HOUSE LAWMAKERS SUPPORT WHITE HOUSE LAB GOVERNANCE STUDY

The top two lawmakers on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittees are backing the White House’s decision to have the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Science and Technology Policy Institute study the governance structure of the federal laboratories. The subcommittee requested a recently released National Academy of Sciences study on management of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons laboratories and is expected to take some action to reform the labs this year, and Reps. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) said in a joint statement that they were happy to see the White House “engaged” on the issue. “In our oversight of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s national labs, we’ve become concerned about a governance structure that the National Academies of Science recently called ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘broken.’ We must ensure these national labs are setup to face the many nuclear security challenges facing the nation, and we look forward to taking some concrete first steps at reform in the upcoming fiscal year 2013 defense authorization bill to improve oversight that will enable a safe, cost-effective work environment and preserve scientific and engineering excellence at the laboratories,” Turner and Sanchez said yesterday.