The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recovered about $1.4 billion in indirect costs in fiscal 2024 from work it performed for outside partners, helping offset the costs of maintaining facilities and infrastructure, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
NNSA’s eight contractor-operated laboratories, plants and sites conducted nearly $15 billion in Strategic Partnership Projects (SPP) from fiscal 2019 through 2024, with annual reimbursed costs generally ranging from $2 billion to $3 billion, the report said.
The reimbursable projects allow other federal agencies and nonfederal entities to use NNSA’s specialized facilities, equipment and technical expertise. The Department of Defense was the largest sponsor during the period, accounting for about $7.6 billion, or 51%, of total SPP costs.
The outside work also provides a significant contribution toward the overhead costs of NNSA facilities. In fiscal 2024, SPP sponsors paid approximately $1.4 billion in indirect costs, representing about 52% of the $2.66 billion in total reimbursed SPP costs for the sites for which NNSA provided data. Those costs include expenses such as utilities, facility maintenance, security and administrative support.
At Sandia National Laboratories, SPP generated about $1.35 billion in reimbursed costs in fiscal 2024, including approximately $769 million in indirect costs. Kansas City National Security Campus generated $501 million in SPP costs, including $220 million in indirect costs.
GAO said reducing SPP work could therefore increase the costs borne by NNSA’s own programs, while also leaving some specialized infrastructure and equipment underutilized.
But NNSA’s expanding nuclear weapons workload could increasingly limit the amount of outside work its sites can accommodate.
The agency’s laboratories and production sites are facing growing demands associated with maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile. GAO found that some sites have already begun limiting SPP as their NNSA workloads increase.
At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, for example, officials said increasing demands related to plutonium pit production have placed additional strain on infrastructure and personnel. SPP represented about 6% of total site costs in fiscal 2024, down from 8% in fiscal 2020.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory officials in California likewise said they must limit certain outside projects involving capabilities that could be needed for future NNSA work.
GAO found that the projects nevertheless provide capabilities that are important to other federal missions and, in some cases, are difficult or impossible to obtain elsewhere.
All nine federal SPP partners GAO interviewed said the work was essential to their missions. The report cited Defense Department use of Sandia facilities for hypersonic testing, NASA work at Los Alamos supporting radioisotope power systems for space missions and federal nuclear incident-response training conducted through NNSA facilities.
The projects can also directly support NNSA’s nuclear security work. At Kansas City, for example, Air Force-funded SPP supports production of components for nuclear weapon arming, fuzing and firing systems. Across fiscal 2019-2024, NNSA conducted more than 20,000 SPP agreements, about 72% of which were categorized as related to national security.
GAO said NNSA and its contractors have processes to evaluate whether proposed projects could interfere with the agency’s primary missions. But as NNSA’s nuclear weapons workload continues to grow, the agency could face a greater tradeoff between accommodating outside partners and preserving capacity for its own priorities.
The report was requested by the Senate Armed Services Committee as part of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.