Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
1/30/2015
National security agencies doing business with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons laboratories should establish a “formally recognized” strategic partnership with the Department of Energy, a National Academy of Sciences panel said in a recently released report. The Committee on Assessment of the Governance Structure of the NNSA National Security Laboratories, chaired by former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve, stopped short of advocating major upheaval to the governance model for the labs in the form of multi-agency sponsorship of the institutions, but it suggested the strategic partnership would give agencies like the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence a “seat at the governance table for the laboratories.”
The panel called its recommendations a “more modest approach” that would strengthen the governance structure already in place. “As strategic partners, the national security agencies would have the responsibility to help the laboratories and their sponsor understand the larger national security agenda and enable the laboratories to meet future national security needs beyond nuclear weapons,” the panel said. “This strategic partnership relationship stems from the national security agencies’ vested interest in the laboratories’ performance and development of capabilities to support the agencies’ future mission needs.”
Governance Change Would ‘Create More Problems Than it Would Solve’
The committee said a move to direct sponsorship of DOE/NNSA laboratories by other government agencies would “create more problems than it would solve” and would be opposed by other agencies and stakeholders. “The agencies are generally pleased with the quality of the services they receive from the NNSA laboratories, but as a general matter are not interested in committing their own budgets to pay for recapitalization of major NNSA laboratory facilities and equipment,” the panel said, adding that there are no examples of successful multi-sponsor federally funded research and development centers as large as the labs. “One reason, no doubt, is the funding uncertainty that is inherent in such an arrangement,” the panel said.
Other agencies poured $1.66 billion into the weapons complex in Fiscal Year 2013, with Work For Others representing 36 percent of Sandia National Laboratories’ budget and 9 percent of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s budget, the committee said. A Mission Executive Council currently helps oversee work for other agencies at the lab through a 2010 Memorandum of Understanding between DOE, DHS, DoD and the Director of National Intelligence, and the panel recommended strengthening the MEC and tasking it with coordinating investments from other agencies in the labs.
Panel Calls for Coordinated Strategic Planning
It also said the MEC should help coordinate a strategic plan for the laboratories encompassing the needs of other agencies. While the labs do strategic planning individually, there is no coordinated effort between DOE/NNSA, other agencies and the labs, the panel said. The labs need a mission statement that “reflects their evolving role,” the panel said. “Although the laboratories should expect to be significantly involved in this process, it is essential that the new mission statement reflects the stakeholders’ (i.e., the DOE sponsor’s and national security agency strategic partners’) buy-in and endorsement.”
While admittedly modest, the panel’s recommendations are “designed to create a sustainably successful collaborative relationship among DOE, the other national security agencies, and the national security laboratories,” the panel said. “Implementing these recommendations would increase the probability that critical NNSA laboratory capabilities to support the national security of the United States will be available when needed in the future.”
Panel Suggests Including Other Institutions in Governance Model
The panel also said the governance model proposed in the report should involve other labs and facilities that perform national security work for other government agencies, like the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Nevada National Security Site. “Over time, other DOE laboratories or facilities may emerge that conduct a significant amount of interagency national security work, and if this occurs, the committee sees no reason why they should be excluded from the governance considerations proposed in this report,” the panel said.
