The financial issues facing the nation provide the necessary spark to reform the National Nuclear Security Administration, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee told reporters yesterday. Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) has held a hearing and several briefings exploring potential NNSA reform, and while he declined to predict how far his panel would go to address bureaucratic inefficiencies at the agency, he suggested the time was right for reform. “Sometimes when you have budgetary pressures you get the opportunity to do the right thing,” he said. “I think this is an opportunity for us to do the right things; look to ways to reform NNSA, to find the dollars to apply them really to the issues of national security instead of bureaucracy.” Some experts have suggested that the Administration consider moving NNSA out of the Department of Energy, while others have suggested less drastic measures, like reducing redundant regulations and directives and applying more industry-wide standards. “There are a lot of ways to do it,” Turner said. “Certainty the DOE-NNSA relationship and redundancy of oversight is part of the problem.”
REP. TURNER: TIME IS RIGHT FOR NNSA REFORM
Turner has been among the House’s loudest advocates for NNSA spending, though convincing some of his GOP colleagues, especially House appropriators, has proven difficult. Turner, however, deflected blame from his colleagues to the Administration, which asked for nearly $400 million less than it had projected for FY2013. “The Administration’s voice was a soft ask [in FY2012], and we’ve seen then in the subsequent budget that was proposed by the President a walking away from the commitment,” said Turner, who introduced a bill earlier this month to tie the Administration’s modernization pledges to current and future stockpile reductions. “I think the signals to the appropriators have been a very weak advocacy from the Administration.”
Y-12 completes B61-13 canned subassembly production early
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Thursday its Y-12 National Security Complex has completed production and acceptance testing of the B61-13’s canned subassemblies, finishing the work roughly seven months ahead of schedule. The milestone fulfills a timeline NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams projected in an August interview with Exchange Monitor, when he said the remaining […]