REP. TURNER DEFENDS NNSA REFORM PLAN, UNIONS RAMP UP OPPOSITION

By ExchangeMonitor

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), who as the chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee authored the National Nuclear Security Administration reform language that will be considered by the full committee this week, took to the op-ed page of the Albuquerque Journal yesterday to defend the legislation. Turner suggested that management problems at the NNSA, and the agency’s inability to reform itself, demanded that Congress intervene, and the legislation would strengthen the authority of the agency while consolidating oversight and streamlining its directives and orders system. “In a time of fiscal crisis, we must strive even harder to eliminate inefficiency and bureaucracy and focus resources on accomplishing critical national security work,” Turner wrote.

In the op-ed, Turner blamed the Obama Administration for not trying to reform the agency sooner, suggesting that if it had, it would not have had to defer construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility for at least five years. “These reforms should have been pursued by the president before he abandoned his promised commitment to modernize the U.S. nuclear deterrent,” Turner wrote, adding: “We can return the focus of the nuclear security enterprise to where it should be: executing the mission of ensuring the safety, security, reliability and credibility of the Nation’s deterrent in a safe and secure manner.”

Meanwhile, another union has formally appealed to Congress to remove portions of the NNSA reform provisions that would strip the Department of Energy’s Office of Health, Safety and Security of oversight responsibility of the nuclear weapons complex and move NNSA toward performance-based oversight. Late on Friday, the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO suggested in a letter to senior members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees that the provisions would “seriously weaken worker safety and health protections” across the nuclear weapons complex. Earlier last week, the Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO sent a similar letter to Congressional leaders. “To now seek to disrupt the HSS safety & health program by transferring it to NNSA and weakening the current standards of protection makes no sense,” Building and Construction Trades Department President Sean McGarvey said in a letter sent to Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.). “Other than to satisfy the demands of the National Laboratories and contractors, there is little or no justification for this proposal and we appeal to you to stop it. The health, safety and lives of the men and women who do the dangerous work at these facilities demand no less.” He also called the changes “a terrible mistake” and that the union is “strongly opposed to any such tinkering with the lives of our many members working at these facilities.”

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