NNSA Working to Increase Funding to ?Halt the Growth of Deferred Maintenance?

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is seeking greater funding to address its $3.6 billion backlog of deferred maintenance projects, spokeswoman Shelley Laver told NS&D Monitor in reference to two Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports released in the past two weeks on the Department of Energy (DOE) branch’s nuclear enterprise modernization budget estimates. A GAO report issued earlier this month found that NNSA’s deferred maintenance backlog will likely grow because the agency’s budgeting falls below DOE benchmarks dictating the NNSA’s annual maintenance budget to be “at least 2 percent” of the replacement plant value at each of the sites in the nuclear security enterprise “in order to keep facilities in good working order.” Laver said the GAO’s assessment “is correct,” but that due to a “constrained budget environment” NNSA “spends about 1.4 [percent] of [replacement plant value] for maintenance.” 

 

“However, NNSA is working to increase funding to more closely align with DOE’s benchmark, halt the growth of deferred maintenance, and arrest the declining state of NNSA infrastructure,” Laver said by email. The August report notes that deferring maintenance at NNSA’s aging facilities “can reduce the overall life of federal facilities, lead to higher costs in the long term, and pose risks to safety and agencies’ missions.” The report says the NNSA’s 2015 25-year modernization budget estimate has increased by $17.6 billion, or 6.4 percent, since last year.