Greeting acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Neile Miller with foreboding phrases like "I don’t envy you" and "welcome to the grist mill," Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) peppered a panel of senior NNSA officials with a host of tough questions and harsh criticisms yesterday, directing her ire at the history of cost overruns at major projects, funding modernization at the expense of nonproliferation in FY14 request and Miller’s decision to extend contracts at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories despite performance concerns. But as the hearing wound down 90 minutes later, Feinstein appeared at least somewhat mollified by Miller’s testimony, telling the NNSA chief at one point during a discussion of NNSA’s response to project management issues: "I’m very impressed. Thank you for being so up front."
Citing recent high-profile cost overruns projects like LANL’s security upgrade and the Uranium Processing Facilty at Y-12, Feinstein said she has “serious doubts” about NNSA’s “ability to properly manage projects and provide necessary oversight” of its contractors. “NNSA must do more to overcome these management and oversight deficiencies to restore confidence that it can deliver projects on time and on budget,” Feinstein said. Those sentiments were echoed moments later by Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who warned Miller: “If the NNSA does not find a more effective way to deal with design of these large, multi-billion dollar facilities that NNSA builds, it’s going to lose Congressional support for those facilities … We have to do a better job at this. That’s my overwhelming message.” Miller, for her part, emphasized that NNSA has “reinforced” its project management organization with the hiring of Robert Raines as an Associate Administrator in charge of project management and re-tooling its approach to overseeing such projects. “We’ve never managed the contractor for their behavior other than grossly through the M&O contract,” Miller said, citing the action taken by NNSA to hold Los Alamos contractor LANS responsible for the cost increases associated with the security upgrade project. “This is what I mean by accountability and changing the way we manage,” Miller said.
Feinstein also raised concerns about Miller’s decision late last year to give the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore contractors award term extensions despite performance ratings that were too low to qualify for the extensions. “This is just unbelievable,” Feinstein said. “Why would contracts be extended if people are not performing?” Miller responded that “a serious amount of fee” was taken away at both labs in response the performance concerns, and she defended her decision to grant the award term extensions “In both those cases, we had new, and in one case very new, lab directors. This was their first real year being at the place. So my options were to either show support for what I personally know what they are trying to get done to improve performance at those laboratories or to take this very strong step of not awarding the award term, which in my view would serve possibly to undermine them not only with their boards, but with their employees. In my judgement, for the health of the enterprise, I went ahead and awarded the award term, but got them on fee. They all know they’re on strong notice now. They got a one-time pass.”
