GOP frustration with the Obama Administration’s recent decision to scale back its plans to modernize the nation’s nuclear weapons complex and arsenal boiled over yesterday as the top Republican on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee blasted the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision to defer construction of a major plutonium handling facility for five years, ripped the agency’s management of major projects, and singled out the agency for slowing work on several major life extension efforts. In an unusually acrimonious hearing, Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) ignored Department of Energy cleanup chief Dave Huizenga and Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chairman Peter Winokur—neither of whom were asked a question during the hearing—and grilled NNSA Administrator Tom D’Agostino for nearly half an hour, questioning the credibility of the agency after it backed off previous modernization commitments.
Turner noted that D’Agostino had appeared seven times before the subcommittee, and until the Obama Administration’s FY2013 budget was released February, the administrator had voiced support for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory many times. The Administration has deferred the project for at least five years, largely due to budget pressure but also because it believes it can meet the mission of the facility by using a combination of several other facilities, a plan that Turner called a “fig leaf to cover the Administration while it scrambles to figure out the repercussions of its hasty decision.” “Today you tell us that the CMRR nuclear facility is no longer needed for at least five years,” Turner added. “I’m not certain as this committee tries to evaluate this how we determine its credibility. If we take your testimony and if we put it in front of the committee and allowed it to vote, your testimony today would be outweighed by your previous testimony. So it begs a few questions: Who are we to believe? You from now? Or you from four years ago.”
When D’Agostino began to explain that recent changes have allowed a newly built facility at Los Alamos known as the Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building to handle more plutonium than had been envisioned, Turner interjected. “This building fell out of the sky?” he said. “It wasn’t a plan? It wasn’t something you knew was going to be there? … And considering the record of construction I’m certain there was a significant amount of lead time.” Turner also took a unique approach to highlighting Department of Energy requirements that govern work at NNSA sites, playing nine minutes worth of slides listing the 270 DOE directives while D’Agostino was answering a question, and pressed the administrator on forthcoming changes to the Administration’s request for the W76 warhead refurbishment.
The Administration requested $174.9 million for the W76 program, a decrease of $81.3 million from FY2012, and D’Agostino confirmed that the Administration needs to increase funding for the program because the budget request “reflects an earlier assessment on production rate which we don’t have anymore.” During another tense exchange with Turner, he said that there were adequate funds within the agency’s Directed Stockpile Work account to “fix the problem,” but stopped short of saying the number was wrong when pressed on the issue by Turner. “But you’re fixing a number that’s an error,” Turner said. “If you don’t want to say yes, I’ll say yes for you. If you’re going to have to be fixing it I would assume it’s an error.” Democrats also got into the act, with Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) questioning the Administration’s decision to dispose of plutonium pits by converting them into commercial nuclear fuel at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility being built at the Savannah River Site rather than using the fast reactor approach favored by Russia. “Prove it,” Garamendi said when D’Agostino said he believed that the MOX approach was the correct path. “I want to hear the proof that it’s the right path. And I want to hear why you do not believe the Russian path is the right path.”
