Essential federal workers, including those at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plants that have not paused operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, should have access to protective equipment and daily testing for the virus, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said this week.
“Every day, if you go to work at the White House, you get tested,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told reporters Tuesday on a telephone press conference. “That’s what we need.”
The House’s chief defense policy maker said the Armed Services Committee would look into access to testing in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Given that the bill is being prepared during an election-year pandemic, it probably will not be finished until the late fall or winter, Smith said.
He added that the committee has asked the National Nuclear Security Administration, and other parts of the defense industrial base, “[w]hat are you doing to protect your workers? Is [personal protective equipment] available? How can we make it more available?”
Smith would not say whether the NNSA had informed the panel of any extraordinary measures taken to protect personnel at its national laboratories, key members of which are in the retirement-age group that is particularly vulnerable to the virus, or the employees of its nuclear-weapon production sites, who are expected to report for work as usual amid a worsening pandemic.
The NNSA production sites, at least, are not testing their work forces wholesale. NNSA headquarters in Washington, D.C., did not reply to a request for comment about the specifics of the complex’s infection testing regime.
The Pantex weapons assembly and disassembly plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex uranium hub in Oak Ridge, Tenn., are transitioning down to minimum mission-critical operations, joining the Savannah River Site in that posture. The Kansas City National Security Campus, in Kansas City, Mo., has increased teleworking, but not ordered every non-essential employee off site.
Pantex and Y-12 each have confirmed case, while Kansas City has not confirmed any infections among its workforce. Harvesting of tritium for nuclear weapons also continues at the Savannah River Site, which has at least four confirmed COVID-19 cases. Last week, the NNSA said it had 26 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across its national network of plants, sites, and labs.
“Regrettably, because we haven’t ramped up production of the basic production equipment … the workers in these places are having to accept a higher level of risk than any of us would like, because we can’t just let the nuclear enterprise stop,” Smith said.
