Summary

This report focuses on management and oversight failures, which caused major cost overruns and schedule delays at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). GAO found that the Department of Energy, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of California all share responsibility for NIF's cost and schedule problems. It was also found that each lack the appropriate skills to manage and oversee the project and exercised oversight powers poorly. These conditions, however have spawned new reforms by the Laboratory and the University to improve their management and organization short comings.

GAO noted that: (1) DOE and Lawrence Livermore now estimate that NIF will eventually cost about $3.3 billion and will be completed in 2008; (2) these new estimates mean NIF will cost over $1 billion more than originally planned and take 6 years longer to complete; (3) however, on the basis of analysis of figures from DOE and Lawrence Livermore, GAO estimates that NIF's cost is closer to $4 billion because DOE's estimate does not include all research and development costs from other program areas that are needed to support NIF; (4) furthermore, since significant research and development activities to support NIF remain to be completed and technical uncertainties persist, the cost of NIF could grow even higher and completion could take even longer; (5) NIF's cost increases and schedule delays were caused by a combination of poor Lawrence Livermore management and inadequate DOE oversight; (6) since NIF's beginning, the absence of effective independent reviews has enabled the project's costs and schedules to grow undetected by DOE program officials at headquarters and at Lawrence Livermore; (7) furthermore, none of these reviews has examined both the construction project and its supporting research and development activities; (8) paying for NIF's cost overruns has broad implications for DOE's nuclear weapons program; (9) the Secretary of Energy has said he wants to complete NIF but will not ask Congress for additional appropriations to pay for NIF's cost increases; (10) instead, he announced that the Department will pay for NIF's overruns by reallocating funds from within DOE's existing nuclear weapons budget; (11) however, DOE has not fully disclosed which programs will be cut to pay for NIF, nor when or how this will be done; (12) nor has DOE evaluated how this reallocation will affect components of the nuclear weapons program that might be eliminated, reduced in scope, or extended in order to fund NIF; (13) DOE tried but was unable to secure agreement among its three weapons laboratories that will use NIF--Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia; (14) consequently, DOE's June "interim" cost and schedule plan was not developed by taking into account the many potential impacts on DOE's nuclear weapons program; and (15) in addition, because DOE has not determined how it intends to pay for NIF's cost overruns, the potential impacts on other science programs are unknown.