The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has not used effective strategies to manage cost growth notifications for its construction projects, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO squeezed this report on NNSA and one more Sept. 30 before the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday.
“Over the next 2 decades, the United States plans to spend tens of billions of dollars to modernize its nuclear weapons stockpile and the research and production infrastructure on which its stockpile programs depend,” GAO said in the report. NNSA is responsible for managing these projects and informing Congress of big cost increases.
The report said NNSA provided notifications for reportable baseline costs over $65 million 100% of the time.
However, in cases where there was a cost growth of over 25% total, of which there were seven, NNSA did not notify Congress of five of the seven cost growth instances, GAO said.
NNSA has to notify congressional defense committees if construction projects would cost more than $65 million, if expected costs could exceed that baseline by 25%, or if alteration programs for nuclear weapons would cost more than $800 million. The agency must then provide an assessment of root causes of cost growth within 90 days. The report said in “most cases,” NNSA did not provide root causes.
GAO recommends that NNSA direct DOE’s Office of Cost Estimating and Program Evaluation establish a deadline to create templates for a cost growth notification process and direct that same office to establish a deadline for creating guidelines for root cause analysis. GAO recommends DOE coordinate with the NNSA administrator to communicate with the necessary congressional committees to suggest changes to the cost notification process.
Theresa Robbins, acting NNSA administrator at the time of writing in late August, said in NNSA’s response to GAO that “NNSA has implemented initiatives that will strengthen our notification and root causes analysis processes.” She estimates NNSA will finalize templates for root cause analysis and cost notification processes by Sept. 30, 2026.