[DOE
LETTERHEAD]
National Nuclear Security Administration
October
9, 2003
The Honorable John T. Conway
Chairman
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
625 Indiana Avenue, NW.
Suite 700
Washington, DC
20004-2901
Dear Mr. Chairman:
This letter is the National Nuclear Security
Administration’s (NNSA) response to your letter dated July 9, 2003, which requested, “NNSA’s plans and
schedules for addressing or rejecting the recommendations made by the Senior
Technical Advisory Panel during the past 3 years, and to institutionalize the
separation in time for the NESS and
readiness reviews”.
The NNSA provided an interim reply on September
10, 2003, which
discussed an independent review that Mr. Gene Ives was conducting for the
Administration with regard to the utilization of the Senior Technical Advisory
Panel (STAP). Additionally, we stated we
would evaluate your concerns regarding previous STAP recommendations in our
response.
We received Mr. Ives’ draft Executive
Summary October 3, 2003, which we will share with your staff. We intend to implement those recommendations
we believe will allow us to best utilize the STAP expertise now, and in the
future, to update and improve the Nuclear Explosive Safety Study (NESS) process.
The STAP is an invaluable resource which
can only make a good process better. We
will work with the STAP to refine our guidance to them and enhance our
interaction with them.
Our response to the recommendations made by
the STAP is enclosed. This enclosure also
includes the response to your concern about separating the NESS and readiness reviews. That response is at section D in the
enclosure.
Sincerely,
David E. Beck
Assistant Deputy Administrator
for Military Application
and Stockpile Operations
Defense Programs
Enclosure
cc:
J. Garrick, STAP
C. Whipple, STAP
J. Ramsey, STAP
E. Zebroski, STAP
D. Glenn, PXSO
Fingerlos NESD
E. Schmidt, NA- 121