Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
4/24/2015
House appropriators are concerned that a heavy workload on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program could endanger the agency’s modernization efforts. In the report accompanying the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations Act, House appropriators said they were worried that the “aggressive” schedule for the B61-12 refurbishment and W88 Alt 370 could overload the weapons complex in the 2020-2025 timeframe. The House Appropriations Committee cleared the bill this week and the bill is expected to be considered on the House floor next week. “Such peaks in the NNSA’s production lines are difficult and expensive to manage,” the committee report states. “The Committee encourages the NNSA to investigate work levelling strategies for the W88 that would help alleviate these pressures.
The committee matched the Administration’s requests for all of the NNSA’s life extension work, providing $643.3 million for the B61-12, $220.2 million for the W88 Alt 370 and $195 million for the W80-4 cruise missile warhead, but it also raised concerns about the potential cost of work on the W80-4. “The Committee is concerned that the NNSA has already settled on two alternatives for the W80-4 that are more expensive than the B61 life extension program and will require funding peaks that will compete with other planned major multi-year programs and projects,” the report says.
Committee Asks JASON Group to Red Team W80-4
The committee tasked the JASON Defense Advisory Group or another independent group to perform a red team review of the alternatives selected for the W80-4 life extension program. The red team report would be due no later than 180 days after the enactment of the bill. “The NNSA has a history of spending large amounts of funding to develop alternatives that are tabled in order to pursue a more affordable option,” the report says. “The NNSA must demonstrate it is able to overcome these past failures by changing the way it conducts its alternative analyses.”
The committee also raised concerns about the decreasing emphasis placed on science in the budget, though it largely matched the agency’s $1.77 billion request for Research, Development, Technology and Engineering work. NNSA officials said the focus on life extension programs forced the agency to delay investments in capabilities and tools that underpin the Stockpile Stewardship Program. “The NNSA reduced funding for science and engineering activities in its budget request and the Committee is concerned that undercutting funding for such activities could undermine the long-term capability of the NNSA to maintain an aging nuclear stockpile,” the committee said in the report.
