HOUSE ENERGY PANEL CALLS FOR GAO STUDIES OF NNSA OVERSIGHT, LANL WASTE

By ExchangeMonitor

Concerned about reduced oversight across the weapons complex, the House Energy and Commerce Committee wants the Government Accountability Office to study the National Nuclear Security Administration’s governance model and evolving contractor assurance systems among site contractors. Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) made the request yesterday in a letter to Comptroller Gene Dodaro along with Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the panel’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, and subcommittee Ranking Member Diana DeGette (D-Colo.). The committee, which also promised to hold a hearing next month on the “state of oversight” at the NNSA, in the past has raised concerns about safety and security problems NNSA sites—specifically at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. The lawmakers suggested that previous GAO reports have called into question the rationale behind an increasing reliance on contractor assurance systems and a shift away from strict oversight across the weapons complex, and the committee members said it specifically worried that continued reductions to the NNSA’s federal staff could have a negative impact on oversight. “It is the Committee’s perspective that any planned reduction in force must be supported by thorough analysis of oversight needs and capabilities to ensure that even with a smaller workforce NNSA can adequately assure the performance of its contractors,” the lawmakers wrote.

In a separate letter yesterday, the lawmakers also called for GAO to investigate Los Alamos National Laboratory’s efforts to build new facilities to address radioactive waste generated by current lab operations. Specifically, the lawmakers raised concerns with cost-and-schedule estimates prepared for Los Alamos’ Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility and new Transuranic Waste Facility. Concerning the RLWTF, the lawmakers wrote that while the new facility was to have been completed in 2010 “safety-related questions about the design scope have stalled the project indefinitely.” The new TRU facility has been delayed until 2017 with a cost of up to $124 million and “additional potential taxpayer liabilities for delayed related to environmental cleanup on the site of the existing facility,” the lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers requested the GAO to conduct a study that would examine Los Alamos’ “overall radioactive waste management strategy,” as well as the “mission need” for the new RLWTF and TRU facilities. The GAO has also been requested to examine the cost and schedule estimates for the new facilities “especially to the extent to which these estimates follow established best practices” and to identify the challenges Los Alamos and the National Nuclear Security Administration may face “in completing these projects within the timeframes necessary to avoid the disruption of operations at the site or other adverse impacts.”

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