chemical and Metallurgical Research
Replacement (CMRR) facility will provide required analytical chemistry
and metallurgical support capacity to enable the manufacture of pits.
Additional analytical chemistry and metallurgical support for 50-80
pits per year would come from multiple shifts or selected operations
being supported out of the TA-55 plutonium facility (PF-4). No pit
manufacturing would take place in the CMRR-Nuclear Facility. Actual pit
manufacturing would be accomplished within the current TA-55/PF-4
plutonium facility through the addition of equipment, restructuring of
the manufacturing flow, and displacement of some other non-pit
programs.
Ms. Tauscher. Why does the NNSA need an in-house non-nuclear
manufacturing capability such as the Kansas City Plant? Could such
components be acquired via commercial outlets?
Mr. D'Agostino. The Kansas City Plant (KCP) manufactures or
procures through outsourcing approximately 85% of the parts for modern
nuclear weapons. As part of transformation of non-nuclear production at
KCP, we are already planning to increase outsourcing to commercial
outlets from currently less than 50% of components to over 65% of
components. However, there are two reasons why we must maintain a
limited in-house manufacturing capability such as KCP. First, KCP
produces highly classified use-control components for nuclear weapons.
As such, access to information on these parts must be controlled to a
limited number of people with appropriate security clearances. Second,
the quantity of parts produced are so low and the quality
specifications so rigorous that commercial outlets are not interested
in producing some of these parts at a price comparable with that of
KCP. KCP continuously looks at make-buy options for components to get
the best value for NNSA.
Ms. Tauscher. What benefits to the Stockpile Stewardship Program
can you discern as a result of the recent competitions for the
management and operations contracts at Los Alamos and Lawrence
Livermore National Labs?
Mr. D'Agostino. As you are aware the previous contracts were in
existence for a very long time at these two national laboratories. When
we embarked on the recent competitions for new management and
operations (M&O) contractors, we fully understood there would be a
period of transition. During that period we expected some extra effort
would be required by the new contractors to establish a new culture at
these laboratories and clearly there would be some issues that had not
been anticipated. At this point in the contract transition, we have
seen clear signs of a refocus by the laboratories in those areas that
are also consistent with our Complex Transformation. For example,
Livermore has put forth considerable effort to meet the Secretary's
challenge to accelerate the consolidation and removal of Special
Nuclear Materials. In addition, the new M&O contractors at Los Alamos
and Livermore have:
Focused on identifying infrastructure savings through
footprint reductions, replacement of buildings that are long
past their economic lifetime and updated cost-sharing models
for ``work-for-others'' customers; assurance processes and
commodity purchase savings through a supply chain management
center; and
Reduced staff supporting weapons activities through
attrition and reassignment to other national security missions,
while maintaining proper expertise to fully support on-going
stockpile missions.
We expect continued performance improvements as the new contractors
mature. There have been some challenges at each site and we are working
with the M&O to work through these to everyone's benefit.
Ms. Tauscher. Please comment on any cost or cost-benefit analyses
completed by NNSA on its preferred alternative and any other complex
modernization alternatives given consideration.
Mr. D'Agostino. The NNSA has diligently worked over the past two
years performing technical reviews and business case analyses (BCAs) of
transformation alternatives, including the preferred alternative in the
Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact
Statement (SPEIS). For each major modernization alternative, an
internal Integrated Project Team (IPT) was established to perform a
business case analysis. Typically, this work proceeded in parallel with
an evaluation by an independent (non-NNSA) review team. These business
case analyses covered costs, closure costs, life cycle costs of
alternatives, cash flow analyses, risks, and benefits of each major
alternative. The preferred alternative in the draft SPEIS was typically
the lowest cost and lowest risk option that meets mission needs based
on both our internal and independent business case analyses.
The business case analyses supporting selection of the preferred
alternatives in the Complex Transformation SPEIS were made available
for public review on the web at http://
www.complextransformationspeis.com/links_ref_pdfs.html in January 2008.
Hard copies of the business case analyses are also available to the
public upon request. We are continuing to update our business case
analyses as we prepare for release of the Final Complex Transformation
SPEIS. We plan to make these latter analyses available to the public as
well.
In addition to the preferred alternatives for restructuring of
special nuclear material and research and development facilities
covered in the SPEIS, NNSA is pursuing modernization of non-nuclear
production at the Kansas City Plant. An environmental assessment and
business case analysis has also been completed to support this proposed
action.
Ms. Tauscher. Does the NNSA see opportunity costs, or risks of
incurring greater future costs, by deferring infrastructure decisions
to a later date?
Mr. D'Agostino. NNSA does see higher risks of incurring greater
future costs if infrastructure decisions are deferred to a later date.
This particularly applies to major plutonium (e.g., Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) facility at Los Alamos) and
uranium (e.g., Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at Y-12) facilities.
Several existing nuclear facilities that support uranium and plutonium
research and manufacturing operations are very old (greater than 50
years) and cannot cost-effectively meet current facility safety and
security standards. By deferring construction of modernized replacement
facilities, mitigating actions such as expensive interim facility
upgrades will need to be taken.
The added costs of delay result from the cost of mitigating
actions; costs of continuing to operate old, inefficient facilities;
construction costs for replacement facilities that have been going up
at a faster rate than core inflation; and finally the potential impacts
of delayed deliverables to the nuclear stockpile resulting from the
higher rate of work stoppages in facilities being operated well beyond
their economic lifetime. We have estimates of many of these costs in
various business case analyses undertaken as part of the Transformation
planning process. The business case analyses can be found on the
internet at http://www.complextransformationspeis.com/
links_ref_pdfs.html.
Ms. Tauscher. How does NNSA's preferred alternative, which is
heavily focused on consolidation and increased efficiency, address the
military requirement for a more responsive infrastructure and a more
reliable safe and secure weapons capability?
Mr. D'Agostino. A guiding principle for NNSA's preferred
alternative for Complex Transformation is to achieve more responsive
capabilities in key research, design, development, production, and
testing areas essential for more reliable and secure weapons. One
challenge we face today is that overhead and support costs are
consuming an increasing fraction of our budgets. Thus, we do want to
increase efficiency and consolidate old and outdated facilities in
order to maximize the percentage of our budget that can be devoted to
direct national security mission work in a more responsive
infrastructure.
Ms. Tauscher. What role will advanced simulations and computing at
Livermore play in the Stockpile Stewardship Program as the complex is
transformed?
Dr. Miller. Recognizing the advancements in computing pioneered by
LLNL in support of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, NNSA is proposing
LLNL as a center of excellence in computing as an essential component
of its transformation plan. LLNL will serve as the host site for the
ASC Sequoia system which will perform complex 3D calculations to
explore and resolve weapons physics questions related to performance
and safety that are currently incompletely understood. This knowledge
is necessary to improve codes critical to maintain confidence in
stockpile reliability, safety, and security. In addition, Sequoia's
petascale computational capability will be required to run large suites
of 3D simulations to quantify the level of confidence in the prediction
of weapon performance. Sequoia's capability, combined with LLNL's best-
in-class weapons codes, will then be used to examine technical options
both to maintain the stockpile and to improve the security and safety
features to meet today's safety standards and threat environment.
Advanced computational capability becomes increasingly important as
the U.S. stockpile continues to age beyond the nuclear test base.
Current codes calibrated to the nuclear test base are becoming
increasingly suspect in describing the performance of the stockpile as
it exists today. New, more fundamentally accurate and predictive
physics and materials models are consequently needed and are being
added to LLNL (and LANL) weapons codes--for instance, the NNSA boost
initiative is part of this effort. Boost is the most significant
remaining incompletely understood weapons performance process. This
lack of understanding inhibits the nation's ability to incorporate
improved safety and security features into the stockpile. Sequoia will
be employed to improve the understanding of this fusion ignition
process and to develop better predictive models. These improved, more
complex models will require increased computing capability, in
particular for running large suites of calculations to quantify the
uncertainty in the predictions of performance. Additional computational
challenges will emanate from the potential inclusion of enhanced
warhead safety and security features in future Life Extension Programs
to protect against accidents and unauthorized use in a changing
worldwide threat environment. It is the case that LLNL is particularly
well suited to address these challenges, which combine to require far
faster computers and more advanced design codes. LLNL has a stellar
track record in developing and employing reliable, production-computing
systems with world-class user support. LLNL has successfully sited
three generations of such systems, all of which have outperformed
original expectations. This operational advantage, combined with
continuously improving LLNL design codes, permit LLNL to bring a unique
capability to the nation.
In NNSA's transformed complex, LLNL will provide highly reliable
tri-Laboratory access to Sequoia, just as it has with the previous
machines sited at LLNL, in particular ASC Purple and White. Tri-
Laboratory usage of LLNL-hosted computational machines has enabled
continued work on the W76 LEP, B61, B83, W87, W80 (as well as RRW in
the past), Significant Finding Investigation (SFI) resolution, and
support for experiments on Z, NIF, and DARHT. Purple utilization and
availability rates have set a standard for the DOE. In providing this
tri-Laboratory support, approximately 2/3 of the cycles on LLNL's
Purple machine have been accrued by teams from the New Mexico Labs and
similar usage rates are expected on Sequoia.
LLNL's simulation capability will also be available to meet other
national priorities as directed by NNSA. For example, modernizing and
sizing the NNSA production complex for future needs will require the
development and implementation of new manufacturing processes, the
elimination of some legacy materials, and the inclusion of new
materials. LLNL, using its advanced codes and computers, will develop
innovative technologies and determine if these technologies can be
safely and reliably implemented in the stockpile through rigorous
application of Quantification of Margins and Uncertainties (QMU).
Beyond this, NNSA computational capabilities contribute to programs in
nuclear attribution, nuclear forensics, and weapon outputs and effects.
LLNL's continued leadership in ASC will meet the mounting challenges of
maintaining an aging stockpile was well as addressing broader 21st
century national security issues.
Ms. Tauscher. Could Category I and II Special Nuclear Materials
(SNM) be removed sooner than 2012 from LLNL? Why or why not?
Dr. Miller. LLNL has examined options for completing the de-
inventory of Security Category I/II SNM from LLNL sooner than 2012.
However, since the rate of de-inventory activities under the current
plan will utilize the full capacity of all available processing
equipment, further acceleration is not possible. Additional processing
capabilities over those currently available or planned would be
required to further accelerate the schedule. Due to the time required
to procure, assemble, install, commission, and initiate operation, any
such additional capabilities would not be available until after over
95% of the material is already processed, which precludes the
opportunity to substantially impact the de-inventory schedule.
The current plan ensures the safe and secure removal of all
Security Category I/II SNM from LLNL by FY2012. It represents a two-
year acceleration from the original plan, which set the completion date
in 2014. The timeframe for the safe and secure removal of SNM is
dictated by several factors governing the requirements for the
appropriate processing, packaging, and shipment of the material,
including (a) regulatory, safety, and security requirements for
packaging, shipping, and safety management; (b) applicable Code of
Federal Regulations; (c) DOE orders, standards, and manuals; (d)
receiver site processing and storage requirements; and (e) DOE Model
9975 shipping package Certificate of Compliance requirement; as well as
(f) the physical processes associated with safe and secure packaging of
the material. Figure 1 indicates the rate at which SNM can be processed
and made available for safe shipment to its end location, i.e.,
Savannah River Site (SRS).
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T5134.133
Figure 1: Percentage of SNM packages complete and ready for shipment to
SRS.
About 33% of the material has already been removed. Under the
current plan, additional processing equipment is scheduled to be
installed in the first six months of FY2009. This additional equipment
enables 90% of the material to be removed in two years (December 2010).
Because of the difficult nature of a small part of the inventory, it
will take nearly two additional years to process the remaining 10% to
meet shipping and receiver site requirements.
Ms. Tauscher. Why did LLNL seek a waiver from responsibility for
meeting the 2005 Design Basis Threat (DBT) security standards?
Dr. Miller. LLNL did not request a waiver from responsibility for
meeting the 2005 Design Basis Threat (DBT) security standards. LLNL
received direction from NNSA's Livermore Site Office in November 2007
to suspend expenditure of funds to meet the 2005 DBT following NNSA's
designation of LLNL as a ``non-enduring'' site for Security Category I/
II Special Nuclear Materials.
The NNSA Livermore Site Office Manager, Camille Yuan-Soo Hoo,
issued a memorandum to George H. Miller, President, Lawrence Livermore
National Security, LLC on November 7, 2007, informing him that based on
NNSA's decision to de-inventory the Category I/II facilities at LLNL,
he should not expend any funding to implement the 2005 DBT plan.
Ms. Tauscher. What impacts will the closure of Site 300 have on
LLNL stockpile stewardship activities?
Dr. Miller. Site 300 has several capabilities that are routinely
used to support stockpile stewardship and support U.S. counterterrorism
efforts. These include:
The Contained Firing Facility (CFF): a 55,000-square-
foot building that houses a containment chamber in which high
explosives are detonated and associated state-of-the-art
diagnostics, including radiography. This facility provides
experimental data relevant to high explosives and weapons
performance.
High-explosives storage, machining, inspection, and
waste treatment facilities: these facilities provide the safe
and secure infrastructure to conduct high-explosive related
stockpile stewardship and advanced conventional munitions
development for national security missions.
These capabilities have enabled the life extension of the W87 and
W76 weapons as well as critical assessments of the aging stockpile. In
addition, LLNL has successfully conducted experiments to assess methods
for safe multi-unit processing at Pantex. This has helped Pantex
increase its dismantlement throughput in recent years.
In addition to supporting CFF, the high-explosives storage,
machining, inspection, and waste treatment facilities are essential to
the operation of the High Explosives Applications Facility (HEAF) on
the LLNL main site. As a center of excellence, HEAF provides critical
support to the stockpile assessment and certification program, and it
has enabled LLNL to develop new innovative conventional munitions for
the U.S. armed forces.
Termination of NNSA's programmatic activities at Site 300 would
force the shutdown of the CFF and associated high-explosives
facilities. LLNL's high explosives R&D activities would require a
replacement facility, the HEAF annex, to be built on LLNL's main site
to provide the machining and inspection capabilities necessary to
support mission responsibilities at LLNL. Additionally, a new site
would have to be found for high explosives storage and waste treatment.
Initial analysis indicates that establishing an alternate high-
explosives waste stream is risky and likely infeasible. Without these
Site 300 replacement capabilities, LLNL's on-site high explosives R&D
would have to be terminated, jeopardizing LLNL's stockpile stewardship
responsibilities. High explosives expertise and capabilities are an
essential component of fulfilling the role of a nuclear design
laboratory.
NNSA's initial complex transformation plans called for all
hydrodynamic experiments to be conducted at LANL's DARHT Facility.
While the DARHT Facility has the forefront radiography capability, it
is not equipped with a large-scale high explosives containment
facility; rather, it uses smaller containment vessels. The technical
approaches taken by the two nuclear design Laboratories at CFF and
DARHT are unique and complementary. While DARHT can perform many of the
experiments conducted at CFF, it cannot address all requirements for
tests.
The closure of Site 300 and CFF would result in the forfeiture of
the capabilities that have been essential to assessing the enduring
stockpile. In particular, NNSA would no longer be able to execute
experiments for all of the enduring stockpile systems that have a
particularly large high explosive load. DARHT's containment vessels are
too small to contain all explosive loads. Neither LLNL nor LANL would
have the capability to execute experiments to address SFIs that arise
on warheads in this class. The use of containment vessels also limit
the types of data that can be obtained. There is also one class of
experiment, pertinent to all enduring systems, that could not be
conducted on DARHT. Historically, these experiments have been essential
to stockpile assessments. There is a high probability this class of
data will be required in the future but will not be available if CFF
closes with Site 300.
Beyond Stockpile Stewardship, the potential closure of Site 300
would impact LLNL and the nation's capability to do forensic analysis
of radiological, chemical, and explosives samples, as Site 300 is one
of two facilities in the nation capable of receiving large quantities
of, or large items contaminated with, these materials for analysis.
Ms. Tauscher. What Stockpile Stewardship activities are directly
supported by the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) building at
Los Alamos?
Dr. Anastasio. Essentially all stockpile stewardship programs that
use plutonium or other actinides have used, and continue to require,
scientific capabilities provided by the CMR facility. CMR provides
analytical chemistry for purposes of characterizing material for
programmatic work as well as basic analytical measurements to support
material control and accountability and other activities needed to
ensure safe and secure plutonium building operations. Some specific
Stockpile Stewardship programs drawing on capabilities in CMR are:
stockpile surveillance, manufacturing, annual certification, enhanced
surveillance, dynamic materials research, pit disassembly & conversion,
and test readiness. CMR also supports a broad range of national
security programs including: power source technology for space and
terrestrial applications, nuclear fuels research and development,
nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear forensics and nuclear materials
stabilization.
The balance of workload among the different program elements that
use the capabilities in CMR will vary from year to year depending on
the details of program plans.
Ms. Tauscher. How old are the lab facilities in the existing
Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) Facility? What is the remaining
useful life of these labs?
Dr. Anastasio. The CMR facility began nuclear operations in 1952
and has been operating for 56 years. Maintaining the viability of the
aging CMR laboratories to maintain the capabilities it provides is an
increasingly challenging activity. Significant investments were made a
decade ago in facility upgrades and there have been, and remain,
ongoing efforts in hazard reduction and maintenance, prioritized by
urgency and need. For example we have recently performed fire door
replacement and sprinkler head replacement. That said, the margin
against failure is not large in this aging facility. To preempt
projected failures, we anticipate performing activities including
ventilation (HVAC) refurbishment, transformer refurbishment, and fire
suppression upgrades in the near future. The current Basis for Interim
Operations expires at the end of 2010, but a new Authorization Basis
approval is currently being pursued.
Ms. Tauscher. If and when the CMR building is deemed unsafe for
work, where would the stewardship activities currently carried out in
CMR be conducted?
Dr. Anastasio. It is important to recognize that the CMR building's
capabilities support more than the stockpile stewardship program. If
the CMR building were declared unsafe for work today or in the near
future (i.e., before the CMRR nuclear facility is available), there is
no alternative path for the full suite of capabilities and the
activities they support. Some operations could be conducted in other
nuclear facility locations (e.g. PF-4 at TA-55) with significant costs
and up to years of time required for renovation and retrofit,
potentially displacing other operations or requiring compromise in
capabilities available for program support. Since appropriate nuclear
facility space is limited and in significant demand, this would lead to
considerable impacts to national security programs that would have to
be negotiated.
The current plan is to: a) reduce the operational risk in CMR by
removing material, consolidating operations inside CMR and moving some
activities into both PF-4 and the CMRR radiological laboratory as
appropriate and achievable; b) perform a limited set of activities in
CMR to maintain the viability of its capabilities until the CMRR
nuclear facility is available and; c) eventually transfer remaining
operations to the CMRR nuclear facility. The proactive approach being
pursued with the CMR facility is to allow the facility to be operated
safely until the CMRR nuclear facility is available.
Ms. Tauscher. As construction of the high profile experimental
machines to support stockpile stewardship is completed, such as NIF and
DARHT, what do the NNSA and Congress need to do to ensure the Stockpile
Stewardship Program is robust in the coming decades?
Dr. Anastasio. The success of stewardship to date has been based
on: (1) a sense of national commitment to the nuclear deterrent and the
Stockpile Stewardship program; (2) sustained investments in leading
edge experimental capabilities, modeling and simulation, and
computational platforms needed by scientists and engineers to
understand the physics of nuclear performance; and (3) meaningful work
to challenge the workforce across the Laboratories and the complex.
The next Administration and Congress must restore the bipartisan
consensus that existed on nuclear deterrence policy for the United
States during the latter half of the 20th century. Without such
consensus, U.S. allies and friends will increasingly question our
Nation's commitment to security assurances, which could lead to actions
to ensure their own security situation including exploration of nuclear
options. Such a shift could also lead to questions regarding their
long-term relationship with the United States. Further, our
adversaries, including rogue states, could become emboldened to take
actions counter to U.S. security interests.
The next administration and Congress must also reach a consensus on
an investment strategy to support the nuclear weapons complex and allow
it to support whatever stockpile the Nation decides it needs for the
21st Century. The budget uncertainties of the last several years have
created much doubt and uncertainty in the workforce of the weapons
labs, making it difficult for us to retain staff. Over the last several
years more than 2000 employees have left Los Alamos through a
combination of attrition, voluntary separation and reductions in the
contractor workforce. It has also greatly complicated our ability to
recruit the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The Laboratory's role is to anticipate, innovate, and deliver
leading-edge science and technology to meet a broad range of national
security challenges. These challenges include maintaining the
effectiveness of the nation's nuclear deterrent, supporting the
nation's nonproliferation and threat reduction priorities, and
addressing emerging national security issues--including energy
security--with urgency and agility. Leveraging our capabilities with
such broader national security missions will help sustain the leading
edge capabilities that the weapons program will draw upon as needed. A
strong basic research capability that interweaves the multidisciplinary
talents of Laboratory scientists and our unique facilities is also
essential to this mission. For Los Alamos, there are several key
initiatives including Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement
(CMRR) project, Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE)-R and
Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes (MaRIE) that will ensure the
continued scientific and technical excellence of the laboratory for
decades to come. LANSCE-R is a compilation of facility and
infrastructure subprojects focused on renovating and modernizing the
LANSCE accelerator and related systems, to ensure reliable operations
past 2020 in support of national security activities. MaRIE, though
still pre-conceptual, will allow scientists and engineers to better
understand properties of materials in extreme conditions, crucial to
predicting their performance in applications and developing new
materials and products to address national security challenges. CMRR
will provide the nation with a state of the art facility for: nuclear
fuels research and development, stockpile maintenance and manufacturing
support, nonproliferation/threat reduction activities, and nuclear
forensics.
Ms. Tauscher. If the CMRR facility is not built, what specific
stockpile stewardship program activities are at risk of interruption?
Dr. Anastasio. CMRR will support a broad range of national security
carried out by LANL. All stockpile stewardship programs that use
plutonium or other actinides are at risk of interruption without
continuous support for analytical chemistry, actinide R&D, materials
characterization and vault storage. These services are planned for
operation in the CMRR nuclear facility as Los Alamos transitions out of
the CMR facility.
Some Stockpile Stewardship programs supported in CMR are: stockpile
surveillance, manufacturing, annual certification, enhanced
surveillance, dynamic materials research, pit disassembly & conversion,
and test readiness. Though as noted above, the balance of demand from
different programs varies over time, capabilities needed by all these
programs would be at risk of interruption. CMR also currently supports
programs beyond stockpile stewardship including; power source
technology for space and terrestrial applications, nuclear fuels
research and development, nuclear non-proliferation, nuclear forensics
and nuclear materials stabilization.
Ms. Tauscher. If the CMRR facility is not built, what are the
consequences to pit manufacturing in particular?
Dr. Anastasio. Similar to other programs, the pit manufacturing
program in TA-55/PF4 will rely on the CMRR nuclear facility for
analytical chemistry, materials characterization and vault storage. The
pit manufacturing program would be interrupted at any level of
manufacturing without continuous support in these functional areas.
That support is presently provided by the CMR facility and in the
absence of CMRR, CMR would continue to serve that role.
Ms. Tauscher. If the CMRR facility is not built, what are the
consequences to other national security functions such as nuclear
forensics?
Dr. Anastasio. The Nuclear Forensics mission requires extensive
analytical chemistry and materials characterization capabilities
applicable to plutonium and other actinide elements in order to provide
timely information concerning domestic and foreign nuclear materials
and materials of unknown origin that may be obtain by U.S. Government
agencies or other sources. Not having the analytical and material
characterization services significantly diminishes our ability to meet
technical and programmatic needs as those services allow us to
ascertain processing signatures inherent to the material.
Nuclear forensics and materials inventory programs are
representative of the broader national security missions that can be
supported by CMRR and associated facilities at Los Alamos. Other
national security programs supported by these types of facilities
include:
Schools to train International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) inspectors in order to strengthen the international
nonproliferation regime and meet U.S. treaty obligations;
Schools to train domestic safeguards inspectors for
both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC);
Criticality safety training to maintain U.S.
capability to characterize, manipulate, and ensure the safety
of critical and super-critical nuclear material assemblies;
Training of international safeguards inspectors from
other countries in accordance with bilateral or multilateral
agreements, including training inspectors from countries such
as Russia, Pakistan, Brazil, and Argentina, and international
organizations other than the IAEA, such as EURATOM;
Development of science and technology for safeguards
and arms controls functions;
Assessment of materials and capabilities of foreign
states;
Developments of nuclear detection technologies for
U.S. Government Agencies such as the Department of Defense,
DOE, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of
Justice that are used to analyze, detect, deter, and act
against global nuclear and radiological threats.
Without modern nuclear facilities the long-term viability of our
ability to support these and related missions is very much in doubt.
Ms. Tauscher. If the CMRR facility is not built, what plans if any
does NNSA have to mitigate these risks?
Dr. Anastasio. The laboratory is not aware of any NNSA plans to
assure continuous support for programs other than the baseline plan
described above. The present planning relies on the construction of the
CMRR nuclear facility to replace the CMR facility. In the absence of
the new facility, the CMR facility would have to continue operating
indefinitely (with associated investments to extend the lifetime) or
the nuclear operations presently in the CMR facility and planned for
CMRR would have to be transferred into PF-4. Transferring activities
into PF-4 is a long duration activity, displaces existing programs,
requires considerable expense and results in compromises and impacts to
both current capabilities and future program requirements.
Ms. Tauscher. What are the implications of the plan to host
supercomputing platforms at only Livermore and LANL? Do you believe
Sandia's historic excellence in advanced computing architecture design
will persist, in spite of the new arrangement?
Dr. Hunter. Sandia considers supercomputing to be a vital element
in support of all major lab programs and missions. Our world-class
expertise in supercomputing has helped enable the stockpile stewardship
program as well as numerous other national security applications.
Planned changes in the nuclear weapons complex have presented
challenges for retaining our computing expertise. In the near term,
Sandia has developed a memorandum of understanding with LANL to partner
in the design and operation of the Zia Computer, a next generation
platform to be sited at LANL. Work on this machine will help maintain
Sandia's expertise in computer architecture design while also providing
a platform on which to run the many codes required in support of our
missions. Sandia has also partnered to establish the Institute for
Advanced Architectures and Algorithms with Oak Ridge National
Laboratory. Funding and support for both of these endeavors is crucial
for maintaining our high performance computing expertise.
We are not yet convinced that the expertise that has provided the
foundation for much of the nation's preeminent global position in
computing can be maintained under these new arrangements. The Sandia/
Los Alamos partnership is not without risk to both institutions. We
will need to demonstrate that this expertise can be maintained without
the operation of a large capability computer platform at Sandia.
Historically, this has not been possible. While we are somewhat
apprehensive, we have agreed to give the new approach a chance. It will
be essential for NNSA to execute a program strategy that supports the
partnership with a platform procurement in fiscal year 2010 that meets
the established requirements for maintaining and refurbishing the
nuclear weapon stockpile.
Ms. Tauscher. Sandia has a far higher percentage of work outside of
NNSA Weapons Activities than either of the other two weapons labs. What
lessons can LLNL and LANL take from Sandia as they seek to broaden
their work scope?
Dr. Hunter. Both LLNL and LANL successfully perform extensive
programs outside of NNSA, and these programs are very important to our
nation's security. We are not in a position to compare the
effectiveness of the three laboratories, but can offer some insight
into why Sandia has been particularly successful. First and foremost,
we deliver for our customers. Our non-NNSA customers always have the
option to go elsewhere if another organization can provide better
performance or if our costs become unreasonably high. We have worked
hard to develop a reputation among our customers as being a place that
delivers unique technology solutions and meets our commitments. We
carefully monitor our program performance and our customer
satisfaction. Second, we have been working in these areas for decades
and have always included these activities in our strategic planning.
This is not an overnight success story. For example, we have been
working in areas such as counterterrorism since the early 1970's, and
as a result were well positioned to respond to the nation's needs after
September 11, 2001. Third, in implementing our strategic planning, we
have committed significant effort to development of capabilities and
technical staff. Finally, we never lose the connectivity to our nuclear
weapons program and leverage the two program areas for mutual benefit
in enhancing our technical capabilities and keeping our staff
energized. In this manner, we are able to deliver advanced technologies
that are unique and at a reasonable cost.
Ms. Tauscher. Is ``Work For Others'' a mission area the weapons
labs should look to grow, particularly as their nuclear missions are
consolidated?
Dr. Hunter. Sandia views the resources of the national laboratories
as assets to be applied to the nation's hardest national security
problems. To the extent that our capabilities can be applied to solve
these problems, we should do so. DOE support for national laboratories
and their science and technology capabilities to support the broader
national security missions of other agencies is important. However,
these other agencies should retain full responsibility to competitively
select and directly manage specific programs. Maintaining the direct
relationships between the laboratories and other Work For Others
customers is critical. With these thoughts in mind, growth of the
programs should not be a goal in and of itself, although that may be a
logical outcome, given the increasing diversity and complexity of
threats to the nation. It is important to maintain the character of the
laboratories as assets to the nation for solving our most challenging
problems, rather than businesses with revenue targets. In many cases a
laboratory has been most successful when it transfers a technology to
industry for large-scale implementation, as opposed to developing an
in-house revenue stream. That said, the problems facing the nation in
energy, terrorism, environmental change, and various emerging global
threats is likely to lead to growth in Work For Others programs in the
future.
Ms. Tauscher. What characteristics do you think are needed in the
organizations that run the national laboratories? What is required of
such organizations to ensure that the national interest is their
paramount concern?
Dr. Hunter. A contracting entity needs to understand and value the
national laboratories' missions and unique attributes as Federally
Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). National service,
through implementation of the federal sponsor's mission, should be the
primary motivation of the contracting entity, not financial interest.
A contracting entity's role should be to support behaviors and
processes that will facilitate the laboratory's ability to serve the
nation and deliver with excellence. Companies or academic institutions
contracting to operate an FFRDC should have a demonstrated commitment
to ethical business practices and values of service that are evident in
their record of operations. Moreover, they should share with the FFRDC
a passion for excellence in science or engineering germane to the
mission of the laboratory.
The NNSA national laboratories are complex organizations. The
operating contractor should also have a history of managing large,
complex enterprises successfully and safely. The entity should have a
visible record of integrity and ethics and an effective, auditable
process for avoiding and mitigating organizational conflicts of
interest. It should know how to provide an assurance system with robust
internal controls for effective program execution and business
management. The NNSA laboratories have a unique role in the independent
annual assessment of the nuclear deterrent. It is essential that the
leadership of these laboratories never be put in a position in which an
unbiased, objective judgment cannot be provided. A contractor's value
system must support providing this independent judgment without concern
for corporate profit, contract performance, or personal gain.
Ms. Tauscher. What role should nuclear test readiness play in a
transformed and modernized complex?
Dr. Younger. Stockpile Stewardship--maintaining the nuclear weapons
stockpile without underground testing--should be regarded as an
experiment. Scientists and engineers have no experience in maintaining
complex objects in perpetuity without testing them, and there are
concerns that the accumulations of small changes in weapons, some
naturally occurring due to age and others the result of planned
refurbishments, could affect our ability to accurately predict safety
and performance. Significant progress has been made in developing
sophisticated computer codes for describing nuclear explosives.
Previously, computer codes had many ``adjustable parameters'' that
could be changed to make code output match the results of nuclear
tests. This was adequate so long as we were conducting tests that were
required, since we lacked the computer power to do much better. Today,
we have incredibly powerful computers that can include vastly greater
detail in the description of the weapon (down to the threads on the
bolts) and in the amount of physics included. Progress has also been
made on quantifying the accuracy of our predictions via the
Quantification of Margins and Uncertainty methodology that is part of
the stockpile stewardship plan. However, two fundamental issues remain
that encourage maintenance of a minimal capability to return to nuclear
testing.
First, it is impossible to demonstrate that all of the physics
relevant to aging weapons is included in our computer codes. Science of
any kind--be it a study of individual molecules or the description of
nuclear weapons--proceeds through a sequence of prediction and
experiment, the hypothesis-experiment sequence familiar to every
student. Without experiments, there is no way to directly check the
accuracy of a weapons computer code. Supporting evidence can be
assembled, including data taken from laboratory experiments, previous
nuclear test data, and from fundamental studies, but the question
remains whether it is sufficient to accurately describe a weapon. We
believe that our current methods are adequate, but we cannot prove that
they are adequate without an actual test. Hence the issue is one of
risk analysis and risk assessment. At present we believe that the risk
associated with not conducting a nuclear test is low, but as we move
further from the design lifetime of weapons, as changes are introduced,
and as our experienced workforce ages and leaves the scene, this risk
may increase. New capabilities will increase our confidence, but
several key processes in nuclear weapons operation cannot be reproduced
in any anticipated laboratory experiment. The notion that laboratory
experiments and computations are superior to conducting an actual test
of a nuclear device is factually incorrect and inconsistent with
generally accepted scientific practice.
The second issue affecting the need to maintain a capability to
perform a nuclear test relates to the composition of our nuclear
weapons stockpile. In contrast to every other nuclear nation, the
United States does not have a program of regular remanufacture and
replacement of our weapons. All other countries regularly remove
weapons and either refurbish them or replace them with completely new
units. The United States has a policy of refurbishing weapons when we
have reason to believe that they require attention. We assume that the
quality controls in place at the time of their original manufacture,
combined with our occasional surveillance of a small number of weapons,
will provide adequate confidence in the status of the stockpile.
Moreover, the decline in the nuclear weapons industrial plant and the
much stricter regulatory environment that governs the surviving
capability limits our capability and capacity to refurbish or replace
weapons. This might be adequate if the weapons in our stockpile were
designed to be maintained for a long period, but they were not. The
criteria that drove their design were focused on low weight (so that
they could be carried on smaller aircraft and missiles) and minimal use
of then-scarce nuclear material. They were highly optimized and, like
other highly optimized complex machines, are sensitive to change.
The fundamental scientific challenge of proving the accuracy of our
computer predictions, combined with the highly optimized nature of a
stockpile (one that we are hard-pressed to remanufacture) suggests that
the United States maintain some capability to return to nuclear testing
should the need arise. The cost of maintaining this capability is very
low compared to the overall cost of stewardship--a reasonable estimate
is $20M per year. This value can be kept low by exercising as many key
test capabilities as possible in other parts of the stockpile
stewardship program. For example, gamma and neutron diagnostics
capability can be maintained via experiments on the National Ignition
Facility. Timing and firing of test devices can be exercised in non-
nuclear hydrodynamic tests. However, some skills are unique to nuclear
tests and are not maintained elsewhere in the stewardship program.
These include the ability to demonstrate containment of a nuclear
explosion underground, various pieces of special equipment including
nuclear-certified cranes, and personnel who are familiar with the
design of an underground test configuration.
The potential consequences of not maintaining a nuclear test
capability are severe. Given the age of our stockpile and our inability
to rapidly remanufacture key components, a problem could arise that
could severely impact our confidence in our nuclear deterrent. In a
time of international crisis, such uncertainty could have negative or
even disastrous results. Also, other countries, most notably Russia,
are actively developing new classes of weapons and delivery vehicles to
carry them. These new weapons are presumably tailored to the military
requirements of the future, in contrast to the American weapons, which
were designed to meet the requirements of the Cold War. Finally, while
we have no reason to believe that we have missed a fundamental part of
nuclear weapons science, there is always the possibility of technology
surprise, the fielding of a new type of weapon by a foreign power that
would affect the strategic nuclear balance.
Most of these motivations for maintaining a minimal capability to
return to nuclear testing will remain valid even in a transformed and
modernized nuclear weapons complex. We will still worry about the
sufficiency of our computer codes to describe objects as complex as
nuclear weapons. We will still worry about the effect of changes on
high-optimized nuclear weapons designs. We will still worry about
foreign developments. Absent changes in our stockpile, particularly the
introduction of more robust and more easily manufactured designs,
maintaining some capability to perform a nuclear test is necessary.
Ms. Tauscher. What are your primary concerns about the proposed
complex transformation?
Dr. Younger. Any transformation must start from a set of
requirements. For the nuclear weapons complex, we must consider three
fundamental questions: What types of weapons and how many is the
nuclear weapons complex expected to maintain? What activities must be
performed to sustain them? What physical and human infrastructure is
required to perform these activities?
At present, the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile is a legacy of the
Cold War. Our weapons were designed to hold Soviet targets at risk and,
to reduce costs, were highly optimized to deliver the maximum amount of
yield for the minimum weight. They were designed to remain in the
stockpile for a fixed period of time and then to be replaced with fresh
units. More consideration was given to performance than to longevity,
to weight than robustness. These tradeoffs were made palatable by the
ability to actually test a weapon to assure that it was safe, reliable,
and that its performance was within acceptable bounds. Today, the
requirements for weapons are much different. The geopolitical situation
has changed fundamentally since the end of the Cold War and new
technologies have arisen that can perform some of the missions formerly
assigned to nuclear weapons. Thus the requirements for nuclear weapons,
both their type and number, have changed. Partial consideration of
these changing requirements are accommodated by agreements to reduce
the number of nuclear weapons in our stockpile, but there has been
virtually no willingness to change the types of weapons, to reduce
their yield, make them safer, and lo improve the reliability by using
more robust designs.
In designing a transformed nuclear weapons complex, we must start
with why we have nuclear weapons in the first place--in particular the
missions that we expect them to perform. This mission space spans both
military and political realms. Some targets simply cannot be destroyed
by conventional means and require the energy of nuclear weapon for
their destruction. Also, possessing a nuclear capability sends a strong
message to would-be aggressors that the United States has the
capability to project overwhelming force in the defense of our national
interests. A rigorous assessment of what targets the United States
wishes to hold at risk determines the composition of the stockpile
required for the future.
Having identified what types of weapons and how many are required,
we can then address what actions are required to provide and maintain
these weapons. Some capability to manufacture plutonium pits is
essential, as is an ability to machine uranium and other unique
materials. Scientists and engineers familiar with nuclear weapons
physics, engineering, and manufacturing must maintain a sufficient set
of skills, and demonstrate their proficiency on relevant activities, to
assure their ability to carry out these tasks.
Finally, the physical infrastructure required to carry out these
activities must be provided. This is challenging given that we are not
starting from scratch. The country has invested many billions of
dollars in the nuclear weapons complex and there are significant
environmental and political concerns about constructing new facilities
or even closing old ones. Before constructing new facilities,
especially costly nuclear facilities, I believe we should first fully
utilize what already exists. This should be done on a national scale
rather than a site-by-site basis. The time when the country could
afford to build one of each type of capability at multiple sites is
over--we must operate the nuclear weapons complex as a national
enterprise where capabilities are located where they are most cost
efficient and in particular where we can avoid expensive capital
construction.
Unfortunately, the nation has yet to clearly identify the
requirements for its nuclear stockpile. Such ambiguity, combined with
strong local interests at each of the NNSA sites, has made strategic
planning difficult and has impeded much-needed consolidation efforts.
My principal concern regarding complex transformation remains the lack
of a clear requirements case that can drive businesslike planning for
future capabilities and the migration from our present configuration to
a sustainable complex.
Ms. Tauscher. If a decision is made to make further stockpile
reductions, would infrastructure upgrades be required at Pantex?
Mr. Meyer. If a strategic decision is made to reduce the total
number of units in the country's nuclear arsenal, the Pantex Plant
would still need to maintain and upgrade the existing infrastructure.
A decrease in the total number of stockpile units would mean an
increase in dismantlements and storage requirements in the short term.
This would be accomplished by working multiple shifts in existing
facilities. Instrumental in meeting this increased short term workload
will be the ability to sustain and perform essential upgrades to the
site infrastructure, e.g. High Pressure Fire Loop Project.
Once the dismantlement work is completed and the smaller stockpile
is in place, B&W Pantex has identified out-year infrastructure projects
to sustain the mission and provide life cycle replacement to Cold-War
legacy facilities. These projects are required to sustain the Pantex
Plant's capabilities and designated centers of excellence. In addition,
these projects will allow the older facilities currently in use to be
vacated and replaced by newer, smaller, more energy-efficient
buildings. This will enhance operational efficiency at the Pantex
plant.
Ms. Tauscher. How advanced is the planning for the new underground
Weapons Storage Area?
Mr. Meyer. B&W Pantex has developed the Program Requirements
Document and Mission Need Document required to obtain Critical Decision
Zero (CD-0) approval for the project. National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) approval may coincide with the Complex
Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
(SPEIS) Record of Decision (ROD). This CD-0 approval will authorize B&W
Pantex to initiate alternative analysis, conceptual design and initial
funding for the project.
On a parallel course Pantex is reviewing a storage facility design
developed for the Department of Defense and its applicability to the
Pantex operations.
Ms. Tauscher. Why is such a facility needed? What are the expected
benefits of the facility?
Mr. Meyer. The new underground facility will result in safety and
security improvements over the current facility. Although a detailed
discussion of these benefits would require a classified forum, they can
be summarized as:
Reduced operational costs due to a decrease in
transportation, handling times, and number of security
personnel.
Increased security and safety due to a modern design
incorporating contemporary nuclear safety and security
standards and configured to better resist any possible threats.
Ms. Tauscher. What is the current status of the Kansas City
Responsive Infrastructure Manufacturing and Sourcing (KCRIMS)
initiative?
Mr. Trim. The non-facility related aspects of KCRIMS, which include
strategic sourcing activities, process consolidation, and business
system transformation to reduce costs, are being executed as planned.
The original GSA solicitation for the new facility was cancelled in
July and a new solicitation was issued on August 16th with revisions
made to improve competition and adjust for current market factors.
Honeywell FM&T is continuing to work with GSA and NNSA to ensure this
important project is successful and moves forward in a timely manner.
Facility completion is now scheduled for FY11 with relocation and the
operational transition complete in FY13. The final NEPA Environmental
Assessment for the new site is complete and a Finding of No Significant
Impact has been published.
Ms. Tauscher. Please describe the analysis of alternatives that was
conducted prior to the NNSA decision to build a replacement facility
for the Kansas City Plant (KCP) near the current location, rather than
moving the KCP mission to other NNSA sites. Please also describe the
basis for NNSA's conclusion that this approach is the most cost
effective alternative.
Mr. Trim. The first analysis of alternatives was performed in
conjunction with Critical Decision 1, part of the DOE Order 413.3
Acquisition of Capital Assets process. This study was performed in
March 2007 by Honeywell FM&T and concluded that the additional cost to
move operations to either Amarillo, TX or Albuquerque, NM was $565M
more expensive than the Kansas City option. A second analysis,
chartered by NNSA-HQ and conducted by an independent third-party
(SAIC), was completed in October 2007. This study concluded that
Albuquerque was the most viable option and the additional costs would
be $289M more than the Kansas City option. Both studies agreed that the
major cost drivers of a distant relocation would be the transfer or
rehire/retraining of a uniquely skilled workforce and additional costs
associated with extended downtimes and requalification activities that
would result from a long-distance relocation. Several examples of
relatively recent major relocations of NNSA missions and capabilities
(non-nuclear reconfiguration) served to validate both of these studies.
The SAIC study was revalidated in conjunction with the second GSA
solicitation.
Ms. Tauscher. Could more aggressively down-blending surplus highly-
enriched uranium (HEU) reduce the need for storage of such surplus HEU
in the HEUMF at Y-12? If so, could floor space in the HEUMF be
configured for processing activities of the sort the planned UPF is
designed to house?
Mr. Kohlhorst. The HEUMF was designed and built to accommodate HEU
for all viable stockpile scenarios. Down-blending of surplus HEU is
occurring as soon as the HEU becomes available. However, should excess
space be identified in the HEUMF, the facility was designed for storage
rather than processing. Key systems such as air handling, electrical,
and steam could not accommodate the unique operational requirements of
wet chemistry, casting, and x-ray operations. The UPF is designed as a
processing facility with different hazards, operations, deliverables
and related regulatory requirements. The confinement strategy, fire
protection requirements, criticality considerations and supporting
infrastructure are all radically different than HEUMF and in many cases
they are non-compatible.
Ms. Tauscher. How will changes in the size of the U.S. nuclear
weapons stockpile affect the scale and scope of work to be done in the
planned UPF?
Mr. Kohlhorst. This question has been studied extensively with many
scenarios modeled and evaluated over the past year. One of the
intentional features of the UPF design is its flexibility to
accommodate a wide range of programs with a very limited set of
equipment and minimal operating space. Accordingly, its size is driven
primarily by capability and not capacity. The planned equipment set,
combined with new technologies, allows for an impressive range of
production capacity. The viable stockpile ranges being considered do
not have a major impact on the scale or scope of the UPF design.
Ms. Tauscher. What effect would delays in construction of the UPF
have on stockpile stewardship program work at Y-12?
Mr. Kohlhorst. First, HEU operations are performed today in 60+
year-old facilities that have exceeded their economic lifetime and must
continue to function until UPF is operational. Any delay in the
construction of UPF will amplify the risk to continued operations,
incur increased operating costs, and likely require facility
investments to remain operational. Second, approximately $200 million
per year in annual cost savings are projected upon completion and
operation of the new UPF. In addition, just a one year slip in the UPF
schedule would cost up to $100 million due to escalation, schedule
slippage, and demobilization.
Ms. Tauscher. In your experience auditing National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) project execution and management, do you believe
the agency is equipped to effectively manage the consolidation of
missions, especially among the labs, called for in the Preferred
Alternative?
Mr. Aloise. For the better part of a decade GAO has reported on
weaknesses in NNSA's and the Department of Energy's (DOE) ability to
effectively manage large, complex projects. Poor project management has
contributed to a history of cost overruns and schedule slips on major
construction projects, as well as to changes in project scope and
mission to accommodate cost and schedule constraints. For example, GAO
reported in March 2007 (GAO-07-336) that 9 of the 12 major construction
projects that DOE and NNSA were managing had exceeded their initial
cost or schedule estimates, including three projects that exceeded
initial cost estimates by more than 100 percent and four projects that
were delayed by five years or more. Furthermore, our preliminary
results from an ongoing review for this Subcommittee on NNSA's Life
Extension Program show that NNSA's cost estimate for refurbishing each
B61 bomb has almost doubled since 2002.
GAO has testified that without clearly defined stockpile
requirements to drive decision-making about Complex Transformation
(GAO-06-606T, GAO-08-132T), we are not confident in NNSA's ability to
effectively implement the Preferred Alternative. The construction
project and programmatic examples above represent NNSA efforts that
began with clearly defined requirements. In contrast, NNSA's Preferred
Alternative is not based on clearly defined requirements to drive
decisions about the scope of proposed facilities' missions--
specifically the size and capacity requirements for the Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research Replacement facility at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory or the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Plant--which
NNSA estimates together will cost as much as $5.5 billion. Further, the
absence of stockpile requirements calls into question the basis on
which the Preferred Alternative consolidates other missions, such as
high explosives testing, which is currently conducted at five sites
within the nuclear weapons complex and, under the Preferred
Alternative, would continue to be conducted at all five sites, though
to differing extents.
Transforming the nuclear weapons complex is a far more demanding
task than any of the individual construction projects NNSA has managed
and executed, and the Preferred Alternative for this transformation was
crafted without grounding in stockpile requirements. For these reasons,
GAO is concerned about NNSA's ability to effectively manage and execute
the Preferred Alternative.
Ms. Tauscher. What elements of the NNSA's Preferred Alternative
would you identify as warranting special congressional attention?
Mr. Aloise. In our testimony before the Committee, GAO identified
three elements of NNSA's Preferred Alternative that we believe warrant
special congressional attention: (1) ensuring that the Preferred
Alternative is ultimately implemented to meet specific stockpile
requirements; (2) overseeing major projects called for in the Preferred
Alternative, including the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Replacement facility and the Uranium Processing Facility; and (3)
holding NNSA accountable for meeting detailed schedules and cost
estimates for implementation of the Preferred Alternative.
First, because Complex Transformation must be driven by clearly
defined stockpile requirements, the Congress should ensure that once
stockpile requirements are set the Preferred Alternative is
systematically adjusted to meet these requirements. For example, once
NNSA and the Department of Defense settle on a requirement for pit
manufacturing, the Preferred Alternative should be revisited to ensure
that the nuclear weapons complex's plutonium manufacturing capability
is correctly sized to meet the requirement.
Second, given NNSA's historically poor track record in managing
major projects, the congress should pay special attention to overseeing
all major projects associated with the Preferred Alternative,
particularly construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Replacement facility and the Uranium Processing Facility.
Third, the Congress should require NNSA to submit detailed
schedules and cost estimates for implementation of the Preferred
Alternative that the Congress can then use to hold NNSA accountable for
its management performance. These schedules and cost estimates should
be tracked against their original baselines and a review triggered if
these schedules and cost estimates are significantly exceeded.
Ms. Tauscher. Does Tri-Valley CAREs believe Livermore should meet
the 2005 DBT standards, even though all Category I and II special
nuclear material (SNM) is expected to be removed by 2012?
Ms. Kelley. In theory, all sites with nuclear weapons usable
quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium should meet the
standards of the most stringent and most recent Design Basis Threat
(i.e., the 2005 DBT). The potential for a terrorist attack from an
outside force, insider ``plants'' or a disgruntled employee exists on
any given day and is not limited to dates after 2012.
That said, the spring 2008 security test that Livermore Lab failed
was calibrated to the less stringent 2003 DBT. The number of attackers
presumed in the 2003 DBT is only about half those in the 2005 DBT.
Moreover, Livermore Lab did not fail the force-on-force drill on a
peripheral, minor technicality. The Lab failed the central core of the
test, in that it allowed mock terrorists to obtain special nuclear
material and detonate an Improvised Nuclear Device. Moreover, the mock
terrorists also succeeded in a second objective; to steal special
nuclear material for use at a later date and place of their choosing.
As a Livermore-based organization, Tri-Valley CAREs finds this
situation intolerably dangerous.
As you know, Tri-Valley CAREs has long called on the Dept. of
Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to
initiate a timely, transparent and credible analysis of the most safe
and secure location for Livermore's special nuclear material. We have
advocated that these decisions should not be politicized or tied to the
Department's nuclear weapons plans (e.g., Complex Transformation,'' in
which the preferred alternative is to move Livermore Lab's plutonium
twice to serve expanded pit production at Los Alamos Lab, a location
that would not likely to be chosen if security were the primary
determining factor).
And, Tri-Valley CAREs has consistently called on Congress to press
the Department and Livermore Lab management to prioritize safe
packaging of the Lab's plutonium, in particular.
Thus, in 2008, we find ourselves understandably frustrated by the
seeming conundrum of whether the focus of security activities and
funding at Livermore Lab should be geared toward compliance with the
2003 and 2005 DBTs or toward getting the material safely and swiftly
moved to a more secure location.
This is a choice that remains only because of DOE's inaction.
However, if choice be required of me, I must pick the latter. I have
been told by knowledgeable people that Livermore Lab's plutonium could
be safely de-inventoried by 2010, two years ahead of the DOE's proposed
date of 2012. If the plutonium is de-inventoried by 2010 instead of
2012, that cuts a 4-year risk in half. This should be the preeminent
goal. Simply put, Livermore Lab's special nuclear material is
vulnerable every day it is left here--and so are we.
Congress, and this subcommittee in particular, can productively
impact this dangerous situation by:
1. Mandating immediately a scientifically credible and independent
analysis of the present procedure and schedule for de-inventorying
special nuclear material from Livermore Lab with the goal of
determining strategies to accelerate the schedule.
2. Ensuring sufficient funds (and application of existing funds) to
do the job. In this regard, it might be necessary for Congress to
specify in legislation that qualified, certified plutonium handlers and
packagers at Livermore Lab not be laid off. Word on the street is that
Livermore Lab management earlier this year laid off some of the very
workers who are needed to accelerate and complete the job. And,
3. Passing legislation that mandates a date certain by which all
weapons usable quantities of plutonium and highly enriched uranium must
leave Livermore Lab. As you note in the wording of your question, the
DOE ``expects'' to move the material by 2012. We believe it can be
accomplished by 2010. But no law at present requires any date,
including 2012.
The crux of the problem of the vulnerability of nuclear materials
at Livermore Lab is that the physical site (about 500 buildings and
nearly 10,000 people crowded into one square mile), the encroaching
community (homes, little league fields and apartments crowding up
against the site), and the surrounding Bay Area (seven million people
within a 50-mile radius) make this an unacceptable location for nuclear
bomb-making materials.
Therefore, the solution cannot be found in installing more Gatling
guns, which also pose a risk to workers and the community if they are
ever fired. Instead, the only right thing to do is to de-inventory the
site by the earliest possible date.
Ms. Tauscher. Is Tri-Valley CAREs ``curatorship'' model compatible
with the military's requirement for a more responsive infrastructure
and more reliable, safe, and secure weapons capability?
Ms. Kelley. Yes! A ``Curatorship'' approach to managing the arsenal
will achieve the goals of safety, reliability and security more
credibly and at lower cost than either the current Life Extension
Programs or the (so-called) Reliable Replacement Warhead program.
Curatorship is designed to better utilize and focus the nation's
stockpile maintenance capability. Minimizing changes to the well-tested
warheads in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile keeps them more
reliable, safe and secure than either making ``enhancements'' to them
that are not absolutely required to resolve an actionable defect in the
warheads or designing new ones without nuclear tests.
An historical note of importance here: In 1993, the President and
the Congress established the Stockpile Stewardship Program with the
goal of maintaining high confidence in the stockpile absent full scale
underground nuclear testing. The DOE NNSA's 2003 budget documents
revised that goal to read, ``Maintain and ENHANCE [emphasis added] the
safety, security, and reliability of the Nation's nuclear weapons
stockpile to counter the threats of the 21st Century.'' The idea of
enhancing the stockpile was intentionally omitted as a goal in 1993 for
two reasons. First, it was generally agreed that the existing stockpile
was extremely safe and reliable and, thus, no changes were needed.
Second, it was generally agreed that if major changes were made to
nuclear weapons, without full scale underground nuclear testing, there
would be a significant risk that the modified weapons would be less
safe and reliable than the well-tested versions they replaced. Neither
of those reasons is any less true today.
Adding enhancement of the stockpile as a DOE NNSA goal is the type
of major policy change that should have triggered significant debate at
the time it was proposed. That debate is late in coming, but is no less
needed.
The choice is between ``curating'' the existing nuclear test
pedigree of the arsenal or walking further and further away from that
pedigree in favor of interesting new projects for bomb designers,
whether they be RRWs or unnecessary changes bootstrapped into Life
Extension Programs.
Additional detail on how a Curatorship approach compares to other
methods can be found in Tri-Valley CAREs' 2000 report, ``Managing the
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile: A Comparison of 5 Strategies.'' Further
analysis of how to ``modernize'' (this subcommittee's term) or
``transform'' (DOE NNSA's word) the U.S. nuclear weapons complex to
reflect a Curatorship approach can be found in Tri-Valley CAREs'
comments on the Complex Transformation draft Supplemental Programmatic
Environmental Impact Statement, ``Part One: The Nuclear Weapons
Complex-wide Impacts,'' April 30, 2008.
Your question also asks about the requirement for a ``responsive
infrastructure,'' which was introduced in the 2001 Nuclear Posture
Review. Congress has already mandated that the next administration
produce a new posture review. That said, Tri-Valley CAREs would like to
offer a few observations on the general thrust of the question. A
nuclear weapons complex with a more clear and narrowly defined mission
and scope of work focused on the safety, reliability and security of
the existing (pedigreed) stockpile will be more responsive to fixing
``actionable defects'' in the stockpile than the Complex Transformation
plan, as maintenance will not be competing with other priorities in the
DOE NNSA complex--as is presently (and increasingly) the case.
Furthermore, we find the DOE NNSA poised on the brink of building
large new production facilities (for example, more plutonium pit
production capability at Los Alamos Lab in NM and a new uranium
processing facility at Y-12 in TN). This approach is not only wasteful
and counterproductive to our nation's global nonproliferation aims, but
it locks in the departing administration's nuclear weapons policy for
the next 20 years or more. So-called Complex Transformation is neither
responsive to needed (and likely) changes in U.S. policy nor to
prioritizing maintenance of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile as a
principal organizing feature of the weapons complex. In contrast,
Curatorship is more responsive to both.
Ms. Tauscher. Does Tri-Valley CAREs imagine that at some point,
Life Extension Programs (LEP) for existing nuclear weapons could be
riskier than the development of something like the Reliable Replacement
Warhead (RRW)? On whose judgment would you rely for such an assessment?
Ms. Kelley. First, thank you for asking this question. Tri-Valley
CAREs seeks to limit and restrain the Life Extension Programs and
terminate the RRW program in large part to ensure that the U.S. is not
forced to the very precipice posited above.
Curatorship is grounded in the principle that staying as close as
possible to the existing nuclear test base is the best technical
approach to maintenance of the arsenal while carrying the least
technical risk that there will be future pressure to resume full-scale
underground nuclear tests. If this is the goal, then Curatorship has
distinct advantages over either the current LEPs or the RRW.
You ask on whose judgment for these assessments Tri-Valley CAREs
would rely. In general, Tri-Valley CAREs leans toward ensuring that the
``table'' at which such judgments are made includes the broadest
spectrum of voices, and that the decisions themselves are conducted in
the most transparent manner possible. In this regard, we have concerns
that the new management structures of the Livermore and Los Alamos labs
may be headed in the misguided direction of enabling not more but
fewer, and more uniform, voices at the ``table.''
Tri-Valley CAREs supports genuine scientific peer review--which we
believe need not necessitate and does not justify the continuance of
two full service nuclear weapon design labs--along with ``outside''
independent analysis. Moreover, we support the Federal Advisory
Committee Act, the Freedom of Information Act and other open government
laws to ensure that the American people can also participate
appropriately in decision-making.
Ms. Tauscher. What is your assessment of the NNSA complex
transformation proposal? Are there other viable alternative approaches
to provide a more responsive infrastructure?
Ambassador Robinson. As I said in my testimony, ``My reactions [to
the Complex Transformation Plan] are mixed. While it is doubtless
improved over the previous version (Complex 2030), it still does not
present a compelling solution to the many problems facing the nuclear
weapons complex.''
A more viable (and sensible) approach would be to:
(1) Establish at a national level the purpose and sizing of the US
arsenal of nuclear weapons--appropriate to the threats we and our
allies must likely face going forward. The DoD has not taken up this
issue for at least 15 years (under two administrations) but continues
to try to preserve a Cold War arsenal that (a) no longer fits the world
we live in, (b) nor fits the threats we face. The US Strategic
Commission you created is one attempt to develop same, but whether it
will stall over the polarizations (of the left and the right) is yet to
be seen. There is no substitute for the US uniformed military once
again developing its own detailed plans (that would implement such a
national strategy.) Having DOE move forward to transform the Complex
without having coordinated plans [with the DoD] is unlikely to succeed.
The drafters of the current SPEIS were ``flying blind'' in trying to
develop a plan to transform the complex without such guidance.
(2) Reorganize the management structure of the complex to have a
nuclear weapons enterprise that is coherently managed and budgeted for.
Just look at the DOE and NNSA org. chart: there is no direct management
of the production complex. The overall management--including cohesive
day-to-day management of the GOCOs--used to be performed by the
Albuquerque Operations Office for the entire complex, and the AOO
depended on the weapons labs to help it establish the technical
directions and design and quality acceptance requirements and the labs
served as the final approval for any deviations. This arrangement
worked for 40 years, and no one has filled the vacuum left by
abolishment of the Albuquerque Operations role. (b) The plants mostly
exist in an ``every man for himself '' environment, and--in that
vacuum--many plants have sought and achieved close political
relationships with their own Congressional representatives and
Senators. The effect of such actions has only increased ``the
centrifugal pressures tearing the complex apart.''
(c) There never was effective, cohesive management of the three
weapons labs, although in truth it was never possible to ``manage'' the
labs in any traditional sense. The fact has been well established that
the Federal government is incapable of ``managing the advancement of
science'' (even though periodically it tries this, through civil-
service labs, but untarnished by success.) Because of this fact, the
GOCO system (Government-owned, Contractor-operated) was created. The
GOCO contractors originally were the nation's best companies (or
universities) in science and technology, who brought their business
practices and approaches to the labs. There are only one or two of
these left today, with the rest being mostly small outfits whose main
business is ``running the labs for the government', motivated by fees
they can earn (which was never the case in the original complex.) Worse
yet, the bureaucracy of DOE (ERDA, or AEC) has continued to grow and
have attempted to ``take control'' of the labs, and the model has
deteriorated more and more to a ``government-owned and operated''
complex. There are now no longer any barriers to preventing the
constantly burgeoning government bureaucracy from being imposed on the
labs (and plants) and the advantages of having ``private-sector''
organizations for their functions has long since vanished. The original
approach had been to have the labs responsible for innovations. The
labs would propose their ideas to the government and to the military,
and once agreement was established between them on ``What was to be
done'', the labs took over the process of how it should be done and
carried the responsibility for achieving the agreed goals. My deeply
held conviction is that the GOCO model has deteriorated so far, that it
must now either be eliminated or drastically rejuvenated (with a new
agency and a ``clean sheet of paper.'')
In summary, there is little to suggest that the US weapons complex
is a common team, smoothly interfacing, with clear guidance to carry
out its mission. That is what is needed.
Ms. Tauscher. Ambassador Robinson, you have witnessed previous
efforts to modernize or transform the nuclear weapons complex. What
lessons have you learned from previous efforts?
Ambassador Robinson. The whole issue of budgeting for either
facility maintenance or constructing new facilities has never been done
well through the process of ``annual budgets.'' One of the helpful
improvements was the NNSA requirement for a five-year plan, although
seldom were the last 3 years of any such plan ever realized. Setting
priorities should be easy enough in today's ``shortage environment''
where we no longer have the capability to produce Plutonium pits in
sufficient numbers. Reviving a plutonium production capability must
have top priority.
I believe that the organization of the Congress for budgeting has
become a serious problem. Having two subcommittees in both the House
and Senate that provide separate appropriations for DOE and for DoD
have left us with little alignment or even correlation of these
budgets. Personally, and after many years of believing that it was
important to keep the nuclear weapons design, development, and
production separate from the Defense Department, I have now reached the
point that I believe it is worth considering removing the weapons
responsibilities from DOE and placing it as a new agency within the
DoD. The presence of a uniformed military could provide a continuity
that has been lacking as different administrations came and went. The
nation's nuclear deterrent has only suffered from these short-term
upheavals in what must be a long-term commitment.
Ms. Tauscher. As transformation efforts take shape, what steps can
Congress take to mitigate against the risk that the vast intellectual
capital in the complex--the people that make the Stockpile Stewardship
Program a success--is not lost or permanently impaired?
Ambassador Robinson. I am glad that the Subcommittee does recognize
how crucial the bright, highly, trained, and dedicated people are to
ensuring the US deterrent. In this regard I am more concerned, than I
have ever been, over the more than forty years I have worked in this
complex, that the morale of these rare people has reached an all time
low. The recent Chiles study (a DSB Task Force on Nuclear Personnel
Expertise) examined the problems of the fractionated management within
DOE for nuclear weapons, safety, and security and said ``Worker
feelings range from anger to resigned despair.'' Note also, that his
investigations took place before the lay-offs of more than a thousand
people at both Los Alamos and Livermore this past year. The situation
at both of those labs is far worse now. While the labs had always been
able to attract the best and brightest to come to the laboratories (for
somewhat less pay than they would have earned in the private sector),
the freedom to pursue new ideas and the fact that the work was so
vitally important to the security of our country was reward enough to
keep them. However today, it is impossible to make these arguments,
when the burgeoning bureaucracy suppresses individual voices, and it is
apparent that most officials within the Executive branch and the
Congress pay little attention to the nuclear weapons efforts. It is all
too obvious that too much in government no longer care about its
future.
On an historical basis, one principle that has proven itself to be
valid for many centuries was well expressed by Edward Gibbon (``The
Rise and Fall of the Ancient Roman Empire.''), who wrote `That which is
not advancing must surely decline.'
Thus, until only very recently, the mission to perpetually try to
improve the US deterrent weapons was a necessary and accepted mission
for that intellectual capital embodied in the weapons labs. That
guiding principle is still uppermost in the Russian and Chinese
programs, and in the French program, but it has now been successfully
eliminated in the US labs. However, this issue seems to be forbidden
from discussion, in the badly mistaken view that to hold such a view
would stimulate other nations to proliferate (in the ridiculous
viewpoint that somehow if we--the United States--stop striving for a
stronger deterrent, the rest of the world will stop as well.) The
safeguards--that were agreed upon to be in place with the signing of
the CTBT by the US--state that the US will continue to keep a strong
design and development capability, but this capability is now well down
the path to going out of existence.
Ms. Tauscher. Do weapons designers need to design and build weapons
to exercise their skills?
Ambassador Robinson. This question can only be answered by an
understanding of what used to happen, and how it has changed over the
past 20 years. The driving force for new developments was always the
Phase 1 and Phase 2 joint projects with military Project Officer's
Groups (POG's) teaming with the labs to evaluate possibilities (which
the labs and the POG's would both suggest), and then jointly settle on
``Military Characteristics'' that would guide the next weapon systems.
The proposals would then move forward through the military chain of
command and the DOD leaderships and separately through the DOE (ERDA,
AEC) chain as well. Finally arriving at a Presidential decision,
which--if approved--would be passed to the Congress for their approval,
or disapproval.
That process seems to be broken today, with little or no attention
having been paid to the configuration of the US deterrent arsenal since
the end of the Cold War. Also, members of the legislative branch have
interrupted this process from moving forward, by placing specific
language in Authorization and Appropriation bills to prohibit any work
(either Phase 1 or Phase 2 as well), until they have approved any
proposed systems. The result unfortunately has been a stalemate, with
no new systems being approved by the Congress and hence new starts
becoming non-existent since the end of the Cold War. The labs often,
but not always, would work together to establish mutual directions
which could substitute for lack of guidance on future weapons, but
depending on personalities at the individual labs (at any point in
time), these were never really a successful substitute.
Thus the plain truth is that today the US continues to try to
maintain an arsenal of weapons for deterrence purposes that no longer
matches the threats we face (and hence whose ultimate use would be
credible), nor the delivery systems which would be most likely to
succeed, and hence the legacy systems are less likely to deter
aggressive behaviors of major adversaries. The very high yields of the
legacy systems are no longer needed because of the huge improvements
that have been made in delivery system accuracies over the intervening
years. Many of us believe that if such high yields remain the only
options available, our threats to actually use such weapons are hallow
and hence our ability to deter war is rapidly vanishing, to a point
where we will be ``self-deterred.'' Something must be done to break the
current stalemate.
Ms. Tauscher. How should the stockpile stewardship program be
executed in a transformed and modernized complex? Will a transformed
complex require changes to the stockpile stewardship program?
Ambassador Robinson. My belief is that the following represents the
right order of things:
(1) The question of whether the nuclear weapons entities should all
be moved to become an integral part of the Department of Defense is a
critical issue, which needs to be faced now.
(2) Fix the GOCO process (as I discussed earlier) and tailor a
stand-alone organization to direct and manage the R&D, design,
development, and manufacturing processes.
(3) Pull the complex parts into a cohesive whole (functioning as a
single, high-performance team), rather than continuing the current
collection of poorly coordinated parts.
(4) Set a priority order of urgently needed facilities, and prepare
a long-range budget that puts these in an appropriate budget plan.
There should be no need to change the Stockpile Stewardship
program, other than to again free up some activities in advanced
science and technology and advanced designs, most of which has been
curtailed or eliminated in recent years. Of course, everyone should
``wake-up'' to the fact that there is no guarantee that it will yet
prove possible to replace the confidence that always was provided by
nuclear testing, by--instead--relying only on computer calculations and
much improved scientific-understanding. We have made excellent progress
in developing the supercomputers for the effort, but far less progress
on improving the unknown scientific mysteries so that they can be
correctly included in the computer codes. Thus, preservation of the
ability to test--should it become necessary--is still vital to the US.
Ms. Tauscher. What are the highest investment priorities for NNSA's
limited resources?
Ambassador Robinson. A new and effective (i.e. proven) capability
to fabricate plutonium pits is a critical first priority. The damage
done to the US program by the closing of the Rocky Flats Production
Site (because of environmental issues/protests) has hurt the overall US
nuclear weapons production program more than almost anyone realizes. We
are the only nation that cannot build a new, modern arsenal of weapons,
much less can we reproduce the old designs which now constitute our
complete stockpile.
The ultimate priority is of course a realization that the US
arsenal of deterrent weapons is the only proven factor in preserving
the peace in the world and prevent world wars or major conflicts. The
end of the Cold War was not the ``end of history'', as many suggested,
but it does appear that the emergence of nuclear weapons that ended the
fighting of World War II may yet prove to be ``the end of the history
of global conflicts.'' The mindset being advocated in many quarters--
that we must now embark on a policy of ``eliminating all nuclear
weapons from the earth''--is misguided and premature. It would usher in
a state of international affairs where nations are free to return to
unlimited global conflicts, and there is little chance that even if it
were possible (and it is not) to remove all nuclear weapons, they could
be reproduced by some nations, who could then easily take advantage of
the relatively greater power they would have over the US and others.
I have always believed that there are (at least) two extremely
major barriers that must be overcome before we could undertake any
realistic thinking that ``a world free of nuclear weapons would be a
better world'' than the current situation. These are:
(a) the elimination of nation-states. (Anyone who believes that this
could be achieved in a matter of decades is either hopelessly
idealistic or really fooling themselves.), and
(b) a change in the nature of mankind itself to eschew any acts of
major aggression. Once again, these are merely ``poetic ideas'' but
there are little grounds to believe that this could be achieved even in
100 years, if ever. I would note that there are not even any good ideas
put forward for how to go about same, nor is anyone actually working on
it. The US already began the nuclear weapons era by putting forward a
serious proposal (the Baruch Plan) that would have placed all nuclear
weapons under a common international control, but this plan was
instantly rejected, and I feel safe in predicting that a revival of
that proposal would be just as quickly rejected today.
Thus, we should now all join in putting our best efforts to the
task of deterring war through the threat of retaliation of nuclear
weapons, with the best outcome being that we would--as a result--never
have to use such weapons. But the overarching importance that the US
must give sufficient attention to the characteristics, numbers,
performance, and reliability of its nuclear deterrent arsenal should be
obvious to anyone in a senior government position. I urge the Strategic
Forces Subcommittee of the HASC to step up and demand that the US
greatly increase its attention to reverse the decline which now
characterizes our deterrent and the complex responsible for it.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WILSON
Mr. Wilson. The NNSA has indicated that it must develop an
inventory of plutonium oxide feed material to cover the time gap
between start-up of the MOX facility and the construction of the PDCF.
What is NNSA's current planning estimate for the amount of
plutonium oxide feed material needed to bridge the gap between start-up
of the MOX facility and completion of PDCF?
Mr. D'Agostino. In consideration of the current schedules for both
the MOX and PDCF facility, NNSA currently estimates up to twelve metric
tons of plutonium oxide feed material will be required to bridge the
gap between start-up of the MOX facility and completion of PDCF. This
amount is in addition to the two metric tons of plutonium oxide
currently planned to be received from the Advanced Recovery and
Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) project at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
Mr. Wilson. What is the current estimate of the amount of available
plutonium oxide feedstock currently in storage?
Mr. D'Agostino. There is currently 4.1 metric tons of plutonium
oxide feedstock available in storage at the Savannah River Site to
support feed for the MOX facility that meets the MOX feed
specification.
Mr. Wilson. What is the current estimate of the ``alternate feed
stock'' or non-pit surplus plutonium in the weapons complex that does
not rely on PDCF for processing to plutonium oxide?
Mr. D'Agostino. The current estimate is 7.8 metric tons of
``alternate feed stock'' or non-pit surplus plutonium is available to
process into plutonium oxide for feed to the MOX facility. This
includes the 4.1 metric tons of plutonium oxide currently in storage.
Mr. Wilson. How much of the alternate feed stock could be converted
in H-Canyon at the Savannah River Site (SRS)?
Mr. D'Agostino. The 3.7 metric tons out of 7.8 metric tons of
``alternate feed stock'' plutonium metal yet to be processed, is
expected to be processed within the K reactor area of SRS. No material
to be used for MOX feedstock is currently planned to be processed
through H-Canyon. However, DOE is evaluating options that could provide
additional alternative feed stock materials through the use of H-
Canyon.
Mr. Wilson. NNSA has indicated that the Advanced Recovery and
Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) facility at Los Alamos can produce
plutonium oxide feedstock for the MOX facility before PDCF comes
online. How much plutonium oxide does NNSA intend to produce at ARIES
with the funding it has requested for FY 09? How much plutonium oxide
has ARIES produced to date, and has any of this plutonium oxide been
accepted by the MOX program under its quality control regime?
Mr. D'Agostino. The funding for ARIES in FY 2009 is primarily to
conduct final demonstration testing of the equipment to support design
& operation of the PDCF. The ARIES project will then transition to
routine oxide production in subsequent years. As a result of the
demonstration activities, about 40 kilograms of plutonium as oxide will
be generated in FY 09 and will contribute to the 2 metric tons expected
to be delivered from Los Alamos through 2018. The ARIES project has
produced approximately 300 kilograms of oxide via demonstration
programs in prior years. 120 kilograms of this oxide was accepted by
MOX services and is currently being irradiated at the Catawba reactor
in lead test assemblies. Los Alamos was designated as a qualified
vendor for MOX services during earlier production and will re-establish
vendor certification as a part of the baseline program.
Mr. Wilson. The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Report
included an additional $22 million for ARIES for FY 09. How much
additional plutonium oxide could be produced with the additional funds?
Is the available equipment and hired and trained workers at ARIES/Los
Alamos capable of safely producing an additional $22 million worth of
plutonium oxide in FY 09?
Mr. D'Agostino. The additional $22 million for ARIES in FY 2009 is
intended primarily for the procurement and installation of additional
ARIES equipment, not for the production of additional oxide. The
additional equipment will reduce the dose to workers and provide for
enhanced operating safety and efficiency improvements during oxide
production in later years. Depending upon the vendor certification
schedule and when the funding becomes available, it may result in the
production of a small amount of additional material in FY 2009.
Mr. Wilson. Your Memorandum dated July 7, 2008 sets forth
recommendations for the FY 2010-2014 planning, programming, budgeting,
and evaluations process. Please explain why PDCF funding is zeroed out
in the Memorandum. Please also explain how you could approve a CD-2
decision on PDCF by January 2009, if NNSA's budget profile set out in
the July 7 Memorandum provides no construction funding for PDCF.
Mr. D'Agostino. The Administrator's Final Recommendations
Memorandum dated July 7, 2008, by which we conclude our annual internal
budget update process, retains construction funding for the PDCF
construction project for FY 2010 and beyond. The funding was moved
within the Weapons Activities appropriation from the Directed Stockpile
Work (DSW) program to Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities (RTBF)
where most Defense Programs construction projects are funded. The DOE's
decision to approve the construction baseline, CD-2, is not contingent
upon a program funding allocation; however, once CD-2 is approved, it
is NNSA's practice to allocate funding supporting the baseline
schedule.