Was the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise bold enough in recommending a move back to the Department of Energy for the National Nuclear Security Administration? Congress implored the panel to take bold action, and Norm Augustine, the co-chairman of the panel, thinks it did, and he is optimistic DOE and Congress will embrace the panel’s recommendations. “You can do bold, dumb things and we tried to avoid that,” Augustine told NS&D Monitor yesterday in his first public comments since the report was released.
The panel considered recommending the creation of an independent agency for the NNSA, or moving it to DoD, but said strengthening the authority and credentials of the Secretary of Energy and the NNSA administrator while moving the agency back under the auspices of DOE had the best shot of success. And if that doesn’t work, it said creating an independent agency should be considered. “We concluded it’s a big issue. It’s not where you put it, it’s how you run it,” Augustine said. “Where you put it just wasn’t that important even though it becomes kind of the headline piece. As we dug into it more and more we concluded this was by far the best option from a management standpoint but as we said, if this doesn’t work, there is only one choice left.”
Augustine said the benefits of having cabinet-level leadership—as long as it’s well-versed in nuclear issues—overshadowed any benefits of creating an independent agency for the NNSA. “Absent a greater degree of attention at the very highest levels we believe this would continue to be somewhat not functional,” Augustine said. “We wanted a secretary with a seat at the cabinet table who can speak on behalf of this mission. We also looked at if you’re really trying to impose change, is the way you do it to create an isolated group? To set itself up to define its own affairs the way it wants to? Or does it need someone that’s very senior to kind of enforce change. We just felt it wouldn’t have enough clout out there by itself to get the attention it needs and to get the funding it needs.”
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