<DOC>
[DOCID: f:2910453.wais]
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2003
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 2:37 p.m., in room SD-124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Pete V. Domenici (chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senators Domenici and Reid.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
National Nuclear Safety Administration
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR LINTON F. BROOKS, UNDER
SECRETARY FOR NUCLEAR SECURITY,
ADMINISTRATOR FOR NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION
ACCOMPANIED BY:
ADMIRAL FRANK L. BOWMAN, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR NAVAL
REACTORS
DR. EVERET H. BECKNER, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR DEFENSE
PROGRAMS
KENNETH E. BAKER, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR DEFENSE NUCLEAR
NONPROLIFERATION
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETE V. DOMENICI
Senator Domenici. The hearing will please come to order.
Thank you, everyone, for being here, and I apologize for my
being late. I had another hearing and I hurried as much as I
could.
Senator Reid. You are only 7 minutes late. That is not
late.
Senator Domenici. That is pretty good, yes.
The budget request for NNSA is $8.834 billion. That is an
increase of $870 million over the current year level, an 11
percent increase. It is containing the following major program
elements, one, nuclear weapons activities. The budget request
is--excuse me--is $6.378 billion, an increase of $642 million,
an 8 percent increase. We have, in addition, defense nuclear
nonproliferation, naval reactors, and the Office of the
Administrator.
First of all, the committee will review the fiscal year
2004 request for the National Nuclear Security Administration,
that will include nuclear weapons activities, nuclear
nonproliferation programs, and the naval nuclear propulsion
program.
In that regard, we will receive testimony from Ambassador
Linton Brooks, acting Administrator for NNSA. We thank you for
coming and you are doing an excellent job. We are glad to have
you here.
Admiral Frank Bowman, Deputy Administrator for Naval
Nuclear Propulsion. Thank you so much, Admiral, and once again
our compliments to you for the fine work you are doing.
And Dr. Everet Beckner, Deputy Administrator for Defense
Programs. Good to have you.
And Mr. Kenneth E. Baker, acting Deputy Administrator for
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation. Welcome to all of you.
For fiscal year 2004, I have already indicated the budget
request is about $8.8 billion, an increase of 11 percent. By
all accounts, this is a good budget, continuing a trend that
began last year. The budget is consistent with the 5-year
budget program, which we required the NNSA to develop when we
passed the Act. The transition to a 5-year budget plan has been
challenging, and I am certain that it has been very challenging
to all of you here in this room and those who work with you and
for you. But I believe it is an important tool in developing
strong support for the NNSA budget inside the Office of
Management and Budget.
Within the NNSA budget, $6.38 billion is requested for
nuclear weapons activities in 2004. This is an increase of $462
million, 8 percent, over the current year. For nuclear
nonproliferation, the budget request is $1.34 billion, an
increase of $319 million, 31 percent. The most notable increase
within this budget is $272 million to start construction of the
plutonium disposition facilities in South Carolina.
However, I do not believe the budget provides enough
funding to do everything that NNSA could be doing to protect us
from the dangers of nuclear terrorism. That is a key reason
that Senator Reid and I worked to provide an additional $150
million for nuclear nonproliferation in the Homeland Security
supplemental, Senator, and which you even thought we should add
to that, Senator Reid.
Finally, the activities of the naval nuclear propulsion
program, that budget request is $768 million. That is an
increase of $66 million. That is an 8 1/2 percent increase.
This program continues its tradition of being one of the best
run in our national Government.
I look forward to engaging each of our witnesses today and
working with you, the members of the subcommittee, to put
together the best possible appropriation bill that we can.
I would like to briefly address the situation of the last
few months at Los Alamos, in my home State of New Mexico, by
saying what others have concluded, that the laboratory has been
managed well in a number of key areas, in particular the
management of its business and acquisition systems and in
performing internal audits and assessments. I should have said
``not managed well in those areas.'' The lab has made some
mistakes, and I am engaged with the Secretary and the NNSA as
to how best to fix those mistakes.
I will say as an aside, the interim director, Pete Nanos,
is doing a great job. Everybody associated with his current
tenure, albeit short-lived, seems to be saying the same thing.
But this turbulence during the last several months has
encouraged many long-term opponents of the lab and its nuclear
weapons mission to come out of the woodwork. Many people seem
to be talking about Los Alamos only in a pejorative way. But I
do not want to forget that the laboratory has a great deal of
merit on its side. They have done many incredible things in the
last 60-year history that have earned them the reputation of
being the premier scientific laboratory in the world.
From the darkest hours of World War II through the Cold War
to today, the laboratory at Los Alamos has typified America's
scientific might in a range of activities from the human genome
to nuclear weapons. It has always represented the best that the
country has. So we will work through these current problems.
Later this year, I intend to conduct hearings on all of the
laboratories, their roles, and missions. This will be done
wearing another hat, a hat of the Authorizing Committee of--for
the Energy and Natural Resources of the United States Senate.
Part of that process will include a reevaluation of how we
manage all of the laboratories, clarification of the
responsibilities that lay with the Secretary, the NNSA, the
contractors, such as the University of California, and the lab
directors.
In many ways, I fear that the way the DOE manages its labs
has become too complex and confused, and I am hopeful that
within a year or so with these hearings, in-depth hearings, we
will eliminate some of that confusion and come forth with some
more simplified approaches.
We ought to find ways to strengthen the management at Los
Alamos and other ways that are going to be appropriate in
making it better for our future. I do not think we can afford
to do anything less.
With that, I yield to my good friend and distinguished
Senator from Nevada, Senator Reid.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRY REID
Senator Reid. I served on this subcommittee for many years,
and following the retirement of Bennett Johnson I have been
ranking Democrat and oftentimes the chair of this subcommittee.
And the Senator from New Mexico and I have developed a very
fine relationship.
And let me say to each of you, this National Nuclear
Security Administration is something that I did not favor. I
thought it was unnecessary. The Nuclear--the National Nuclear
Security Administration is, basically, a product of the mind of
Senator Domenici. Other people may have worked with him on
this, but basically it was his idea, and he was the reason it
went forward. And as I announced last year at this same
meeting, I am now a convert. I think it has worked extremely
well. We have had good people who have been administering this
program, an interesting new program we have here.
So, anyway, Senator Domenici, I appreciate your having done
this. You were visionary in being able to do it.
I would also say this: Senator Domenici mentioned the labs.
I do not know if the people of this country--the people of the
State of New Mexico, are really aware of what has been done by
Senator Domenici and these laboratories. But for him, I can
remember as a relatively new member of this subcommittee, of
him talking with Senator Johnson about the labs, and that the
real science being conducted in this country is in the labs.
And some of the greatest scientists in the world are in these
laboratories.
So, certainly, the people of New Mexico should be aware of
the fact that Senator Domenici has worked so hard and done so
much to keep these labs funded, even in trying times to cut
back these funds. And there have been fires, and scandals, and
all kinds of things, but through it all the labs have come out
just fine.
Last year I raised a variety of concerns about the
administration's request for this agency. I felt that the
requests for the pit production program was short of what was
required to meet our milestones for the critical stockpiles
stewardship program. Senator Domenici and I worked together
last year, as we always do, and raised the budget for pit
production high enough to keep the program on track. We were
able to keep that additional funding in conference also.
I do not have the same concern this year. Actually, the
President's budget has me very pleasantly surprised. I think it
is a--this is fine. I see there are no gaping holes in the
request. As we move closer to markup, I am sure there will be
some modifications or requests here and there, but I do not
expect anything as dramatic as the last few years.
That having been said, there are certain things that you
have deleted from a variety of programs that have significant
member interest, and there will be tremendous pressure on us,
and rightfully so, to find--to fund these items within our
overall total. Maybe we can find some extra money; but the way
things are going, that is doubtful. And with the budget as
tight as I expect it to be, we may be forced to accommodate
them within the total of the money that we have and you have
given us.
Many of the items that you have deleted are programs that
have been funded year in and year out and have proved
invaluable contributors to our national defense. And so if you
see fit to delete them, that does not mean that we will.
I am always concerned and, I guess, it is Federal
Government that you have to get used to, is that if it has not
been done before, you do not do it. And there are certain
things that we have to continually improvise to meet exigencies
of a situation that develops, especially in an agency like
this.
So, and the last thing that I would like to say, is that
even though I know that you have tremendous pressure from OMB,
we want you to also understand that we have tremendous brain
power down here also. The staff that we have behind us are
experts. They do a wonderful job in making sure the legislative
branch of Government competes as it should constitutionally
with the executive branch of Government. And all of the wisdom
of the world is not within the executive branch of Government.
A couple more thoughts before I close. You requested
funding for an advanced concepts initiative for nuclear
deterrents which seems to expand on funding you sought and
received last year. So this is something we have to really be
careful on, careful about. We will examine this very closely.
The authorizing committee will consider this program in
expansional length when they mark up their bill, and we are
going to watch to see what comes out of that authorizing
committee.
I would also like to make sure that you give us all you can
on this 18-month test readiness posture. It is something
important for the country and the world, and we would hope that
you would give us the benefit of your thoughts in that regard.
Mr. Chairman, I am going--as I have indicated to you, I am
going to have to leave in a little bit. So I would ask your
permission to submit written questions and that the witnesses
get these back to us within 2 weeks.
Senator Domenici. We will do that, and if the witnesses
will respond within 2 weeks. Thank you very much for your kind
remarks and for your overall assessment.
We will start with you, Mr. Ambassador. You have heard so
many nice words, maybe you do not even have to testify. Maybe
you can just sit there and smile.
STATEMENT OF LINTON F. BROOKS
Ambassador Brooks. Well, Mr. Chairman, actually I am
gratified to know that we are thinking of the same things,
because you gave much of my statement. So I will abbreviate it
even further.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Reid, for the
opportunity to appear. This is my first appearance as the
acting Administrator, and I want to start by thanking the
subcommittee and the members on both sides of the aisle with
their strong support for our important national security
responsibilities. I have provided a detailed written statement
which I would like to summarize quite briefly before turning to
my colleagues.
NNSA has several complementary missions. We are supposed
to, above all, provide a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear
deterrent. In doing so, we are supposed to implement the
President's decisions on the Nuclear Posture Review. We are
supposed to reduce the threat of the proliferation of weapons
of mass destruction. We are supposed to maintain a robust
security posture. We are supposed to reinvest in the nuclear
weapons infrastructure, support the nuclear propulsion needs of
the Navy. And we are supposed to do this in an efficient way by
supporting the President's management agenda.
As you noted, the budget represents an 11-percent growth
over last year and is consistent with the Future-Years Nuclear
Security Program that we have submitted. I share your
assessment that that has been an extremely valuable tool, and I
look forward to it being even more valuable in the years ahead
in enforcing sound planning and good fiscal discipline.
My colleagues will be talking about the details, but I
would like to give a very brief overview and then talk about
some broad areas.
The funds we are requesting for weapons activities will
enable us to implement the Nuclear Posture Review. They will
allow us to restore and maintain operational capabilities and
keep a robust science and technology infrastructure. We are on
schedule to produce, later this spring, the first certifiable
plutonium pit in this country since the closure of Rocky Flats
in 1989. And Los Alamos is on track to manufacture a
certifiable pit for the stockpile by 2007.
As Senator Reid mentioned, we are taking steps to reduce
our nuclear test readiness to 18 months. That is an important
initiative of the President's Nuclear Posture Review to which
we are fully committed. Both the fiscal year 2003 and 2004
budgets support this transition, which will take us about 3
years.
This budget also includes $21 million for advanced concepts
work. That is small in terms of the overall budget, but it is
important in policy terms. It includes $15 million for the
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. That system development work
will begin later this month following the submission of a
report to the Congress which the Defense Department submitted
in mid-March. In addition, there is $6 million for advanced
concepts work which we intend to use in conjunction with the
Department of Defense to revitalize the intellectual capital
and to think about what options might be necessary, and I need
to emphasize ``might be necessary,'' in the future.
The Nuclear Posture Review the President approved last year
gives a responsive infrastructure equal priority with offensive
strike and defense. We implement that in two particular ways:
the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities, which is an
account that will be with us forever and is intended to operate
and maintain the facilities needed for stockpile stewardship;
and the Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program,
which is, basically, a get-well program that should be
completed in about a decade.
These programs work together to restore, revitalize, and
rebuild the weapons complex. They are fixing the backlog in
deferred maintenance, and I believe they are absolutely crucial
and hope the committee will continue to support them.
As the chairman mentioned, we are requesting a 30-percent
increase in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation funds. Much of our
program is the same as last year. The largest dollar increase
is for the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility. Russia has agreed to
use the same design, and, therefore, both of us should be able
to begin construction in 2004. The other increases in
nonproliferation support the beginning of a program to purchase
additional highly-enriched uranium from the Russian Federation,
thus taking it permanently out of risk for proliferation, to
strengthen safeguards, and then for one or two other minor
initiatives.
Last year, NNSA assumed responsibility for a production
that will shut down the last three plutonium production
reactors in the Russian Federation. We are about to compete for
the contractor to actually carry that out. The contractor will
be selected from a group of contractors with extensive
experience both in fossil fuel plant construction, which we are
going to build to replace these reactors, and in working in
Russia.
Admiral Bowman will talk about the Naval Reactors program.
Senator Domenici. Mr. Ambassador, would you just hold for a
second?
Ambassador Brooks. Certainly, sir.
Senator Domenici. I have to see my constituents here just
for a second. If I do not see them, nobody else will.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Please proceed.
Ambassador Brooks. In fiscal year 2004, Naval Reactors will
support 103 reactors and 82 nuclear-powered warships, including
the first-of-a-class reactor when U.S.S. Virginia goes to sea.
Naval Reactors will continue to design and develop the
reactor for the new transformational carrier. And the budget
increase will allow beginning the development of the so-called
transformational technology core, which will achieve a
substantial increase in core energy and result in greater
operational ability and flexibility. In addition, the Naval
Reactor budget increase will allow maintenance and replacement
of some of the program's 50-plus-year-old infrastructure.
Key to ensuring the health and safety of all our activities
is safeguards and security. The program focuses on protection
of people, nuclear weapons, information, special nuclear
material, and infrastructure.
Immediately following September 11, 2001, my predecessor
initiated an increase in our security posture. And as a result
of that, I am satisfied with the level of security complex-
wide. Now, most of that increase was in physical protection,
and what that mostly means is more guards. As we look to the
future, physical protection is going to be more complicated and
costly. So in 2004 we will begin a modest research and
development effort to try and understand how technology might
improve security while reducing the demands on physical
security force, staffing, and overtime.
Finally, the budget requests $348 million for the Federal
workforce. This will provide our direction and oversight of
operations. Naval Reactors and our secure transportation assets
activities are separately budgeted.
Our budget reflects declining staffing increases, but it
also includes about $16 million for re-engineering and
relocation costs necessary to bring about the new
organizational model, which I will mention in a moment.
Before turning to my colleagues, I would like to mention
some of the management challenges that we have been facing and
some of the successes we have had. The most obvious challenge
you have already referred to, Mr. Chairman, and that has been
the management issues at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
It is important to put those challenges in context. There
has been no suggestion of any diminution in the high quality of
the science. There has been no suggestion of any problems with
security. There has been no suggestion of any problems with
safety. But there have been significant weaknesses in business
practices. As soon as we learned of them, Secretary Abraham and
I insisted the University of California, which manages the
laboratory, take corrective action. And generally, I am
satisfied--that is not true. I am pleased with the corrective
action taken to date. The University has been vigorous, and I
share your assessment that the interim laboratory director is
doing a superb job.
In addition to what we have done in Los Alamos, we have
compiled a comprehensive set of lessons learned to share that
with all of our sites to avoid similar problems in other areas.
On a more optimistic note, I believe we are making good
progress in meeting the intent of the Congress in creating the
National Nuclear Security Administration. On December 20 of
last year, I implemented the revised management approach we
reported to the Congress last year. We eliminated a layer of
management. We shifted the locus of Federal oversight to eight
site offices. We consolidated all business and administrative
support into a single service center to be physically
consolidated next year.
These changes, along with other workload reduction
initiatives, should allow us to reduce the Federal workforce by
about 20 percent by the end of next year in all areas except
secure transportation asset, nonproliferation, naval reactors,
and emergency operations.
I mentioned in the beginning of my remarks that we are
mindful of the President's management agenda. With an emphasis
on our new planning, programming, budgeting, and evaluation
process, we are trying to take a long view, budget with firm
resource envelopes, and then manage to those budgets. Our
process was modeled after the Department of Defense, but
tailored to our needs. It will take several budget cycles
before we get all the benefit this system will use, and I am
very pleased with our progress.
I am also pleased with our participation in the
administration's Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART).
This year the Office of Management and Budget evaluated four
programs that encompass about 20 percent of our total funding.
Two of those programs, the advanced computing initiative and
the nuclear material protection and cooperation, were rated in
the top 5 percent of all programs government-wide, and they
were the two highest rated programs in the Department of
Energy. We will be incorporating PART assessment for all of our
programs as part of our own internal evaluation cycle, starting
with the fiscal year 2005 budget we will begin working on this
summer.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I am confident we are headed
in the right direction. Our budget request will support
continuing our progress in protecting and certifying our
deterrent, reducing the global danger from proliferation, and
enhancing the force projection capabilities of the U.S. nuclear
Navy. It will enable us to continue to maintain the safety and
security of the NNSA complex, and, above all, I believe it will
meet the national security needs of the United States for the
coming century.
PREPARED STATEMENT
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. My colleagues
and I will be ready to answer your questions after they have
had the opportunity to present their own statements.
Senator Domenici. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Linton F. Brooks
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the Fiscal
Year 2004 President's Budget Request for the National Nuclear Security
Administration. This is my first appearance before this Subcommittee as
the Acting Administrator of NNSA, and I want to thank all of the
Members for their strong support of our important national security
responsibilities. I would like to begin my testimony here today by
providing an overview of the NNSA mission requirements followed by the
highlights of our budget request.
overview
The NNSA, comprised of Defense Programs, the Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation Program, and the Naval Reactors Program, has several
complementary mission requirements:
--Provide a safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent and implement
the President's decisions on the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)
recommendations.
--Reduce the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and continue to support the Global War on Terrorism
through aggressive nuclear nonproliferation programs.
--Maintain a robust security posture at NNSA facilities.
--Revitalize the nuclear weapons complex infrastructure.
--Support the nuclear propulsion needs of the U.S. Navy.
--Support the President's Management Agenda for more effective
government.
The fiscal year 2004 budget request totals $8.8 billion, an
increase of $878 million, about 11 percent, over the enacted fiscal
year 2003 budget. The request is consistent with the planned program
levels in the Future-Years Nuclear Security Program recently submitted
to the Congress. This substantial increase reflects the
Administration's commitment to sustain a stable and effective long term
national security program through the NNSA, as well as our obligation
to our citizens to conduct this program safely, securely, and in an
environmentally acceptable manner.
We are building on recent accomplishments. Although there is a
large increase in this year's budget request, there is no single new
initiative driving this growth. Rather, we are continuing plans and
programs already set in motion, and adjusting to the guidance in the
Nuclear Posture Review. We are moving beyond the talking and planning
phase of many programs conceived in the 1990's.
This budget supports the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which
continues to successfully certify to the President the safety and
reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile without underground
nuclear testing. It includes funds to begin a modest Advanced Concepts
initiative to provide nuclear deterrence options, begin the transition
to a 18-month test readiness posture, continue to revitalize the
facilities and infrastructure that are the bedrock of the weapons
complex, and push the outer limits of scientific, modeling, and
computing ability to apply new experimental capabilities to the
processes of maintaining and certifying the stockpile. It supports our
efforts to manufacture certifiable pits and to produce tritium.
In the area of reducing global nuclear danger, this budget request
for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Program reflects the
President's and Secretary Abraham's emphasis on reducing proliferation
threats, including the Global Partnership formed at the Kananaskis
Summit in June 2002. The fiscal year 2004 request contains funds to
support attacking the problem globally, to improve the physical
security of nuclear material, to consolidate and reduce that material,
and to end its production. It also continues efforts to prevent illicit
trafficking of nuclear materials, to improve our ability to detect
proliferation, and to stem the ``Brain Drain'' of weapons experienced
scientists from Russia.
Under this budget, the Naval Reactors Program will initiate the
design and development of a new reactor that will utilize advanced
materials to achieve a substantial increase in core energy. The result
will be greater ship operational ability and flexibility to meet
increasing national security demands.
budget summary tables
The fiscal year 2003 estimates in the fiscal year 2004 budget
documents transmitted to the Congress reflect the President's fiscal
year 2003 Budget Request because final fiscal year 2003 appropriations
were not enacted until February 20, 2003. The Future-Years National
Security Program tables tie to the President's Budget Request. The
table below summarizes the enacted funding levels by appropriation. The
fiscal year 2003 appropriations estimates are made comparable to the
fiscal year 2004 President's Budget Request by eliminating fiscal year
2003 appropriations being transferred to the Department of Homeland
Security and to the Department of Energy's Office of Security (for
COOP/COG activities). The fiscal year 2003 totals detailed in the table
below also reflect applications of the general reductions and the
government-wide, across the board reduction of 0.65 percent enacted in
the final fiscal year 2003 appropriations.
The outyear budget estimates and associated programmatic
information for NNSA programs are contained in the Future-Years Nuclear
Security Program document I forwarded to the Congress in February.
FISCAL YEAR 2004 NNSA PRESIDENT'S BUDGET REQUEST
[Dollars in millions]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Year Fiscal Fiscal
2002 Year 2003 Year 2003 Fiscal Percent
Comparable Comp Comp Year 2004 $ Change Change
Appropriation Request Approps Request
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Weapons Activities................... $5,542 $5,846 $5,895 $6,378 $483 8.2
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation..... \1\ 1,048 1,028 \2\ \3\ 1, 1,340 318 31.1
022
Naval Reactors....................... 688 707 702 768 66 9.4
Office of the Administrator.......... 307 329 \3\ \4\ 32 348 27 8.4
1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total.......................... 7,585 7,909 7,940 8,835 895 11.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Does not include $10 million appropriated as part of the fiscal year 2002 supplemental (Public Law 107-206)
for Domestic Sealed Sources Recovery in the Environmental Management Program.
\2\ Does not include funding appropriated for programs transferred to the Department of Homeland Security.
\3\ Does not include $9.125 million requested to be transferred in fiscal year 2002 from Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation to the Office of the Administrator. This transfer was approved early in fiscal year 2003.
\4\ Does not include funding appropriated for activities transferred to Homeland Security, or to Office of
Security for COOP/COG.
NNSA OUTYEAR BUDGET REQUESTS--FUTURE-YEARS NUCLEAR SECURITY PROGRAM
[Dollars in millions]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Fiscal Fiscal Fiscal Fiscal Fiscal
Year 2004 Year 2005 Year 2006 Year 2007 Year 2008 Year 2009
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Weapons Activities...................... $6,378 $6,661 $6,961 $7,277 $7,518 $7,651
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation........ 1,340 1,356 1,371 1,389 1,322 1,346
Naval Reactors.......................... 768 808 795 811 819 834
Office of the Administrator............. 348 337 344 353 355 362
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Total............................. 8,835 9,162 9,471 9,830 10,014 10,193
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
nuclear forces and the nuclear posture review
Before going into Weapons Activities Stockpile Stewardship Program,
I will discuss the NNSA's response to the broader policy framework set
out in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and its implementation.
As the NPR has articulated, the 21st century presents the prospect
of a national security environment in which threats may evolve more
quickly, be more variable in nature, and be less predictable than in
the past. In this broad threat environment, nuclear weapons will play a
reduced role in the overall United States security posture--a point
reinforced in the NPR. At the same time, the NPR reaffirmed that, for
the foreseeable future, nuclear forces linked with an advanced
conventional strike and integrated with the capabilities offered by the
other two legs of the New Triad will continue to be an essential
element of national security by strengthening our overall abilities to
reassure allies of U.S. commitments, dissuade arms competition from
potential adversaries, and deter threats to the United States, its
overseas forces, allies, and friends.
The NPR offered a basic reassessment of the role of nuclear forces
and their contribution toward meeting these defense policy goals. It
established the need for a capabilities-based force, a dramatic
departure from the threat-based rationale for the nuclear force of the
past. This change, in combination with the judgment to no longer plan
our forces as if Russia presented an immediate threat to the United
States, was the basis for dramatic reductions codified in the Moscow
Treaty in the level of operationally-deployed strategic nuclear forces.
Over the next decade, the number of deployed warheads will be cut by
approximately two-thirds from today's level.
To meet the challenges of an uncertain and unpredictable threat
environment, and in seeking to mitigate any dangers associated with
dramatically reduced nuclear forces, the nuclear weapons enterprise
must be able to respond rapidly and decisively. This is the idea behind
the third leg of the New Triad. That is, by providing means to respond
to new, unexpected, or emerging threats in a timely manner, the R&D and
industrial infrastructure needed to develop, build, and maintain
nuclear offensive forces and defensive systems (of which the nuclear
enterprise is a key component) is itself a principal tool for achieving
our overall defense strategy. This concept, and its endorsement by the
NPR, has had enormous implications for NNSA in helping to gain strong
support for its programs from DOD and others.
We are pressing ahead with efforts to reverse the deterioration of
the nuclear weapons infrastructure, restore lost production
capabilities and modernize others in order to meet the stockpile
refurbishment plan. We are actively assessing the NPR's implications in
a number of other related areas. Finally, we are pursuing initiatives
endorsed by the NPR which are intended to provide the nuclear weapons
enterprise with the flexibility to provide a timely response to
``surprise,'' or to changes in the threat environment.
weapons activities--stockpile stewardship
The President's fiscal year 2004 request for Stockpile Stewardship
continues to build and expand on the scientific and engineering
successes that are the hallmarks of this program. This request totals
$6.378 billion, an increase of 8.2 percent. It will also allow us to
meet our requirements under the terms of the Nuclear Posture Review
including enhancing test readiness, reinvigorating the advanced
concepts work in the weapons laboratories, and restoring the weapons
complex to meet the national security requirements of the 21st Century.
There are a number of significant milestones we expect to achieve this
year.
--Manufacture the first certifiable W88 pit.
--Begin irradiation of the first Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber
Rods in the TVA's Watts Bar Reactor.
--Continue delivery of W87 Life Extended warheads to the Air Force.
--Complete environmental documentation in support of the Modern Pit
Facility.
--Deliver four ultraviolet beams of NIF laser light to the target
chamber.
--Initiate Stockpile Stewardship experiments in NIF.
--Perform two- and three-dimensional simulations of aging stockpile
weapons focused on Life Extension Program activities.
--Ship nuclear weapons, weapons components, and nuclear materials
safely through the Secure Transportation Asset.
--Conduct subcritical experiments at the Nevada Test Site to better
understand plutonium aging.
--Begin work on the Advanced Concepts initiative and, in particular,
on the RNEP Phase 6.2 studies with the Air Force.
These major milestones will be accomplished by the weapons complex
in addition to the manufacture of thousands of components needed to
maintain the stockpile. The complex will also carry out hundreds of
smaller scale experiments, perform surveillance activities, address
Significant Finding Investigations to ensure weapons safety and
operability, conduct flight tests with the support of the DOD, deploy
new manufacturing tools and processes at the production plants, and
safely dismantle weapons excess to national security requirements.
These and other activities are dependent on retaining today's
highly skilled workforce and recruiting the next generation of
stockpile stewards. Over the last several years, NNSA has made a
significant headway on this all-important front. Critical skill
vacancies across the complex have been reduced to 8 percent.
Inextricably linked to recruitment and retention is providing the
quality workspace and fully functioning tools and technologies needed
by our scientists and engineers to carry out their work. We are working
diligently to reinvest in the weapons complex infrastructure.
I would now like to highlight several activities under the
Stockpile Stewardship Program that I believe are of particular interest
to this committee.
Pit Manufacturing and Certification Campaign.--Restoring the
Nation's ability to manufacture plutonium pits in support of the
stockpile has been a central challenge for the stewardship program
since the closure of the Rocky Flats plant in 1989. The United States
has never before manufactured and certified pits without nuclear
testing. I am very pleased to report that late this spring, Los Alamos
will manufacture the first certifiable W88 pit. LANL also remains on-
track to manufacture a war reserve W88 pit by 2007. To achieve this
critical milestone, LANL has produced a number of development pits and
has performed a series of engineering tests and physics experiments to
confirm pit performance.
While the TA-55 facilities at LANL are adequate to support the W88
pit campaign, they do not appear to be capable of supporting the
manufacturing need for long-term stockpile support. NNSA has begun
planning for a Modern Pit Facility (MPF) consistent with the Record of
Decision for Stockpile Stewardship and Management and the NPR. In May
2002, the Secretary of Energy formally approved Critical Decision ``0''
(CD-0) for the MPF. The NNSA is now examining five candidate sites--
Pantex, Carlsbad, the Nevada Test Site, Savannah River and Los Alamos--
as possible locations for the MPF. We expect to issue a Draft
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) later this spring. Following a
series of public meetings, a final EIS and associated Record of
Decision (ROD) will be issued. The program will prepare site specific
environmental documentation if the ROD supports a decision to construct
and operate an MPF. The fiscal year 2004 request will allow conceptual
design and other planning activities, NEPA work, and technology
development activities to proceed on a schedule that will support a CD-
1 decision in fiscal year 2006.
Test Readiness.--While I continue to have confidence in the ability
of the Stockpile Stewardship Program to continue to ensure the safety,
security, and reliability of this Nation's nuclear deterrent, we must
maintain our ability to carry out nuclear weapons tests. Our current
readiness posture to conduct such a test is 24 to 36 months, as
established in a 1993 Presidential Decision Directive. Last year's NPR
stated that this period should be reduced in order to provide options
to deal with defense policy goals, including resolving unanticipated
problems in the stockpile. A study completed in July 2002 confirmed
that additional work was required to maintain the present posture, but
it also led us to conclude that the right posture is to be ready for a
test within approximately 18 months. With fiscal year 2003 funding now
in place, we intend to begin the transition to a 18 month posture. The
Nuclear Weapons Council has concurred that our intended action is
appropriate. The transition to this new readiness posture is expected
to take approximately three years.
Although there have been discussions about a transition to shorter
times, there is concern that an unnecessarily expedited time-frame may
cause adverse effects on critical personnel resources and require
significantly more funding. It is not likely that we will be able to
match the short lead times when the weapons complex conducted multiple
underground tests annually, nor do I think it is prudent to tie-up
important resources to indefinitely maintain an extremely short test
readiness posture. Since device and diagnostics preparations are driven
by the particular weapon to be tested and the questions to be answered
by the test, such a posture might not be responsive to a surprise in
the stockpile. The NNSA is studying this matter and I will soon be
reporting to the Congress on these subjects as directed in the fiscal
year 2003 Defense Authorization Bill.
Advanced Concepts/Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.--The NPR also
highlighted the importance of pursuing Advanced Concepts work to ensure
that the weapons complex can provide nuclear deterrence options well
into the next century. To that end, the fiscal year 2004 budget
includes $21 million for Advanced Concepts work. About $15 million will
be allocated to the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), with the
balance of the funding divided between the weapons laboratories for
concept and feasibility studies of possible nuclear weapon
modifications, or new designs to meet possible new requirements.
The Department of Defense submitted the report on RNEP to the
Congress on March 19, 2003, as required by the fiscal year 2003 Bob
Stump National Defense Authorization Act. The NNSA will begin an in-
depth study once the 30 day waiting period has elapsed. As members
know, this study will examine whether or not two existing warheads in
the stockpile the B61 and the B83 can be sufficiently hardened through
case modifications and other work to allow the weapons to survive
penetration into various geologies before detonating. This would
enhance the Nation's ability to hold hard and deeply buried targets at
risk. The RNEP feasibility and cost study is currently scheduled for
completion in 2006; however, we are looking at opportunities to reduce
study time.
For other advanced concepts, we will work with the DOD to assess
evolving military requirements. We will carry out theoretical and
engineering design work. I should stress that we have no requirement to
actually develop any new weapons at this time.
Physical Infrastructure.--Since its inception, the NNSA has been
committed to a disciplined corporate facilities management approach to
improve the facility conditions of the nuclear weapons complex. We made
this corporate commitment clearly recognizing the drivers and practices
of the past decade had ultimately resulted in a complex with
significant deterioration in our physical infrastructure and an
excessive backlog of deferred maintenance. The NNSA complex is part of
our Nation's strategic nuclear infrastructure and the third leg of the
New Triad as defined in the Nuclear Posture Review. The Nuclear Posture
Review gave a responsive infrastructure equal priority with offensive
and defensive weapons. Through our focused and disciplined efforts, we
now have underway an effective and integrated program to restore,
revitalize, and rebuild our nuclear weapons program infrastructure.
Two complementary accounts in the budget, Readiness in Technical
Base and Facilities (RTBF) and the Facilities and Infrastructure
Recapitalization Program (FIRP), are essential to the operation,
maintenance, and renewal of a physical infrastructure. Funding for
RTBF, Operations of Facilities, increases by 4 percent in the fiscal
year 2004 request. The RTBF provides the funding needed to operate and
maintain the facilities required for certification, thus ensuring the
vitality of the NNSA national security complex and its goal of a
consistent readiness level. FIRP is a capital renewal and
sustainability program designed to eliminate maintenance backlogs. The
FIRP addresses an integrated, prioritized list of maintenance and
infrastructure projects, separate from the maintenance and
infrastructure efforts of RTBF, which will significantly increase the
operational efficiency and effectiveness of the NNSA sites.
Importantly, beyond the application of the new and much needed
funding, FIRP also brings a series of new facility management processes
and best business practices which are improving our corporate facility
management. One of the most important practices is the NNSA commitment
to deferred maintenance reduction: stabilizing our backlog by fiscal
year 2005 and returning it, for our mission essential facilities and
infrastructure, to industry standards by fiscal year 2009. To meet this
goal, the fiscal year 2004 budget request targets 45 percent of the
FIRP Recapitalization subprogram to facilities and infrastructure
specific deferred maintenance projects.
Integral to our corporate approach to RTBF and FIRP are the
linkages and discipline provided by the PPBE process, and specifically
the Ten-Year Comprehensive Site Plans (TYCSP) and associated facilities
and infrastructure planning processes. We are now in the third year
that the NNSA has approved the TYCSPs, incorporating technical
requirements and performance measures within the financial bounds of
the FYNSP resource levels. From the field perspective, these plans
provide Federal and M&O managers at each site with the tools and
processes to propose, prioritize and obtain approval of the work needed
to effectively manage their facilities and infrastructure. From the
Headquarters perspective, the TYCSP provides the NNSA with a
standardization that allows comparisons and planning to be effected
complex-wide.
In recent years, the combined and measurable efforts of FIRP and
RTBF have worked to assure that we restore, revitalize, and rebuild the
weapons complex infrastructure for today and tomorrow's missions.
Across the weapons complex both programs are fixing the backlog of
maintenance, keeping up with operational needs, and planning for the
future to make a clear and visible difference. These combined efforts
are crucial and I urge the committee to support them.
Stockpile Life Extension.--While preparing for the future, the labs
and plants are working very hard to extend the life of several elements
of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile through the Life Extension
Program (LEP). The NPR reaffirmed the decision as reached by the
Nuclear Weapons Council on the timing, pace, scope, and technical
aspects of the LEPs for the W76, W80, B61-7/11, and ongoing W87 work.
Through this program new subsystems and components are designed, built,
tested and installed, thereby extending the operational service life
for these warheads for some 30 additional years.
For the last several years, we have been extending the life of the
W87 warhead for the Air Force. This work is ongoing at Y-12 National
Security Complex, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories,
and the Pantex Plant. We are more than half way through this effort and
expect to wrap up the work by early 2004.
Life extension for the W76 involves a comprehensive overhaul of the
warhead, including replacement or refurbishment of the Arming, Firing
and Fuzing set, high explosives, gas transfer system and other
components. We will also be requalifying the weapon primary. For the
W80, we will be replacing the Trajectory Sensing Signal and Neutron
Generators, the tritium bottles and incorporating surety upgrades. For
the B61, we will be refurbishing the secondary. The First Production
Units for these systems are scheduled for delivery to the Navy and Air
Force in: fiscal year 2007, fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2006,
respectively.
Tritium.--In addition to restoring plutonium manufacturing
capabilities, NNSA will begin tritium production later this year when
several hundred Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rods (TPBARs) are
inserted into TVA's Watts Bar Reactor. However, because of significant
changes in stockpile size in the outyears as a result of the NPR and
the Moscow Treaty, the NNSA has, in concert with the DOD, adjusted the
tritium production requirements to reflect these changes. We remain
fully committed to exercise all elements of the system for producing,
extracting, and purifying new tritium, including initial operation of
the Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF) being constructed at the Savannah
River Site.
Timing of tritium production, extraction, and purification has also
been delayed by approximately 17 months for two reasons: (1) a
reduction in the stockpile requirements by the NPR and (2) a delay in
completion of the TEF project. This program delay can be accomplished
without impacting nuclear weapons readiness. A revised baseline has
been approved increasing the Total Project Cost from $401 million to
$506 million and delaying project completion from mid-fiscal year 2006
to late-fiscal year 2007.
Since the tritium decays by natural radioactivity at a rate of
about 5 percent per year, and since irradiation service costs are the
dominant operating costs in supplying tritium to the stockpile, it is
prudent not to produce tritium beyond the stated national requirements.
Since the program intends to complete and exercise all elements of the
tritium production and purification system (including TVA's reactor(s)
and the TEF) on a schedule that fully protects the stockpile
requirements, irradiation services are being deferred in order to use
funds planned for these activities to complete TEF.
National Ignition Facility.--I am pleased to report that tremendous
technical progress has been achieved over the last year at the National
Ignition Facility (NIF). Its mission is to obtain fusion ignition in a
laboratory setting by imploding a BB-sized capsule containing a mixture
of the hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium. The NIF will provide
the capability to conduct laboratory experiments to address the high-
energy density and fusion aspects that are important to both primaries
and secondaries in the nuclear stockpile.
In December 2002, the first four NIF laser beams were activated to
generate a total of 43 kilojoules of infrared laser light in a single
pulse. In March 2003, NIF delivered its first 4 beam of ultraviolet
laser light focused onto a target at the center of the 30 foot-diameter
target chamber. With this accomplishment, all elements of each of the
NIF critical subsystems have been successfully activated and operated.
Stewardship experiments will begin in fiscal year 2004.
Advanced Simulation and Computing.--The Advanced Simulation and
Computing (ASCI) Campaign is creating simulation capabilities that
incorporate modern physics and engineering models to improve our
ability to predict with confidence the behavior of the nuclear weapons
in the stockpile. These models, validated against experimental data
from past above ground and underground nuclear tests, are the
repositories of expert designer judgment as well as the best scientific
representations of our current knowledge of the performance of the
nuclear weapons. The ASCI Campaign is driving the integration of the
theoretical and experimental efforts within the Stockpile Stewardship
Program.
At the same time that ASCI continues the development of the most
powerful computer capabilities needed for the future, the modern
simulation tools previously developed by ASCI--the Blue Pacific and
White Machines at LLNL, the Red Machine at SNL, and the Blue Mountain
and Q machines at LANL--are being applied day-to-day to address
immediate stockpile concerns. The ASCI codes are being used to close
Significant Finding Investigations as well as to support Life Extension
Programs for the W76, W80, W87, and B61. These activities are enabled
by the ongoing supercomputing infrastructures at the national
laboratories, encompassing both continuing operations as well as
research in new techniques for storage, visualization, networking, and
all aspects of the infrastructure required by modern computing.
By fiscal year 2008, ASCI will deliver a high fidelity, full-system
physics characterization of a nuclear weapon. At that time, the
campaign will deliver a suite of validated codes, running on
supercomputer platforms, acquired though open procurement, with user-
friendly environments, advanced visualization tools for analysis, and
the entire support structure to integrate the components together.
Other program deliverables include high-performance storage and high-
bandwidth networks. In support of a true integrated SSP effort, the
ASCI Campaign continues to push the envelope in distance computing as
well as in advanced encryption techniques and other approaches to
ensure secure, classified networking.
secure transportation
The Office of Secure Transportation is responsible for safely and
securely moving nuclear weapons, special nuclear materials, select non-
nuclear components, and Limited Life Components for the DOE and the
DOD. This work is carried out by 225 Federal agents stationed at three
sites--Pantex, Oak Ridge, and Albuquerque. These highly dedicated and
skilled agents are authorized to use deadly force in the performance of
their duties. Employing highly modified tractor trailers and escort
vehicles, and secure and redundant communications they have amassed an
impressive safety record of more than 100 million accident free miles
without cargo compromise. I would note that this office also provides
support to other elements of the DOE, including the Offices of
Environmental Management and Nuclear Energy.
nonproliferation--reducing the global nuclear danger
The NNSA's nonproliferation activities are central to the Bush
Administration's National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass
Destruction of December 2002, which lists ``Strengthened
Nonproliferation'' as a pillar of its approach to reducing
proliferation threats. Secretary Abraham and the NNSA are committed to
this critical mission. This commitment is reflected in the diversity of
our programs to address nonproliferation concerns in Russia, other
former Soviet states, and, increasingly, throughout the world. The NNSA
uniquely integrates technical and policy expertise to guide and
implement the full range of U.S. nonproliferation priorities. The
fiscal year 2004 request for this program is $1.34 billion, an increase
of about 31 percent.
The NNSA addresses concerns that arise from the two requisites of
nuclear weapons proliferation: materials and expertise. Whether
ensuring that former Russian weapons experts are able to put their
skills to use on peaceful and commercial initiatives, reducing the
footprint of Russia's ``closed'' nuclear cities, or leading on-the-
ground programs to secure at-risk nuclear materials in Russia or
elsewhere, NNSA is at the forefront of U.S. efforts to halt the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and advance U.S. nuclear
security interests.
The Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials
of Mass Destruction, formed at the Kananaskis Summit in June 2002, has
recommitted the G-8 nations to increase greatly assistance to
nonproliferation, disarmament, counter-terrorism, and nuclear safety.
The partnership pledges to provide $20 billion over the next ten years
for nonproliferation and threat reduction initially focused in Russia.
The United States is committed to provide half that total. The effort
of our G-8 partners will complement U.S. programs and meets past
Congressional concerns that we not carry a disproportionate burden.
I am also pleased to inform you of the substantial progress of the
Elimination of Weapons-Grade Plutonium Production Program (EWGPP). The
EWGPP is using best project management practices by applying the
Department's established directives on project management. On December
20, 2002, the projects received Critical Decision Zero (CD-0), mission-
need justification, and we have started the process to procure U.S.
contractors.
These contractors will be responsible for oversight, verification,
and payment to the Russian Federation Integrating Contractor for work
completed. The U.S. contracts will be performance-based with the award
fee provisions focusing on successful completion and the ability of the
U.S. contractor to incentivize the Russian Federation Integrating
Contractor's performance in meeting or exceeding cost, schedule and
quality objectives. The U.S. contractor is being selected from a group
of contractors that have extensive experience in both fossil fueled
power plants and in Russia. Although the projects will be executed in
the Russian Federation, using Russian equipment and personnel, we are
implementing a rigorous oversight plan to monitor the progress through
a formal project management system.
With three exceptions, our fiscal year 2004 request is essentially
the same as last year. Last year, at the President's request, Secretary
Abraham sought Russian agreement to dispose of additional Russian
highly enriched uranium. We are nearing agreement on the purchase of
Russian highly enriched uranium for U.S. research reactors and on
purchasing downblended uranium from Russian weapons for a strategic
uranium reserve. We have requested $30 million for this program.
Second, there has been a $19.7 million increase in the request for
programs to secure radiological sources that could be used in
radiological dispersal devices, also known as ``dirty bombs.''
The largest fiscal year 2004 budget increase, about $272 million,
supports our plutonium disposition efforts. The United States and
Russia will each dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium
by irradiating it as mixed oxide, MOX fuel, in existing nuclear
reactors. This program is on track. Over 75 percent of the detailed
design of the U.S. MOX facility will be done this year. Russia has told
us that it will use the U.S. design for the MOX Fuel Fabrication
Facility, thus ensuring the programs remain on roughly the same
schedule. Construction of both the U.S. and Russian MOX Fuel
Fabrication Facilities will begin in fiscal year 2004.
I would also like to comment on NNSA's efforts to ensure that
funding is focused on the highest nonproliferation concerns. Given that
adverse impacts of terrorists or rogue nations obtaining nuclear
weapons is intangible, we cannot easily assess risks using quantifiable
risk analysis methods. However, we have and will continue to conduct
qualitative risk analyses to determine that we are applying the most
cost-effective approaches to meet the greatest nonproliferation needs.
The NNSA recognizes that proliferation is a multifaceted problem,
and reduces the threat in a multitude of ways.
We're attacking the problem globally.--The Global Partnership is
only the most recent example of U.S. cooperation with the international
community on nonproliferation. International cooperation supports our
national nonproliferation objectives, and we pursue such cooperation in
new ways. The suite of NNSA programs promotes greater international
understanding and adherence to export controls, the application of
safeguards to secure nuclear materials, and measures to maintain
regional security in the world's most volatile regions.
NNSA is improving the physical security of nuclear material.--The
United States does this primarily through its Materials Protection,
Control and Accounting (MPC&A) program in Russia, as well as the Newly
Independent States/Baltics. In fiscal year 2004, this will include
security upgrades on 24 metric tons of Russian nuclear material and
1200 Russian Navy nuclear warheads. We will also continue our work to
ensure the adequate physical protection of nuclear material located in
40 countries around the world.
We are improving our work to secure radiological sources and
prevent their use in ``dirty bombs.''--The International Conference on
Security of Radioactive Sources delivered a concrete set of findings to
guide international efforts to gain better control of high-risk
radioactive sources worldwide. Secretary Abraham's announcement of a $3
million ``Radiological Security Partnership'' will set in motion a new
initiative to address potential threats from under secured, high-risk
radioactive sources.
NNSA is helping to consolidate nuclear material.--By reducing the
number of locations where this material is stored, the United States is
greatly reducing its vulnerability to theft or sabotage. By the end of
2003, we will have removed all weapons-usable material from 23
buildings into fewer locations, thus improving security.
Nuclear material can be reduced.--Fissile Materials Disposition
conducts activities to dispose of surplus highly enriched uranium and
weapon-grade plutonium. By disposing of 68 metric tons of plutonium in
the U.S. and Russia, the plutonium disposition program will reduce the
threat that this material could pose if acquired by hostile nations or
terrorist groups. The plutonium will be irradiated as mixed-oxide (MOX)
fuel in nuclear reactors, making the material no longer readily usable
for nuclear weapons.
The production of nuclear material for weapons can be ended.--The
value of reducing nuclear materials increases greatly if no new
material is being produced at the same time. The EWGPP discussed above
aims to accomplish just that by replacing Russia's remaining plutonium
production reactors with fossil fuel energy plants to meet the energy
needs of local communities.
The illicit trafficking of nuclear materials can be slowed.--The
Second Line of Defense Program and International Nuclear Export Control
programs focus on cooperative efforts to minimize the risk of illicit
trafficking of special nuclear material, radiological materials, and
dual-use technologies across international borders such as land
crossings, airports, and seaports. Under the fiscal year 2004 budget
request, the program will continue to target strategic border points
and transshipment countries around the world for deployment of
radiation detection equipment while maintaining existing equipment in
more than 20 countries.
The threat of the ``Brain Drain'' can be alleviated.--To prevent
adverse mitigation of WMD expertise, the Russian Transition Initiatives
(RTI) program commercializes technology and downsizes Russia's weapons
complex. This approach transforms the former weapons infrastructure
expertise into commercially viable, peaceful business ventures, and
shrinks the complex by moving fence lines, closing buildings, and
providing alternative employment opportunities to weapons experts.
We can continually improve our ability to detect proliferation.--
Research and development in proliferation detection provides the United
States timely detection of potential threats. These technologies are
key to identifying threats at borders or other critical thoroughfares,
detecting clandestine proliferation activities, and verifying treaty
adherence.
In sum, the United States, with NNSA leading the way, has developed
programs to address the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction--in all its dimensions.
naval reactors
Naval Reactors (NR) continues the success it has had for more than
50 years and is a prime example of how to manage unforgiving and
complex technology. Our Naval Reactors program, which supports the
nuclear-powered submarines and carriers on station around the world,
remains a vital part of the national security mission and the Global
War on Terrorism. In fiscal year 2004, NR will support 103 reactors in
82 nuclear-powered warships, including the first-of-a-class reactor
when the USS VIRGINIA goes to sea. In addition, NR will continue to
design and develop the reactor for the new transformational carrier
CVN-21. The NR budget request for fiscal year 2004 is $768 million,
about a 7 percent increase above inflation over fiscal year 2003. The
increase will allow NR to begin the development of the Transformational
Technology Core (TTC) utilizing advanced materials to achieve a
substantial increase in core energy. TTC will be forward-fitted into
the VIRGINIA Class submarines, and will result in greater ship
operational ability and flexibility to meet increasing national
security demands. This budget increase will also allow maintenance and
replacement of some of the program's 50-plus-year-old infrastructure as
well as remediation at sites no longer in use, allowing NR to continue
its ``clean-as-you-go'' policy.
safeguards and security throughout the complex
Security continues to be one of the NNSA's highest priorities. The
NNSA's Safeguards and Security program focuses on the protection of our
people, classified and sensitive information, nuclear and non-nuclear
materials, and the vital infrastructure of our laboratory and
industrial production complex. Overall, we have a very effective
safeguards and security program as validated by internal and external
independent reviews across our sites and operations. We then use the
results of these reviews to assess and confirm our security postures
and areas for improvement. Our fiscal year 2004 budget request
maintains a robust safeguards and security posture throughout the
weapons complex to protect our facilities, materials, information, and
people.
The request also supports evaluation and assessment of options to
use cost-effective measures to meet future security requirements. The
NNSA sites conduct Vulnerability Assessments that include a review of
potential targets and the identification of the variety of methods that
an adversary could or might attempt to use against the targets.
Tabletop exercises, computer simulations, and actual force-on-force
exercises, conducted both internally and through external independent
offices, are used to evaluate various scenarios and related options for
protection.
In our efforts to assure we have a robust, responsive and adaptable
security architecture, we have recently been conducting detailed, site
specific reviews, known as Iterative Site Analyses (ISA). The ISAs are
analytical, tabletop exercises which address a spectrum of potential
threats, both within and beyond the Design Basis Threat. The ISA is
conducted by independent and highly skilled security professionals from
across the government and private sector. These analytical efforts are
designed to give decision makers at each site and NNSA Headquarters a
better understanding of how potential changes in threat and protective
measures can be factored into actions that improve our system
responsiveness and overall security posture. The results are then used
in our risk identification and management efforts that assist in
determining the safeguards and security program structure and most
cost-effective investments at each site.
Immediately following the events of September 11, 2001, NNSA
initiated a series of efforts to increase our security posture. As a
result, I am very comfortable with the level of our security complex-
wide. Most of the increases in our security posture, however, were the
result of increases in the level of physical protection, mainly guard
forces. As NNSA looks to the future, it is clear that the threat and
protection challenges will continue to become more complicated and
costly. More effort is needed to identify and deploy technologies and
work procedures that can maintain or improve our security
responsiveness while reducing physical security force staffing and
overtime requirements.
In fiscal year 2004, the NNSA will initiate a modest research and
development effort to pursue emerging technologies. In addition to our
historic rate of physical protection upgrades, the modest research and
development effort will focus on applied technology to define a more
robust, flexible and cost-effective security architecture across all
aspects of our work in the coming decade. These areas include earlier
detection of adversaries, automated response capabilities, better
coordinated communications, more efficient efforts to delay
adversaries, better detection of contraband at site perimeters and
enhanced cyber-security. This relates to both the current
infrastructure and operations as well as our up-front planning for new
construction and operations. Early in 2003, we completed an initial
review of our technology needs and applications. In fiscal year 2004,
we will complete the gap analysis of needed security efforts, review
various technologies for near term application, and target areas that
have the potential for significant long-term contributions. Throughout
this effort, we will engage with the ongoing efforts and experiences of
the Department of Energy's other program areas and National
Laboratories as well as other Federal agencies such as Departments of
Defense and Homeland Security, to help assure sharing of best practices
and maximum leveraging of our resources.
relationship to department of homeland security
The standup of the NNSA has been shaped by the Nation's response
over the past eighteen months to the terrorist attacks on September 11,
2001. Because the NNSA is the steward of the facilities and assets for
the Nation's nuclear weapons complex, we placed the highest priority on
addressing urgent, emergent concerns about the safeguards and security
posture of our nationwide complex of facilities and transportation
systems. We also upgraded our emergency response assets, which are
available to be deployed in emergencies around the world. We have
accelerated research and development on chemical and biological agents,
and have shared the expertise resident in our laboratories and other
facilities with other agencies and municipalities as part of the
expanded focus on homeland security across the government. NNSA has
contributed research and development and Federal support programs to
the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and provided expertise
and administrative support for startup of the new department. These
programs, totaling about $88 million, include research and development
to counter the chemical and biological threats; nuclear smuggling
research and development; nuclear assessments program, from MPC&A; and,
Federal program direction funding in support of these programs.
The legislation establishing the new Department specified that the
Nation's radiological response capabilities will remain under the
direction of the Secretary of Energy and NNSA Administrator. Funding
for the radiological assets will remain within NNSA's Nuclear Weapons
Incident Response programs ($90 million in fiscal year 2004). The
assets will continue to respond to radiological accidents at
Departmental facilities and will support Federal law enforcement
activities where nuclear materials may be involved. NNSA's Office of
Emergency Operations will work cooperatively with the DHS, and, when
deployed in formally designated situations, the radiological assets
will take direction from the Secretary of Homeland Security as the Lead
Federal Agency. A Memorandum of Agreement establishing a framework for
DHS to access the capabilities of these assets was finalized between
the two Departments last month.
office of the administrator
Finally, I will summarize the fiscal year 2004 budget request for
the NNSA Federal workforce, both Headquarters and field. The Office of
the Administrator account provides the corporate direction and
oversight of NNSA operations consistent with the principles of
protecting the environment and safeguarding the safety and health of
the public and workforce of the NNSA. This account now represents the
consolidated program direction funds from the former Weapons Activities
and Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation accounts; the Naval Reactors and
Secure Transportation Asset activities retain separately funded program
direction accounts. Our fiscal year 2004 budget request of $348 million
reflects declining staffing levels and includes about $16 million for
re-engineering incentives and relocation costs necessary to bring about
the new NNSA organizational model.
management issues
I would like to conclude by discussing some of the management
challenges and successes NNSA has faced. The most obvious challenge has
been the ongoing problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. There
are three specific areas of concern at Los Alamos: improper use of
government-issued credit cards; potentially fraudulent use of purchase
orders; and, poor accountability of government property. These problems
taken together reveal significant weaknesses in business practices at
the Laboratory.
As soon as we learned about the extent of these problems this past
fall, Secretary Abraham and I insisted that the University of
California, which manages the laboratory for the Department, take
corrective action. Subsequently, the University has replaced the Los
Alamos Director and Deputy Director, and demoted or replaced 15 other
officials. The University also has subordinated business services and
auditing at the laboratory directly to the University, brought in
outside firms to conduct detailed audits, and made numerous changes in
the internal procedures. Generally, we are satisfied with the
corrective action taken to date. The Secretary has directed the Deputy
Secretary and me to conduct a review of the future relationship between
the University of California and the Department. This review will be
complete by the end of April. In addition, we are compiling a
comprehensive set of ``lessons learned'' from the Los Alamos problems
to share with all DOE sites.
On a more optimistic note, good progress has been made in
implementing the intent of the Congress in creating the NNSA. The
National Nuclear Security Administration is in its third year of
operation, focusing the management of the Nation's nuclear security
programs through a single organization. The new organization brought
together the Department of Energy's Defense Programs, Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation, and Naval Reactors organizations in a separately
organized and managed agency within the DOE. The standup of the
organization has been a complex undertaking, and I am pleased to report
that NNSA is now fully operational. As a result of our strategic
planning exercises last year, and the resulting re-engineering of
program responsibilities and organizations, we are getting a better
handle on the many diverse components of the NNSA programs. Through an
emphasis on our new Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Evaluation
(PPBE) process, we are planning programs with a long-term view,
budgeting within a firm five-year resource envelope, and managing
program and budget execution with more discipline, all leading to
better results for the citizens of the United States.
On December 20, 2002, the NNSA began a fundamental restructuring of
its management structure designed to implement the President's
Management Agenda to create a more effective NNSA. The NNSA of the
future will build upon the successes of the past by giving outstanding
people the tools needed for strong and effective management of our
vital national security mission. This reorganization eliminated a layer
of Federal management oversight in the field by disestablishing NNSA's
three Operations Offices at Albuquerque, Nevada, and Oakland; shifting
the locus of Federal management oversight to eight Site Offices, closer
to where the actual work is performed; and, consolidating all business
and administrative support functions into a Service Center to be
located in Albuquerque to increase overall efficiency. These changes
were the culmination of nine months of functional and business process
re-engineering, as first described in the Administrator's February 2002
``Report to Congress on the Organization and Operations of the National
Nuclear Security Administration.'' These management and organizational
reforms are expected to permit NNSA to achieve significant Federal
staff reductions of about 20 percent in the nuclear weapons enterprise
by the end of fiscal year 2004.
As we continue to implement the NNSA Act, we are particularly
mindful of the President's Management Agenda to which we are firmly
committed. We have invested much time and energy over the past year to
carrying out its five major initiatives. Implementation of a PPBE
process as NNSA's core business practice is designed to improve budget
and performance integration throughout the organization. During the
past twelve months, NNSA has been involved in an intensive effort to
design and implement a PPBE framework simultaneously with the standup
of the new NNSA organization. The processes have been designed in-
house, along the lines of the DOD's PPBS system but tailored to our
needs. We are adapting processes to address NNSA's emerging
organization and unique business operations, and working within limited
administrative staffing levels.
Budgeting structures are being updated and aligned with management
structures. We are making excellent progress in finalizing the cascade
of performance metrics linked from the NNSA Strategic Plan to the
individual budget and reporting (accounting) codes and contractor work
authorizations. There is a very significant improvement in the
Performance Measures across all programs for fiscal year 2004.
Evaluation is becoming formalized through linkage with the budget, and
improved by the realignment of roles and responsibilities for program
managers and financial managers across the complex.
We are pleased with the early progress of PPBE in becoming the core
operating philosophy for NNSA. The first year was spent on process
design, integration of the NNSA programs primarily at Headquarters, and
in consultations and coordination of our efforts with the DOE Office of
Management, Budget and Evaluation/Chief Financial Officer and the
Administration. The DOE Inspector General is currently auditing the
first year's implementation, with a report expected in late Spring
2003. Our near term goal is to extend more formalized PPBE roles and
missions from our Headquarters organizations to the new NNSA Federal
field structure and the M&O contractors as the NNSA re-engineering
proceeds during the next 12-18 months. It will take several budget
cycles and lessons learned to complete the culture change, and to
properly staff the organization to fully realize the benefits of PPBE.
The NNSA remains committed to this goal.
The NNSA also participated in the Administration's Performance
Assessment Rating Tool (PART) analyses, evaluating four programs that
encompass about 20 percent of NNSA's annual funding. The PART
assessment noted that the NNSA programs were well managed and that NNSA
management was proactively working to make additional improvements to
program effectiveness and efficiency. Two of the NNSA programs,
Advanced Simulation and Computing and International Nuclear Materials
Protection and Cooperation, were rated in the top 5 percent of programs
government-wide and received the highest PART ratings of ``Effective''
from the Office of Management and Budget. The PART analysis tool
embodies and reinforces the PPBE processes and discipline we are
implementing throughout NNSA. We plan to incorporate the PART
assessment for all of NNSA's programs as part of our annual Evaluation
cycle, starting with the fiscal year 2005 budget this summer.
conclusion
In conclusion, I remain confident that we are headed in the right
direction. Our budget request will support continuing our progress in
protecting and certifying our nuclear deterrent, reducing the global
nuclear danger from proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, and
enhancing the force projection capabilities of the U.S. nuclear Navy.
It will enable us to continue to maintain the safety and security of
our people, information, materials, and infrastructure. Above all, it
will meet the national security needs of the United Stated in the 21st
century.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. Now, I would be
pleased to answer any questions that you and members of the Committee
may have.
Senator Domenici. I think what I am going to do is go to
the Admiral and then have a few questions and observations
before I get to Dr. Beckner.
Ambassador Brooks. Certainly.
Senator Domenici. All right. Admiral, might I say before
you testify, that I am in the process, as part of my own
recapping of my activities as a Senator, the process of putting
a book together on nuclear and where we made mistakes as a
Nation----
Admiral Bowman. Sir.
Senator Domenici [continuing]. In not proceeding with
nuclear power. And I might suggest to you that, right up front,
I use as an example the safety record of yours, and the fact
that you now have well over 100 ships at sea with one or more
nuclear power plants on board. You were denied access to no
seaport other than one in New Zealand, which means that, for
those who wonder about the safety or, conversely, the danger of
nuclear fuel rods, the world has indicated that they permit
them to move everywhere and anywhere in and about the seas,
oceans, and seaports, and close to boats and far away from
them, and nobody seems to be the least bit worried about the
pollution that certainly would be very apt to exchange if there
was something amiss, because nothing will carry it better than
the water.
Admiral Bowman. Sure.
Senator Domenici. And it is a perfect setting for, where
have we gone awry in being so frightened about what to do with
spent fuel rods and what to do about them? So in that regard,
much of what you have said and one of the late speeches that
you made, I think, the year before last, is something we--I
have been looking at very carefully, and we thank you for that.
Admiral Bowman. Thank you, sir. I think smart ball for me
would be to not testify now and just wait for additional
questions.
Senator Domenici. We will make your speech a part of the
record in any event, but, sir, you had better talk.
STATEMENT OF FRANK L. BOWMAN
Admiral Bowman. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
for those kind words and for the opportunity to testify today.
With your permission, I do have a more detailed statement for
the record.
Senator Domenici. Yes, sir.
Admiral Bowman. Let me also thank you, though, for the
years and years of support that your committee and you
personally have continued to provide this program. Without your
support, that record that you just referred to would have been
absolutely impossible. We have worked very hard to earn the
trust and faith that you place in the program, and the citizens
of this country place in this program. We will continue to do
what is needed to make sure our nuclear fleet remains deployed
around the world, fighting terrorism as it is doing right now.
We all recognize the very serious threats our country faces
today; some from hostile nations, some from organizations with
no fixed borders, operating under a veil of secrecy and outside
the international community.
Right now, nuclear-powered warships are on the front line
ready to strike against any threat to the Nation. Nuclear
propulsion is and has been essential in providing the mobility,
the flexibility, and the endurance that today's much-smaller
Navy needs to meet a number of growing global missions. Events
since September 11, 2001, have continually highlighted the
value of Naval presence and, in particular, of nuclear power
for the Navy's major combatants.
On March 19, 2003, when Operation Iraqi Freedom began, 33
nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and attack submarines were at
sea. Three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers were ready to
carry out the initial strike on Iraq. The U.S.S. Theodore
Roosevelt, U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, and U.S.S. Harry Truman, and
U.S.S. Nimitz were on the way. The opening salvo of Operation
Iraqi Freedom included Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from
nuclear attack submarines. We had 10 nuclear attack submarines
in the Red Sea alone.
Some of these submarines had been covertly monitoring
events offshore. By preparing for the attack and providing
intelligence to national decisionmakers, submarines helped
integrate the total battleship picture. This is just another
example of the versatility and flexibility of these nuclear-
powered submarines.
Recent U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, along with
those associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom, re-validated,
again, the value of these forward-deployed nuclear-powered
carriers. These very powerful ships are four and a half acres
of sovereign territory from which we can conduct sustained
combatant operations and, as you said, without having to
negotiate staging rights from, or overflight rights over,
foreign soil. Diplomatic activity over the last year has shown
how unpredictable and troublesome those issues can be. Nuclear
power provides the flexibility for these ships to sprint where
needed and arrive ready for action.
Many of the impressive capabilities these nuclear-powered
ships and submarines possess were developed with the funding
that this committee has supported. The Navy's new Virginia-
class attack submarine will be delivered this coming summer--or
summer of 2004, I should say. And the next generation class of
aircraft carrier, CVN-21, will carry us through the 21st
century and well beyond.
Even though these new designs are important, Naval
Reactors' number one priority is ensuring that the officers and
sailors at sea operating these plants and defending our
Nation's interests, are operating in a safe, effective,
reliable situation. This is where most of Naval Reactors'
funding goes.
At the end of 2002, the average age of our nuclear-powered
ships was 17 years. By 2012, 10 years from then, the average
age will increase to over 24 years. As these ships age, they
place a greater and greater demand on my budgets. And as
critical components and systems fail in service or become
obsolete and require replacement, the problem gets harder as
time goes on.
Since September 11, 2001, the demand for submarines has
increased by 30 percent. We are trying to make do with the
numbers we have, which are 54 attack submarines today, by
running these submarines harder. If we continue to operate at
today's operational tempo, these submarine reactor cores will
not last the 30-plus years that we talked about last year.
In response, and in conjunction with the new core design
required by shifting to a lower uranium enrichment, Naval
Reactors has begun work on an advanced transformational
technology core that the Ambassador referred to, that will
deliver a significant energy increase to future Virginia-class
submarines.
The TTC is a direct outgrowth of the program's advanced
reactor technology work. It will also be a stepping stone for
future reactor development. The TTC will use new core materials
to achieve a significant increase in core energy density; more
energy in the reactor without increasing the reactor size,
weight, or space, and at a very reasonable cost.
The TTC can do one or more of the following: We can extend
the ship life if we ever go back to the pre-9/11 operating
tempos, we can maintain the planned 30-plus-year lives if we
continue on this increased operational tempo, or we can provide
more power for the weapons and weapons systems of the future.
It will not require any changes to the Virginia-class submarine
itself or major designs within the propulsion plant.
We are trying to do our part to help fill this gap of the
need for submarines for the country. But this increased tempo
of operations can only go so far and last so long. We really
need to buy more submarines. And the only way we can get there
is to buy submarines smarter, so we can afford more.
Buying submarines one at a time will not achieve the
numbers we need for the future, nor is it a cost-effective way
to buy anything, including submarines. As included in the
President's budget this year, multi-year procurements coupled
with buying material and economic ordering quantity, and
increasing production to two ships per year will provide
significant savings. I ask for your support of innovative
contracting approaches.
Let me talk just very briefly, sir, about this year's
budget request. Naval Reactors' fiscal year 2004 budget is $768
million, an increase of some $49 million, 7 percent after
inflation, compared to fiscal year 2003. The funding increase
supports this transformational core that I was talking about
plus accelerated remediation work and facility upgrades.
The ongoing support of this committee is one of the most
important factors in Naval Reactors' success story. This
subcommittee has recognized the requirements and demands of our
program, our growing need for power projection and forward
presence far from home which further strains our aging nuclear
fleet, and the funding required to meet these commitments today
and into the future.
The unique capabilities inherent in nuclear power have
played a vital role over the past 50 years in our country's
defense. This legacy is strong. It is as strong and vibrant
today as it ever has been. With your continued support, it will
continue far into the future. Naval Reactors' record is strong
as you mentioned, sir, and the work is important, and the
funding needs, I think, are modest.
PREPARED STATEMENT
Mr. Chairman, also, with your permission, I would like to
submit for the record the program's annual environmental
occupational radiation exposure and occupational safety and
health reports. I thank you for your continued support.
Senator Domenici. It will be made a part of the record.
Thank you.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Frank L. Bowman
Thank you for inviting me to testify on Naval Reactors' fiscal year
2004 Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration
budget request.
Let me also thank you for the support you continue to provide my
Program. I know that with your support, we will continue the success we
have had for more than 50 years. We have worked hard to earn the trust
and faith you place in the Program. We will continue to do what is
necessary to ensure our nuclear fleet remains deployed around the
world, actively involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Global War
on Terrorism (GWOT).
We all recognize the serious threats our country faces today. The
threats come not only from hostile nations, but also from organizations
with no fixed borders, operating under a veil of secrecy and outside
the international community.
Nuclear-powered warships are on the frontline ready to strike
against any threat to our national interests and to respond to any
aggression against the United States. Nuclear propulsion is essential
in providing the flexibility, speed, endurance, and multimission
capability that today's smaller Navy requires to meet a growing number
of global missions.
Last year, I recounted the events of September 11, 2001, and how
rapidly nuclear-powered warships were able to get on-station in the
North Arabian Sea--validating again the value that nuclear power brings
to our Navy. I discussed the significant contributions that nuclear-
powered warships made during Operation Enduring Freedom.
I'm here to tell you this year that as the events of the GWOT and
Operation Iraqi Freedom unfold, the value of naval presence, and in
particular of nuclear power for the Navy's major combatants, has been
continually highlighted.
Over the past year, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and the
Persian Gulf have revalidated and underscored the value of forward-
deployed nuclear-powered warships. Nuclear-powered submarines have been
covertly monitoring al Qaeda, providing intelligence to national
decisionmakers for the GWOT. Keeping track of merchant ships that have
possible connections with al Qaeda--knowing who's aboard, what the
ships are carrying, what the names of the ships are, what color they
are when they go into port, and what different color they might be when
they come out of port--is all of inestimable value to our Nation during
the GWOT.
On March 19, 2003, when Operation Iraqi Freedom began, there were
33 nuclear-powered warships, both aircraft carriers and attack
submarines, at sea. Three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers were ready
to carry out the initial air strikes on Iraq--USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT
(CVN 71), USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72), and USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN
75)--with USS NIMITZ (CVN 68) on the way. The opening salvo of
Operation Iraqi Freedom included Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from
nuclear-powered attack submarines.
Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers continue to provide 4\1/2\ acres
of sovereign U.S. territory from which we can conduct sustained combat
operations quickly without having to negotiate staging rights on--and
potentially overflight rights across--foreign soil. Diplomatic activity
over the last couple of months has shown how unpredictable and
troublesome these issues can be. Nuclear power enhances these warships'
capability and flexibility to sprint where needed and arrive ready for
around-the-clock power projection and combat operations. Sustained
high-speed capability (without dependence on a slow logistics train)
enables a rapid response to changing world circumstances, allowing
operational commanders to surge these ships from the United States to
trouble spots or to shift them from one crisis area to another. Nuclear
propulsion helps the Navy stretch available assets to meet today's
worldwide commitments.
Again and again, the ability to change from mission to mission is
demonstrated by our nuclear-powered warships. The versatility and
flexibility of our nuclear-powered attack submarines and aircraft
carriers are vital to defending our national interests. As we look to
the future, new and extremely valuable missions and capabilities are on
the horizon for nuclear-powered warships. In January 2003, the highly
successful SSGN GIANT SHADOW experiment onboard USS FLORIDA tested
strategic concepts and hardware that could double or triple the value
of submarines while reducing risk to the crews. GIANT SHADOW explored
how a network of forces--a network including submarines carrying
unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs),
and various aerial, underwater, and ground sensors--could be used to
provide surveillance, collect real-time intelligence, develop and
recommend a course of action for the joint commander, and launch a
time-critical strike, including covertly deploying special forces
ashore. This capability will offer powerful options to force commanders
for covert surveillance and weapons delivery.
In our unstable world environment, nuclear-powered warships will
continue to adapt. They will be ready to meet the changing needs of our
national security today, and in the future.
nuclear power--today and in the future
A forward-deployed, highly mobile Navy is imperative for the Navy's
Sea Power 21 in support of our country's global responsibilities and
obligations. Nuclear power delivers that mobility and delivers the
endurance that goes with it, both of which are absolutely necessary in
the world today, and as far out into the future as I can see.
Many of the impressive capabilities these ships possess were
developed with funding that was supported by this subcommittee.
Naval Reactors' number-one priority is ensuring that the officers
and sailors at sea defending our Nation's interests are operating safe,
effective, reliable nuclear propulsion plants. This is where most of
Naval Reactors' funding goes. Today, the Naval Reactors Program
supports 103 reactors (the same number of reactors that operate
commercially in this country) in 54 operational attack submarines, 16
ballistic missile submarines, 2 SSGNs (under conversion), 9 nuclear-
powered aircraft carriers, 4 training and prototype platforms, and a
deep submergence vehicle. In addition, we are in the various stages of
building five more attack submarines and three carriers, and refueling
four LOS ANGELES-class submarines and one NIMITZ-class carrier.
At the end of 2002, the average age of these ships was 17 years. By
2012 the average age will increase to over 24 years (see chart 1). As
these ships age, they place a greater and greater demand on Naval
Reactors' DOE budgets as key components and systems obsolesce and
require replacement.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
Another priority of the Program is designing and developing new
nuclear propulsion plants to meet the Nation's needs. The Navy's new
VIRGINIA-class attack submarine will be delivered in summer 2004; and
the next-generation class of aircraft carriers, CVN-21, will carry us
through the 21st Century and well beyond. Naval Reactors has begun work
on an advanced Transformational Technology Core (TTC) that will deliver
a significant energy increase to future VIRGINIA-class submarines.
Since September 11, 2001, the Combatant Commanders' demand for
submarines has increased 30 percent, which validates the need for 68-70
attack submarines. We are attempting to make do with the numbers we
have (54 attack submarines today) by running these submarines harder.
We have increased our transit speed (speed of advance), increased our
operating tempo (time underway during deployment), and reduced our
turnaround ratio (which means the non-deployed time divided by the time
deployed). Before September 11, 2001, our basis for planning had been
to move these submarines from point A to point B at 16 knots. Today,
many submarines travel from point A to point B to point C at 20 knots.
The Navy's planning goals state that we should be operating while
deployed for 65 percent of the underway time (35 percent in port,
showing the flag and giving the crew some much needed rest or doing
some needed maintenance). Instead, most deployed attack submarines are
now at about 80 percent operational tempo. So we are trying to make
ends meet, but what's going to give at the end of the day is reactor
core endurance, because we are burning uranium out of these cores at a
much faster rate. If we continue to operate at today's level, these
submarine reactor cores will not last the 30-plus years we had planned.
ttc--right core at the right time
To help meet these ever-increasing national security demands with a
too-small submarine fleet, Naval Reactors has begun conceptual studies
on the Transformational Technology Core. The TTC is a direct outgrowth
of the Program's advanced reactor technology work. It is a stepping
stone for future reactor development; this development should support
procurement of the first core in about fiscal year 2008 for insertion
into a 2010 Virginia Class.
The TTC will use new core materials to achieve a significant
increase in core energy density (that is, more energy in the reactor
without increasing reactor size, weight, or space) and at a reasonable
cost. The timing of TTC development also corresponds to the need to
transition from 97 to 93 percent enriched uranium fuel--necessitated by
the decision to use uranium from retired nuclear weapons as starter
material for naval nuclear reactors in order to allow shutting down
U.S. highly enriched uranium enrichment facilities.
The TTC can do one or a combination of the following:
--Extend ship life if we return to past usage rate.
--Increase operating hours per operational year.
--Increase average power during ship operations, which could enable
the offboard sensors and UUV/UAV concepts or the higher speed
of advance discussed earlier
TTC will also save taxpayers' dollars. Once we achieve the
submarine force level needed to meet national security requirements,
increasing ship life will reduce the number of ships we need to buy to
sustain the force level.
The TTC is intended for forward fitting in VIRGINIA-class
submarines, which will be the mainstay of the submarine fleet in future
decades. We believe the first TTC will be available for installation in
a 2010 VIRGINIA-class ship; at that time 14 of the expected 30 ships
will be at sea or under construction. Because the TTC will not require
a VIRGINIA-class ship redesign, the end result is significantly greater
operational ability and flexibility. The TTC is truly the right core at
the right time.
Although the TTC will help submarines better meet increasing
operational demands, the only long-term solution to meeting force level
requirements is to build more submarines. It is imperative that we
increase the VIRGINIA-class submarine build rate to meet the Nation's
long-term force level requirement for attack submarines. To that end,
the President's budget supports one VIRGINIA-class ship per year until
2006 and then 2 per year in 2007 and 2008.
The practice of buying submarines one at a time will not achieve
the submarine numbers we need for the future, nor is it a cost-
effective way to buy anything, including submarines. This year's
shipbuilding plan helps the Navy get to where it needs to be by
procuring two per year starting in fiscal year 2007. In addition, the
increased production coupled with a multi-year procurement strategy
that includes material buys in economic ordering quantities will
provide significant savings (see chart 2).
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
fiscal year 2004 department of energy budget request
Naval Reactors' fiscal year 2004 DOE budget request is $768.4
million, an increase of $49 million (after inflation) from fiscal year
2003 to fiscal year 2004. The funding increase supports
Transformational Technology Core (TTC) development, remediation work,
and facility upgrades.
--TTC ($33 million increase).--As discussed earlier, Naval Reactors
has begun conceptual studies on the TTC to meet ever-increasing
national security demands caused by a smaller Fleet size and
higher operating tempo. Based on design core life, continuing
the current ship operating tempo could reduce the expected
submarine core life to less than 30 years. The TTC could extend
ship life beyond 33 years by at least 30 percent if we return
to the baseline operating tempo, or increase annual operating
hours or average power output without increasing the current
size, weight, or space of the current reactor. The TTC will be
provided at a reasonable cost while enabling the Fleet to meet
the increasing demand on the operating nuclear-powered ships.
--Remediation ($10 million increase).--Naval Reactors will continue
remediation efforts at Program sites in New York, Pennsylvania,
and Idaho. It is important that we continue our ``clean as we
go'' policy, to minimize any potential impact on the
environment or site workers. Over the past few years, older
facilities have been inactivated at a faster pace than our
cleanup rate has been able to match, and additional facilities
will be inactivated over the next several years. Accelerating
cleanup is necessary to minimize the potential for future
chemical or radiological releases to the environment, to
minimize the costs of maintaining idle facilities, and to free
up central areas at the various sites for future Program use.
--Facilities ($6 million increase).--Naval Reactors has consistently
funded facility and infrastructure maintenance within Program
targets. However, additional funding is necessary to accomplish
major maintenance and replacement of some of the Program's
more-than 50-year-old infrastructure, located in New York,
Pennsylvania, and Idaho. Significant infrastructure work is
required to ensure protection, preservation, and continued
reliable operation of Program facilities. Naval Reactors has
worked within targets to maintain facilities, but the cost of
necessary work now exceeds current funding.
Naval Reactors supports the 82 nuclear-powered warships that make
up over 40 percent of the Navy's major combatants. This responsibility
includes ensuring safe and reliable operation of reactor plants in
these ships, enhancing the reactor plants' performance, and developing
improved reactor plants to support the Navy's needs for the future.
Sustaining today's 103 operating reactors (the country also has 103
commercial reactors) requires continual analysis, testing, and
monitoring of plant and core performance. Nuclear propulsion is a
demanding technology--the harsh environment within a reactor plant
subjects equipment and materials to the harmful effects of irradiation,
corrosion, high temperature, and high pressure over a lifetime measured
in decades. In addition, naval reactor plants must have the resilience
to respond to rapidly changing demands for power; be robust enough to
withstand the rigors of battle and shock and to accommodate ships'
pitching and rolling; and be safe and easily maintainable by the
Sailors who must live next to them.
Naval Reactors' DOE laboratories have made significant advancements
in components, materials, core lives, and predictive capabilities.
These advancements allowed the Navy to extend the service life and
intervals between major maintenance periods for nuclear-powered
warships and to reduce ship offline time for maintenance. Increasing
ship availability also increases the Navy's warfighting capability and
supports the Navy's unplanned surge requirements that we've seen
recently, while reducing maintenance costs. Added ship availability is
particularly important in the face of Fleet downsizing because the
operational demands on each remaining ship continue to increase. In the
same vein, some development effort is devoted to ensuring that Naval
Reactors can meet the Navy's need to extend warship lifetime. Longer
ship lifetimes are achievable because we are able to extend reactor
plant lifetime. But longer lifetimes require more resources to support
an older fleet.
We have been able to extend the lifetime of some existing reactor
plants because of the robust designs that resulted from solid
engineering done over the past 50 years. After significant additional
engineering, we determined that those reactor plants will be able to
stay in service longer than we had originally intended. The engineering
work to support those ships in their extended lives will continue
during that extension. For new reactor core and reactor plant designs,
we are using the experience of the past 50+ years to incorporate
improvements into both design and construction. It is imperative that
we continue to deliver robust designs. It is equally important that we
do the necessary engineering work now to ensure that those reactor
plants are able to meet the needs of national defense now, and for the
next several decades.
New plant development work at the Program's DOE laboratories is
focused on completing the design of the next-generation submarine
reactor for the Navy's new VIRGINIA-class attack submarines, continuing
the design for CVN-21, and working on the Transformational Technology
Core. In order to accommodate this work, we have had to throttle back
on some promising advanced concepts technologies that include high-
temperature fuel and direct energy conversion.
The design of the reactor plant for the VIRGINIA-class submarine is
nearly complete. Shipboard acceptance testing continues. VIRGINIA will
go to sea early next year and will provide needed capability for the
Navy at an affordable price.
The CVN-21 nuclear propulsion plant design is well underway. CVN-21
is the first new carrier designed since the 1960's NIMITZ class. The
CVN-21 reactor plant will build on three generations of nuclear
propulsion technology developed for submarines since NIMITZ. The new
high-energy reactor design for CVN-21 represents a quantum leap in
capability. Not only will CVN-21 enable the Navy to meet operational
requirements of the future, but just as importantly, it will provide
flexibility to deal with changing warfighting needs in the future.
Reactor plant design work is on schedule to support the long design and
manufacturing lead-times of reactor plant components needed for the
CVN-21 construction schedule.
Major inactivation work on seven shutdown prototype reactors is
finished. The four prototype reactors at the Naval Reactors Facility in
Idaho are defueled and in an environmentally benign, safe layup
condition; site and reactor plant related remediation work, including
State-mandated inactivation efforts, is planned for fiscal year 2003
and future years. Dismantlement and cleanup work at the Windsor site in
Connecticut is complete, and approval from the EPA and the State to
release the site for unrestricted future use and property transfer is
expected in fiscal year 2004. The two shutdown prototype reactors at
the Kesselring site in New York have been inactivated and defueled, and
major dismantlement work was completed in fiscal year 2002. Other
inactivation work is continuing.
The MARF and S8G prototypes in New York continue to operate to
train students and provide a test platform for new nuclear propulsion
plant equipment. There are no near-term plans to inactivate these
plants.
naval reactors fiscal year 2004 department of energy budget detail
Since the early 1990s Naval Reactors' DOE budgets have decreased
more than 30 percent. The Program's DOE budget has been flat (in real
terms) from 2000 to 2003. To live within our means over the past
several years, Naval Reactors has eliminated infrastructure,
consolidated functions and facilities, revised work practices to become
more efficient, and downsized the nuclear industrial base. Bettis
Atomic Power Laboratory and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, the
Program's two laboratories, respectively have the first and the third
lowest overhead costs as a percentage of total budget out of 30 DOE
sites featured in the ``fiscal year 2001 Functional Support Cost Report
of 30 Major DOE Contract Sites.''
Naval Reactors' technical budget request is categorized into four
areas of technology: Reactor Technology and Analysis, Plant Technology,
Materials Development and Verification, and Evaluation and Servicing.
This approach supports the integrated and generic nature of our DOE
research and development work. The results of Naval Reactors DOE-funded
research, development, and design work in the following technology
areas will be incorporated into future ships, and retrofitted into
existing ships.
--The $236.5 million requested for Reactor Technology and Analysis
will continue design work on both the next-generation reactor
for the VIRGINIA-class submarine and the new reactor for CVN-
21, and will ensure the safe and reliable operation of existing
reactors. The reduction in operating plant maintenance periods
places greater requirements on thermal-hydraulics, structural
mechanics, fluid mechanics, and vibration analysis work to
predict reactor performance more accurately and to identify and
avoid problems. The continued push for longer life cores means
that our reactors will have to operate beyond our operational
experience base for many years to come. Fortunately, improved
analysis tools and understanding of basic nuclear data will
allow us to predict performance more accurately and thus better
ensure safety throughout the extended core life. Other efforts
in this area include revising core manufacturing processes to
reduce cost and hazardous waste, performing reactor safety
analyses, designing advanced control drive mechanisms,
developing components and systems to support the Navy's
acoustic requirements, and developing improved shield designs
to reduce both weight and costs. These efforts support the
introduction of the Transformational Technology Core, a new
high-energy core to support increased Fleet operational
requirements. TTC is a direct outgrowth of the Program's
advanced reactor technology work and will not only help meet
national security demands, but also serve as a stepping stone
for future reactor plant development.
--The $131.4 million requested for Plant Technology provides funding
to develop, test, and analyze components and systems that
transfer, convert, control, and measure reactor power in a
ship's power plant. Reactor plant performance, reliability, and
safety are maintained by a full understanding of component
performance and system condition throughout the life of a ship.
The request reflects the goal of enhancing steam generator
performance, which will benefit both CVN-21 and VIRGINIA-class
steam generators. Development work for improving VIRGINIA steam
generator performance is needed to meet energy and power
requirements for the TTC. Naval Reactors is developing
components to address known limitations or to improve
reliability of instrumentation and power distribution equipment
to replace aging, technologically obsolete equipment that is
increasingly difficult to support. Additional technology
development in the areas of chemistry, energy conversion,
instrumentation and control, plant arrangement, and plant
components will continue to improve reactor performance and
support Fleet operational requirements.
--The $137.7 million requested for Materials Development and
Verification funds material analyses and testing necessitated
by our having extended the life of our ships beyond the
original projection. It also funds a portion of Naval Reactors'
work at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), a specialized
materials testing facility operated by the DOE Office of
Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology. Materials in the
reactor core and reactor plant must perform safely and reliably
for the extended life of the ship. Testing and analyses are
performed on the fuel, poison, and cladding materials to verify
acceptable performance, as well as to develop materials with
increased corrosion resistance. Testing and development of
reactor plant materials also ensures reliable performance and
leads to improvements such as reduced stress in materials and
reduced potential for cracking.
--The $161.3 million request for Evaluation and Servicing sustains
the operation, maintenance, and servicing of land-based test
reactor plants and part of Naval Reactors' share of the
Advanced Test Reactor. Reactor core and reactor plant
materials, components, and systems in these plants provide
important research and development data and experience under
actual operating conditions. These data aid in predicting and
therefore preventing problems that could develop in Fleet
reactors. With proper maintenance, upgrades, and servicing, the
two operating test reactor plants and the ATR will continue to
meet testing needs for quite some time.
Evaluation and Servicing funds also support the initiation of
a dry spent fuel storage process line that will allow us to put
naval spent fuel currently stored in water pits at the Idaho
Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center and the Expended Core
Facility at the Naval Reactors Facility (NRF) into dry storage
at NRF. This process has now begun and will require small
increases to the Naval Reactors budget request in future years.
Additionally, these funds support ongoing cleanup of facilities
at all Naval Reactors sites to minimize hazards to personnel
and reduce potential liabilities due to aging facilities,
changing conditions, or accidental releases.
program infrastructure and administrative requirements
In addition to the budget request for the important technical work
discussed above, infrastructure and administrative funding is also
required for continued operation of the Program. Specifically, the
fiscal year 2004 budget request includes:
--Facility Operations.--$57.7 million in funding is to maintain and
modernize the Program's facilities, including the Bettis and
Knolls laboratories and the Expended Core Facility (ECF),
through Capital Equipment purchases and General Plant Project
upgrades. Because the cost of necessary work currently exceeds
funding, Naval Reactors has requested an additional $6.0
million in the fiscal year 2004 budget to help accomplish major
maintenance and replacement of some of the Program's more-than
50-year-old infrastructure to ensure protection, preservation,
and continued reliable operation of Program facilities.
--Construction.--$18.6 million in funding is to refurbish and replace
Program facilities. This includes the continuation of the ECF
Dry Cell project in Idaho, a project that will significantly
improve Naval Reactors' ability to process naval spent fuel for
dry storage. (Under a Settlement Agreement signed by the
Department of Energy, the Navy, and the State of Idaho, Naval
Reactors spent fuel must be among the early shipments to the
first permanent repository or interim storage facility.) The
requested funding also enables the continuation of the
Cleanroom Technology Facility.
--Program Direction.--$25.2 million in funding is to cover Naval
Reactors' 186 DOE personnel at Headquarters and the Program's
field offices, including salaries, benefits, travel, and other
expenses. This staff maintains oversight of the Program's
extensive day-to-day technical and administrative operations,
while continuing to ensure compliance with growing
environmental, safety, and other regulatory requirements--all
of which, notwithstanding our excellent record, necessitate
substantial effort.
president's management agenda
The President's Management Agenda promotes efficiency and
improvement. All Federal agencies are adopting and implementing the
initiatives where feasible. Naval Reactors has a proven track record of
results, especially within the following two areas of the President's
Management Agenda:
Budget and Performance Integration
Naval Reactors planning leads to well-documented, quantifiable,
proven accomplishments. The Program consistently meets midterm and end-
of-year goals. Milestones and research outputs are clearly linked to
the long-term Program goals of supporting operating naval nuclear
propulsion plants, providing new propulsion plants to meet national
security requirements, and maintaining outstanding environmental
performance.
Naval Reactors' comprehensive multi-year planning process requires
all Program activities to identify performance indicators clearly. This
process ensures that the Program continually meets or exceeds its
performance goals.
Better R&D Investment Criteria
Naval Reactors work builds on existing generic technology and as
such is evolutionary in nature. For general development efforts, the
Program's multi-year planning process helps measure progress and
ensures that goals are achieved. During reviews, competing lines of
research are evaluated to ensure that the highest priority work is
accomplished within existing resources. Each individual development
effort has clear starting and ending points, with established
milestones and off ramps. All plant types benefit from development work
targeted at specific platforms--including work on new, advanced plant
types, which could benefit existing submarines and aircraft carriers.
performance measurements, goals, and accomplishments
Naval Reactors has a long history of operating with the highest
levels of integrity and operational accountability. Our husbanding of
taxpayer dollars provided by this subcommittee is well recognized. Last
year in forwarding the President's fiscal year 2003 budget request to
you, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rated Naval Reactors as
``Effective''--the highest rating on OMB's scale--and noted: ``Outputs
are identifiable and make key contributions to national security.
Delivery schedules are consistently met. Contracts have positive and
negative incentives, and include performance requirements.''
Furthermore, in a report dated December 12, 2001, the General
Accounting Office recognized Naval Reactors' strong performance within
DOE and NNSA. The report stated: ``The Office of Naval Reactors, which
is a part of NNSA, has long been recognized as having a focused
mission, strong leadership, clear lines of authority, long-serving
employees, and a strong set of internal controls, as well as a culture
that enhances accountability and good control over its costs and
contractor performance.'' The Naval Reactors Program has always been
dedicated to continual improvement. We use semiannual reviews of short-
and long-range plans to rebaseline work and revisit Program priorities.
Monthly financial reports from contractors are used to compare actual
performance against Projected performance. Additionally, Naval Reactors
Headquarters maintains close oversight of its Management and Operating
contractors through periodic reviews, formal audits, and performance
appraisals.
For the fiscal year 2002 end-of-year performance results, my
Program met or exceeded all major performance targets. We ensured the
safety, performance, reliability, and service life of operating
reactors for uninterrupted support of the Fleet. We exceeded 90 percent
utilization availability for test reactor plants. By the end of fiscal
year 2002, U.S. nuclear-powered warships had safely steamed over 124
million miles. Naval Reactors developed new technologies, methods, and
materials to support reactor plant design, which included surpassing
the fiscal year 2002 goal of 96 percent design completion of the next-
generation submarine reactor. We initiated detailed design on the
reactor plant for the next-generation aircraft carrier, which is on
schedule to meet the planned ship construction start. Additionally,
Naval Reactors maintained its outstanding environmental performance--no
personnel exceeded Federal limits (5 rem per year) for radiation
exposure, and program operations had no adverse impact on human health
or the quality of the environment.
Naval Reactors expects to meet or exceed all fiscal year 2003
performance targets, which are to achieve 90 percent utilization
availability for operation of test reactor plants; to exceed 126
million miles safely steamed; to complete 99 percent of the next-
generation submarine reactor; to complete 55 percent of the CVN-21
reactor design; to continue ensuring that no personnel exceed 5 rem per
year of radiation exposure; and to have no adverse impact on human
health or the quality of the environment.
conclusion
The ongoing support of the Senate Appropriations Committee
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development is one of the most
important factors in our success story. The subcommittee has recognized
the requirements and demands the Program confronts daily: a growing
need for power projection and forward presence far from home, which
strains our dwindling number of nuclear ships; an aging nuclear fleet;
and the funding required to meet these commitments today and in the
future.
The unique capabilities inherent in nuclear power have played a
vital role over the past 50 years in our Nation's defense. This legacy
is as strong and vibrant today as it ever has been. With your support,
this legacy will continue far into the future as the Nation meets each
new threat with strength and resolve. Naval Reactors' record is strong,
the work important, the funding needs modest.
I thank you for your support.
Senator Domenici. Perhaps we will just proceed rather
quickly with the next witnesses. I do not think it will take
too long.
Okay, Dr. Beckner.
STATEMENT OF EVERET H. BECKNER
Dr. Beckner. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, it
is a pleasure to be here this afternoon to review several
significant programmatic accomplishments.
As Ambassador Brooks has highlighted, the stockpile
stewardship program has allowed us again this year to certify
to the President that the nuclear weapons stockpile is safe,
secure, and reliable. And at this time, there is no need to
resume underground testing.
Using the cutting-edge scientific and engineering tools of
stewardship, we have a more complete understanding of the
condition of the stockpile with each passing year. We annually
withdraw approximately 100 weapons from the active stockpile
and perform a comprehensive diagnostic exam of the weapons at
the Pantex plant. This examination studies the hundreds of
parts that make up the weapon. While most of these weapons are
reassembled and returned to the services, several are subject
to destructive evaluation, providing us additional insights
into the health of the stockpile.
To ensure that the existing stockpile continues to meet its
military requirements, the NNSA also has a comprehensive
refurbishment program known as stockpile life extension where
we are presently working on four warhead types in the enduring
stockpile, the W-76, W-87, B-61, and the W-80. This program
designs, builds, tests, and installs new subsystems and
components, thereby extending the operational service life for
those warheads. For example, we have already refurbished the
parts from nearly three-quarters of all W-87 warheads for the
Air Force. NNSA is also restoring the full suite of
manufacturing capabilities needed to respond to any stockpile
contingency.
As you can see, while we are maintaining and refurbishing
the stockpile, with each passing year it is getting to be a bit
harder to do so. In fact, it now appears that by the year 2020
or so, we will have refurbished every weapon in the stockpile.
Returning to the present, as members of this committee are
aware, we are installing an interim pit production capability
at Los Alamos. Within the next few weeks we expect Los Alamos
to deliver a W-88 pit, as Ambassador Brooks stated. It will
meet all quality manufacturing requirements for use in the
stockpile. It will be the first certifiable pit made by the
United States since the shutdown of Rocky Flats in 1989.
To obtain a better permanent manufacturing capability NNSA
has begun work on design and siting for a modern pit facility
that will be capable of manufacturing all pit types for the
current stockpile and any new requirements that we can
reasonably foresee should they arise.
To complete the material supply story, NNSA has recently
restarted wet chemistry operations at the Y-12 plant in Oak
Ridge, Tennessee, to produce highly-enriched uranium metal. And
further, we will begin producing new tritium for the stockpile
by irradiation of tritium-producing rods at a TVA reactor this
fall. To complete the story on tritium, in concert with the
Defense Department, we have adjusted the tritium production
plans to reflect changes resulting from the MPR and the Moscow
Treaty.
Critical to many aspects of stewardship is the role of
secure transportation. Again, this year, this organization of
Federal agents has safely and securely moved nuclear weapons,
nuclear components, and special nuclear materials over a
hundred million miles without serious accidents or compromise
of cargo. Our agents, many of them veterans of the armed
services, are highly skilled and authorized to use deadly force
in the performance of their duties.
But stewardship is more than maintenance and refurbishment;
it is also about the future. With the support of the Congress,
we are investing in leading edge scientific and engineering
tools required to support the stockpile now and into the
future.
Three areas deserve special mention. First, the Advanced
Scientific Computing Initiative, ASCI. Over the last several
years we have deployed several world class super computers:
White at Lawrence Livermore, Q at Los Alamos, and Red Storm at
Sandia. These machines are working full-time to address SFIs
and to support the important life extension work I mentioned
earlier.
Late next year we will begin to take delivery of two even
more capable machines including the largest and most capable
machine in the world, a 100 TeraOPS machine at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory. This suite of capabilities is
allowing us to solve critical weapons assessment problems that
only a few years ago were impossible.
Two, the Dual Access Radiographic Hydro Test Facility at
Los Alamos, called DARHT, is providing CAT-scan-like images of
weapons implosion processes. This facility is proving to be
even better than we anticipated in providing critical
hydrodynamic data to validate the ASCI codes. Increasingly,
this facility will become our workhorse for the study of ultra-
high density hydrodynamics, providing data previously available
only from full-scale testing.
And three, I am also pleased to report that the National
Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
continues to make excellent progress in meeting and even
exceeding its technical milestones. On March 6, laboratory
scientists delivered four beautiful beams of ultraviolet laser
light into the target chamber well ahead of schedule. Stockpile
stewardship experiments in the NIF will begin in fiscal year
2004.
Now, let me say a few words about the changes we are
planning in the fiscal year 2004 budget submission in response
to the Nuclear Posture Review and the threats this country
faces today. To ensure that future American presidents have
deterrent options to deal with these threats, we are proposing
a modest increase in the advanced concepts program in 2004.
The most significant elements of that program will be the
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, RNEP, which was mentioned
previously. As you know, this program will be conducted jointly
with the Air Force to examine whether or not one of two
existing warheads in the stockpile, the B-61 or the B-83, can
be sufficiently hardened, packaged, and delivered to allow the
weapon to survive penetration into various geologies and
attack-hardened, buried targets with high reliability. The
remaining $6 million of advanced concepts funds will be divided
between the weapons labs for studies of other new concepts.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I would be pleased
to answer your questions.
Senator Domenici. Thank you very much.
Mr. Baker, it is good to have you back.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH E. BAKER
Mr. Baker. Thank you, it is always a pleasure to brief you,
sir, on our program----
Senator Domenici. Thank you.
Mr. Baker [continuing]. And the opportunity to give you,
sir, our 2004 budget request.
NNSA's nonproliferation activities are central to the Bush
administration's national strategy to combat weapons of mass
destruction. NNSA continues to be committed to the
nonproliferation mission as reflected in the breadth of our
programs to address nonproliferation concerns in Russia, other
former Soviet states and, increasingly, throughout the world.
The nonproliferation challenge is multidimensional, and our
budget request addresses the challenges on many fronts and in
many places. While much of our work is with Russia, we are
taking global commitments to address global threats.
September 11, 2001, and the aftermath have made it clear
that the threat comes not only from so-called rogue states, but
some national terrorist organizations that may take any
imaginable step to pursue their ruthless ends. The threat can
come from any region and can take many forms. So we need to
address it broadly.
Our 2004 request, as Ambassador Brooks has stated, is 31
percent above last year's appropriation. Most of the money is
in three areas. First, the United States and Russia are nearing
agreement on purchasing Russian highly-enriched uranium for
research, U.S. research reactors, and down-blending uranium
from Russian weapons for its strategic uranium reserve. We have
requested $30 million for this initiative. This is in addition
to the approximately 170 metric tons of weapons usable material
already blended down and sent to USEC.
The largest fiscal year 2004 budget request is about $276
million that supports our plutonium disposition program. The
United States and Russia will each dispose of 34 metric tons of
weapons-grade plutonium by irradiating it in mixed oxide, MOX,
fuel in existing nuclear reactors. Russia has told us that they
will use the U.S. design for the MOX fuel fabrication facility,
thus ensuring the programs remain roughly on the same schedule.
Construction of both U.S. and Russian MOX fuel facilities is
scheduled to begin in fiscal year 2004.
We have also requested a small increase in another program
to fund the IAEA additional protocol, and to help the IAEA
verify the extent and dismantlement of foreign clandestine
nuclear programs.
With this background, sir, I would like to touch on a broad
range of programs that we will pursue to support the
President's nonproliferation agenda with your help. We are
working with the global partners to reduce the proliferation
threats. For example, the global partnership against the spread
of weapons of mass destruction, formed at Kananaskis summit in
June 2002, has recommitted the G-8 nations to increase greatly
the assistance to the nonproliferation, disarmament,
counterterrorism and nuclear safety area. The partnership has
pledged to provide $20 billion over the next 10 years for the
nonproliferation and threat reduction in Russia and elsewhere.
The United States will provide half of that money.
We are working with the international community to better
secure high-risk radioactive sources that can be used for dirty
bombs. Six weeks ago, Secretary Abraham presided over an
international conference on this issue which was attended by
750 participants and 124 countries, far beyond our
expectations. And I think there could be no better symbol on
how seriously this world takes the dirty bomb. There is much to
be done and the fiscal year 2004 request is $36 million for
this purpose.
We are continuing to provide physical security of nuclear
material through the IAEA, through bilateral arrangements, such
as materials protection control and an accounting program in
Russia. In fiscal year 2004 this will include security upgrades
to approximately 24 additional metric tons of Russian nuclear
material and 1,200 Russian navy nuclear warheads, in general.
We expect to be complete with security improvements to the
under-secured weapons usable material in 2008, about 2 years
ahead of schedule.
While we have included a request for $24 million to address
the under-secured nuclear warheads at the strategic rocket
forces, NNSA has sought not to increase an overall budget for
Russian MPCEA. The pace of the program is now primarily
governed by Russia's ability to absorb assistance and by access
arrangement, now that we have our funding.
We are consolidating nuclear materials into Russia by
reducing the number of locations where the material was stored
and thereby reducing its vulnerability to theft and sabotage.
By the end of 2003, we will have removed all weapons usable
materials from 23 buildings, reducing the total number of
buildings where there is such material from 75 to 52. Over time
this number will decrease more.
The NNSA will help to end the production of Russian nuclear
material that could be used for nuclear weapons. Just a few
weeks ago, Secretary Abraham and Minister Rumyantsev signed a
key agreement that paved the way for the NNSA to work with
Russia to shut down the three plutonium reactors that are still
producing weapons-usable plutonium. These reactors, located at
Seversk and Zheleznogorsk will be replaced with fossil fuel
energy plants to meet energy needs of the local Russian
communities.
Additionally, our export control and second line of defense
programs are minimizing the risk of illicit movement of
radiological materials and WMD-related dual use commodities
across international borders. Under a new initiative called
Megaports, we will improve our ability to detect and stop
illicit traffic--transfer of such materials in major transfer
hubs around the world.
Additionally, Mr. Chairman, a program that you started many
years ago continues to be more and more effective every day.
And that is our program to prevent the adverse migration of WMD
scientific expertise from Russia. This program funnels former
weapons scientists, their expertise into some commercially
viable area and peaceful business ventures, and shrinks the
complex from moving fences, from closing buildings, and for
other alternate forms of employment.
We have been continually improving our ability to detect
proliferation of timely potential targets through our robust
R&D detection program. Research and development of
proliferation detection provides the United States timely
detection of potential threats. Our R&D efforts are key to
identifying threats at critical thoroughfares, detecting
clandestine perverse proliferation activities and verifying
treaty adherence.
In summary, we in the NNSA are addressing the threat of
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in all dimensions.
I am proud of the work we do and more proud of the men and
women that spend weeks and months away from their family and
the comforts of their home and work this tireless mission as
fast as they can.
Mr. Chairman and Senator Reid, also, I want to thank you
for the years of support for these programs. With your help and
your continued help, we are making this country a safer place.
Thank you, sir.
Senator Domenici. Thank you very much. I am going to submit
a number of questions for you all to answer in perhaps 2 weeks,
an adequate time.
I just want to say how thrilled I am to listen to the
testimony, to hear about the progress being made in some areas
that just a few years ago I never thought we would ever be
involved in. And to hear the progress in MOX and that the
Russians are now going along with it, we are both going to be
doing the same thing with reference to that program, is just
incredible. I never thought we would be there. There is a
substantial amount in the budget to proceed with dispatch in
that regard.
And, Mr. Ambassador, I note that much discussion today
about NNSA and I just want to continue to urge that you move
ahead wherever you can to make the transition total. And you
are--you are moving as fast as you can toward making the NNSA
the semi-autonomous agency contemplated by the statute, and
Senator Reid complimented you today and complimented it today.
I am pleased to hear that. And you know of my insistence that
once we have that statute drawn, that you proceed to live with
it and move in that direction as rapidly as you can. I note the
testimony here today by NNSA on many fronts is very good, and I
am very proud of it.
A couple of observations. I wanted to say, Admiral, believe
it or not, in another committee here in the Senate, the
Authorizing Committee for Energy and Natural Resources, just
today we approved as part of a new energy--comprehensive energy
bill, the creation of a testbed for the United States to begin
the development of a brand new nuclear reactor for civilian
use, a model, with many new characteristics which will make
even the latest of our light water reactors appear to be an
ancient, ancient mariner. And that will have a 10-year program
development which, hopefully, agencies as far as yours will
participate in helping them move ahead rapidly. It is not
intended to be a production reactor. It is intended to be a
model of the kind that could be used by America or the world as
the next generation of energy producers that would have many
things that the current reactors do not have; passivity in
terms of the physics of the instrument; many things that worry
people, it is as safe as could be even today, even to make them
better. That is going to be approved from what I can tell by
the Congress as a new activity.
That is pretty visionary and it is long overdue, but in the
environment that you and I lived in the last 15 years, it is
something we probably would never have expected to happen.
Admiral Bowman. Yes, sir.
Senator Domenici. In terms of the war we are in right now
and the aftermath of it, I can just surmise, not knowing
anything specifically, but I would think our President would be
very excited about moving ahead rapidly in some of the areas
that you were describing to us here today. It is obvious to me
that he is going to be interested in taking an international
lead in getting weapons of mass destruction more under control
in the world. And I am sure that as he asks about that, he will
find that within the Department of Energy many of the things
that he is going to want to be doing, the groundwork is there
for him to take the leadership in the world. I am very, very
pleased about that.
Dr. Beckner, I appreciate your testimony about NIF. I only
hope you are right. It has been so wrong early on that I am
almost tempted to call a separate hearing on NIF just to make
sure that I get it straight and that they get it straight. But
I did note your testimony and I will reread it.
In summary, it is on schedule and as an expert and
supervisor you were saying it is probably going to do what it
was intended to do, is that correct?
Dr. Beckner. That is correct.
Senator Domenici. It is not just going to have these rays;
they are going to do what they are supposed to do?
Dr. Beckner. Yes, sir.
Senator Domenici. They are going to be hot enough when we
are finished to do it?
Dr. Beckner. There is every reason to believe so at this
time.
Senator Domenici. As an aside, I was just going to ask:
What do either of you think about the Z machine at Sandia? I
assume we have another reading out of it. I imagine it is
another rather incredible instrumentality out there.
Dr. Beckner. It continues to perform very well.
Senator Domenici. And what will it be used for?
Dr. Beckner. Well, among other things, we are looking at
whether we may be able to do some plutonium hydrodynamics
experiments with it now. It remains to be seen if that will be
possible, but that is one of the new possibilities. So we are
encouraged by that.
Senator Domenici. It certainly is an example of an
achievement of high significance, so I assume it will be used
for something great.
Dr. Beckner. Certainly.
Senator Domenici. Is that a fair assessment?
Dr. Beckner. Of course. Yes, sir.
Senator Domenici. Just because NIF is coming along does not
mean we should throw it away. The reverse might have been true
had we known about it.
I cannot think of anything else, other than that I will
submit questions. Did you want to make any other observations,
Mr. Ambassador, having heard the testimony or heard my ad-
libbing up here, blithering so to speak?
Ambassador Brooks. No, sir. Except to say, again, how much
all of my colleagues and I appreciate both the committee's
support and your strong personal support for these programs
over the years.
Senator Domenici. I think we are making some headway with
the OMB. It is a good-looking budget for a change. We do need a
little bit more money in some areas.
We are--incidentally, Mr. Baker, on the issue of the
Megaports and the machines, we had asked for an extra $150
million for that program, knowing that we are ready to go and
that there is some in the budget but not enough. It is still
there waiting to be decided as one of the issues. If that
happens, then we will not have to squeeze the budget so much.
We will have received that money in a supplemental for some of
the activity you are referring to.
Mr. Baker. Thank you very much, sir.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator Domenici. We are asking for more than is in the
budget in our supplemental request.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Pete V. Domenici
safeguards and security funding
Question. The NNSA has a unique and challenging security
environment because of the special nature of our mission and the many
tons of material and weapons under our control. Security costs
throughout the Department have been increasing for years, and
particularly in the aftermath of September 11. And now that are country
is at war with Iraq, the security condition has been raised to the
higher ``orange level'' security condition. As a result of this,
Senator Reid and I, with great help from Senator Stevens, last week led
the fight here in the Senate to add significant sums to the fiscal year
2003 supplemental to cover projected heightened security costs that the
Department did not budget for. What threat level or security condition
did you assume in developing the fiscal year 2004 budget request?
Answer. The Department and the NNSA implement and maintain our
Security Condition based upon the Homeland Security Advisory System
developed by the Department of Homeland Security. For instance, our
Security Condition 3 (SECON 3), which corresponds with Homeland
Security ``Number 3 Elevated Condition (Yellow),'' was anticipated for
routine day-to-day security operations during fiscal year 2004 and was
used for budget development.
Question. Will it be sufficient if the Department remains at
Security Condition 3 for all of fiscal year 2004?
Answer. Yes, that was the minimum baseline because of the present
world-wide tension.
Question. Are there investments we could make today that would
dramatically reduce operational security costs over the next few years?
If so, please provide specifics for the record.
Answer. Yes, we believe that there are ways in which we can
increase the efficiency of security operations, and we are working on
them. For instance, we are working with other agencies striving to
identify advanced technologies to maintain or improve security at
reduced costs. Additionally, we will continue to review our physical
and cyber protection measures by assessing vulnerabilities and
protection strategies, and identifying common cost effective solutions
for all NNSA sites. We are also working with the Department of Energy,
Office of Security, to expedite security clearances for individuals
who, when cleared, will reduce our guard force overtime costs. In
addition, our sites continue to evaluate changes in their operations,
such as consolidation of nuclear material and changes to security
perimeters that can provide increased detection and assessment
capabilities.
overall budget for stockpile stewardship
Question. Could you use additional resources in these areas if they
were provided?
Answer. The Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) is planned and
budgeted for by the NNSA Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and
Evaluation/Execution (PPBE) system, which establishes a formal,
resource-constrained baseline for the SSP. Within the 5-year planning
horizon of the Future-Years Nuclear Security Plan, workload has been
prioritized to fit this resource-constrained baseline.
Question. What are some of the highest priority tasks that you will
not be able to achieve within the requested budget?
Answer. Because of the way in which the NNSA budget is formulated,
particularly the programming part of the PPBE system, SSP's highest-
priority needs are addressed in the fiscal year 2004 budget request.
tritium
Question. The NNSA is preparing to spend over $500 million on a
Tritium Extraction Facility over the next few years in South Carolina.
The project is not going particularly well and last year its cost was
re-estimated to increase 25 percent. What is the status of the Tritium
Extraction Facility project?
Answer. A new baseline for the cost and schedule of the Tritium
Extraction Facility construction project (98-D-125) was approved by the
Deputy Secretary on February 24, 2003, following independent management
reviews. The total project cost is $506 million and the facility will
be operational by July 2007. When measured against the new baseline, to
date, the project is on schedule and spending is within the planned
profile.
Question. Given a possible change in tritium requirements as a
result of the Moscow Treaty and other arms reductions, what is the date
that we must resume tritium production? (Note: We don't need tritium
until well beyond 2012 now.)
Answer. Taking into account the Moscow Treaty, the NNSA plans to
initiate tritium production in October 2003 by irradiating several
hundred tritium-producing rods in the Tennessee Valley Authority Watts
Bar reactor until March 2005. Those rods will then be stored until the
Tritium Extraction Facility is ready to begin extraction operations in
fiscal year 2007. The NNSA will continue to use the Watts Bar reactor
to irradiate rods and to operate the Tritium Extraction Facility. There
are no current plans to use either of the Sequoyah reactors in the
foreseeable future.
This low-tempo operating approach has advantages over a scenario
that would delay the start of tritium production. First, this approach
yields the earliest demonstration that tritium capabilities have been
restored, which, in turn, enhances the confidence of NNSA and the
Department of Defense, thus reducing the need for a 5-year tritium
reserve. Reducing or eliminating the reserve would be a significant
factor in reducing tritium production requirements. Second, the
continuing low-tempo plan is the best way to ensure that tritium-
production experience is gained by maintaining the current government
and commercial capability base, thus eliminating the need for costly
reestablishment efforts in the future. This approach has been briefed
to the Nuclear Weapons Council.
We need tritium well before 2012. The lead time to produce tritium
to meet currently projected requirements is 3 to 5 years. Under NNSA's
current plan, the rate of tritium production will increase by fiscal
year 2008 in order to ensure that minimum projected stockpile
requirements are satisfied.
pit production
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Dr. Beckner, we have had many tough
conversations about the pit program over the years, and I have had to
work hard to add tens of millions of dollars over the last several
years to get it on track. As you know, I have always felt that our
ability to demonstrate our ability to rebuild this very important
weapons component was a key test of the stockpile stewardship program.
I understand we have, or will soon achieve an important milestone of
progress. Can you give the subcommittee an update on where we are on
pit production?
Answer. The Department of Energy/NNSA recognizes that manufacture
and certification of a W88 pit is a pivotal element of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program. As such, the NNSA has worked with Los Alamos
National Laboratory (LANL) to projectize the pit manufacturing and
certification campaign to ensure a disciplined process. The result of
this effort is that Los Alamos has completed the manufacture of the
first certifiable W88 replacement warhead pit in April 2003. This is
the first step to establish a capability to manufacture 10 pits per
year at Los Alamos in fiscal year 2007. Initially, Los Alamos will only
manufacture W88 pits and processes to manufacture other pits will be
developed at both Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in fiscal year 2009.
Question. When do you expect you will be able to certify the first
pit? (Note: Los Alamos produced its first ``certifiable pit'' this
week. The internal milestone was to have it done by April 30.)
Answer. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is currently
scheduled to certify that W88 pits manufactured at LANL will meet W88
warhead requirements in fiscal year 2007. This success-oriented fiscal
year 2007 schedule requires that non-nuclear experiments and analysis
remain on track. Because the W88 pit is scheduled to be certified
without a nuclear test, a new level of precision in pit manufacturing
and certification must be established. This precision is essential to
ensure high confidence in stockpiled W88 warheads that would use a Los
Alamos manufactured pit.
supercomputing
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Dr. Beckner, as you are well aware,
this subcommittee has raised a number of questions about the direction
of the ASCI supercomputing program within NNSA. A particular point of
concern is the way in which the platform acquisition strategy has been
in a state of constant change over the last several years. The original
ASCI acquisition schedule (circa 1995) proposed the acquisition of the
following platforms at a projected total program cost of $1.7 billion
from 1996 through 2001:
--1 T--1997;
--3 T--1998;
--10 T--2000;
--30 T--2001;
--100 T--2003.
Actual costs during that period were approximately $2.9 billion.
Furthermore, the platform acquisition schedule continues to change. As
of today, NNSA has acquired or is planning to acquire the following:
--3 T--Red (SNL);
--3 T--Blue Mountain (LANL);
--3 T--Blue Pacific (LLNL);
--12 T--White (LLNL);
--20 T--Q (LANL);
--40 T--Red Storm (Sandia);
--100 T--Blue Jean (LLNL).
Is the current ASCI approach the most cost-effective and efficient
manner of achieving the desired capability and capacity?
Answer. We believe that the current approach has provided the
Stockpile Stewardship program with effective and efficient computing
cycles. High-end computing solutions emerging over the past year,
principally the advent of low-cost, high-performance Linux clusters,
are providing us opportunities to obtain even more cost-effective
machines for smaller jobs.
All of the ASCI platforms have been acquired through competitive
procurements, and in every case the machines have been brought in for
the amount we have budgeted. We have met all of our planned schedules
for the deployment of these computer platforms, except for the Q
machine at Los Alamos, which was downsized due to Congressional budget
reductions. The increase in the ASCI budget in the 2001 timeframe was
not caused by a change in our platform acquisition strategy. Instead,
increased program costs were caused by the merger of original ASCI with
the old Stockpile Computing program and by the inclusion of several new
program elements, including code verification and validation, distance
computing, visualization, and University Alliances.
Question. What are the mission requirements driving the ASCI
program?
Answer. The ASCI program, together with a vigorous experimental
program, is an integral part of the Stockpile Stewardship program. ASCI
provides the simulation capability, both software and hardware, to
enable decision-making to support the existing and future nuclear
weapons stockpile. Activities supported include annual assessment for
all current stockpile systems, resolution of significant findings
(SFIs), peer review and independent assessments, design and analysis of
weapons-related experiments and requirements for facilities, resolution
of technical issues affecting the production complex, nuclear test
readiness, the ability to respond rapidly to new military or design
requirements, and the development and validation of advanced physics
models and codes for more fundamental understanding of weapons physics
to reduce uncertainty in system margins and respond effectively to
future issues or significant findings that may arise.
Question. How much capacity is needed and when is it needed over
the next 10 years?
Answer. Our current acquisition strategy reflects the capacity
needs given to us by our weapons designers. However, the early success
of our code projects has increased demand for computer cycles beyond
our initial projections. We are in the process of reevaluating our need
for these cycles and extending our strategy through the end of the
decade.
Question. What is the maximum capability required in the top ASCI
platform, and when, over the next 10 years?
Answer. Since the inception of the ASCI program, the 2004 objective
has been to produce a supercomputer operating environment capable of
performing high-fidelity, three-dimensional weapons calculations at a
resolution sufficient for confident prediction of weapon behavior. In
1995, this appeared to be an ambitious and risky undertaking. ASCI
progress to date shows that we will be able to perform such
calculations at the rate of about one per month on a 100 Tera OPS
machine. As the nuclear weapons stockpile continues to age, the
challenges will grow ever more complex demanding greater computing
capabilities and faster turnaround times. We estimate that a 1-2 Peta
OPS (quadrillion operations per second) system will be required. We
believe that machines of this size will be technically feasible and
affordable near the end of the decade based on the continuing pace of
technology advances.
Question. Was the NNSA wise to abandon custom-designed chips and
vector architecture for much cheaper, commodity chip-based, massively
parallel systems?
Answer. The designers and engineers at the weapons laboratories are
using the ASCI machines to solve weapons related problems that only a
few years ago would have been impossible to solve. We did not make a
decision to abandon custom-designed chips and vector architectures. The
only bids we received on our early procurements were for massively
parallel machines based on commodity microprocessors. During this
period, the single U.S. vendor of vector architectures was purchased by
another company, and their vector machines were not available. Only
within the past month or so has a U.S. vendor been capable of
delivering a vector machine. We hope to see this architecture bid
competitively in our future procurements, and we are eager to see
whether there are applications for which this technology provides a
cost-effective solution.
Question. What level of customization is needed for the various
government interests in supercomputing (e.g. weapons design, molecule
modeling and simulation, cryptanalysis, bioinformatics, climate
modeling)?
Answer. We believe that computer architecture diversity is healthy
for the United States scientific community and the Nation. Different
scientific applications are unlikely to perform with high efficiency on
a single architecture. Through our Advanced Architecture and
Pathforward programs, we are currently supporting development of custom
architectures that we believe will yield effective performance for
weapons simulations and a large number of related scientific
applications for the Department of Defense. We do not have enough
experience with other applications, including cryptanalysis,
bioinformatics, and climate modeling, to be able to predict what
architectures are best suited to those problems.
Question. How effective are the current or planned ASCI platforms
in addressing the requirements of the program?
Answer. Our platforms are performing well, albeit they are
oversubscribed. They are being used to address relevant stockpile
issues in closing Significant Finding Investigations, certifying
weapons components, and supporting Stockpile Life Extensions and peer
reviews.
Question. Are there alternative architectures, interconnect
technologies, systems software and tools, or other approaches that will
result in improved performance for future ASCI platforms?
Answer. The answer, as with all technology dependent programs, is
yes. We have a long history of exploring, identifying and funding
technologies that help improve the performance of future platforms.
When better technologies become available, we would like to retain
enough flexibility in our procurement strategy to be able to take
advantage of them.
Question. If so, can industry supply the required alternative
architecture and software, i.e. is industry properly incentivized? Or,
must government lead the development of alternatives?
Answer. The computing industry is driven by market forces of which
high end computing represents a very small share. Nevertheless, our
investments have an impact out of proportion to our market share. We
have been extremely successful with our Pathforward program, which has
benefited the broader high-end computing community and is acknowledged
as a successful approach to incentivizing industry. Although the
funding for this program element is not as robust as in past years,
ASCI continues to make investments in Pathforward with industry
partners.
Question. As it relates to the ASCI mission requirements, what is
the cost/benefit of investing more heavily in capacity now, and
deferring acquisition of capability machines, thereby taking advantage
of the falling price/teraflop?
Answer. Our procurement strategy has provided cost-effective
supercomputers to our weapons designers and code teams. We are
investing heavily in the development of 3-D, high-fidelity physics
applications, which are addressing urgent stockpile issues. Effective
use of these applications by weapons designers will be impossible
without our largest platforms, and delays will severely limit our
ability to address these issues promptly.
modern pit facility
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Dr. Beckner, the NNSA is planning on
building a modern pit production facility that would come on line in
2019. Dr. John Foster has suggested that the NNSA should have a
significantly more flexible and accelerated approach that would allow
you to have a modular facility on line as early as 2010. Will you
update us on this project?
Answer. The Department has not made a final decision to proceed
with a Modern Pit Facility to ensure long-term pit production to meet
the needs of the United States nuclear stockpile. However, a Critical
Decision-0 (CD-0) on mission need relative to a Modern Pit Facility
(MPF) was made in May 2002. This decision enabled the start of the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, including preparation
of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and conceptual design of a
MPF in fiscal year 2003. A preferred site will be announced in that
document. The Department plans to issue a Record of Decision (ROD) in
2004. The ROD will be based on the MPF Environmental Impact Statement
and other factors such as cost and technical considerations.
Question. How much more would it cost if you used a flexible/
modular approach suggested by Dr. Foster?
Answer. We are currently utilizing a modular approach and are
developing a range of costs relative to that approach. If it is
determined that it is necessary to accelerate the project, the costs
will likely rise in the early years of the project.
Question. Are you still planning on making a siting decision as
early as December of this year?
Answer. We are committed to a Record of Decision milestone of April
2004. However, our goal is to arrive at the Record of Decision earlier.
facilities and infrastructure initiative
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Dr. Beckner, 2 years ago I was very
pleased to work with Chairman Reid in getting the Facilities and
Infrastructure rebuilding effort underway with $200 million. For fiscal
year 2004, you have requested a total of $265 million. The state of the
complex had too long been a neglected issue. But last year, this
committee's focus on infrastructure was reaffirmed in the Nuclear
Posture Review--which concluded that we must have a flexible and
responsive nuclear weapons enterprise in order to meet the challenges
of an uncertain and unpredictable threat environment. However, I am
still concerned about two points. Past evidence put before this
committee indicated we needed to be spending an additional $300 to $500
million per year for the next 15 or so years to refurbish the weapons
complex. Why have you requested significantly less?
Answer. The fiscal year 2004 budget request of $265 million is
substantial and will support some 150 Recapitalization, Facility
Planning, and Facility Disposition projects that will provide capital
renewal and sustainability, with an emphasis on deferred maintenance
reduction. Facility Disposition projects will reduce the footprint of
the complex by approximately 325,000 gross square feet. From the turn
of the century, the fragile condition of the nuclear weapons complex
has been described in a series of internal and external assessments.
The Foster Panel, Chiles Report, the DOE Inspector General, the Defense
Department, and the NNSA comprise the reports in the series.
Independently, each concluded that the complex is old, with half of the
facilities 40 years or older; and, to restore the complex to an
acceptable condition, substantial additional annual funding was needed,
on the order of some $300 to $500 million for about a decade. In
addition, all agreed that although money is important and needed,
strong structured management, absent in the past, is as important.
Two components dominate the NNSA's corporate management approach--
securing the appropriate level of funding, and rigorous management.
Current funding levels meet NNSA's planned facility requirements and
are approved by the OMB, and most importantly, the Congress. In
addition, improved management of the infrastructure is developed and
implemented through integrated management tools that include the Ten-
Year Comprehensive Site Plans (TYCSP), Project Execution Plans, a well-
structured Planning, Programming, Budget, and Evaluation process, upon
which is determined the longer view of program needs described in
NNSA's Future-Years Nuclear Security Program (FYNSP). The request for
resources shown in the FYNSP seeks annual incremental increases of
about $50 million building to $500 million in fiscal year 2008. The
NNSA believes that growth of the Facilities and Infrastructure
Recapitalization Program is building in accordance with the changing
culture regarding improved facilities management and the ability to
successfully execute the funds provided. The program has 2 years of
full funding experience, is proceeding according to plan, and has a
number of impressive successes to its credit.
Question. Secondly, if we are ever going to effectively reduce the
maintenance backlog, we must stop contributing to the backlog. My
review of the budget requests for regular maintenance of facilities is
still below what is needed. So while we are trying to reduce the
maintenance backlog through the F&I program, we are adding to it by
under funding regular maintenance. Do you agree with my contention?
Please respond.
Answer. The Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities (RTBF)
Operation of Facilities budget identified in the Future Year Nuclear
Security Plan (FYNSP) in conjunction with the Facility Infrastructure
Recapitalization Program (FIRP) budget is adequate to maintain the
complex in a safe, secure, and compliant status. The President's fiscal
year 2004 request for RTBF proposes an overall increase of 7.4 percent
and a 4.2 percent increase for Operations of Facilities. The RTBF
program is committed to ensuring its facilities have responsible
maintenance programs and adequate funding to support the mission. NNSA
has established a goal of stabilizing (i.e., zero growth) the program
facility deferred maintenance backlog by fiscal year 2005 and to reduce
it to industry standard levels (or better) by fiscal year 2009. RTBF
will fund the complex at an adequate level; this will enable (FIRP) to
execute its deferred maintenance reduction responsibilities and help
recapitalize the complex.
Historically, the maintenance backlog has not been measured
consistently through the application of consistent direction across the
complex. In fiscal year 2003, NNSA has taken action to assure
consistent application of standardized definitions to create a
``corporate'' business process and allow the establishment of a
baseline. Until this was done, it was not possible to understand the
magnitude of what is needed. In fiscal year 2004 and beyond, NNSA will
track funding of maintenance and measure the maintenance backlog to
assure that actual progress is being made. With these tools and
measures in place, NNSA can and will ensure that maintenance is not
under funded.
Question. Will you update the committee on the Facilities and
Infrastructure Initiative?
Answer. The effort to restore the nuclear weapons complex began as
the Facilities and Infrastructure (F&I) Initiative. Upon congressional
authorization, the F&I Initiative became the Facilities and
Infrastructure Recapitalization Program. The physical infrastructure of
the nuclear weapons program is managed by NNSA within a corporate
facilities management framework, which is designed to stabilize the
deferred maintenance backlog, improve the complex through facility
upgrade and new construction, while at the same time reducing the
footprint of our facilities through elimination of excess facilities,
yielding an operationally more economical, revitalized enterprise. The
general NNSA approach is that daily operations and maintenance to
ensure the availability of facilities and infrastructure essential to
the Stockpile Stewardship mission are principally funded within the
Readiness in the Technical Base and Facilities (RTBF) program. Capital
renewal and sustainability are the focus of the Facilities and
Infrastructure Recapitalization Program. Capital acquisition (line
items) is managed across several program areas, in accordance with an
Integrated Construction Program Plan.
The mission of the Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization
Program (FIRP) is to restore, rebuild, and revitalize the physical
infrastructure of the nuclear weapons complex. The program applies new
direct appropriations to address an integrated, prioritized series of
repair and infrastructure projects that will significantly increase the
operational efficiency and effectiveness of the NNSA weapons complex
sites. The FIRP mission is an integral component of the NNSA Strategic
Goal to provide state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure
supported by advanced scientific and technical tools to meet
operational and mission requirements. The Nuclear Posture Review
discussed the need to revitalize the nuclear weapons complex as the
third leg of the New Triad of our national nuclear strategy. The
Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program was established
specifically to address these concerns and assure that the NNSA
continues to meet its major performance objectives of ensuring the
vitality and readiness of the national security enterprise.
Base maintenance and infrastructure efforts at NNSA sites are
primarily funded within Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities
(RTBF)/Operations of Facilities and through site overhead allocations.
These efforts focus on ensuring that facilities necessary for immediate
programmatic workload activities are maintained sufficiently to support
that workload. FIRP addresses the additional sustained investments
above this base for deferred maintenance and the infrastructure that
are needed to extend facility lifetimes, reduce the risk of unplanned
system and equipment failures, increase operational efficiency and
effectiveness, and allow for recapitalization of aging facility
systems. FIRP also manages utility line items. This capital renewal and
sustainability focus is the core mission of the Facilities and
Infrastructure Recapitalization Program.
A major metric for the recovery of the facilities and
infrastructure of the nuclear weapons complex is the reduction of the
NNSA's deferred maintenance, currently in excess of a billion dollars.
The NNSA has committed to stabilize its deferred maintenance by the end
of fiscal year 2005. Additionally, by the end of fiscal year 2009 the
NNSA has committed to reduce deferred maintenance to within industry
standards and return facility conditions for mission essential
facilities and infrastructure to an assessment level of good to
excellent (deferred maintenance replacement plant value less than 5
percent). FIRP will provide the major funding, and management effort,
to achieve this reduction.
A separate but vital sub-program is Facility Disposition. This
congressionally directed effort requires that at least $50 million of
the FIRP funding be used each year to dispose of excess facilities that
will provide the greatest impact on reducing long-term costs and risk.
In the near term, this has meant focusing on footprint reduction. The
facility disposition effort not only frees high value real estate to
enable the modernization of the complex, but also provides NNSA the
foundation to manage the entire range of its excess facilities
portfolio. The NNSA is committed to reduce the nuclear weapons complex
footprint by 3 million gross square feet of excess space by 2009. FIRP
will provide the major funding and management effort to achieve this
reduction.
Embedded within the FIRP program management is the NNSA commitment
to congress to demonstrate credible deliverables, efficient management,
and fiscal accountability. The program's funding significantly ramps-up
over the next several years until it reaches the level determined by
the NNSA, and external reviews, required to restore the nuclear weapons
complex and ultimately return the condition of the complex to industry
standards by fiscal year 2009.
The NNSA is committed to responsible and accountable facility
management processes, including budgetary ones, so that the condition
of NNSA facilities and infrastructure is maintained equal to or better
than industry standards. This integrated corporate long-term goal,
encompassing improved facilities management and significant additional
funding, will ensure the recovery and subsequent sustainment of the
nuclear weapons complex.
Question. What have you accomplished, and where do we need to go in
the future?
Answer. The backdrop for the restoration of the weapons complex is
set in the following remarks/commitments made by General Gordon to the
Congress:
--Infrastructure is aging, in some cases failing. (HASC Oversight
Panel--11 July 2000)
--Cannot let our infrastructure decay . . . it's potentially
dangerous, it sends wrong signal . . . (HASC Oversight Panel--
11 July 2000)
--Are we under invested in facilities? . . . today I am positive of
the answer: we are under invested by a lot. (Senate Water and
Energy Subcommittee, Senate Appropriations Committee--13 March
2001)
--The facilities that underpin the American nuclear deterrent require
immediate attention, on the order of $500 million a year for at
least the next 10 years. (Senate Water and Energy Subcommittee,
Senate Appropriations Committee--13 March 2001).
General Gordon's early compelling argument, and successive
semiannual status reports to the authorization and appropriations
committees, prompted Congress to authorize $8.7 million in fiscal year
2001, $197 million in fiscal year 2002, and $243 million in fiscal year
2003 for the Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program to
begin the restoration of the nuclear enterprise. With 2 years of full
funding, the significant achievements of the Facility and
Infrastructure Recapitalization Program (FIRP) are as follows:
--Established advocacy for facilities--the third leg of the New Triad
of our national nuclear strategy
--Defined corporate facilities management, as an embedded concept in
NNSA strategy, planning, facility restoration,
recapitalization, and revitalization of the nuclear enterprise
--Introduced commonality and standardization regarding facility
management and accountability
--Championed a corporate facility management data base (FIMS)
--Introduced a graded approach to life-cycle facility management
--Established an approach to facility budgeting
--Established a ``first time ever'' complex-wide prioritized project
listing
--Developed criteria for priority approach to sifting requirements on
a ``worst first'' basis
--Embedded comprehensive long-term planning (Ten-Year Comprehensive
Site Plan (TYCSP))
--Established formal Federal review process
--Limned facility stewardship:
--Established facility complex baseline conditions
--Built performance measures to track conditions
--Developed a prioritization and integration process for project
selection
--Established desired steady state goal for complex-wide facility
condition
--Established fiscal visibility and accountability:
--Established financial visibility--both direct and indirect
--Established financial benchmarks
--Developed and promulgated Federal facility budget guidance
--Instituted institutional general plant projects for laboratories
--Established the recapitalization program controlled by work
authorizations and baseline change control
--Instituted procedural improvements:
--Periodic and independent reviews of program
--Performance measures/performance evaluation management plan/
laboratory appraisal plan
--Developing return on investment strategies/best practices such as
the multi-site--Roofing Repair Pilot Program
--Established strategic professional linkages--National Research
Council's Federal Facilities Council, civilian industry's
APPA; and the Energy Facilities Contract Group (EFCOG) as
well as within the DOE
--Conceived the FIRP in three parts--recapitalization, facility
planning, and facility disposition
--Established FIRP performance indicators for reduction of the
backlog of deferred maintenance and reduction of the complex's
facility footprint
--Established annual targets for achieving performance goals
--Managing FIRP with fiscal responsibility within FYNSP constraints
--Defined achievable targets for program execution in fiscal year
2002 and fiscal year 2003--$440 million
--Managing projects in accordance with a graded approach to meeting
DOE Order 413.3
--Faithfully adhere to the ``what and how'' approach to headquarter
and field responsibilities
--FIRP is executed through Federal field validation for baseline
credibility, fiscal and legal accountability
--FIRP requires identification of site-specific Stockpile Stewardship
Program supporting projects
--FIRP is managing to the parameters of a construction year--
obviously different than the fiscal year cycle
--Receiving wide-spread recognition for performance of Federal and
M&O staffs--congressional report language
--Congress continues to fund at growth levels established in Calendar
Year 2000.
With regard to the future, the formula remains, leadership support
within the NNSA, measurable results; Departmental support, OMB support,
and most importantly, continued support of the Congress. Corporate
facilities management is embedded at each of the eight sites,
performance measures on a par with industry standards management of the
backlog of deferred maintenance projects is occurring, the footprint is
shrinking ahead of plan, and the NNSA is performing within its means.
NNSA is positioned to be able to adequately maintain the vital ``Third
Leg of the New Triad'' of the Nation's nuclear posture.
nonproliferation budget
Question. To Ambassador Brooks or Mr. Baker: I am pleased to see
the broad and specific goals of your nonproliferation program continue
to receive strong support from the Administration. Overall, I believe
you have a pretty good budget for fiscal year 2004. How would you
characterize your progress in the Nuclear Nonproliferation programs?
Answer. We are making good progress toward achieving our goals and
objectives. We have had many successes in our programs, have
accelerated our efforts in protecting nuclear materials, and are now
aggressively ramping up several new cooperative programs and
initiatives, as follows:
--On March 12, we signed agreements with the Russian Federation to
initiate our work on the Elimination of Weapons-Grade Plutonium
Production in Russia. This will allow us to begin work with our
Russian partners to close down the last three operating
plutonium production reactors in Russia.
--In a major development in reciprocal U.S. and Russian plutonium
disposition efforts, the Russians have recently agreed to the
U.S. design for their mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication
facilities. Construction should begin next year.
--We have recently begun cooperative work with Russia's Strategic
Rocket Forces in order to improve the security of their nuclear
warheads and we are providing security upgrades at two sites to
which the Russian Ministry of Defense has permitted DOE access.
We anticipate work on additional proposed sites in the future.
--We are working toward the goal of completing the materials
protection, control and accounting (MPC&A) upgrades by 2008 at
which point we will enter a sustainability phase and transition
to Russian ownership of the programs.
--We have initiated a project to equip foreign seaports with
radiological and nuclear detection systems to pre-screen
containers destined for U.S. ports.
--In our efforts to engage Russian weapons scientists in commercial
activities, our Russian Transition Initiative program has
secured over $90 million in private venture capital, in
addition to industry matching funds that bring in $3 for every
$2 invested by the U.S. Government.
--We are supporting U.S. Government participation in the G-8 Global
Partnership that involves the United States committing $10
billion of nonproliferation funds to be matched by $10 billion
from the international community over the next 10 years.
These are just some of the programs and projects we are working on.
Question. How many sites did you protect last year compared to
previous years?
Answer. We expect to significantly increase the number of sites
protected under more extensive or comprehensive MPC&A upgrades than in
previous years. We will complete comprehensive upgrades at an
additional 8 sites in fiscal year 2003 verses 4 sites in fiscal year
2002, raising the total number of sites protected with comprehensive
upgrades to 48. In fiscal year 2004, we will complete comprehensive
upgrades at an additional 7 sites raising the total number of fully
protected sites to 55.
Question. What, if anything, is needed to ensure the success of
this program?
Answer. We believe that the strategies we are pursuing within our
panoply of programs fully supported by the President and reflecting the
outcome of the recent review of nonproliferation programs by the
National Security Council are significantly reducing the WMD
proliferation threat to the United States. However, I would like to
stress the importance of the full and continued congressional funding
for the Department's programs. I am grateful for the cooperation from
Congress and look forward to continuing that cooperation as we advance
our shared national security objectives. It is also essential that we
enjoy full and complete cooperation from our international partners,
such as Russia, in breaking down bureaucratic barriers to program
implementation and take further steps to accelerate our efforts there.
I also believe that success in working with our G-8 partners to advance
our Global Partnership objectives will be essential to future success.
NNSA's nonproliferation mission and responsibilities set forth in
the National Nuclear Security Administration Act are broad enough to
encompass our conduct of nuclear nonproliferation activities outside of
Russia. However, we are seeking to clarify in the National Defense
Authorization Act for fiscal year 2004 that NNSA has the requisite
authority to conduct its International Nuclear Materials Protection and
Control Program not only in the former Soviet Union but in other
countries where the risks of proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, materials, and technology also threaten the security of
the United States.
materials protection in russia
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Mr. Baker, I had an opportunity to
visit yesterday with Minister Alexander Rumyantsev, the Russian
Minister of Atomic Energy. We talked about many of our nuclear
nonproliferation programs of common interest. I reassured him of my
strong support for the programs, but I also raised with him my concerns
that we were still not making progress as fast as we should and are not
getting the access necessary to ensure our tax dollars are being
properly spent. But he raised another issue of concern--that the legal
agreements that form the basis of our cooperative efforts would expire
this summer, and that our governments were having trouble renegotiating
the agreements. That is potentially an issue of great concern. Will you
comment first on the access issue--are we getting what we need to
provide security upgrades in Russian production facilities storing the
greatest amounts of nuclear material?
Answer. Our efforts to secure materials in Russia are proceeding
well. We have made significant progress with the Russian Ministry of
Atomic Energy (MinAtom), especially at ``civilian'' facilities with
less stringent access restrictions imposed by MinAtom. In fact, we are
finishing work at the first large MinAtom fuel processing facility, the
Luch facility, this spring. Luch was the site of the attempted theft of
HEU by a facility insider several years ago. We expect to complete at
least 2 additional large MinAtom facilities next year (Novisibirsk &
IPPE in Obninsk). Consequently, this part of our program is in the
process of downsizing as work is completed.
Work at sensitive MinAtom facilities continues, but the pace is set
mostly by the time it takes to overcome access restrictions more than
anything else. We are making progress at these sites--contracts for
upgrades have and will continue to be signed at places like Tomsk,
Krasnoyarsk-26, Mayak, and C-70 as the year progresses. We are
achieving concrete results with the MOD as well. Last year we completed
negotiations for upgrades at the majority of the remaining sites in the
RF Navy believed to require comprehensive upgrades. This is another
area of our program that will be scaling down in the next couple of
years--assuming the RF Navy does not introduce additional sites where
upgrades are justified. However, our work with the Strategic Rocket
Forces (SRF) is just underway, and we should be seeing increased
activity in this area over the next few years.
We will continue to focus our efforts on providing upgrades to
sites containing materials of concern that we have access to in order
to reduce the threat as quickly as possible, while we negotiate access
to the remaining weapons sites.
In our Nuclear Cities Initiative program, we have had no problems
with access since signing an access arrangements document last year.
The Russian side does still have some difficulty figuring out how it
will provide access to foreign companies that want to own land and
property in Russia. That has made it a little more difficult than we
would like getting Western businesses to invest unreservedly in Russia,
but the regional and municipal authorities, and MinAtom itself, are
working to develop various proposals that will satisfy both the Western
private sector and Russian security requirements.
Question. Also, what are you doing to ensure this important work is
not stopped because of a failure to get proper legal agreements?
Answer. The bilateral agreements that govern our MPC&A activities
do not expire until 2006. These include the U.S/Russian Cooperative
Threat Reduction umbrella agreement and the 1999 Agreement. We will
start the renegotiation process well in advance of this deadline. In
the case of the NCI Government-to-Government Agreement, which is set to
expire at the end of this September, we have received a letter from
Minister Rumyantsev requesting extension of the Agreement for another
5-year term, without making any changes to the current text. However,
the Administration is reviewing the liability protection in this
agreement, which may impact our ability to extend it. We are working
with the Russians and our interagency colleagues to identify ways to
solve this problem.
mpc&a outside of the former soviet union
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Mr. Baker, historically the focus of
our nonproliferation programs has been almost exclusively on the former
Soviet Union. And Russia certainly remains the largest source of
nuclear materials which could become potential threats to our security.
But the events of the last 2 years have certainly shown us threats
exist all over the globe. What nonproliferation problems and
opportunities do you see outside the former Soviet Union?
Answer. While true that our programs focus on Russia, it's also
true that for many years we have engaged in a variety of
nonproliferation efforts around the world. Those nonproliferation
efforts continue today and have in fact expanded since September 11th.
As you correctly point out, there are several countries outside the
former Soviet Union, for instance in South Asia, that raise important
nonproliferation issues. In that context, there may be opportunities
for mutually beneficial exchanges that could lead to enhancements in
the security of nuclear weapons, weapons-usable nuclear material,
radiological material, and the prevention of illicit nuclear/
radiological material from crossing borders. In some key cases, we have
not fully engaged these countries because they remain outside the Non-
Proliferation Treaty and we are therefore constrained somewhat by law
and policy with respect to how we can assist them.
Question. What do you need in terms of money or agreements in order
to begin addressing those threats?
Answer. The recent fiscal year 2003 Supplemental Appropriations
included $15 million for nonproliferation work outside of the former
Soviet Union. That should be sufficient to continue our longstanding
engagement with these countries. However, if initial efforts in areas
such as South Asia lead to large programs of direct assistance in these
areas, additional resources would be required. We will be in a better
position to identify the required funding level once the scope of such
work has been more clearly defined and the U.S. Government has
completed its evaluation of what types of security assistance are
desirable and permissible.
NNSA's nonproliferation mission and responsibilities set forth in
the National Nuclear Security Administration Act are broad enough to
encompass our conduct of nuclear nonproliferation activities outside of
the FSU. However, we are seeking to clarify by means of the fiscal year
2004 National Defense Authorization Act that NNSA has the requisite
authority to conduct its International Nuclear Materials Protection and
Control Program not only in the states that resulted from the former
Soviet Union but in other countries where the risks of proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, materials, and technology threaten the
security of the United States.
Beyond that, the legal requirements, like the funding requirements,
will very much depend on the attributes of the country in question and
the scope of work proposed. We will certainly keep you informed as
these activities proceed.
Question. I remember that in Russia, early progress was
accomplished on a scientist-to-scientist basis through the so-called
``lab-to-lab'' approach. Is the original ``lab-to-lab'' approach being
revisited to encourage progress in some of the countries that may
present threats?
Answer. Yes, in many countries we have found direct exchanges
between technical experts to be a valuable tool of engagement.
Specifically with respect to countries outside the former Soviet Union,
we will use this approach in combination with other vehicles to engage
on sensitive nonproliferation issues.
russian plutonium disposition program
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Mr. Baker, I am pleased to see us on
the cusp of constructing facilities in the United States and Russia to
finally carry out the disposition of up to 34 metric tons of plutonium
in each of our two countries. However, I remain concerned about the
schedule and our ability to begin construction in Russia in fiscal year
2004. I don't say that because you are not doing everything you can, I
just say it because the job is very hard. Among the obstacles still out
there are securing all of the $1 billion in international financing for
construction, getting the right legal agreements in place, and finding
another $1 billion to finance the operations of the MOX plant. How are
we coming on those issues?
Answer. For the construction phase of the Russian plutonium
disposition program, pledges thus far total $800 million, leaving a
$200-million shortfall. We believe that the remainder of funding
necessary for construction will be obtained shortly. As for the
operations phase of the program, there are a number of non-government
funding sources that could be used for this purpose, including receipts
from the exports of Russian MOX fuel and displaced uranium fuel, cross-
subsidies from other Russian programs and Russian domestic MOX fuel
sales. In many cases, these are heavily dependent upon future
developments in the Russian and international nuclear industries and
markets, which are not predictable at the present time. Nonetheless, we
believe that a combination of these revenue sources could be used to
fund some or all of the operations phase of the disposition program.
In addition to obtaining funding, we have recently made significant
progress in developing a multilateral structure that allows for
bilateral U.S.-Russian program management. We are also working to adapt
the detailed design of the U.S. facility for use in Russia and to reach
agreement on licensing arrangements that will permit Russia to use
Cogema MOX technology for its MOX facility. Once the key details of
these efforts are decided, we can begin to set up the necessary legal
implementing documents.
Question. What confidence do you have that we can stay on schedule?
Answer. We expect to begin construction of both the U.S. and
Russian MOX facilities in fiscal year 2004. Russia's recent
announcement to use the design of the U.S. MOX facility to dispose of
34 metric tons of its surplus weapons plutonium will greatly accelerate
the Russian program. However, the requirement to maintain parallel
progress between the two programs may cause the U.S. program to be
delayed slightly in order to allow the Russian program to catch up.
russian transition initiatives
Question. Ambassador Brooks or Mr. Baker, on several occasions the
Administration indicated its strong support for programs designed to
employ scientists in the Former Soviet Union. The Initiatives for
Proliferation Prevention (IPP) has enjoyed success, but the Nuclear
Cities Initiative has had more difficulty in producing results,
although it has had some. In the environment of a huge budget increase
for nonproliferation, the budget request for these Russian Transition
Initiatives remains flat at about $40 million. Should I conclude from
that request that you do not see as much opportunity in those programs
as some of the others focused on materials?
Answer. No, we still see a great deal of opportunity and need in
the work of these programs focused on the human component of our
proliferation concerns, and believe that these scientist engagement
programs have a great deal of importance for our national security. At
the end of World War II, the U.S. Government was concerned about German
missile and nuclear expertise falling into the wrong hands, and we made
sure those German scientists did not trade their information on the
open market. Similarly, today we must make sure that the enormous
scientific and technical expertise left over from the Cold War in the
former Soviet Union does not find its way to rogue states or terrorist
groups. I believe that our requested budget levels are sufficient to
respond to the risk of adverse migration of this scientific and
technical expertise to terrorists or rogue states--especially
considering that these programs are highly leveraged by private sector
investment and matching contributions that meet or exceed U.S.
Government funding. But having performed a relative risk assessment of
adverse migration versus the magnitude of the threat posed by unsecured
materials, I believe the Administration has made some reasonable
decisions about the relative distribution of funding requests.
Question. Is the Administration not as concerned about ``brain
drain'' issues as it was several years ago?
Answer. Since September 11th, the Administration is even more
concerned about nuclear know-how falling into the wrong hands. In
recognition of that threat, the President requested and received a
supplemental of $15 million in fiscal year 2002 from Congress for these
programs. So ``brain drain'' from the former Soviet Union remains a
strong concern. However, since the early and mid-1990's when some of
these programs were begun, conditions have improved somewhat. The
Russian economy has stabilized and we are not seeing the run-away
inflation that stripped away life savings. The Russian Government is
paying nuclear scientists more regularly. Also, the Russian economy is
beginning to generate some private sector opportunities for these
scientists. Our programs have adapted to these changes by focusing less
on supplementing scientists' meager paychecks and more on seeking
sustainable economic transformation and downsizing of the Russian
weapons complex, taking advantage of market opportunities through
technology commercialization.
role of nnsa labs in department of homeland security
Question. Ambassador Brooks, approximately $140 million in R&D
activities at the labs has been transferred over to the Department of
Homeland Security to manage. As you know, I wrote several provisions
into the Act creating the Department of Homeland Security that will
ensure our national labs continue to bring their expertise to bear on
many problems facing us in the war on terrorism. Will you please
comment on how the transition of those programs is going?
Answer. The transition is progressing well. Of the approximately
$150 million in functional transfers to the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), approximately $85 million of these programmatic
activities were from the NNSA, $79 million from our Nonproliferation
and Verification R&D program and $6 million from the nuclear
assessments program. NNSA also transferred Program Direction funding
associated with these activities in the amount of $3.7 million.
Nonproliferation and Verification R&D program management is working
closely with their DHS counterparts to assure a smooth transition of
the R&D activities towards countering nuclear smuggling and preventing
or countering the effects of biological or chemical terrorism. To
facilitate this transition, DHS has asked NNSA to participate in
execution of these programs through fiscal year 2003. In addition,
particular activities in which we continue to have a strong role are
the test bed for nuclear detection technology in cooperation with the
New York/New Jersey Port Authority and the establishment of the
BioWatch initiative in 30 cities across the country. We are working
closely with DHS personnel as they assume management of these programs,
so that the high quality work of the national laboratories continues to
serve the national need, without any loss of capability or momentum.
Question. Do you foresee any problems?
Answer. No, but I do feel that it will be important for NNSA and
DHS to work together to complement each others' missions. That is, NNSA
will continue to work on development of technology for national
security missions, some of which will have application to homeland
security problems. NNSA's Nonproliferation and Verification R&D program
will continue to focus on strategic R&D in support of WMD
nonproliferation missions, while DHS focuses on the more immediate-
operational needs of homeland security agencies, including the U.S.
Customs Service, the Coast Guard, and the Transportation Security
Administration. NNSA can complement the near-term development and
application of, for example, radiation detection technology by DHS,
with the strategic, ``leap-ahead'' research necessary to sustain
national security capabilities, drawing on the strengths of the
national laboratories and the NNSA responsibility for nuclear weapons
and materials.
Question. Do you believe counter-terrorism R&D will continue to be
a growing part of the labs missions?
Answer. Yes, the labs' research in nuclear, chemical, and
biological science and technology will continue to be important to
national security programs and provides the core competency to address
counter-terrorism concerns. NNSA will continue to maintain a strong R&D
program in nuclear technologies, which is of paramount importance to
both the weapons and nonproliferation missions, and the NNSA
Nonproliferation and Verification R&D program will continue research on
methods to detect activities associated with proliferation of all types
of weapons of mass destruction. However, with the transfer to the DHS
of the R&D for the chem-bio domestic preparedness mission that
department must undertake the support of the science and technology
base in those disciplines. NNSA will no longer be funded to sustain the
required capabilities in those areas.
nasa's nuclear systems initiative
Question. Admiral Bowman, NASA is proceeding with its ``nuclear
systems initiative,'' and I know they remain interested in you managing
all or parts of that program. This initiative will develop new
radioisotope power systems for on-board electric power on future space
platforms, and it will also conduct research and development on nuclear
electric propulsion systems that would allow future space craft to
speed throughout the outer reaches of the solar system. Of course, much
of the historic capability in nuclear space systems resides at other
DOE labs outside of your program. What is your view of this effort and
the role for Naval Reactors?
Answer. First, I should make clear that we are not lobbying for
this work; our hands are already full with current and planned Naval
Nuclear Propulsion Program work. We have no particular expertise in
radioisotope power systems and have no interest in managing this aspect
of the nuclear space initiative. However, NASA has indicated that they
are interested in NR taking the lead for reactor development in the
Nuclear Systems Initiative (NSI), including the Jupiter Icy Moons
Orbiter (JIMO). My view of the overall effort is based on what I have
learned from NASA, which has convinced me that fission reactor
technology is a key that will unlock new capabilities in space science.
If this effort is assigned to us by the Administration and funded by
Congress, our role should be to manage this work consistent with our
practices for naval reactor plants. If we are not in charge, I believe
that our role should be limited to occasional peer review.
Question. Do you agree that the other NNSA labs with expertise in
nuclear systems for space should play a strong role in this effort?
Answer. Yes, the NR program does not possess all the technical
expertise and facilities needed to execute this task entirely within
Naval Nuclear Propulsion program national laboratories. Consistent with
our practice for other advanced development efforts, NR would seek to
leverage existing expertise and facilities at NNSA labs, other DOE
labs, and in Industry to accomplish this task most effectively and at
the lowest cost to the taxpayer. However, this work would be managed
and budgeted for through Naval Reactors Headquarters. We believe that
strong centralized control is necessary for success in this area.
Therefore, we would coordinate this effort through one or both of our
existing single-customer laboratories, which would have the overall
responsibility for integrating the reactor system and identifying the
appropriate subcontractors (including DOE laboratories).
Question. What terms and conditions would you want in order to
manage the whole program?
Answer. To be clear, NR has no interest in managing the entire NSI
or JIMO efforts, both of which contain significant non-reactor work, in
which Naval Reactors possesses no relevant expertise. If Congress and
the Administration decided to assign this work to Naval Reactors, we
would continue to do business the ``NR way.'' This means that NR should
have complete financial, technical, and contractual control over the
parts of the NSI for which we are responsible. To make that control
effective, we would request a separate line in the DOE budget for space
reactor work. This would also help ensure that our space and Navy
responsibilities do not interfere with each other. We would use our
successful practices in naval reactor design by assigning one of our
single-customer laboratories the lead for integrating the reactor
system. Finally, this work would be conducted so that no sensitive or
classified naval nuclear propulsion information was disclosed. These
terms are important for us to preserve our total ownership approach to
doing business. I would request a letter from high levels in the
Administration to assign this mandate to Naval Reactors, codifying
these terms and conditions.
naval reactor labs
Question. You have two outstanding engineering labs, the Bettis
Atomic Power Lab and the Knolls Atomic Power Lab. Both of those labs
went through contract competitions within the last 5 years. Did
competing the contracts at your labs produce significant or notable
improvements in performance?
Answer. Competing Naval Reactors' labs resulted in lower combined
cost to the government to run those facilities. In the Request for
Proposal we asked that the successful bidder make any transition
transparent to the laboratory workforce. Cost savings were principally
through the ability to reduce contribution to corporate overhead. This
workforce continues to deliver the same consistently high-quality
engineering support for our nuclear fleet that it has for over 50
years.
Question. Can you elaborate on the Naval Reactors tradition as to
how you manage your labs? I ask that with full knowledge that the
weapons labs are much different animals from yours, but I ask just as a
point of contrast.
Answer. Naval Reactors' two national labs, Bettis Atomic Power
Laboratory (Bettis), and Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL), have
made vital contributions to the Naval Reactors Program for more than 50
years. It is difficult to isolate the factors that have led to this
success, but several do stand out. First, our labs have a very focused
mission: they only do work for this program and their general managers
report directly to me. Second, my field offices use an effective audit
and appraisal program that allows me to keep a close watch on the
performance of our labs. Third, Naval Reactors benefits from a focused
multi-year planning process, reviewed semiannually, as well as an
annual technical work review. Experts in naval nuclear propulsion
perform these reviews. Finally, Naval Reactors maintains a simple,
technically talented, enduring, lean headquarters structure that allows
us to oversee our responsibilities effectively. My headquarters staff
retains clear, total responsibility for all aspects of naval nuclear
propulsion, including management of the laboratories. Laboratory
general managers report directly to me. By statute (Executive Order
12344 codified in Public Laws 106-65 and 98-525) the Director of Naval
Reactors is a four-star admiral with an 8-year tenure, as well as a
deputy administrator in the NNSA/DOE. This is important for two
reasons: it gives the director the stature to handle the issues that
arise while overseeing such unforgiving technology and it gives him
enough time to learn all the aspects of the job while providing
leadership consistency.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Harry Reid
nuclear security
Question. Ambassador Brooks, since September 11th NNSA has sent up
numerous reprogramming requests to cover the costs of enhanced
security, particularly for periods when the Nation has gone to Code
Orange. Generally, we have been happy to approve these reprogrammings.
However, I am concerned that we have seen lot of supplemental
appropriations requests come to the Hill during the last few years and
they rarely, if ever, have any funding for the NNSA. Given that you are
the guardians of both our Nation's nuclear stockpile and also a
tremendous amount of fissile nuclear material around the country, this
concerns me. Is your organization not requesting additional funding for
nuclear security? Is OMB simply denying your requests?
Answer. While we continually work hard to establish a base
Safeguards and Security program request that will be sufficient to
effectively meet our annual security program requirements, we, like the
rest of the Nation, are doing this against a backdrop of rapidly
evolving threats of terrorism. Against this backdrop, we also continue
to actively assess our programs to assure performance and readiness.
Accordingly, budget changes within a year may be necessary. The fiscal
year 2004 budget request for Safeguards and Security is sufficient to
meet our currently known needs for ongoing Safeguards and Security
activities. This request was developed with information from an
assessment of the complex's needs following the September 11, 2001,
attacks, and was formulated using the NNSA Planning, Programming,
Budgeting and Evaluation process to assure that funding requests are
closely linked to established program plans and balanced across NNSA.
The requests for supplemental funding you mention have been related
to emergent requirements that could not be accommodated within the base
budget request--the ``unknown-unknowns.'' A good example is the amount
of time we will spend this year at the elevated ``SECON 2'' security
level at our sites. Rather than budget for this type of contingency, it
is our policy to work within the base budget and accommodate what we
can before requesting additional funding authority. The Administration
endorses this approach and, in fact, supported two such requests for
our S&S programs last year.
Right now, we are looking at the increased costs we're incurring
for site protection at the SECON 2 level. We are also expecting the DOE
to issue in the near future, a revised, Design Basis Threat. Each of
our sites will analyze their security postures and the range of
activities that may need to be taken to best address the new threat
guidance. The sites will also work throughout the coming year to
identify areas of efficiencies and operational improvements that could
reduce S&S costs while maintaining the level of protection we require.
Throughout our efforts, we will try to accommodate S&S program
needs within available funding. If increased funding is required, we
will promptly work with the Congress.
Question. What can we do to get the Administration to take the
threat of loose nuclear material as seriously as they seem to take the
threat of chemical or biological attack?
Answer. The Bush Administration takes all threats posed by WMD
seriously and has undertaken several major initiatives to address
security risks arising from nuclear and radiological materials.
Presidents Bush and Putin agreed last year to cooperate on ways to
accelerate the elimination of excess nuclear materials. To supplement
our ongoing programs to convert highly enriched uranium to nuclear
reactor fuel and dispose of excess weapons plutonium, we are currently
negotiating with Russia on several new initiatives that will increase
the rate at which nuclear materials are converted to non-weapons usable
forms. This year's G-8 summit meeting included a reaffirmation of
commitments by the United States and its allies to supply up to $20
billion of assistance to enable Russia to reduce proliferation risks,
with the elimination of excess fissile materials identified as a
priority area. Through the Materials Protection, Control, and
Accounting program run by DOE's National Nuclear Security
Administration, we have upgraded security at facilities and storage
sites in Russia and other countries that contain hundreds of tons of
weapons-usable nuclear material.
Secretary Abraham hosted an international conference in March to
identify steps that need to be taken globally to reduce the danger that
terrorists could use radiological dispersion devices. DOE is actively
engaged in assisting a number of countries to recover and safely
dispose of abandoned radiological sources that pose a security threat.
Domestically, the NRC is working to put in place improved security for
radiological sources used for commercial, medical, or scientific
purposes in the United States. DOE continues to operate the Off-Site
Source Recovery Program, which has already retrieved and securely
stored thousands of radioactive sources no longer needed for their
original purposes.
nevada test site
Question. The Nevada Test Site provided crucial capabilities to the
Nation during the Cold War, and the Administration claims that this
national asset must remain ready to undertake similar responsibilities
if called upon. Yet, the levels of activity at the Test Site and the
levels of employment have steadily diminished since the termination of
nuclear testing. The only way I see to maintain the former capability
is to establish new activities at the Test Site that require similar
skills and facilities. Without that approach, the entire capability
will evaporate. Older workers will depart through death and retirement,
and without a stable and demanding mission new workers will not
develop. Please tell me how your Administration plans to reverse the
decline in morale and mission content at the Nevada Test Site.
Answer. Since the moratorium on nuclear testing in 1992, the NTS
has maintained the readiness to conduct testing if deemed necessary by
the President. The skill mix needed for the readiness posture is
complimentary to that needed to support Stockpile Stewardship program
activities. By ensuring a continued robust subcritical experiment and
other physics research program capabilities such as JASPER and Atlas at
the NTS, historic skills and capabilities can be maintained.
To date, 19 subcritical experiments have been successfully
conducted at the NTS. The national laboratories rely on the technical
expertise and scientific skills of NTS workers to maintain underground
testing expertise and capability and to capture essential data from the
subcritical experiments. Although we expect the number of subcritical
experiments to decline over the next several years, the complexity of
the experiments and need for advanced diagnostics will increase.
NNSA is committed to continued use of the NTS and expansion of its
missions as is evident in the relocation of the Atlas program to the
NTS. Atlas is a high performance pulsed power machine and will be used
to implode targets and measure the physical properties of weapons
material. NNSA is committed to bringing this machine on line in Nevada
and fielding experiments in support of the Stockpile Stewardship
program.
As other DOE/NNSA facilities face encroachment by population
centers, we look to move those missions with greater need for remote
and secure operations to the NTS. It is recognized that the NTS has
sufficient infrastructure and security features that make it ideal for
nonproliferation and national security related projects. A clear
example is the planned relocation of the critical assembly work from
Los Alamos to the NTS. These assemblies will complement the existing
missions of the NTS by providing an additional training tool for
emergency response personnel and those who work in nuclear
environments.
This administration continues to enhance and support nuclear-
related emergency response activities and is working closely with the
newly-formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to fight terrorism.
An ambitious DHS-sponsored program to train first responders and local
emergency managers from throughout the country at the NTS continues to
grow. Known as the National Center for Exercise Excellence, this
program will graduate 6,000 students this year alone. Within NNSA, the
existing NTS infrastructure is being modernized under current National
Center for Combating Terrorism (NCCT) funding to accommodate this
increase in student volume, and will ultimately enhance other national
security programs. The Remote Sensing Laboratory has provided the great
majority of radiological emergency response for the United States over
the last 30 years. These scientists and engineers, in close partnership
with the National Laboratories, are also developing the next generation
of counterterrorism technology for the Department of Homeland Security.
nuclear weapons stockpile
Question. Maintaining the safety and reliability of our nuclear
weapons stockpile is technically difficult, even if we were still
testing. The absence of testing makes this job even more difficult. I
know that the work of our weapons scientists and engineers is mostly
classified and carried out in secure facilities, but I suspect that
most of the scientific and technical tools are very similar to those
used for nonclassified research and development. Please tell me how the
Administration is assuring benefit to the classified program from the
enormous Federal investments in scientific and technical advances made
by DOE's Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, the
Department of Defense labs, Commerce's National Institute of Science
and Technology, and others like the Justice Department and our
intelligence agencies.
Answer. NNSA firmly supports leveraging science and technology
investments made by other Federal agencies. Let me provide just a few
examples from our Accelerated Strategic Computing program:
--Energy Sciences Network (ESNet).--The weapons program's SecureNet
relies heavily upon the Office of Science's ESNet as the
underlying infrastructure for wide area network communications.
--High Performance Storage System (HPSS).--Developed through a
consortium including the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL),
the three weapons laboratories, and IBM Government Systems,
HPSS provides a high speed, parallel, network-centered system
for high performance storage. ASCI continues to rely on ORNL to
provide storage system management support.
--Defense Threat Reduction Agency's PITHON.--This experimental
capability simulates hot x-rays by using a moderate energy
source. Data from this facility will be used as part of the
ASCI code verification and validation process.
--National Security Agency Encryptors.--Development and early
production of UltraFastlanes through the National Security
Agency enabled sufficient data transfer rates to support
designer work at the labs.
--National Science Foundation platforms.--Compute cycles from the
Blue Horizon platform at San Diego Supercomputing Center are
used to provide Stockpile Stewardship Alliance University
partners with access to unclassified supercomputing capability.
nonproliferation programs
Question. The nonproliferation programs within your Administration
are, for the most part, pursued by the same organizations that manage
the weapons research anddevelopment. In fact, most of the
nonproliferation scientists and engineers are either former or even
present weapons specialists in the Stockpile Stewardship program. Yet,
the management of these two activities within your administration is
quite different. For example, definition of the stockpile stewardship
program develops from a partnership between the Federal Government and
the civilian specialists. Is the same approach used for
nonproliferation activities?
Answer. As for the approach for development of U.S.
nonproliferation programs, the programs have evolved considerably over
the last 10 years. The phrase ``partnership between the Federal
Government and the civilian specialists'' may be somewhat misleading.
The National Security Council sets the agenda for U.S. nonproliferation
programs for the Executive Branch. However, the NNSA's nonproliferation
programs have received considerable input from Nongovernmental
Organizations (NGOs), Congress, and the Interagency. Also, milestones
and events such as the fall of the Soviet Union, the crash of the
Russian economy, accords by former Soviet States to abrogate nuclear
weapons, the September 11, 2002, terrorist attacks and others have had
major influence on the evolution of these programs. With 10 years of
experience implementing nonproliferation programs in the former Soviet
Union and in other countries around the world, the NNSA has developed a
broad range of experts upon which to draw for expertise, both inside
and outside of the NNSA.
Question. Do you think that efficiencies and cost savings could be
found by uniting these two programs into a single program, perhaps
entitled Nuclear Security programs?
Answer. By act of Congress, the National Nuclear Security
Administration has three line organizations: Defense Programs, Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation, and Naval Reactors. Each program has a
distinct mission, a unique set of skills to accomplish the mission,
different stakeholders, and a dissimilar venue for performing the work.
Naval Reactors has specific legislative mandates. Defense Programs and
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, however, work quite independently to
perform their missions, although there are some areas of mutual
concern. Defense Programs carries out the Stockpile Stewardship Program
and other missions primarily in the United States; Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation conducts its programs internationally. Defense
Programs' primary customer is the Department of Defense while Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation works with U.S. allies to reduce the threat of
weapons of mass destruction, keeping threats away from the U.S. shores.
Congressional action to create the NNSA as a ``separately
organized'' agency within the DOE provides for the management of
nuclear weapons expertise and infrastructure under a single leader.
Defense Programs and Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation organizations
reflect the disparate missions of these organizations. A large part of
the work for each program is accomplished at the three NNSA
laboratories, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Los Alamos. However, the
NNSA national laboratories have organized in such a way that the
expertise to support each program is provided by dedicated and
specialized support because of the nature of the work for each program.
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, moreover, uses resources of other
laboratories and contractors outside of NNSA, including Pacific
Northwest, Argonne, Brookhaven, and Oak Ridge National Laboratories in
working in Russia and around the world.
In those areas where mutual concerns of Defense Programs and
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation converge, such as international access
to the U.S. nuclear weapons complex for treaty compliance, the NNSA is
particularly well organized to perform the necessary interfaces to
determine the best approach to accomplish both missions. Combining
these organizations would be disruptive and blur the distinct missions
of each organization. The structure of the NNSA provides for cost
effective management of resources through delivery of services to the
line organizations by the Offices of Management and Administration and
Infrastructure and Security.
CONCLUSION OF HEARINGS
Senator Domenici. Anything further?
We stand in recess. Thank you all very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:40 p.m., Thursday, April 10, the hearings
were concluded, and the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene
subject to the call of the Chair.]