Senate appropriators are set to strengthen oversight of major National Nuclear Security Administration projects with language in the Fiscal Year 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations Act that would require the agency to provide twice yearly updates to Congress on its most expensive endeavors. The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee cleared its version of the legislation yesterday, matching the Administration’s $7.58 billion request for NNSA’s weapons program and $2.46 billion nonproliferation request, but Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein called NNSA’s management of major projects a “serious concern.” The provision would require the NNSA to report or brief appropriators on projects worth in excess of $750 million, explaining any cost increases, schedule delays or scope changes. The list of projects that would fall under the provision would currently include construction of the Uranium Processing Facility and the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility as well as life extension work on the W76 warhead and B61 bomb. “While the bill supports modernizing the stockpile, significant cost increases have raised concerns about waste, duplication and mismanagement at NNSA,” Feinstein said. “All major projects are substantially over budget and behind schedule. The bill would begin to address NNSA’s management weaknesses and improve congressional oversight.”
The provision had the support of ranking member Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who earlier this year suggested frequent status updates on UPF to help get a hold of cost increases to the project. “I share the chairman’s concern about the large cost of these big facilities,” Alexander said. “They go up at an extraordinary rate each time we ask about them and we intend to do a more thorough job of oversight.” UPF is estimated to cost as much as $7.5 billion. “If we can find ways to reduce that number we will do it,” Alexander said. “We want it to be safe, we want it to be effective, but we have many priorities within our committee and we have a debt that’s out of control in the federal government and we don’t have a penny to waste.”