The National Nuclear Security Administration stonewalled some requests for classified information by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the board said in a congressionally mandated report.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) made a pair of classified-information requests with a Nov. 18 delivery date, but as of Jan. 19, “the board has not yet received responses to these requests” from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), according to a copy of the Board’s latest semiannual report to Congress.
The federal DNFSB, which is legally empowered to inspect, and make safety recommendations about, the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites sought classified information about the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s nuclear materials management plan and separately about a safety study within NNSA’s Office of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation.
NNSA’s lack of response as of mid-January fit into what the DNFSB in its report called “a pattern of delayed National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) responses to classified Board information requests and reporting requirements.”
Earlier in January, DNFSB complained that the NNSA was backdating correspondence with the board and brushing off some of the board’s safety queries with what DNFSB framed as questionable rationalizations.
