Staff Reports
NS&D Monitor
2/20/2015
Plans for a newly scaled-back Uranium Processing Facility received largely positive reviews from officials this week at the Seventh Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit, held in Washington, as officials expressed optimism that the project could stay within its $6.5 billion cost cap. The UPF, which has yet to begin construction, has continued to draw attention after the National Nuclear Security Administration decided to alter its approach on the facility last year, moving away from a “big box” facility in favor of constructing a series of smaller buildings that will help it get out of the Y-12 National Security Complex’s aging 9212 facility sooner.
This week, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said he will visit Oak Ridge in a few weeks to take part in the celebration of the project’s first big milestone—completion of an early site-preparation project. Klotz suggested it was important to build momentum for success and underscore the importance with workers. Bob Raines, the NNSA’s associate administrator for acquisition and project management, made a reference to the UPF sub-project during his Feb. 19 talk at the summit. Raines said the “first piece” of work on the UPF—the Site Readiness Sub-Project—had been completed $10 million under budget. While that may not be a lot compared to the ultimate $6 billion cost of the project, he said the savings provides some “headroom” as the UPF moves forward. “It’s a start,” Raines said.
UPF a Likely Winner in Budget Discussions
The Obama Administration recently released its budget recommendations for Fiscal Year 2016, which begins Oct. 1, and the proposed spending level for UPF was set at $430 million. That was a pretty big step-up from the current year’s funding of $335 million. During a Feb. 18 roundtable discussion at the summit, a number of analysts, including some with ties to Congress, discussed the funding possibilities for updating the nuclear weapons and the weapons production complex. One of the questions included the likely “winners” and “losers” in the upcoming budget battles. Leland Cogliani, former staffer at the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which controls funding for the Department of Energy and NNSA, said UPF was likely to be one of the winners because it is a top priority for Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the subcommittee.
UPF’s hefty price tag still has created skeptics. Stephen Young, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the UCS did a broad review of the nuclear weapons complex a couple of years ago and recommended that UPF be reevaluated to see if it needed to be as big as proposed. Since then, the UPF has undergone a major redesign to scale down the scope and save money. “The new plan … seems to make some more sense,” Young said. “We’re saying they definitely made an improvement. They’re on a better path. But it’s still a lot of money for that facility. But there’s no doubt they do need some new capabilities.”
Hard Choices Loom
Is $6.5 billion affordable? “It’s hard to say,” Young said. All by itself, the UPF would probably be affordable, but there are other projects up for funding at other sites in the nuclear weapons complex, he said. “We’re not at the point where we have to make our choices yet,” Young said.
Drew Walter, who’s on the majority staff at the House Armed Services Committee, said Feb. 19 that past problems on the project continue to color impressions among lawmakers. “Members are still concerned about accountability on the failures we saw [during the early designs], but recognize this is incredibly important for building a responsive structure,” he said. “So, we’re reviewing the plan that they have now, the modular approach or whatever you want to call it. And there are concerns that we’ve de-scoped the project but kept the $6.5 billion number of on it. Honestly, they’re hashing all this out. It’ll be a discussion for the next several years, but ultimately this is a facility that has to be built.”
