The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board is poised to endorse the central recommendation of the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise: moving the National Nuclear Security Administration back into the Department of Energy with an increased nuclear security focus among DOE leadership. The SEAB will meet via teleconference at 11:30 a.m. today about a memorandum it drafted in support of the work of the panel, which stopped short of recommending a more drastic NNSA move out of DOE altogether. The panel was chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine and former Strategic Command chief Richard Mies.
In the draft memo to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, the SEAB said it “unanimously and strongly agree[s]” with the main recommendation of the panel. “SEAB stresses that the consequence of taking no action risks continuing deterioration of DOE’s ability to fulfill its national security mission and the morale throughout the complex. We urge you to encourage the administration and Congress, vigorously and vocally, both publically and within the DOE/NNSA community, to endorse the Panel’s constructive approach and implement the needed legislative change to the DOE Organization Act.”
The SEAB also said it agreed with another of the panel’s findings—that too much reliance has been placed on award fees across the weapons complex—but said it “doubts” that the panel’s recommendation to move toward the use of award-term extensions and fixed fees would help repair the relationship between the NNSA and its contractors. The SEAB also said “substantially more attention should be paid to improving the morale and creative atmosphere at the weapons laboratories and the production facilities. The tension that has existed between the NNSA and M&O contractors is corrosive to the maintaining technical excellence that is the essential underpinning of the laboratory capability. Finding and keeping the most talented employees is the responsibility of every part of the management chain, especially the laboratory leadership.”
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