Nuclear Weapons: Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 
(07-DEC-01, GAO-02-146R).					 
								 
In response to changes in the international climate in the late  
1980's, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Defense	 
Programs altered its mission. Instead of designing, testing, and 
building new nuclear weapons, the Office's current mission--known
as the Stockpile Stewardship Program--is to maintain the safety  
and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile	 
indefinitely without nuclear testing. The Office now performs	 
this mission as part of the National Nuclear Security		 
Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous agency within DOD. GAO	 
found that NNSA's Office of Defense Programs is not developing a 
comprehensive stockpile life extension program plan as called for
in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000	 
because program officials were unsure of the need for such a	 
plan, along the lines that the legislative requirement envisions.
The Office believes their fiscal year 2002 budget submittal	 
fulfills the spirit of the legislative requirement, and they have
no current plans to complete a comprehensive plan for the	 
stockpile life extension program, other than to again include	 
certain high-level refurbishment-related information in the	 
fiscal year 2003 budget request. The Office is taking steps to	 
improve the planning processes for certain individual weapon life
extension programs as well as their overall planning processes;  
however they have no plans to integrate the individual life	 
extension plans into an overall program.			 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-02-146R					        
    ACCNO:   A02548						        
  TITLE:     Nuclear Weapons: Status of Planning for Stockpile Life   
Extension							 
     DATE:   12/07/2001 
  SUBJECT:   Agency missions					 
	     Equipment maintenance				 
	     Nuclear weapons					 
	     Nuclear weapons testing				 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Safety regulation					 
	     B61 Bomb						 
	     DOE Life Extension Program 			 
	     DOE Stockpile Stewardship Program			 
	     NNSA Directed Stockpile Work Program		 
	     NNSA Future Years Nuclear Security 		 
	     Program						 
								 
	     W76 Warhead					 
	     W80 Warhead					 
	     W87 Warhead					 

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GAO-02-146R
     
GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension United States
General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

December 7, 2001 The Honorable Carl Levin Chairman The Honorable John Warner
Ranking Minority Member Committee on Armed Services United States Senate

The Honorable Bob Stump Chairman The Honorable Ike Skelton Ranking Minority
Member Committee on Armed Services House of Representatives

Subject: Nuclear Weapons: Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension In
response to changes in the international climate in the late 1980s, the
Department of Energy?s (DOE) Office of Defense Programs altered its mission.
Instead of designing, testing, and building new nuclear weapons, the
Office?s current mission- known as the Stockpile Stewardship Program- is to
maintain the safety and reliability of the nation?s nuclear weapons
stockpile indefinitely without nuclear testing. The Office now performs this
mission as part of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a
semiautonomous agency within DOE. 1

Because the nation?s existing nuclear weapons are anticipated to remain in
the stockpile well beyond the expected life of their original design, one of
the Office?s key tasks will be to refurbish each of the nine weapon types
through a comprehensive stockpile life extension program. To accomplish this
task, the Office of Defense Programs will have to (1) determine which
components will need refurbishing to extend each weapon?s life; (2) design
and produce the necessary refurbished components; (3) install the components
in the weapons; and (4) certify that the changes do not adversely affect the
safety and reliability of the stockpile. This program will require a
coordinated effort among the design laboratories and production facilities
that comprise the nation?s nuclear weapons complex.

1 NNSA has responsibility for the nation?s nuclear weapons,
nonproliferation, and naval reactors programs.

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 2 To plan for
the work of refurbishing the stockpile, the Congress, in section 3133 of

the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, required DOE to
prepare a comprehensive plan for the stockpile life extension program that
was initially due in January 2000 and was to be updated thereafter with each
annual budget submission. In requiring such a plan, the Congress sought to
ensure that stockpile life extension activities are planned in detail,
coordinated fully, and executed within fiscal resources. Section 3133 also
required us to assess any plan that was prepared. Because the Office of
Defense Programs has yet to issue a final comprehensive plan for the
stockpile life extension program, we reviewed the status of the Office of
Defense Programs? efforts to comply with the legislative requirement.

In summary, we found the following: NNSA?s Office of Defense Programs is not
developing a comprehensive stockpile life extension program plan as called
for in section 3133 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2000. The Office issued an ?interim plan? in May 2000. However, this
interim plan was essentially a description of the life extension process and
did not meet all of the requirements stated in section 3133. In response to
our evaluation of the interim plan, NNSA promised that it would provide the
information required under section 3133 as part of its budget request for
fiscal year 2002. 2 However, nothing closely resembling such a plan was
included in the budget request. Instead, brief, often generalized
information on weapon refurbishments was included in various places in the
budget request. The Office of Defense Programs is not developing a
comprehensive stockpile life extension program plan because program
officials were unsure of the need for such a plan, along the lines that the
legislative requirement envisions. They believe their fiscal year 2002
budget submittal fulfills the spirit of the legislative requirement, and
they have no current plans to complete a comprehensive plan for the
stockpile life extension program, other than to again include certain high-
level refurbishment- related information in the fiscal year 2003 budget
request. They pointed out that they are taking steps to improve the planning
processes for certain individual weapon life extension programs as well as
their overall planning processes; however, they have no plans to integrate
the individual life extension plans into an overall program. Nevertheless,
integrated planning is vital to successfully managing the interrelated
activities of the design laboratories and production plants and to making
well- informed decisions in a resource- constrained environment.

Background

The U. S. nuclear weapons stockpile consists of nine types of bombs and
missile warheads, numbering several thousand devices, that are currently
either stored at strategic military locations or deployed on military
aircraft, missiles, or submarines. A national complex of nuclear weapons
design laboratories and production facilities, run by NNSA, supports this
stockpile. With the easing of tensions with the former

2 See Nuclear Weapons: Improved Management Needed to Implement the Stockpile
Stewardship Program Effectively (GAO- 01- 48, Dec. 14, 2000).

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 3 Soviet Union
in the late 1980s, this complex has decreased in size. There are

currently four production sites in the DOE complex: the Pantex Plant in
Amarillo, Texas; the Y- 12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Kansas City
Plant in Kansas City, Missouri; and the Savannah River Site in Savannah
River, South Carolina. The complex also includes the Nevada Test Site and
three national laboratories that design nuclear weapons: Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, California; Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico;
and Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico and California.

Within NNSA, the Office of Defense Programs is responsible for designing and
maintaining the stockpile. The Stockpile Stewardship Program is aimed at
preserving the core U. S. intellectual and technical competencies in nuclear
weapons in a nontesting environment. 3 This program includes:

?Campaigns? to develop and maintain critical scientific knowledge about
nuclear weapons so that the Office can continue to certify the stockpile
into the foreseeable future;

?Directed Stockpile Work? to maintain and extend the life of the stockpile;
and

?Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities? to ensure that infrastructure
and facilities are operational, safe, secure, in compliance, and ready to
operate.

Directed Stockpile Work includes the mission of extending the life of
existing nuclear weapons through scientific study, simulation, and
refurbishment. Weapon refurbishment becomes necessary because nuclear
warheads, even while in storage, can deteriorate over time. Refurbishment
involves design activities at the weapon laboratories; transferring the
weapons from Department of Defense (DOD) custody to the Pantex Plant for
disassembly; component rework and new component fabrication at the Kansas
City and Y- 12 Plants; and finally, reassembly at the Pantex Plant for
return to DOD. The Office of Defense Programs currently is conducting a life
extension program for the W87 warhead and is embarking on life extensions
for several other weapons, including the B61 bomb, the W76 warhead, and the
W80 warhead. The lifetimes of these weapons are to be extended up to 30
years beyond the minimum life- generally about 20 years- for which they were
originally designed.

Because of the national importance of extending the life of the nuclear
weapons in the stockpile, in 1996, the Office of Defense Programs
established the stockpile life extension program, managed by the Office of
Military Applications and Stockpile Operations. Section 3133 of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 requires the Secretary of
Energy to carry out a program to provide for the extension of the effective
life of weapons in the nuclear weapons stockpile. As part

3 While a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would limit nuclear testing
by participating countries to extremely low levels, known as zero yield, was
rejected by the U. S. Senate in October 1999, a unilateral U. S. moratorium
on testing that began in 1992 continues.

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 4 of the
program, DOE (NNSA) is to develop and submit annually to the Congress a

long- term stockpile life extension program plan, which would:

provide for the remanufacture, refurbishment, and modernization of each
weapon design designated for inclusion in the stockpile;

expedite the collection of information necessary to carry out the program;

ensure the appropriate assignment of roles and missions for each nuclear
weapons laboratory and production plant, workload allocation, modernization,
and retention of skilled personnel;

allocate funds for activities by weapon type and facility; and

identify the funds needed to carry out the program, for the current year and
the next 5 fiscal years.

The initial plan was to be submitted not later than January 1, 2000, with
subsequent updated plans submitted annually with the Department?s budget
request. The act also called for us to assess whether the program could be
effectively carried out under any plan submitted. In addition, Title 32 of
the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, which
established the NNSA, mandated the use of sound planning, programming,
budgeting, and financial activities. In particular, it required that NNSA
submit to the Congress a Future Years Nuclear Security Program plan that
details NNSA?s planned expenditures for the next 5 years.

Our December 2000 report on NNSA?s Stockpile Stewardship Program confirmed
the need for improved planning. We recommended that the Administrator, NNSA,
direct the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs to ensure completion of
a stockpile life extension program plan containing all of the information
required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000,
especially information on plant workload capacity and budget. In addition,
we also recommended that the Stockpile Stewardship Program?s planning
efforts, including stockpile life extension planning, be integrated with the
program?s management controls and coordinated with the budget planning and
formulation process.

Interim Stockpile Life Extension Program Plan Was Incomplete

In May 2000, the Office of Defense Programs issued an interim stockpile life
extension program plan. However, as we reported in December 2000, the
interim plan was incomplete. The plan was essentially a detailed description
of the weapon life extension process. It included a multiyear stockpile work
schedule for various weapons, but it did not list all facilities to be
involved for each weapon life extension, or the nature or time frame for
their involvement. As stated in our December 2000 report on the management
of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, the plan did not:

compile complete and current information necessary to implement the life
extension program, such as requirements for when, how, and to what extent
key weapons are to be refurbished;

address potential plant production capacity issues; or

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 5

include budget information. In particular, we found that information used in
the interim plan regarding plant capacity was not complete. For example, Y-
12 Plant capacity estimates for producing certain weapon components at that
site were not available because the Y- 12 Plant did not have a current,
validated model for estimating plant capacity. The contractor at the Y- 12
Plant agreed on the need for such information and expected to develop a
complete and validated model in fiscal year 2003.

We also found that the interim plan did not address how to remedy potential
plant capacity shortfalls. For example, by 2016, Pantex Plant officials
expect the beginning of a 6- year period where workload may significantly
exceed plant capacity for performing a variety of scheduled weapon
operations and tests. Although a draft 10- Year Site Plan for the Pantex
Plant described these potential shortfalls, the interim plan did not
specifically address how to deal with them. In particular, it did not
establish activities and make firm commitments to modify facilities or hire
and train additional staff to prevent delays to the schedule. We found that
the interim plan neither projected budget needs for the program nor
allocated funds either by weapon type or by facility and that ?without such
basic budgeting information, managers in the Office of Defense Programs
cannot use the plan for budget decisions.?

In responding to our December 2000 report, the Office of Defense Programs
acknowledged weaknesses in its program planning and the need to supply the
information required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2000. At the time the interim plan was submitted, the Secretary of
Energy committed to providing the congressional defense committees with a
final report by the end of September 2000. However, according to the Deputy
Administrator for Defense Programs, this date could not be met because NNSA
and the Department of Defense had not made key refurbishment decisions, the
Stockpile Stewardship Program was going to be realigned, and programmatic
and budget issues within the new NNSA remained to be resolved. The Office
expressed the hope that information on stockpile life extension could be
incorporated into the fiscal year 2002 budget submission.

The Office of Defense Programs Did Not Complete a Comprehensive Plan to
Extend Stockpile Life to Accompany Its Fiscal Year 2002 Budget Request

Over the last year, NNSA has several times stated its intention to respond
to the congressional requirement by including pertinent information in the
agency?s fiscal year 2002 budget request.

The Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, in a November 7, 2000, letter
commenting on our draft stockpile stewardship report, stated that the Office
would comply with the intent of our recommendation that NNSA complete a
stockpile life extension plan containing the information required under the
act. The Deputy Administrator stated that this information would be included
as part

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 6 of the
Directed Stockpile Work plans to be submitted with the budget request for

fiscal year 2002.

The Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs wrote along similar lines to
the Chairman, House Committee on Armed Services, on January 10, 2001,
raising the prospect of incorporating stockpile life extension program needs
in NNSA?s fiscal year 2002 budget.

Finally, the NNSA Administrator wrote to us on April 3, 2001, outlining his
plans to address the recommendations in our December 2000 report. He stated
that NNSA would incorporate the spirit of our recommendation to provide the
Congress with a stockpile life extension program plan in its fiscal year
2002 budget request and subsequent budget requests by providing
supplementary information on the stockpile life extension process, or
?stockpile refurbishment planning,? within the larger framework of the
agency?s Directed Stockpile Work.

However, NNSA did not follow through on these statements. Nothing close to
such a plan was included in the fiscal year 2002 budget request submitted on
April 9, 2001. Instead, information on stockpile life extension in the
budget was limited, often generalized, and located in various places. The
discussion of weapons refurbishment under the Directed Stockpile Work budget
program activity did not provide the requisite overview. It did not present
a coherent, multiyear picture of the status of the effort, including- broken
out by weapon type- information on (1) facility roles, missions, and
workload; (2) funding; and (3) schedules. Instead, activities related to
refurbishment of the B61, W76, W80, and W87 weapons could be found in any
one of four areas under the Directed Stockpile Work program activity. For
example, under the ?stockpile research and development? category,
refurbishment was listed as a subcategory (with about $91 million requested
for fiscal year 2002) and under the ?stockpile maintenance? category life
extension operations, repairs, and maintenance was listed as a subcategory
(with about $247 million requested for fiscal year 2002). Stockpile life
extension activities were also mentioned in the ?stockpile evaluation? and
?production support? categories.

The Office of Defense Programs Believes Other Plans Are an Adequate
Substitute for a Comprehensive Stockpile Life Extension Program Plan

While they agreed that the fiscal year 2002 budget submittal did not
represent a unified ?cross cutting? overview of refurbishment, as the
legislative requirement envisions, Office of Defense Programs officials said
they have no current plans to complete a single stand- alone stockpile life
extension program plan. Several officials stated that the program?s budget
submittal at least partially fulfilled the spirit of the legislative
requirement. They stated that they plan to include refurbishment activities
in the fiscal year 2003 budget submittal in a form similar to that in the
fiscal year 2002 budget submittal. One official noted that the fiscal year
2003 submittal might not change substantially from the previous year, other
than that the funding numbers would be updated. Some officials questioned
whether such a plan was needed in the form that the congressional
requirement envisions, while another official said he was unsure that the
congressional requirement was still valid.

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 7 As support
for their view that a stockpile life extension program plan may not be

needed, Office of Defense Programs officials cited existing documents and
planning initiatives under development that they believe cover the key
aspects of a stockpile life extension program plan-- even though the
documents and initiatives have not been packaged into a single plan. With
respect to existing documents, they noted that the Office of Defense
Programs annually issues a Production and Planning Directive that spells
out, among other things, refurbishment requirements as agreed to between
NNSA, DOD, and the weapons laboratories. They also cited procedural
guidelines that the Office of Defense Programs has developed for the
refurbishment phase of the weapons development and production life cycle-
generally referred to as the ?Phase 6. X Process.? As additional support for
their position, the officials mentioned several refurbishment- related
planning initiatives that they are currently working on, including:

completing a Life Extension Program Management Plan for refurbishment of the
B61, W76, and W80;

developing individual project plans to carry out the B61, W76, and W80
refurbishments; and

developing five Directed Stockpile Work plans that cover refurbishment
activities related to several weapons, including the W87 and the three
mentioned above.

We reviewed each of these documents and planning initiatives. While each is
an important contributor to effectively managing the life extension of the
stockpile, they do not, individually or collectively, meet all of the
requirements called for in section 3133. More importantly, by spreading
planning information across a variety of planning approaches, the concept of
integration- which is key to managing such a complicated enterprise as life
extension- is lost. Our analysis of each of the existing documents and
planning initiatives follows.

Production and Planning Directive: The Production and Planning Directive is
a highlevel classified document that is used by the Office of Defense
Programs and its Albuquerque Operations Office to give annual planning
guidance primarily to the production facilities. While some areas called for
in section 3133 are covered in the directive, such as the overall schedule
for a life extension, the directive does not include the detail on such
areas as roles and responsibilities for the various parts of the complex
needed to effectively manage the overall program. Nor is the directive
linked to budgets.

Phase 6. X Process guidelines: As a direct result of cost and schedule
difficulties it experienced with the W87 life extension program, the Office
of Defense Programs, for DOE, has established an agreement with DOD for
future life extensions called the Phase 6. X Process. The Phase 6. X Process
guidelines, which were issued in October 2000, use the management framework
that the Office of Defense Programs employed for over 40 years to
successfully design and build the nation?s nuclear arsenal and applies them
to the refurbishment process. The Phase 6. X Process agreement with

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 8 DOD requires
DOE to produce a DOE Project Plan for each life extension. 4 We

recognized in our December 2000 report on the management of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program that the Phase 6. X Process promised to improve the
management of future life extensions, through such management techniques as
the development of plans and cost and schedule estimates; however, with
respect to meeting the requirements of section 3133, the Phase 6. X Process
is simply a set of guidelines and not a comprehensive plan for conducting
life extensions.

Life Extension Program Management Plan: To further strengthen the management
of individual life extensions, in February 2001, the Office of Defense
Programs began to develop an additional set of guidelines, known as the Life
Extension Program Management Plan. This plan is intended to support and
expand on the Phase 6. X Process guidelines and contains more detailed
requirements for such key management areas as roles and responsibilities;
risk management; scope, cost and schedule documentation; and interface needs
among components of the weapons complex. As drafted, the Life Extension
Program Management Plan requires the development of many of the elements
called for in Section 3133 but only for individual life extensions. It does
not cover how the various life extensions will be integrated across the
complex. Moreover, the Life Extension Program Management Plan has not been
finalized. Initially, its completion was impeded by the inability of the
various components of the Office of Defense Programs to agree on roles and
responsibilities- a continuing management issue that we highlighted in our
December 2000 report. After approval within the Office of Defense Programs,
implementation of the Life Extension Program Management Plan has been
delayed by NNSA because of discussions concerning roles and responsibilities
related to the ongoing NNSA reorganization.

Individual life extension plans: Using the requirements contained in the
Life Extension Program Management Plan, program managers for the B61, W76,
and W80 life extensions have begun developing plans, known as DOE Project
Plans, for their individual life extensions. The development of individual
plans holds significant promise to improve the management of individual life
extensions, but not the overall life extension planning effort. Moreover,
these plans are far from complete. According to Office of Defense Programs
officials, the plan for the W80 could be completed by late fall 2001; the
plan for the W76 by the end of 2001; and the plan for the B61 by early 2002.

Directed Stockpile Work plans: A final, more broadly scoped planning effort,
to develop five Directed Stockpile Work program plans, has been under way
since May 2001. According to Office of Defense Programs officials, they
believe this effort addresses stockpile life extension planning. They said
the effort involves repackaging past stockpile work planning documents into
five new plans that are to match the budget program activity categories
currently under Directed Stockpile

4 The DOE Project Plan, functioning as a program plan for the refurbishment
will be drafted in Phase 6. 2, Feasibility Study & Option Down- Select, and
finalized in Phase 6. 2A, Design Definition & Cost Study. Advancement from
one phase to another is controlled by the DOD- DOE Nuclear Weapons Council.

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 9 Work. In
this regard, as noted earlier, refurbishment is not one of the five program

activity areas, but rather a crosscutting set of activities. To obtain an
overview of the Office of Defense Program?s life extension efforts, it will
be necessary to comb through each of these plans.

In commenting on a draft of this report, NNSA also cited its efforts to
develop a new overall planning, programming, and budgeting process as a
potential vehicle for satisfying the requirements of section 3133. As noted
earlier, Title 32 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2000 mandates the use of sound planning, programming, budgeting, and
financial activities. It also requires that NNSA submit to the Congress a
Future Years Nuclear Security Program plan that details NNSA?s planned
expenditures for the next 5 years. Such a plan could contain some of the
elements required by section 3133.

Early in his tenure, the NNSA Administrator indicated that he intended to
comply with Title 32 by instituting a planning, programming, and budgeting
process similar to that in use at DOD. While DOD?s approach has not been
without problems over the past 40 years, it is generally recognized as a
system that, when properly led and staffed, is capable of making cost-
effectiveness comparisons and of developing detailed program and budget
plans. The Administrator originally set a goal of having NNSA?s version of
DOD?s planning, programming, and budgeting process established by the fiscal
year 2003 budget cycle. Subsequently, this date was pushed back to the
fiscal year 2004 budget cycle because development was taking longer than
expected.

NNSA has yet to submit a Future Years Nuclear Security Program plan to the
Congress. NNSA was required to submit its first plan for the fiscal year
2001- 2005 period, but it failed to do so because the NNSA Administrator
said he did not have reliable data on planned expenditures that reflected
recent congressional direction and the new executive branch priorities. NNSA
did produce a plan for the fiscal year 2002- 2006 period, which was
submitted to the Office of Management and Budget in March 2001. The Office
of Management and Budget is reviewing the plan, pending the soon- to- be-
completed high- level reviews of the nation?s national security programs,
but it is unclear if the plan will be released to the Congress.

Integrated Planning Is Key to a Successful Overall Life Extension Effort

Extending the life of the nation?s nuclear weapons stockpile is a
complicated enterprise that requires each weapon life extension to use many
of the same facilities at the three design laboratories, the four production
plants, and the test site. As a result of this competition for scarce
resources, integrated planning is needed not only among the laboratories and
plants but also among the several different weapon types that are undergoing
life extension at the same time. Although the B61, W76, and W80 life
extensions are still in the planning phase, the consequences of the current
nonintegrated approach have already begun to surface.

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 10

One of the high risks facing the W76 life extension is the expansion of the
Acorn Production Line at the Kansas City Plant and the Acorn Loading Line at
the Savannah River Site. While the W76 life extension is planning on using
the Acorn technology as part of its effort, other life extensions are now
considering using the Acorn technology as well. This means that the Kansas
City Plant and the Savannah River Site currently do not have enough capacity
to meet the potential need for this technology. If the capacity is not
expanded or if the other life extensions do not change their desire to use
the Acorn technology, the W76 life extension?s schedule milestones could be
in jeopardy.

Officials at the Y- 12 Plant told us that, on the basis of the production
requirements, they expected their workload to sharply peak in the near
future, then drop off. As a result, officials are seeking ways to ?load-
level? production operations at the Y- 12 Plant so that they can achieve a
more consistent and efficient use of the plant?s personnel, equipment, and
facilities. To achieve the load- leveling, Y- 12 Plant officials believe
they will need better integration of the three planned stockpile life
extensions across the complex.

By 2016, Pantex Plant officials expect the beginning of a 6- year period
where workload may significantly exceed plant capacity for performing a
variety of weapon operations and tests. Although a draft 10- Year Site Plan
for the Pantex Plant described these potential shortfalls, the interim plan
did not specifically address how to deal with them.

The W76 program manager told us that hydrodynamic testing was very important
to certifying the changes to the W76. A hydrodynamic test is a high
explosive, nonnuclear experiment to investigate aspects of the function of a
nuclear weapon primary. However, hydrodynamic tests are important to other
life extensions as well, especially the W80. The W76 program manager was
concerned about how effectively the hydrodynamic testing was being
prioritized and who was doing the prioritization. He believed this was an
area where an integrated plan would help identify and resolve issues.

Each life extension will rely on the design and certification efforts of the
design laboratories. Many of these design efforts will be carried out under
the various Campaigns. However, no formal mechanism exists to ensure that
the Campaigns anticipate and meet the needs of the life extension efforts.
This lack of a formal mechanism was a significant concern to the B61, W76,
and W80 program managers.

Conclusions

A significant portion of the Stockpile Stewardship Program will be the
effort to extend the life of the nation?s nuclear stockpile. As the life
extension program expands in scope and individual life extensions begin to
run concurrently in the first decade of the 2000s, integrated planning will
be needed more than ever to enable effective prioritization among different
weapon refurbishments. While the Office of Defense Programs appears to be
conducting better up- front planning for the B61, W76, and W80 individual
life extensions, the needed integrating mechanisms that an overall stockpile
life extension plan could provide are not now in place, and may not soon be.
As the Congress recognized in section 3133 of the National Defense

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 11
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, a comprehensive stockpile life
extension

program plan that includes information on capacity, workload, and budget is
vital to successfully managing the integrated activities of the design
laboratories and production plants and to making well- informed decisions in
a resource- constrained environment. We continue to believe, as we
recommended in our December 2000 report, that the Office of Defense Programs
should develop a comprehensive plan, not only to meet the legislative
requirement, but also for effective program management.

Agency Comments

We provided NNSA with a draft of this report for review and comment. NNSA
agreed with the need for integrated program planning, calling it a
cornerstone of NNSA?s ability to meet DOD?s expectations for the weapons
life extension programs. However, NNSA did not clearly state when, or if, it
intended to comply with section 3133. While NNSA cited its recent efforts to
develop a new planning, programming, and budgeting system as evidence that
it is moving toward meeting the requirements of section 3133, a fully
functioning process will not be available until the 2004 budget cycle at the
earliest. Moreover, NNSA stated that its ability to follow through and
demonstrate compliance with section 3133 will depend on its ability to reach
administration agreement on a multiyear budget like that contained in a
Future Years Nuclear Security Program plan. However, as we noted earlier,
while NNSA did produce a plan for the fiscal year 2002- 2006 period and
submit it to the Office of Management and Budget in March 2001, it is
unclear if this plan will ever be released to the Congress. NNSA also
provided technical comments, which were incorporated as appropriate. NNSA?s
comments are included as an enclosure.

Scope and Methodology

We performed our review from June through December 2001 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards. To determine the status of
the Office of Defense Programs efforts to comply with the congressional
requirement to develop a stockpile life extension program plan, we talked to
responsible NNSA and Office of Defense Programs officials and examined
pertinent documentation. Specifically, we collected information on existing
documents and planning initiatives that could constitute such a plan and
compared this information to the congressional requirement. To better
understand this information in the context of currently expanding weapon
refurbishment activities, we talked to key officials in various offices
including the Office of Stockpile Assessments and Certification; the Office
of Military Application and Stockpile Operations; the Albuquerque Operations
Office and its Weapons Program Division; and in particular to the project
managers of the scheduled B61, W76, and W80 weapon refurbishments.

GAO- 02- 146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension 12 We are
sending copies of this letter to the Secretary of Energy, the Administrator
of

NNSA, and the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs. This letter will
also be available on GAO?s home page at http:// www. gao. gov. If you have
any questions regarding this letter, please contact James Noel or me at 202-
512- 3841. Dave Brack was a key contributor to this letter.

(Ms.) Gary L. Jones Director, Natural Resources and

Environment

Enclosure I

Comments From the National Nuclear Security Administration

13 GAO-02-146R Status of Planning for Stockpile Life Extension (360131)
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