The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has not fully implemented its Enhanced Surveillance Program, in part due to decreased funding over the years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a report released Wednesday.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency’s 2007 Surveillance Transformation Project, an effort to address the growing backlog of required surveillance weapons tests, called for improving management of its overall surveillance project for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and increasing the role of the Enhanced Surveillance Program.
This program was established in the mid-1990s to supplement the core surveillance program by predicting future problems in aging weapons and components in the nuclear stockpile. This is done through lifetime assessments and aging studies, computational models, and diagnostic tool development, the GAO said. The NNSA routinely inspects nuclear weapons, their components, and related materials to certify that they meet performance expectations.
However, the agency did not adequately address the goal of expanding the enhanced program, according to the report. Instead, “NNSA reduced program funding by more than 50 percent from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2015. NNSA also delayed some key activities and reduced the program’s scope during this time,” it found.
Funding for the program fell from $87 million in fiscal 2007 to $79 million the following year, and later to $38 million in fiscal 2015, the report said. The agency budgeted 30 percent less funding in fiscal 2015 for the program than during the prior fiscal year, the GAO said, noting that concerns have been raised that “changes to Enhanced Surveillance Program funding pose a risk that NNSA may not have the tools it needs in the future to fully assess whether the stockpile remains safe and reliable.” The NNSA requested $42 million for the program in its fiscal 2017 budget proposal.
Additionally, the GAO found that some program activities have been delayed, including proposed evaluations of the impact of aging on non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons. The evaluations, which were to be conducted at the Sandia National Laboratories, were expected to be completed by 2012 but did not occur and were excluded this fiscal year as program goals, it said.
The GAO recommended the NNSA administrator develop a long-term strategy for the program addressing management challenges and identifying necessary resources. NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said in response that while “challenges surfaced that altered the original path forward for this effort,” namely the agency’s life extension programs and major infrastructure projects, a long-term strategy for the program will be developed by the end of next June.
