Full House Committee Clears FY 2015 E&W Approps Bill, Providing $8.2B to NNSA Weapons Program
Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
6/20/2014
The House Appropriations Committee cleared its version of the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations Act this week, endorsing the National Nuclear Security Administration’s shift to what it called a “more realistic” strategy to modernize the nation’s nuclear stockpile. While the committee provided $8.2 billion for the NNSA’s weapons program, a cut of $111 million from the Obama Administration’s budget request, it fully funded several key life extension programs on the W76 ($259 million) and the B61 ($643 million) and nearly doubled the Administration’s request for work on the cruise missile warhead ($17 million), taking an approach contrary to the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee (see related story).
Details of the bill were released for the first time this week as the full committee approved the bill. “The fiscal year 2015 budget request is a positive development due to the increased emphasis on conservative strategies that are attainable, affordable, and ultimately more realistic,” the committee said in the report accompanying the bill. “While there will continue to be debate on which specific programs should have higher priority and how those programs should be carried out, the NNSA must evolve to become more mission-oriented and focused on successfully carrying out its modernization plans to provide assurances that it will not fail in its stewardship of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.”
Previous Approach ‘Damaged the Credibility of the Organization’
The committee said previous modernization plans that were too ambitious had impacted lawmakers’ confidence in the agency. This year, however, the NNSA scaled back some of its warhead modernization plans, delaying work on an interoperable warhead by five years and moving back the completion of a First Production Unit of a new nuclear cruise missile warhead by three years. “Early formulations of the modernization plan tended to focus on stretch goals for warhead life extension programs and major construction projects that were based on overly optimistic timelines and invalid cost assumptions,” the committee said. “The NNSA’s failure to deliver on those promises has damaged the credibility of the organization.”
The committee applauded efforts by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to reform federal oversight at the Department of Energy and suggested new NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz could enact positive change at the agency. “The Committee is hopeful that the new NNSA Administrator will continue to advance management reforms that have been set in motion,” the committee said. “As the NNSA makes progress in resolving the inconsistencies between its goals for modernization and its ability to achieve those goals, the Committee will continue to hold the NNSA accountable for delivering its commitments on time and within budget.”
As part of its efforts to hold the NNSA accountable, the committee updated a provision that requires the NNSA to conduct a comprehensive analysis of alternatives as part of all future life extension programs. “The process of conducting a comprehensive analysis of alternatives, informed by independently-verified cost estimates, must be incorporated into the NNSA’s normal way of doing business,” the committee said.
Security, Dismantlement Funding Increased
Defense Nuclear Security funding also got a boost in the bill as the committee provided $650.1 million, a $32 million increase over the budget request. NNSA had proposed a 7 percent reduction in security funding in FY 2015, and the committee’s security allocation is still $14.9 million below FY 2014 funding levels, but it provides $14 million for work to install an Argus security system at the Nevada National Security Site’s Device Assembly Facility. “The NNSA has overestimated the savings it expects to realize from organizational and contract reforms and has not assured the Committee it can provide adequate protective force levels at a lower level of funding. The Committee expects the NNSA to request a more appropriate level of funding in future years to ensure protection of special nuclear materials at the NNSA sites,” the committee said.
The committee also provided an increase to the NNSA’s dismantlement work, restoring funding to Fiscal Year 2014 levels. The committee provided $54.3 million, a $24.3 million increase over the budget request. The NNSA’s FY 2015 budget request cut dismantlement work as it was crowded out by life extension work. “The NNSA continues to cut funding for dismantlement in its budget request, despite a clear requirement to continue to dismantle warheads, sustain production line capacity, and harvest materials for recycling to meet stockpile needs,” the committee said.
Committee Rips Infrastructure Prioritization
The committee was less happy about the NNSA’s budget request for operating, maintaining and recapitalizing weapons complex infrastructure. Though it largely matched the Administration’s $2.045 billion request for Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities funding and matched the $335 million request for the agency’s biggest project, the Uranium Processing Facility, it ripped the agency for the way it prioritized some funding. “The Committee takes a dim view of the NNSA’s prioritization of its infrastructure needs in its fiscal year 2015 budget request,” the committee said. “The NNSA historically has failed to adequately fund its facility maintenance and recapitalization needs.”
The committee noted that the budget request proposed to defer 10 percent of preventative maintenance work across the weapons complex while proposing to begin two projects totaling $65 million to replace two emergency operations facilities that the committee said are not yet in need of being replaced. “Meanwhile, buildings are literally falling apart elsewhere in the complex and the NNSA has yet to request project funding to address those safety and security needs,” the committee said. “The Committee will continue to prioritize infrastructure funding within Weapons Activities to address the backlog of facilities operating beyond their useful lifetimes and to ensure that legacy facilities can be operated safely and securely.”
Committee Raises Questions About Modular Plutonium Strategy
The committee also signed off on the Administration’s $35.7 million for work at Los Alamos National Laboratory to begin outfitting the Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building and the lab’s Plutonium Facility to assume analytical chemistry and materials characterization work currently housed in the aging Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility. The work was initially intended to be housed in the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility, but that project was deferred in favor of a strategy that relies on existing facilities and new smaller, modular buildings for improving pit production capabilities. The committee said it did not support the construction of modular facilities because they are “not sufficiently related to the original mission need of the existing project.”
