30 April 2005
Source: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-636R
[3 of 15 pages; see source for 11-slides presentation.]
Government Accountability Office
April 29, 2005
The Honorable Terry Everett
Chairman
The Honorable Silvestre Reyes
Ranking Member
Strategic Forces Subcommittee
Committee on Armed Services
House of Representatives
Subject: Nuclear Weapons: Preliminary Results of Review of Campaigns to Provide Scientific Support for the Stockpile Stewardship Program
In 1992, the United States began a unilateral moratorium on testing nuclear weapons. Subsequently, in 1993, the President and the Congress directed the Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a program to ensure the preservation of the United States’ core intellectual and technical competencies in nuclear weapons without testing.1 In response, DOE developed the Stockpile Stewardship Program to (1) increase understanding of the basic phenomena associated with nuclear weapons, (2) provide a better predictive understanding of the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons, and (3) ensure a strong scientific and technical basis for future U. S. nuclear weapons policy objectives. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within DOE, is responsible for carrying out the Stockpile Stewardship Program. This responsibility encompasses many different tasks, including activities associated with the research, design, development, simulation, modeling, and nonnuclear testing of nuclear weapons, as well as the planning, assessment, and certification of the weapons’ safety and reliability. Three nuclear weapons design laboratories support NNSA’s mission: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, and Sandia National Laboratories in California and New Mexico.
____________________
1 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-160, §. 3138 (Nov. 30, 1993).
In 1999, DOE developed a new structure for the Stockpile Stewardship Program that included a series of what DOE called “campaigns,” which DOE defined as technically challenging, multiyear, multifunctional efforts to develop and maintain the critical capabilities needed to continue assessing the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile into the foreseeable future without underground testing. DOE originally created 18 campaigns that were designed to focus its efforts in science and computing, applied science and engineering, and production readiness. Other program activities associated with the Stockpile Stewardship Program include “directed stockpile work,” which includes the activities that directly support maintaining the current weapons in the stockpile, and “readiness in technical base and facilities,” which includes the physical infrastructure and operational readiness required to conduct campaigns and directed stockpile work activities.
The Stockpile Stewardship Program is now over 10 years old, and NNSA’s campaign structure is in its sixth year. In this context, you asked us to determine (1) how NNSA has organized the campaigns to provide the scientific capabilities required to support the nuclear stockpile, (2) the extent to which the scientific campaigns have met their overall goals and supporting milestones, and (3) the effectiveness of NNSA’s current planning process for the campaigns. To address these issues, we identified the six individual NNSA campaigns that primarily deal with providing the scientific capability required to support the nuclear stockpile. For these campaigns, we reviewed NNSA campaign planning documents and other documents related to campaign performance, such as external review panel reports. We also interviewed campaign program managers at NNSA, LLNL, and LANL. We focused our work principally on two campaigns—the Primary Assessment Technologies (Primary) and Secondary Assessment Technologies (Secondary) campaigns—because these campaigns set the requirements for the experimental data and computer models needed to assess and certify the performance of nuclear weapons. We briefed your staff on the preliminary results of our review. This letter summarizes our briefing. Enclosure I contains the briefing slides we presented. We conducted the work for this letter from August 2004 through April 2005 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Our work is continuing, and we expect to issue a final report on NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program scientific campaigns in December 2005.
In summary:
NNSA has six individual campaigns that are intended to provide the scientific capability required to support the nuclear stockpile. The Primary and Secondary campaigns are designed to analyze and understand the different scientific phenomena that occur in the primary and secondary stages of a nuclear weapon during detonation.2 As such, the Primary and Secondary campaigns set the requirements for the experimental data and computer models needed to assess and certify the performance of nuclear weapons. Four other campaigns—Dynamic Materials Properties, Advanced Radiography, Advanced Simulation and Computing, and Inertial Confinement Fusion and High Yield—provide the experimental and computational support needed to meet the goals set by the Primary and Secondary campaigns. For example, the Advanced Simulation and Computing campaign provides the leading-edge computers and models needed to simulate the performance of nuclear weapons without underground testing. From fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2004, NNSA spent about $5.8 billion on these six campaigns.
__________________
2 Modern nuclear weapons have two stages: the primary, which is the initial source of energy, and the secondary, which is driven by the primary and provides additional explosive energy.
The Primary and Secondary campaigns have not achieved the overall goals originally established for them in 1999; however, the Primary and Secondary campaigns have made progress in completing important supporting milestones. Initially, the Primary campaign set goals for certifying the primary stage of a nuclear weapon to within a stated primary yield level during the 2005 to 2010 time frame. The goals for the Secondary campaign were closely linked to the goals established for the Primary campaign. However, achieving these goals has been technically challenging and has depended on the timely completion of major facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at LLNL and the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DARHT) at LANL—both of which have experienced major delays due to problems with technical issues and project management and are still not complete.3 In 2003, NNSA modified the original goals for the Primary and Secondary campaigns and extended them into the 2010 to 2014 time frame.
__________________
3 DARHT was originally scheduled for completion in 2003 and is now scheduled for completion in 2008. NIF will not be complete until 2008, 5 years after the original completion date of 2003.
Between 1999 and 2003, NNSA did not have a uniform planning process for approving and tracking campaign milestones, and the planning process that did exist was not applied in a consistent manner at LANL and LLNL. However, in 2003, NNSA implemented a new planning process for the campaigns, including the establishment of a uniform set of requirements for campaign program and implementation plans. In addition, NNSA implemented a system for tracking the progress of major milestones through the use of a milestone reporting database and a quarterly performance review meeting for managers involved in the Stockpile Stewardship Program. However, NNSA officials have acknowledged that current campaign plans still do not provide clear linkages between goals and supporting milestones, and they do not adequately coordinate and set priorities for the scientific research currently conducted across the weapons complex. In response, NNSA officials are revising campaign plans and overall milestones for the Primary campaign for fiscal year 2006. Finally, NNSA, LANL, and LLNL officials have endorsed the use of a new methodology for assessing and certifying nuclear warheads. This methodology, known as the Quantification of Margins and Uncertainties, draws together data from simulations, experiments, and expert judgments to quantify confidence factors for the key potential failure areas in a nuclear weapon. However, NNSA and laboratory officials, as well as outside experts, acknowledge that this methodology is still incomplete and evolving. According to NNSA plans, full implementation of this methodology is not expected until the 2010 to 2014 time frame.
We provided NNSA with a draft of our report and received oral comments from NNSA’s Assistant Deputy Administrator for Research, Development, and Simulation. NNSA generally agreed with our findings. With respect to our statement on the implementation of the Quantification of Margins and Uncertainties methodology, NNSA stated that it plans to establish intermediate milestones to support the implementation of this methodology prior to 2010. NNSA also stated that it believes this methodology provides a clearer and more comprehensive approach to assessing the performance of nuclear weapons than was provided by the initial goals established for the Primary and Secondary campaigns. In addition, NNSA made technical clarifications that we incorporated as appropriate in this report.
_ _ _ _ _
As agreed with your offices, we will make copies of this letter available to others upon request. This letter will also be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staff have any questions about this letter or need additional information, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or James Noel, Assistant Director, at (202) 512-3591.
Major contributors to this letter include Jason Holliday, Keith Rhodes, Judy Pagano, Doreen Feldman, Carol Herrnstadt Shulman, and Peter Ruedel.
Gene Aloise
Director, Natural Resources and Environment
Enclosure
[Federal Register: April 29, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 82)]
[Notices]
[Page 22306-22307]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr29ap05-37]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
National Nuclear Security Administration
Final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued
Operation of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Supplemental
Stockpile Stewardship and Management Programmatic Environmental Impact
Statement
AGENCY: National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Energy.
ACTION: Notice of availability.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The Livermore Site Office of the Department of Energy's (DOE)
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the
availability of the Final Site-wide Environmental Impact Statement for
Continued Operation of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE/EIS-
0348) and Supplemental Stockpile Stewardship and Management
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DOE/EIS-0236-S3) (LLNL SW/
SPEIS). The Final LLNL SW/SPEIS was prepared in accordance with the
Council on Environmental Quality's National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA) Implementing Regulations (40 CFR Parts 1500-1508) and the DOE's
NEPA Implementing Procedures (10 CFR Part 1021). The Final LLNL SW/
SPEIS analyzes the potential environmental impacts associated with
continuing current Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
operations and foreseeable new or modified operations and facilities.
The LLNL SW/SWPEIS also evaluates the potential environmental impacts
of experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) using plutonium,
other fissile materials, fissionable materials, and lithium hydride.
The Final LLNL SW/SPEIS analyses a Proposed Action and two
alternatives, the No Action Alternative and a Reduced Operation
Alternative. The No Action Alternative would continue operation of
current LLNL programs in support of assigned missions. The Proposed
Action includes operations discussed under the No Action Alternative
and new or expanded operations in support of reasonably foreseeable
mission requirements. The Reduced Operation Alternative consists of a
reduction of activities compared to the No Action Alternative. The NNSA
has identified the Proposed Action as the preferred alternative in the
Final LLNL SW/SPEIS.
DATES: The NNSA intends to issue a Record of Decision on the Final LLNL
SW/SPEIS no sooner than 30 days after the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) publishes a notice of filing of the Final LLNL SW/SPEIS in
the Federal Register.
ADDRESSES: The Final LLNL SW/SPEIS is available on the LLNL
Environmental Community Relations Web site http://www-envirinfo.llnl.gov/.
For additional information or a copy of the Final
LLNL SW/SPEIS or its Summary contact: Mr. Thomas Grim, Document
Manager, National Nuclear Security Administration, Livermore Site
Office, L-293, 7000 East Avenue, Livermore, CA 94550-9234; phone (925)
422-0704 or toll free 1-877-388-4930; or by e-mail
tom.grim@doeal.gov). The Final LLNL SW/SPEIS is also available at the
following locations: the DOE Public Reading Room in Room 1E-190, 1000
Independence Ave, SW., Washington, DC 20585, (202) 586-3142; the LLNL
Public Reading Room in the LLNL Visitors Center in Building 6525
located at the East Gate Entrance off of Greenville Road, Livermore,
California, (925) 424-4026; the Livermore Public Library at 1000 South
Livermore Avenue, Livermore California, (925) 373-5500; and the Tracy
Public Library at 20 East Eaton Avenue, Tracy, CA, (209) 831-4250.
For general information on the DOE NEPA process, please contact:
Ms. Carol M. Borgstrom, Director, Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance,
EH-42, U.S. DOE, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585,
telephone 202-586-4600, or leave a message at 1-800-472-2756.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The continued operation of LLNL is critical
to NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship Program and to preventing the spread
and use of nuclear weapons worldwide. LLNL maintains core competencies
in activities associated with research and development, design, and
surveillance of nuclear weapons, as well as the assessment and
certification of their safety and reliability. LLNL also supports other
DOE programs and Federal agencies such as the Department of Defense,
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, EPA, and the Department of Homeland
Security. The Final LLNL SW/SPEIS analyzes the environmental impacts of
these operations.
LLNL was founded in 1952 as the second nuclear weapons design
laboratory in order to promote innovation in the design of our nation's
nuclear stockpile. LLNL consists of two sites: the Livermore Site
located in Livermore, California (Alameda County); and Site 300, an
experimental test site located near Tracy, California,
[[Page 22307]]
(San Joaquin and Alameda counties). The Livermore Site is the primary
site and is located approximately 40 miles east of San Francisco in the
Livermore Valley on the east side of the city of Livermore. Site 300 is
located 15 miles southeast of the city of Livermore between Livermore
and Tracy.
The alternatives evaluated in the Final LLNL SW/SPEIS represent a
range of operation from the minimum level that maintains core
capabilities (Reduced Operation Alternative) to the highest reasonable
activity levels that could be supported by current facilities, and the
potential expansion and construction of new facilities for identified
future actions (Proposed Action). The No Action Alternative would
continue operation of current LLNL programs in support of assigned
missions and includes approved interim actions; facility construction,
expansion, or modification; and decontamination and decommissioning
projects for which NEPA analysis and documentation already exist. The
Proposed Action includes operations discussed under the No Action
Alternative and the construction of new facilities and expanded
operations in support of future mission requirements. Specifically, the
Proposed Action includes increasing the administrative and material-at-
risk limits for plutonium and tritium, and the use of nuclear materials
(plutonium, other fissile materials, fissionable materials, and lithium
hydride) at the National Ignition Facility. The Reduced Operation
Alternative represents a thirty percent reduction of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program compared to the No Action Alternative. The Reduced
Operation Alternative maintains full operational readiness for NNSA
facilities and operations, but does not represent the level of
operation required to fulfill the missions of the Stockpile Stewardship
Program assigned to LLNL. The NNSA has identified the Proposed Action
as its preferred alternative in the Final LLNL SW/SPEIS.
The Final LLNL SW/SPEIS contains responses to comments received
during the public comment period, as well as changes that were made to
the Draft LLNL SW/SPEIS in response to these comments. The NNSA will
consider the analyses in the Final LLNL SW/SPEIS, along with other
information, in making its decision regarding future operations at
LLNL.
Issued in Washington, DC, this 10th day of March 2005.
Linton F. Brooks,
Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration.
[FR Doc. 05-8600 Filed 4-28-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P