United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 1998-11-09 monographic deposited born digital 33 p. GA 1.13:RCED-99-1 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1 P0b002ee18038ee76 f:rc99001 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1 RCED-99-1 Nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons testing Interagency relations Cost effectiveness analysis Defense capabilities Cost control Defense contingency planning Weapons systems Atomic energy defense activities Nuclear weapons plants Letter Report RCED Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Energy's (DOE) efforts to manufacture war reserve nuclear weapon triggers, or pits, at its Los Alamos National Laboratory, focusing on: (1) DOE's plans and schedules for reestablishing the manufacturing of pits at Los Alamos; (2) the costs associated with these efforts; and (3) unresolved issues regarding the manufacturing of pits between the Department of Defense (DOD) and DOE.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) DOE's plans for reestablishing the production of pits at Los Alamos National Laboratory have changed and are still evolving; (2) DOE expects to have only a limited capacity online by fiscal year (FY) 2007; (3) specifically, DOE plans to reestablish its capability to produce war reserve pits for one weapons system by FY 2001 and plans to have an interim capacity of 20 pits per year online by FY 2007; (4) this planned capacity differs from the goal that DOE established in FY 1996 to produce up to 50 pits per year by fiscal 2005; (5) DOE has not decided what the final production capacity at Los Alamos will be; (6) DOE has done little to develop a contingency plan for the large-scale manufacturing of pits (150-500 pits per year); (7) large-scale manufacturing would be necessary if a systemwide problem were identified with pits in the stockpile; (8) the current estimated costs for establishing and operating DOE's pit-manufacturing mission total over $1.1 billion from FY 1996 through fiscal 2007; (9) this estimate does not include over $490 million in costs for other activities that are not directly attributable to the mission but are needed to support a wide variety of defense-related activities; (10) GAO also noted that some key cost and managerial controls related to DOE's pit-manufacturing mission are either in the formative stages of development or do not cover the mission in its entirety; (11) DOD and DOE have discussed, but not resolved, important issues regarding: (a) changes in the manufacturing processes that will be used to produce pits at Los Alamos; and (b) the pit-manufacturing capacity planned by DOE; (12) officials from various DOD organizations have expressed concerns about the equivalence of Los Alamo's pits to the pits previously manufactured at Rocky Flats because some manufacturing processes will be new at Los Alamos and are different from those previously used by Rocky Flats; (13) also, officials from various DOD organizations are not satisfied that DOE's current or future capacity plans will be sufficient to meet the stockpile's needs; (14) various DOD organizations have performed preliminary analyses of the capacity needed to support the stockpile; (15) on the basis of these analyses, some of these officials believe that the stockpile's needs exceed the 20-pits-per-year capacity that DOE may establish in the future; (16) however, DOD officials said that they will be unable to give detailed pit-manufacturing requirements until the lifetime of pits is more clearly specified by DOE; and (17) DOE is currently studying this issue. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1/html/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1/pdf/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1.pdf GAO/RCED-99-1 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-99-1 Letter Report GAO/RCED-99-1; Nuclear Weapons: Key Nuclear Weapons Component Issues Are Unresolved; Nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons testing Interagency relations Cost effectiveness analysis Defense capabilities Cost control Defense contingency planning Weapons systems Atomic energy defense activities Nuclear weapons plants