[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-148]
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HEARING
ON
- NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2011
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES HEARING
ON
BUDGET REQUEST FOR DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ATOMIC ENERGY DEFENSE
ACTIVITIES
__________
HEARING HELD
MARCH 25, 2010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
RICK LARSEN, Washington DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
SCOTT MURPHY, New York
WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
Bob DeGrasse, Professional Staff Member
Leonor Tomero, Professional Staff Member
Kari Bingen, Professional Staff Member
Alejandra Villarreal, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
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CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2010
Page
Hearing:
Thursday, March 25, 2010, Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense
Authorization Act--Budget Request for Department of Energy
Atomic Energy Defense Activities............................... 1
Appendix:
Thursday, March 25, 2010......................................... 29
----------
THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2010
FISCAL YEAR 2011 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--BUDGET REQUEST FOR
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ATOMIC ENERGY DEFENSE ACTIVITIES
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces..................... 1
Turner, Hon. Michael, a Representative from Ohio, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces............................... 3
WITNESSES
D'Agostino, Hon. Thomas P., Under Secretary for Nuclear Security
and Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration,
U.S. Department of Energy...................................... 6
Triay, Hon. Ines, Ph.D., Assistant Secretary for Environmental
Management, U.S. Department of Energy.......................... 9
Winokur, Hon. Peter S., Ph.D., Chairman, Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board........................................ 11
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
D'Agostino, Hon. Thomas P.................................... 42
Langevin, Hon. James R....................................... 33
Triay, Hon. Ines............................................. 88
Turner, Hon. Michael......................................... 37
Winokur, Hon. Peter S........................................ 96
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the Hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Langevin................................................. 113
Mr. Larsen................................................... 122
Mr. Spratt................................................... 121
FISCAL YEAR 2011 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT--BUDGET REQUEST FOR
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ATOMIC ENERGY DEFENSE ACTIVITIES
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces,
Washington, DC, Thursday, March 25, 2010.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:40 p.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Langevin
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM RHODE ISLAND, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES
Mr. Langevin. Good afternoon. This hearing of the
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces will now come to order. Today
we will be taking testimony on the Department of Energy's
(DOE's) Fiscal Year 2011 Budget for Atomic Energy Defense
Activities. The President's budget request for DOE's defense
activities, including nuclear weapons nonproliferation and
waste cleanup is almost $18 billion for fiscal year 2011, an
increase of over 7 percent from last year's appropriated level.
This request, which must be authorized by our committee,
amounts to almost two-thirds of the entire budget request for
the Department of Energy.
Let me begin the hearing today by welcoming our three
distinguished witnesses. First, we have Mr. Tom D'Agostino, the
Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and
Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA). Mr. Secretary, it is a pleasure to have you here once
again.
Mr. D'Agostino is a graduate of the Naval Academy and the
Naval War College. As an officer in the nuclear Navy, he
distinguished himself as the program manager for the Seawolf
submarine propulsion system. He retired from the Navy Reserve
as a Captain. And since joining the DOE in 1990, Mr. D'Agostino
has had a distinguished career in increasingly responsible
roles, assuring the safety, security, and reliability of the
Nation's nuclear stockpile.
Mr. Langevin. Welcome back to the subcommittee.
Secretary D'Agostino. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Langevin. Second, Dr. Ines Triay, DOE's Assistant
Secretary for Environmental Management, has agreed to appear
before the subcommittee today. Dr. Triay received her
bachelor's degree in chemistry and her doctorate degree in
physical chemistry from the University of Miami in Florida. Her
career has included key positions at the Los Alamos National
Laboratory and, as DOE's manager of the Carlsbad Field Office
in New Mexico, she spearheaded national efforts to accelerate
the cleanup of transuranic waste sites and disposal at the
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad. Since joining
DOE's headquarters staff in 2005, she has worked tirelessly to
expedite the cleanup of the legacy left behind by DOE's Cold
War nuclear programs. Welcome back, Dr. Triay, and I look
forward to your testimony here today as well.
Secretary Triay. Thank you very much.
Mr. Langevin. Finally, Dr. Peter Winokur, Chairman of the
Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), is with us
this afternoon. This is Dr. Winokur's first opportunity to
appear before the subcommittee and this will be the first
public appearance as Chairman of the DNFSB, having just been
appointed to that post by President Obama last Friday.
Congratulations, Dr. Winokur, on that.
Dr. Winokur received his bachelor's degree in physics from
Cooper Union in New York and his doctorate from the University
of Maryland. He has worked in senior technical positions at
Sandia National Laboratories and the Army's Harry Diamond
Laboratories and has been a member of the Defense Science Board
since 2006.
Welcome again, Dr. Winokur, to you too and, again, to all
of our witnesses and thank you for being here today. We greatly
look forward to your testimony.
This committee has a long history of supporting the
critical missions performed by the Department, including
ensuring the reliability, safety, and security of our nuclear
stockpile; conducting the scientific, engineering and
production activities necessary to support the stockpile;
keeping our nuclear weapons and the weapons complex safe from
physical, cyber, and other threats; leading the government's
international nuclear nonproliferation efforts; and cleaning up
the environmental legacy of nuclear stockpile work.
But the committee has also had an equally longstanding
record of vigilant oversight. In the late 1990s, in the wake of
security and safety problems in the nuclear weapons complex,
committee members, including Mac Thornberry and now-Under
Secretary Ellen Tauscher, spearheaded efforts to enact Title 32
of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000
and, as you know, create the NNSA as a separately organized
agency within the Department of Energy.
In the late 1980s when the high cost of cleaning up the
legacy Cold War weapons production was just beginning to be
uncovered, John Spratt and now-Senator John Kyl led this
committee's efforts to create a separate organization within
the Department to manage the environmental cleanup program.
During that same era, the committee played a key role in
ensuring that the Department's operational activities would be
subject to oversight by an independent body by leading the
legislative effort to establish the Defense Nuclear Facilities
Safety Board as part of the National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 1989. So, you see, each of your organizations
can trace its heritage to the rigorous oversight performed by
this subcommittee.
Having assumed the chairmanship of the subcommittee just
last summer, let me assure the witnesses that I am committed to
continuing our tradition of rigorous oversight and doing so in
a very bipartisan manner. I look forward to partnering with you
in the efforts that you perform for our Nation, and we are
grateful to all of you for your service. That said, we are
eager to hear your testimony on the Fiscal Year 2011 budget
request.
Under Secretary D'Agostino, I am especially interested in
how the NNSA intends to implement the Stockpile Management Plan
mandated by section 3113 of the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2010. This statute is probably the most
recent example of the bipartisan efforts of our committee, and
I believe it can form the framework for an enduring consensus
to ensure the health, safety, and the security of the
stockpile.
Assistant Secretary Triay, last year's economic stimulus
package contained more than $5 billion to accelerate defense
environmental cleanup activities. We look forward to hearing
from you on how these funds have been used and how efforts
undertaken with stimulus funding differ from the core work of
the cleanup program originally as it began.
And finally, Chairman Winokur, I believe it is only the
fifth time that the board has appeared before the subcommittee
in its 20-year history, and the first time since 1996. In your
testimony here today, I would like you to please provide us
with your candid views about the most challenging safety issues
that DOE and NNSA face, both in ongoing operations and in the
construction of new facilities. These are some of the concerns
that we hope you will address in your statements this afternoon
and during our discussions that will follow your testimony. And
again, we look forward to hearing from you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the
Appendix on page 33.]
With that, let me turn now to the ranking member, Mr.
Turner, for any comments that he may have. Mr. Turner.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL TURNER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM OHIO,
RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also would like to
welcome Mr. D'Agostino and Dr. Triay and Dr. Winokur. I also
understand that you were just confirmed last week by the
Senate. Congratulations on your confirmation. And I want to
thank all of you for your leadership and for your work, your
service to the Nation, and we look forward to hearing your
message here today. As I noted last week during our hearing on
U.S. strategic posture, we are in the midst of some potentially
significant changes in our nuclear policy and posture. The
nuclear policy review, excuse me, the Nuclear Posture Review,
NPR, should be released within the coming weeks and, according
to press reports, the U.S. and Russia are close to completing a
new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START. These events are
likely to have considerable implications for our Nation's
nuclear stockpile and infrastructure.
At this same budget hearing last year, I commented that
fiscal year 2010 was a year of ``treading water.'' The Science
and Engineering campaigns were stagnant, key decisions on
warhead refurbishment were avoided, and key construction
projects were halted. The Strategic Posture Commission observed
that NNSA had a reasonable plan for transforming the complex
but lacked the needed funding. All these decisions were on hold
pending the completion of the NPR, which we still have not
received.
Mr. D'Agostino, last year, you testified that we were in a
``one-year budget scenario . . . There are a lot of flatline
numbers when you look at our program, particularly into the
out-years.'' Continuing to quote you, you said, ``I don't like
the idea of having flatline numbers in the out-years, because
it sends a signal to our workforce that the country thinks it
has got no future.'' You are right. Flatline numbers do send a
signal, which is why it is a welcome change to see a 13-percent
increase in this year's budget request for NNSA.
What this request tells us that is that the Administration
does recognize, as Vice President Biden recently said, that our
``nuclear complex and experts were neglected and underfunded.''
However, commitment to the sustainment and modernization of
our Nation's deterrence capabilities cannot be measured with a
single year's budget request, so I hope to see this new level
of commitment continuing into the out-years.
It appears that the Administration has embraced the
Stockpile Management Program established by this committee last
year, and will fund more comprehensive Life Extension Programs,
surveillance activities, warhead safety and security
enhancements, and infrastructure modernization.
Mr. D'Agostino, I hope that you will address these efforts
in your testimony today. I do want to pause for a minute to
give you credit. I have spoken to you privately and I want to
say it publicly the amount of credit I think you deserve for
this. You have been very outspoken on the needs of the NNSA.
You have provided a plan for addressing the issues that have
been raised and you have been successful as a voice in the
Administration for securing this important additional
investment, and I appreciate your commitment and accomplishment
here.
Secretary D'Agostino. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Turner. I would also like your thought on the recent
JASON report on life extension options for U.S. nuclear
weapons. I was concerned about how certain findings in the
report were being interpreted--basically, that ``everything is
fine, stick with the status quo''--because that is not what I
was hearing in briefings and visits to the labs. So I asked the
three nuclear security lab directors to comment on these
findings, and earlier today I released their letters to me.
One lab director wrote that certain findings ``understate .
. . the challenges and risks . . . [and] also understate the
future risks that we must anticipate'' in sustaining the
nuclear U.S. stockpile. Another wrote that current approaches
cannot sustain our weapons for decades because ``the available
mitigation actions . . . are reaching their limits.'' The
Strategic Posture Commission concluded that current warhead
Life Extension Programs could not be counted on indefinitely.
We would ask today whether you could help us understand why
improvements in the safety, security, and reliability of the
stockpile would require changes from current life extension
approaches.
The committee also must have confidence that the additional
funds received by NNSA can be spent wisely, whether in the
weapons activities account or nonproliferation account. In
previous years, the nonproliferation program had difficulty
executing the funding it received and, as a result, carried
over large unspent balances from year to year. This year, the
nonproliferation program request has grown by 26 percent. This
growth is a reflection of the President's direction, provided
in a speech last April in Prague, to secure all vulnerable
nuclear material around the world within four years.
This is a noble undertaking but, a year later, the
subcommittee still has not received the Administration's plans.
Therefore, it is difficult to assess whether this 26-percent
plus-up can be spent wisely.
In the area of Environmental Management (EM), I want to
take a moment to highlight a success story. Miamisburg Mound,
in my district in Ohio, was once a key Cold War-era nuclear
production facility. After an extensive Environmental
Management cleanup effort--thanks in large part to the
leadership of Dr. Triay and her predecessors--Mound has been
redeveloped into a business park for high-tech companies.
I also want to recognize that Bob DeGrasse had a hand in
that, also, as he has gone through various phases of his
career.
There are many other sites across the country that require
cleanup funds and, as the nuclear complex continues to shrink
and additional Cold War-era facilities are decommissioned, the
list will only get longer.
Dr. Triay, I would appreciate an update on the progress you
have made for your priorities and the challenges ahead. I would
also like to hear how the Environmental Management has spent
the $5 million it received in stimulus funds last year, and how
you ensure oversight and accountability of those funds.
As I have said in previous years, I am deeply concerned
about safety and security. There is no margin for error in the
nuclear business. I would appreciate an update on NNSA's
efforts to implement its new Graded Security Protection policy.
I also look forward to hearing Dr. Winokur's assessment of the
key safety issues at our Nation's defense nuclear facilities,
particularly with respect to new construction projects.
Now, on a final note, I said earlier that budgets send a
signal. Policies also send a signal. We all share the
President's vision of ``a world without nuclear weapons.''
However, I worry when I hear Administration officials discuss
it as a policy because, as we all know, policy drives strategy,
programs, and budgets. Though we are seeing a one-year influx
of funding, I am concerned that a zero-policy--once
implemented--would lead to less program and budget support in
the out-years. And that is not in the best interest of our
national security.
Mr. D'Agostino, Dr. Triay and Dr. Winokur, thank you again
for being with us today. You each possess a tremendous amount
of expertise and insight into our Nation's nuclear stockpile
and infrastructure, and our Nation is better off as a result of
your service. I look forward to hearing your testimony and
thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Turner can be found in the
Appendix on page 37.]
Mr. Langevin. I want to thank the ranking member. In
particular, I want to thank you for those comments. And before
we turn to the witnesses, I want to comment on points you
raised, in particular, about the JASON Panel report on life
extension options, and I appreciate your efforts to elicit the
lab directors' views on that report. And I believe it would be
very helpful to have an opportunity to explore the differences
between the JASON Panel and the lab directors in a classified
briefing.
And so yesterday, I asked Secretary D'Agostino if he would
help arrange a meeting of subcommittee members with the lab
directors and the JASON study leaders, and he has agreed, and
we appreciate that. And we have also consulted with the
chairman of the JASON and he also welcomes the opportunity so I
expect that, in very short order, we will have a chance to
explore these issues in full detail.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Chairman, if I could, just one note on
that. I think the lab directors and the JASON report on the
classified area are probably in agreement. It is the issue of
the declassified version and, perhaps, out of our hearing if we
have a classified hearing, something on the unclassified side
could come out that might be even more helpful to clarify it.
Mr. Langevin. I am sure we could do both of those.
With that, I know that we have received a prepared
statement for each of our witnesses, and these will be entered
into the record. So, if you could, please summarize the key
points so that we will have plenty of time for questions and
answers, and we will begin with Secretary D'Agostino. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS P. D'AGOSTINO, UNDER SECRETARY FOR
NUCLEAR SECURITY AND ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Secretary D'Agostino. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members
of the subcommittee. I am pleased to be here today before you
to discuss the Department of Energy's Fiscal Year 2011 budget
request for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Last year when I appeared before the subcommittee, the
focus of my testimony was the continuing transformation of an
old Cold War outdated nuclear weapons complex and shifting it
into a 21st-century Nuclear Security Enterprise in our initial
efforts in implementing the President's nuclear security
agenda. Since that time, we have defined a portfolio of
programs to carry out the nuclear security agenda. Our budget
request, as you have noted, is $11.2 billion, an increase of
more than 13 percent from last year.
In developing this portfolio, Secretary Chu and I worked
very closely with Secretary Gates to ensure that we remained
focused on meeting Department of Defense requirements. Within
our overall funding request, Weapons Activities account
increases nearly 10 percent to a level of $7 billion; Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation increases nearly 26 percent to $2.7
billion; and Naval Reactors increases more than 13 percent to a
level of $1.1 billion. Our request can be summarized in four
components that collectively ensure we can implement the
President's direction outlined in his April 2009 Prague speech
and reinforced during his State of the Union address.
First, our request describes NNSA's crucial role in
implementing the President's nuclear security agenda, including
his call to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the
world in four years. A $2.7 billion request for
nonproliferation programs includes key programs directly linked
to the President's agenda, including nearly $560 million for
the Global Threat Reduction Initiative to secure all vulnerable
nuclear material at civilian sites worldwide; over $1 billion
for a Fissile Material Disposition program to permanently
eliminate 68 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium and
more than 200 metric tons of surplus highly enriched uranium;
and over $350 million for Nonproliferation and Verification
Research and Development programs, to provide technical support
for arms control and for nonproliferation.
The second component is our investment in the tools and
capabilities required to effectively manage the stockpile.
Based on preliminary analysis of the draft Nuclear Posture
Review, we in the Department of Defense concluded that
maintaining the safety, security, and effectiveness of the
enduring nuclear deterrent requires increased investments to
strengthen an aging physical infrastructure and sustain a
depleted technical human capital base.
Our request includes more than $7 billion to ensure the
capabilities required to complete ongoing weapons Life
Extension Programs, to strengthen the science, technology and
engineering base, to reinvest in the scientists, technicians
and engineers who carry out the NNSA missions.
These activities are consistent with the Stockpile
Management Program responsibilities outlined in the Fiscal Year
2010 National Defense Authorization Act that you mentioned
earlier.
In previous testimony, I have discussed the challenges
facing the Stockpile Stewardship Program and how to make
effective use of the program's full suite of science-based
tools and capabilities, and I am pleased to report that there
has been excellent progress. Each day, we are coming closer to
realizing the promise of the National Ignition Facility (NIF)
at the Lawrence Livermore Lab for stewardship. The scientists
at NIF have already completed an important series of
experiments that have provided critical validations of advanced
modeling used in weapons assessments in a very relevant regime.
National Ignition Facilities produced over one megajoule of
laser energy, more than 30 times the energy available at the
OMEGA laser and the community completed key ignition
preparatory experiments at NIF and OMEGA. This program is on
track for the first experiments on thermonuclear ignition later
this year.
The Z facility at Sandia continues to provide the state-of-
the-art materials data; for example, the equation state of a
material for advanced safety methods was measured at pressures
10 times those previously possible. The Z facility also
increases its x-ray output by 50 percent to a level essential
for weapons component certification.
The Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Testing Facility,
or DARHT facility, at Los Alamos successfully conducted its
first full hydrodynamic test that included multipulse and
multiaxis radiography and delivered results of exceptional
quality. This is an incredible achievement by the laboratory.
Operations at these key science facilities will provide the
critical high energy density physics materials measurement data
that we need to enhance and strengthen our science-based
certification approaches in order to maintain our deterrent.
While we are very pleased with the contributions of the
above noted facilities, as Vice President Biden highlighted in
his speech, we need to continue to invest in modern sustainable
infrastructure that supports the full range of NNSA's mission--
not just Stockpile Stewardship. He stated that ``this
investment is not only consistent with our nonproliferation
agenda; it is essential to it.'' And, there is an emerging
bipartisan consensus that now is the time to make these
investments to provide the foundation for future U.S. security,
as noted by Senator Sam Nunn and Secretaries George Schultz,
Henry Kissinger and William Perry last January.
This leads me to the third component: our investment in
recapitalizing our nuclear infrastructure and deterrent
capability into a 21st-century Nuclear Security Enterprise.
As the Vice President also stated last month, ``some of the
facilities we used to handle uranium and plutonium date back to
the days when the world's great powers were led by Truman,
Churchill and Stalin. The signs of age and decay are becoming
more and more apparent every day.''
The request includes specific funds to continue the design
of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at our Y-12 plant, and
the construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Replacement (CMRR) facility at Los Alamos.
The Naval Reactors request includes funds to address the
Ohio-class replacement, including new reactor plant and our
need to refuel one of our land-based prototypes to provide the
platform to demonstrate the manufacturability of the Ohio
replacement core and realistically test systems and components.
Mr. Chairman, investing now in a modern sustainable Nuclear
Security Enterprise is the right thing to do. The investment
will support the full range of nuclear security missions,
including stockpile stewardship, nonproliferation, arms control
and treaty verification, nuclear counterterrorism, nuclear
forensics, and naval nuclear propulsion--all of these things
together to beef up and support our security.
Finally and lastly, the fourth component, one that ties all
our missions together, is our commitment to aggressive
management reform across the NNSA. With the increased resources
provided by Congress comes increased responsibility on our part
to be effective stewards of taxpayers' money and to ensure that
the NNSA is an efficient and cost-effective enterprise. We take
this responsibility very seriously. We initiated a Zero-Based
Security Review to implement greater efficiencies and to drive
down these costs while sustaining highly effective security
capabilities.
Our supply chain management center has already saved
taxpayers more than $130 million, largely through e-sourcing
and strategic sourcing.
Finally, I and the entire NNSA leadership team stress
performance and financial accountability at all levels of our
organization for our operations. In 2009, our programs met or
exceeded 95 percent of their performance objectives and, as we
continue to reduce the percentage of carryover, uncosted,
uncommitted balances in several of our nonproliferation
programs.
And I will be glad to go into the detail during the
question and answer.
Investments made to date in the Nuclear Security Enterprise
are providing the tools to address a broad array of nuclear
security challenges. However, we must continue to cultivate the
talents of our people to use those tools effectively, as our
highly dedicated workforce is really, in the end, the key to
our success. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be pleased to
respond to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Secretary D'Agostino can be
found in the Appendix on page 42.]
Mr. Langevin. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your
testimony. And Secretary Triay, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. INES R. TRIAY, PH.D., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Secretary Triay. Good afternoon, Chairman Langevin, Ranking
Member Turner and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to
be here today and to address your questions regarding the
Office of Environmental Management's fiscal year 2011 budget
request.
The Office of Environmental Management's mission is to
complete the legacy environmental cleanup left by the Cold War
in a safe, secure, and compliant manner. I am very pleased that
we were able to present to Congress a budget that positions the
program to be fully compliant with our regulatory commitments
and supports reducing the risks associated with one of our
highest environmental risk activities, highly radioactive waste
in underground tanks, as well as achieve footprint reduction
across the legacy cleanup complex. My goal remains to complete
quality cleanup work safely, on schedule, and within costs in
order to deliver demonstrated value to the American taxpayer.
Environmental Management cleanup objectives will continue
to be advanced in fiscal year 2011 by the infusion of the $6
billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009. Through January 2010, the Office of Environmental
Management had obligated $5.7 billion and, as of March 15, we
have spent $1.55 billion, leading to thousands of jobs created
and/or saved at our sites.
In fiscal year 2011, the Office of Environmental Management
will continue to draw on the $6 billion of Recovery Act funds
to advance key cleanup goals. Recovery Act funds allow the
Office of Environmental Management to meet all of our
regulatory compliance requirements in fiscal year 2011. This
funding has allowed the Office of Environmental Management to
leverage base program dollars enabling the reduction of our
operating footprint from 900 square miles to approximately 540
square miles by the end of fiscal year 2011. This is a 40-
percent reduction, which will position the program to advance
forward the ultimate goal of 90-percent reduction by the end of
fiscal year 2015.
We are also able to accelerate the legacy cleanup at
Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Separations Process
Research Unit in New York, and Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center in California into fiscal year 2011 with Recovery Act
funding.
This budget request strikes a balance between maintaining
support for the Office of Environmental Management's core
commitments and programs while strengthening investments in
activities needed to ensure the long-term success of our
cleanup mission. The budget request significantly increases the
Office of Environmental Management investment in science and
technology (S&T) areas that are critical to our long-term
success.
Specifically, this request targets $60 million in funding
to Hanford's Office of River Protection to use in developing
and deploying new technologies for treating tank waste. This
funding is needed to address near-term technical risks that
have been identified, but is also needed to leverage and bring
forward new technologies that could help us reduce the life-
cycle costs and schedule for cleanup of these wastes.
The Office of Environmental Management will also continue
to strengthen and deploy groundwater and decontamination and
decommission in cleanup technologies. Specifically, we will
continue the development of an integrated, high-performance
computer modeling capability for waste degradation and
contaminant release. This state-of-the-art scientific tool will
enable robust and standardized assessments of performance and
risk for cleanup and closure activities. This tool will also
help us better estimate cleanup time and costs and reduce
uncertainties.
The request also provides an additional $50 million to
accelerate the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP)
in Hanford, boosting the budget for the plan to $740 million in
fiscal year 2011. The additional funding will be used to
accelerate completion of the design for the Waste Treatment and
Immobilization Plant. Prior to design completion, it is
critical that technical issues are addressed and incorporated
in a timely manner. Our intent is to mitigate these risks early
and get the design matured to 90 or 100 percent.
The fiscal year 2011 request makes a significant investment
in the decontamination and decommissioning of the Portsmouth
Gaseous Diffusion Plant located in Ohio. This investment
enables the Office of Environmental Management to accelerate
the cleanup of the Portsmouth site to 15 to 20 years, leading
to a significant reduction in the duration and cost of the
cleanup.
Now that I have given an overview of our fiscal year budget
request, I would like to take a few moments to discuss some of
the areas I will be focusing on as the program moves forward.
The Office of Environmental Management continues to adhere to a
``Safety First'' culture that integrates environment, safety,
and health requirements and controls into all work activities.
Our first priority continues to be the health and safety of our
employees and the communities surrounding our cleanup sites. It
is my duty to ensure that our workers go home as healthy and
fit as they came to work.
Under my leadership, my program has embarked upon a journey
to excellence. We have developed a new business model which
provides a solid management base for the Office of
Environmental Management to become an excellent high-performing
organization. This implementation is key to performing our
cleanup mission effectively and efficiently.
A key component in this process is the alignment and
understanding of headquarters and field operational roles and
responsibilities. Toward that end, our management's attention
will continue to focus on improving project performance,
aligning project and contract management, streamlining the
acquisition process, and continuing our very strong performance
in awarding cleanup work to small businesses. We will continue
to conduct construction project reviews. These reviews examine
all aspects of a construction project, including project
management, technology, and engineering. These reviews assess
the progress of each of our major projects and determine their
overall health and ability to meet costs and scheduled goals.
These reviews are scheduled approximately every six to nine
months and are conducted to provide the Office of Environmental
Management leadership the ability to proactively reduce project
risk so that the issues and solutions can be identified early,
rather than reacted to once problems are realized.
With these improvements, we are confident that the
Environmental Management program can succeed in its mission.
Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member Turner and members of the
subcommittee, I look forward to addressing your questions.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Secretary Triay.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Triay can be found in
the Appendix on page 88.]
Mr. Langevin. Chairman Winokur, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. PETER S. WINOKUR, PH.D., CHAIRMAN, DEFENSE
NUCLEAR FACILITIES SAFETY BOARD
Dr. Winokur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
subcommittee. This is a period of significant transition for
the Department of Energy which is accompanied by billions in
construction projects and a huge portfolio of Recovery Act
work. The Board believes it is prudent to proactively address
safety issues at DOE's defense nuclear facilities to ward off
threats to public health and safety and to resolve safety
concerns early in the design process.
Our agency was established by Congress in 1988 to provide
nuclear safety oversight for the defense nuclear facilities
operated by DOE and, now, NNSA. We analyze facility consistent
designs, operations, practices, and events with an eye toward
ensuring that safety-related controls are identified and
implemented.
We also carefully evaluate the directives that govern work
by DOE and NNSA. We provide our findings to DOE and NNSA so
they can take the actions that are needed to ensure that public
health and safety, including worker safety, are protected
adequately. The Board evaluates DOE and NNSA's activities in
the context of Integrated Safety Management. When properly
implemented at all levels, Integrated Safety Management results
in facility designs that efficiently address hazards, operating
procedures that are safe and productive, and feedback that
drives continuous improvement in both safety and efficiency.
The Board safety oversight targets several broad safety
issues. To begin with, the Board puts a great deal of effort
into ensuring that DOE preserves and continually improves its
safety directives. The Board constantly emphasizes that nuclear
hazards are different and demand a safety strategy that is
based on defense and depth, redundancy, technical competence
and research and development (R&D). There are no shortcuts to
nuclear safety. The Board strives to ensure that DOE considers
safety early in the design of new defense nuclear facilities.
DOE and NNSA are designing and building facilities with a total
project cost of more than $20 billion.
I cannot overstate how important it is to integrate safety
into the design of these facilities at an early stage. Failing
to do this will lead to surprises and costly changes late in
the process.
The Board is committed to the early resolution of safety
issues with DOE. In that regard, the Board provides quarterly
reports to Congress on the status of significant unresolved
technical differences between the Board and DOE on issues
concerning the design and construction of DOE's defense nuclear
facilities. The Board is continuing to urge NNSA to replace
unsound facilities and invest in infrastructure for the future.
The 9212 Complex at Y-12 and the Chemistry and Metallurgy
Research building at Los Alamos are both well-overdue for
replacement. At NNSA's newer facilities--and by ``newer,'' I
mean facilities that are 10 to 30 years old, as opposed to 50
to 60 years old--need upgrades to make sure they will remain
safe and reliable.
The Board is working to ensure that DOE and NNSA safely
manage their large inventory of nuclear materials. The H-Canyon
at the Savannah River Site is DOE's preferred disposition path
for many materials that have been declared excess to national
security needs and it has operated safely for many years. DOE
will need to maintain it well and carefully consider how long
it can operate safely.
The Board is paying close attention as both DOE and NNSA
reevaluate their roles in overseeing the work of their
contractors. In January, NNSA began a six-month moratorium on
its reviews that is intended to free up resources to mission
work while NNSA develops a new approach to oversight that
emphasizes self-assurance by its contractors.
Last week, DOE issued a safety and security reform plan
that will redefine the extent to which the DOE's Office of
Health, Safety, and Security exercises independent oversight of
DOE and NNSA. The Board plans to hold a public meeting on
Federal safety oversight for defense nuclear facilities later
this spring, at which it expects to thoroughly address these
reform initiatives.
Finally, Federal sponsorship of research analysis and
testing at nuclear safety technologies is an important
component of Federal safety oversight. The Board is continuing
to emphasize the need for DOE and NNSA to lead an organized
effort in R&D for nuclear safety.
This ends my statement. I will be happy to answer any
questions you have.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Dr. Winokur, and all of you for
your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Winokur can be found in the
Appendix on page 96.]
Mr. Langevin. Let me begin with Secretary D'Agostino on a
couple of things. First of all, Secretary, while the President
has yet to finalize the Nuclear Posture Review, the NNSA's
budget contains numerous program budget initiatives that are
based on a draft of the posture review. So my question is, are
you confident that these initiatives will continue to be valid
when the final NPR is released? For example, press reports
indicate the discussion about the continued requirement of
forward-based nuclear weapons in Europe. How would a decision
to reduce or eliminate these weapons affect, for example, the
B61 Life Extension Program.
Secretary D'Agostino. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very
confident, 100-percent confident that the proposal of the
President that the Administration and I have before you, sir,
is very consistent with the Nuclear Posture Review, based on a
couple of pieces of information; one, of course, the Department
of Energy and I personally have been involved in the drafting
of this document going through the various decision points and
looking for that common ground--those pieces, if you will, that
will have to be done regardless of maybe a final policy
decision on a specific area or not.
Specifically, your question on the B61 in Europe, the one
thing that we have come out with is that there will be a triad
and an element of that, of course, is an air-delivered warhead.
The numbers, of course, will come out as part of the Nuclear
Posture Review but while I won't, I can't comment specifically
on the Europe question right now, I can't do that publicly,
what I can say is we know that the future stockpile will have a
bomb in it. We know the B61 is essentially the bomb that we
have in the U.S. arsenal that will satisfy the requirements for
the triad, and we know for a fact that the B61 bomb is in dire
need of life extension.
And so, regardless of the specifics of warheads in Europe
that we are still going to need to work on that bomb, it has
got old radars, it has got security features and safety
features that can and should be upgraded, and it needs a
significant amount of work. So, in essence, to summarize I am
very comfortable with where we are with the President's budget
request; it is totally consistent with the draft NPR that I
have been working on and the final stages of the NPR that we
have been reviewing. In fact, even today as we get close to
release on the review.
Mr. Langevin. Very good, thank you. On another matter that
may or may not be included in the NPR is the limit on the
options for managing the stockpile. If the President decides to
preclude replacement options for managing the stockpile, can
NNSA continue to ensure the safety, security, and reliability
of the stockpile?
Secretary D'Agostino. The answer is, we will; our primary
goal is the safety, security, and reliability of the stockpile.
Eliminating options on how to do that, that might put us in a
space, in an area, that will make it more difficult to meet the
tenets of the Stockpile Management Program. But the key message
in our discussions within the Administration is that basic
tenets and principles of the Stockpile Management Plan put out
by the National Defense Authorization Act are guiding
principles for managing the stockpile. The NPR will talk about
the specific point that you bring up on replacement, but we
still need to work on the security upgrades.
And we can do pieces of it without it, but we can't go all
the way. So it is a matter of degree. The specific degree on
what else replacement gets you can't be discussed publicly, but
we would be happy to provide a classified response or discuss
it in classified session with you, possibly at the JASON
meeting that you had referenced earlier, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. You are confident that when the NPR comes out
the definitions of what management is and such will be fully
defined and discussed in the report?
Secretary D'Agostino. I am confident that in the versions
that I have been working on that we want to make sure that this
question of how far we can go is put out there, is made clear.
I think risk management is a term that we use a lot in the
program management business, is allowing you to do a next step
buys down so much risk in a particular area.
So there is really, it is a program management question in
many respects, allowing the program to move this far down track
takes away this risk, and the question is, is it worth it? But,
given where we are right now, our main focus ultimately is to
fully implement the principles of the Stockpile Management
Program, that the MDA has laid out, and that is essentially a
drumbeat and theme that we want to use and have been using
internally, and we will be using this externally as we go out
and talk about the NPR as it is ready.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you for that.
Secretary Triay, your testimony reminds us that we have a
national debt of between $190 and $250 billion yet to be paid
to clean up the legacy of the Cold War-era nuclear activities,
including weapons production. Could we harness the increased
momentum created by the stimulus funding provided last year to
help you pay down this debt more quickly and at a lower cost
than would otherwise be the case? And second, are you making
efforts to retain employees hired and trained to do the
specialized cleanup work after the stimulus projects are
completed?
Secretary Triay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that
with respect to the progress that we are making, the fact that
we are going to be able to reduce the operational footprint of
the Environmental Management program by 40 percent by 2011 is
testimony to the fact that the maintenance costs that we have
to spend in order to open the doors of the Environmental
Management complex every morning can indeed be addressed by
getting to economies of scale that have been possible by the
Recovery Act.
The Recovery Act consists of footprint reduction and, in
particular, transuranic weight disposition, low-level waste
disposition, soil and groundwater remediation, and excess
facilities, decontamination and decommissioning. In particular,
I would like to highlight that we are going to be completing
the legacy cleanup at three facilities in the complex, that we
are going to dramatically decrease the operational footprint in
the Environmental Management complex that our National Defense
Authorization Act update for the first time is going to be
delineating a reduction of the life-cycle costs as a result of
the investment on Recovery Act, that a reduction is going to be
on the order of $4 billion on the life-cycle cost and an
additional cost avoidance that gets reflected in the
environmental liability of the Federal Government.
I am convinced that the productivity that one can attain by
the investment of the moneys in the Recovery Act are going to
be evident as we move forward in the cleanup delineated by the
activities in the Recovery Act. One point that I would like to
also highlight is that we had reported to Congress in the
Environmental Management program the level funding was going to
then take us to the year 2017 before we could start dealing
with some of the excess facilities declared by other program
offices such as NNSA and Science and Nuclear Energy Program
Office, and the facilities, the amount of facilities that are
not even today in the Environmental Management portfolio are on
the order of 290 facilities. And, right now, because of the
Recovery Act, we are going to be able to address 55 of those
facilities and clean out six of the facilities right now by
2011.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. And just going back also to the
workforce retention, are you making efforts to retain employees
hired and trained to do this kind of specialized work after
these stimulus projects are completed?
Secretary Triay. What we are doing is working very closely
with the Department of Labor as well as other parts of the
Administration to ensure that we have a transition plan for
those workers that have been trained in the nuclear field as a
result of the Recovery Act funds. We think that, number one,
the Environmental Management program, with its aging workforce,
definitely could use some of that talent after 2011, after some
of our workers retire from the system as a national progression
of the work that we have been doing in the Environmental
Management complex. But in addition to that, we are going to
work across the Department and across the Administration to
ensure that we have a path forward for the transition of those
workers.
We have some experience in doing that. The Legacy
Management program in the Department of Energy has designated a
clear path forward for the cleanups that we have completed,
such as the cleanup at Rocky Flats, Fernald and Mound, and we
think that we have engaged those transitions in a very
effective way and we intend to do the same for the Recovery
Act.
Mr. Langevin. Very good, Secretary. Thank you.
Chairman Winokur. I turn to you. Tell me, in short, what
keeps you up at night? What is the most troubling safety issue
facing the Department and its oversight operation and
construction of defense nuclear facilities right now?
Dr. Winokur. I would put my concerns in two broad
categories. On the first category is facilities and clearly the
Department is engaged in $20 billion worth of design and
construction of new defense nuclear facilities. This includes
the Waste Treatment Plant at Hanford, Salt Waste Processing
Facility at Savannah River, the Chemistry and Metallurgy
Research Replacement facility at Los Alamos, and the Uranium
Processing Facility at Y-12. And the Board is very actively
engaged in being sure that safety is integrated into these
projects at the earliest possible stage. This hopefully reduces
costs and maintains schedule.
The second part of the facilities I worry about is we do
have unsound facilities in the complex. We have an unsound
facility at Y-12, 9212, as well as the CMR facility at Los
Alamos.
And finally, if I had to talk on the facilities about the
one facility that I have the most concern--and I have a concern
about it because it is so important to the Nation--it is the
plutonium facility at Los Alamos. That is the facility that
deals with plutonium. It is a dangerous material. It deals with
weapons-grade and heat-source plutonium and the Board recently
wrote a recommendation on seismic safety at that facility.
That is one category of concerns I have. The other category
of concerns I have is about DOE's regulatory reform activities.
The Department of Energy in this Administration is very
actively involved in the reform of its directives. It is very
actively involved in the reform of its oversight approaches and
initiatives and, as always, the Board is very focused on making
sure that Integrated Safety Management, which is key to the
safe operation of these facilities, protection of the workers
and the public, that that is constantly being reinvigorated so
that we have the foundation in which to ensure safety.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you for that answer. I know they place
a great deal of premium on safety at all of our facilities.
There can always be room for improvement, a lot of work to do,
obviously. I will say, I just went out to Los Alamos and, just
to show my degree of confidence in the safety and security
there, I went there on Friday the 13th for my visit.
Let me, if I could, on the issue of facilities, could you
describe for the committee your advice to the Secretary of
Energy ensuring that these facilities could safely achieve
their missions without busting the DOE budget?
Dr. Winokur. Well, I think that the Board is not in a
position, very often, to actually look at the economic impacts
of the actions it asks the Department to take. But I do think
the Board, in its statute, is very sensitive to the economic
feasibility of what it wants the Department to do.
And I think that, for example, in Los Alamos, we recently
wrote a recommendation to the Secretary of Energy, and the
Board hopes that--by the way, the Secretary accepted that
recommendation--and when the Board looks at the implementation
plan, we do believe that it is going to require upgrades to
that facility that will cost enough money to get your
attention. And I am sure that will be a problem or a concern of
the Administrator and the Secretary of Energy. But certainly
the Board does not move in the direction of suggesting we need
a new pit production facility.
The Board also tries to manage costs, as I told you, by
making sure that we integrate safety very early into the design
process. And that is a key approach that we take to make sure
that costs remain under control because if you have to
retrofit, that is very costly.
And the final thing I would say is that the Board is very
pragmatic in its approaches at times. We had a situation once
again, at Los Alamos--I don't mean to pick on them--but we did
have drums in a specific area that the Board felt were a threat
to the public. The Board agreed with the Department that we
should process those drums which were intended to go to the
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility at a facility that
really wasn't qualified to handle Hazard Category 2 facility
materials, but the Board still felt that it was the most
effective approach to protect public health and safety, and
most expedient way to do it, and we were mindful, once again,
of the economic feasibility of suggesting, perhaps, that a
whole new facility be built to handle that waste.
So I don't think we could do well at estimating costs of
things, but I think the Board is very concerned about economic
feasibility.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. Your insights into that is very
helpful in terms of the guidance that you are giving. Thank you
all for your testimony. I have further questions that we will
probably submit for the record. I am going to turn to the
ranking member for questions. They have called a vote and there
are five in this series so I will go with the ranking member's
questions and then we will recess and we will ask for your
indulgence and we will be back in short order to continue the
hearing.
The ranking member is recognized.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you have heard in
my comments, we are all excited to see the 13-percent increase
in this year's budget for NNSA with the additional $624 million
for Weapons Activities, a 10-percent increase, and $550 million
for Nuclear Nonproliferation, of 26 percent. In my comments,
Mr. D'Agostino, I commended you for being an outspoken advocate
for funding for the agency. And, of course, while we celebrate
this year, the issue that we are all concerned with is the out-
years, the needs that are going to be coming forward, including
those for key construction projects. And I wondered if you
might speak again to us about the issue of what you see in the
future and the needs in the future recognizing that this is not
just a one-year infusion of capital that is going to address
the issues that you have outlined so well for us.
Secretary D'Agostino. Thank you, Mr. Turner. I would be
glad to. These are multiyear programs. Everything we do, most
of the items we do take more than one year to accomplish. As
Chairman Winokur pointed out, nuclear safety is critically
important, upgrading these facilities is important. As I
mentioned in my opening remarks, the workforce has to
understand that the Nation considers this important for its
security. That is why the Nuclear Posture Review will help on
that.
So these are all multiyear activities. It is not even just
a five-year, we submit a five-year look ahead to the committee.
But frankly, we plan out well beyond that. We plan out in
the 10-year horizon, 10- to 15-year horizon space whether we
are dealing with the warheads themselves or the infrastructure
that needs to be upgraded.
So I am keenly focused on making sure that it is not just
fiscal year 2011 looks well, or even fiscal year 2012 looks
well; that fiscal year 2016 is understood when we develop our
next year's budget, that we have the resources in place in
fiscal year 2016.
So, in fact, as we start working on the Uranium Processing
Facility and the CMRR facility, replacement facility designs
over the next couple of years with the Board--because the
Board's input is very important early on--we expect the
resource requirements in the out-years, fiscal years 2016, 2017
and 2018, to be fairly significant, particularly on the
recapitalization space.
One of the commitments we have in the Department to ensure
that we get into effective management of these out-year
resources, Deputy Secretary Poneman recently issued new project
management policies to make sure that we get ourselves off the
Government Accountability Office (GAO) high-risk list, for one,
but more importantly that we become effective stewards of the
taxpayer dollars. And some elements of that policy include
doing, particularly for complicated facilities, getting 90
percent of the design work under your belt before we go off and
commit to what a facility will cost, what its schedule will be
and what the scope of the facility will be.
In the past, we haven't done that and we end up finding
ourselves not fully understanding what is required. So these
are some of the changes that we will be putting in place. But
that out-year commitment is vital to these programs whether we
are talking about the stockpile, or whether we are talking
about the science or whether we are talking about the
infrastructure.
Mr. Turner. Well, in turning to the issue of the stockpile,
the Stockpile Management Program and the Life Extension
Programs, I wish, if you would, speak for a moment on the issue
of lessening the expectation that for life extension it also
could have been solved by just one year of infusion, that this
life extension Stockpile Management Program is going to be
ongoing, that it represents a continuing need and, really, the
seriousness of, this is not discretionary, this is something
that we need to address absolutely.
Secretary D'Agostino. Certainly. One thing we are very
clear on: we do have many years, a decade and a half, under our
belt with stockpile stewardship and we have been watching the
stockpile for a long period of time, and we do know that
weapons age, components change over time. Not surprisingly,
they are in a radiation environment, for example, that we
should see that. But every five years or so we see something
significant happen in the stockpile, and we have to address it.
And we have been fortunate to be able to address it by changing
margins or working with the Defense Department to changing our
military capabilities. What that says is, we have to be
prepared to take care of something we don't fully understand,
exactly, today. And so that means support for the stockpile
itself is not just about seeing that set of numbers and
increases in years 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, but it is also
seeing that the experimental work that happens in the Science
Campaigns and Engineering Campaigns continues out as well.
Mr. Turner. You heard my comments concerning the JASON
report and the concerns that the declassified portion versus
the classified portion might have downplayed some of the risks
and that, you know, in asking the lab directors, they provided
us greater clarification of their view of the report. I
wondered if you would provide us your thoughts on the
unclassified version and the classified version of the JASON
report.
Secretary D'Agostino. I think the unclassified version
understates the challenges and the risks associated with
maintaining the stockpile that is more fully described in the
classified section of the report. I don't know why we have that
difference, but we do. But I do think it understates the risks.
But the unclassified version talks about today's stockpile.
That we can maintain today's stockpile today. And the concern I
have is not just what is happening today but what is happening
out into the future. And since we have--we have this
understanding that we have problems come up from time to time
that, fortunately, we have been able to address. What we do
know is that we just can't maintain things today like we used
to in the past because we can't make things like we used to in
the past. In fact, there are many product lines that we used to
make our current stockpile that we don't have fully up and
operating, and it would be kind of crazy to go out and try to
rebuild that capability.
So, in essence, I would look at this as dealing with the
problems of our stockpile, using--essentially, we have used up
the margins and capabilities there and in just using, I would
say, refurbishment approaches. And now we know we have to look
at other ways to maintain the stockpile.
So the challenges are much more significant than I believe
the unclassified report appears to state.
Mr. Turner. Dr. Triay, I want to thank you again for your
dedication on the environmental remediation programs. It makes
such a difference. Obviously we have to live up to the
obligation of what the Government has left behind. Doing that
in a way that is sensitive for economic development potential
for communities and ensuring that we are leaving behind
something that is not a threat in the future.
Your program received a significant amount of stimulus
funds. I know that you spoke of the stimulus funds and your
need for assuring accountability whenever you have a large
amount of dollars that are provided to you all at once. And
they have to be appropriately allocated to projects that can
move forward now and also that are of the highest need. I
appreciate, of course, that Mound was a recipient of those. Can
you speak about those? We have about a minute. Then we are
going to have to run to vote, but I would appreciate that.
Secretary Triay. I think that the Mound cleanup is an
example of how we need to press forward with the rest of the EM
portfolio. Number one, a joint vision between the community,
the regulators, and the Department of what is the end state of
the cleanup, and we need to get there as soon as possible in
the cleanup.
Number two, the fact that we have a responsibility to work
with the community so that these resources that we are turning
into assets as a result of the cleanup enter into the vision of
the community for their economic future.
I believe that we have done that at Mound and, in
particular, I believe that the issues associated with what is
the vision of the community with respect to these resources
that we are giving back to them as a result of the cleanup,
almost serves as a blueprint of the type of requirements as
well as criteria that we need to have in order to move forward
with a beneficial reuse of the assets that we are giving back
to the community.
Mr. Turner. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. I thank the Ranking Member.
And again, we will go for this series of votes, and we will
be back shortly to continue the hearing. I thank you. The
committee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Langevin. The hearing will now come to order. I thank
the witnesses for your patience.
And Mr. Heinrich of New Mexico is now recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here today.
I will start out with you, Secretary D'Agostino, and
preface my comments with what the Perry-Schlesinger report said
about America's strategic posture when it pointed out the need
to formally designate our nuclear weapons labs as national
security laboratories based on their unparalleled R&D
capabilities and expertise in science and technology.
I believe the vast amount of work for others done at the
labs, especially at some of the labs, is really a testament to
the recognition by other agencies, like the Intelligence
Community, the Department of Defense, the Department of
Homeland Security, that the labs possess state-of-the-art
resources and must continue to be robustly funded to meet new
and existing challenges.
Among the many areas in the fiscal year 2011 NNSA budget
that I am pleased with is the new account, the Science,
Technology, and Engineering Capability, or STEC program, which
is funded at $20 million in fiscal year 2011. I want to ask if
you can explain specifically what this funding will allow our
labs to accomplish, and how do you envision this program
operating in the out-years?
Secretary D'Agostino. Thank you, Mr. Heinrich, absolutely.
We started this line, frankly, following--there was a $30
million supplemental in prior years to focus on maintaining a
capability, particularly focus on the intelligence area.
Because as you know, sir, these scientists and engineers at our
laboratories, their expertise that we have fostered over
decades in supporting the nuclear deterrent is exactly the
exact same expertise that is needed to assess what other
countries are doing, what other non-state actors might be
doing. And we appreciate the supplemental in, I think it was
the 2009 supplemental, of $30 million.
So this request in fiscal year 2011 is essentially an
extension of that, as item one. But actually looking for
opportunities to expand the types of work for others, I call
them, strategic partnership agreements with other Federal
agencies.
I can give you some examples. One is we have an agreement
with the Defense Department called the Joint Munitions
Agreement, which is focused on high explosives. It is work that
is done at Sandia, Los Alamos, and Livermore, and working with
the Defense Department together, they set some resources aside
and we set some resources aside to do that. That is one area.
Another area is, again, with the Intelligence Community, to
continue on that partnership with the Intelligence Community.
And we met with Director Denny Blair a number of times.
Secretary Chu and I have met with Director Blair so that we are
working together kind of on that front.
And finally, the third area is in the nuclear
counterterrorism space with the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency. So it will be some combination of work, nuclear
counterterrorism, intelligence and, possibly, work with the
Department of Homeland Security in the aviation security arena
to address challenges that we face in aviation security and to
make sure that we understand that.
The key for us, ultimately, is to try to align within the
Federal Government what we know other departments are going to
need from us strategically in S&T space, see where they cross
the Department of Energy's needs, and then use those resources
to operate where those two circles overlap. And there is some
great opportunity there, and we are excited about this line as
well.
Mr. Heinrich. Excellent. I don't need to rehash with you
the reasons why NNSA was created by Congress in 1999. But among
them was an effort to provide a level of autonomy that would
allow for flexibility and operation within the labs. Do you
feel that the NNSA is beginning to achieve the level the
autonomy that I believe the original NNSA act intended?
Secretary D'Agostino. Well, it is hard--to go back to the
original intentions. I would look at it--there has been an
evolution, at least from what I have seen from my perch within
the Department. We have been able to achieve significant
autonomy in the area of human capital management, and it has
allowed my Director of Management, Mike Kane, who is now
working for the Secretary directly in this area. He did such a
great job in the NNSA. The Secretary said, `I need that
capability to help me in the rest of the Department,' so he has
moved over to help there. But human capital management, in the
procurement area, it has allowed us to be much quicker in
responding to procurements. We are a bit of a smaller
organization, and it has allowed us to move forward there.
As Administrator, I have certain authorities that the NNSA
act provided me, with respect to accepting or not accepting
what I would say consensus-based directives that have no
applicability, necessarily, to the kind of work that we do. I
haven't used that a lot but, most recently, we have been able
to look at trying to drive reform and taking a look at those
orders. Chairman Winokur described some of this earlier, and we
are going to be working closely with the Board on these things.
But I believe it has allowed us to move forward fairly
aggressively under the rubric of the Administrator. I am
satisfied, quite satisfied, with the way that we are working
within the Department, and the flexibility I have.
Mr. Heinrich. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. I thank the gentleman.
The ranking member is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
NNSA's budget request contains an almost 40-percent
reduction in funding for weapons dismantlement and disposition
from the fiscal year 2010 level. In light of the significant
backlog of retired systems in storage, could you explain why
NNSA is reducing funding for dismantlement activities by such a
significant percentage in just one fiscal year?
Secretary D'Agostino. Absolutely. There are a couple of
reasons, and I will line them up. But it is a combination of
events. One is, we did have a plus-up increase in fiscal year
2010 of about $12 million. That doesn't explain the whole
amount, but there was a specific increase.
The second increase why we had more money in fiscal year
2010 than we think we need for fiscal year 2011 is the safety
and authorization basis work we needed to do our most complex
weapons systems dismantlement. Work on the W-84, the B-53, for
example, particularly the 53, is taking a long time. And so we
feel, by the time fiscal year 2010 is done, we will have
finished the authorization basis work, the tooling, the methods
and approaches needed to take apart that warhead. By fiscal
year 2011, by the time 2011 starts, we will be in the business
of actually taking apart that warhead in and of itself.
And the third piece of the difference is the--we had a
fairly big ramp-up in fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2010 to
make a concerted effort to dismantle what we call canned
subassemblies or CSAs or secondaries of warheads. This happens
in Y-12, and Y-12 undertook a very big push to work off their
backlog of the CSAs. In fiscal year 2011, it goes back to what
our normal rate was that we submitted in our classified report.
So it is a combination of those three particular things.
So, right now, what we have essentially are the tools and the
authorization basis process we feel we are going to get done by
the time fiscal year 2011 starts. Now it is a matter of
cranking out the dismantlement activities themselves.
One thing I might add if I could, each type of warhead is
different from a dismantlement standpoint. Some warheads may
take only two or three shift works of work to take apart while
another warhead may take a full month to do. There are a lot of
questions that say, well, that means you are not taking apart
as many warheads. And it is very difficult to say, you know, a
W-79 is the same thing as a B-53 is the same thing as a W-76.
They all have different rates of dismantlement. But the key is
not to take them apart fast, but to take them apart safely, and
that is job one.
Mr. Turner. I will turn to the issue of security, I am
always concerned, as I stated in my opening statement, that we
don't have a margin of error. And I think everyone is very
dedicated to this issue. But perhaps you guys could speak on
what steps are NNSA and DOE taking to improve and make more
consistent the management of protective forces throughout the
nuclear security complex?
Secretary D'Agostino. Certainly. From a security
standpoint, we are taking a number of steps. The first thing
that we have done--not the first thing, one of the things we
have done is implemented a process called a Zero-Based Security
Review. And that is to make sure that the work that we do, the
way we approach security at one site is consistent from an
operational and vulnerability assessment standpoint to the
security work that is done at another site.
Previously we let each site do their vulnerability
assessments, and each site had a different approach. And so
what you ended up with, even though each site had the same
design basis threat, their approach to security was a little
bit different. It was all fine, but it was a different
approach. And so we had some inefficiencies there. So the Zero-
Based Security Review is actually going to walk us through
consistency from a vulnerability assessment standpoint.
The other things we are doing is we are driving commonality
in equipment purchases, specifically armor and armored vehicles
and the like, the weapons that the security forces use, driving
commonality there and commonality in training. We learned this,
I would say, the hard way in some respects, where we had a
strike at one of our sites, and we brought in security forces
from other sites. And we spent a significant amount of time
training the security forces from the other sites on the
different protocols at this one particular site. So now what we
are doing is pushing for commonality in uniforms, training,
equipment purchases, weapons, and that drives efficiency into
the enterprise.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. I thank the ranking member. Mr. Larsen is now
recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Normally I would make some comments with regards to
Environmental Management, but talking with folks from the state
and the delegation in regards to Hanford, generally things seem
to be moving along fairly quickly. I would just make a note
that the--I should say, fairly well, never quickly at Hanford.
Fairly well.
But generally, I will just make a note that the work being
done at places like Hanford and the cleanup is a legacy that we
do need to move forward on. I think last year I called it the
America's ultimate toxic asset in the throes of debate here in
the committee when they were looking at cutting the EM budget.
We managed to restore that. And that is great, and I hope we
learned a lesson about the need for a robust EM budget, not
just for Hanford but, obviously, for other sites around the
country.
Chairman Winokur, I talked to you a little bit ahead of
time about this question. I wanted to have you prepared. I
visited Y-12 last year with NNSA folks. And I wanted to chat
with you about, as they shrink the footprint, what kinds of
steps are being done to continue to try to maintain the safety
of the workplace, especially in 9212, given the age of it? So
how is that working out, and what do you foresee in terms of
cost being part of that process? What are your folks looking at
with regards to that?
Dr. Winokur. As I mentioned before, we characterize the
9212 facility as an unsound facility, and we are in a situation
right now where we have this unsound facility, and eventually
we are going to build the Uranium Processing Facility so there
is this gap, this transitionary period. And the Board is
working closely with NNSA and the site, Y-12, to make sure that
we understand the risks that we are taking, which eventually it
is DOE's decision to continue operations there, not the
Board's. But we want to carefully understand the risks
associated with operating that facility, which is extremely
important.
And right now, at that facility, improvements are being
made to reduce the risks. The most important way to do it is to
reduce the material at risk, and they have done a pretty good
job at that. They have reduced the amount of uranium in safe
bottles. And they have other initiatives to improve the
electrical systems, ventilation systems, fire suppression at
the site. So we do have an active program in place. And I think
eventually there is a line item that is coming in to make those
additional improvements at that site.
So we are in this situation where the Board is really
reviewing the safety of that facility on a yearly basis to
ensure itself that that plant should continue to operate. And I
can't guarantee you that it will make the complete
transitionary period between its existence today and when UPF
comes on line, except to say that the board strongly supports
the Uranium Processing Facility because it will really
represent a major improvement at the facility and at the site.
Mr. Larsen. Thanks, I want to give Secretary D'Agostino an
opportunity to respond to that if he could.
As well, I want to ask you to shift a little bit here to
the Navy nuclear enterprise and discuss the Ohio-class
replacement reactor in your testimony. Obviously, in the Navy
budget, in about 2019, we are going to see, if in fact things
go on time, the Ohio-class replacement come on, and we have to
start spending real money for the replacement. And that is
going to potentially, all things being equal, squeeze out other
shipbuilding requirements unless we figure out that problem.
Do you have a similar--are we going to see a similar
balloon in the Navy nuclear enterprise budget as far as the
development of the reactor for the replacement? If you answer
that first, and then we can return to the question about Y-12.
Secretary D'Agostino. Certainly. The plan we have right now
for the next five years is, as you may be aware, is to do the
core design, development, start testing some of these fuel
elements in the prototype refurbishment that is happening
around the 2017 timeframe. So what we are going to see is a
ramp-up in the work that happens in the Naval Reactors budget.
The next five years is pretty well understood. We understand
where that is going. The year 2016 as well, we have a pretty
good understanding of where that is going.
It will likely involve continuing increases in resources.
Whether there is a discontinuity, it would be hard for me to
say. I would like to take that one for the record and get back
to you on that so that you will have the actual data that we
expect in the out-years.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Secretary D'Agostino. But clearly, the money that we have
right now over the next five years is what we feel is necessary
to do the development of the core and to be able to start
testing of those components. And we are already doing the
material testing and the radiation testing as well.
On the Y-12 part of your question, I agree with the
Chairman. We have a facility that, you know, requires a lot of
attention. We have compiled a very long list of things that,
given unlimited resources, we would like to fix. But we don't
have unlimited resources, so we have prioritized that work to
things that have to happen most expeditiously to allow us to
operate that facility for the next 10 years or so while we
continue to work with the Board, certainly, early on to get
that design just right for the UPF and transition out.
So, clearly, there is always the tension of, a dollar I
spend on the 9212 is a dollar less I can spend on the Uranium
Processing Facility. But the most important thing is to do what
we need to do to ensure that things that have the highest risk
are taken care of in 9212. Because the Nation is going to rely
on that facility for the next 10 years, and so it is fairly
critical work.
I believe every year we are going to be back and forth with
the Board and reexamining those risks because it is a dynamic
situation. Something may come up. Heavy rain, what have you. We
will make adjustments to that balancing list so we have this
MMR project, material risk reduction project, to do that.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Langevin. I thank the gentleman.
And before we go to Mr. Heinrich for one last question--he
had one additional question that he wanted to ask--I thought,
Chairman Winokur, I understand that some of the members of the
Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board are here with us, and I
thought this would be a nice opportunity if you would introduce
them and say a word or two if possible about each.
Dr. Winokur. Thank you.
Let me first introduce Dr. John Mansfield, our resident
genius on the board.
Mr. Langevin. Always good to have a resident genius.
Dr. Winokur. And I would like to introduce Mr. Joseph
Bader, who has a tremendous amount of experience in industry
and quite expert in project management.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you for being here.
Dr. Winokur. And we have Mr. Larry Brown, who is a former
Naval officer, a captain. He is used to running ships, and he
is trying to apply the same to the Board.
And we actually have a new member who was confirmed last
week, and that is Ms. Jessie Roberson. And she will probably
report to duty in a couple of weeks, and her previous
experience was she was actually a member of the Board for
approximately one year and served in the same position as
Secretary Triay. And she has industrial experience.
Mr. Langevin. Outstanding. Thank you for that.
Gentlemen, thank you for the work that you are doing, and
we appreciate your outstanding work for the country. Thank you.
With that, I will turn to Mr. Heinrich for a last question.
Mr. Heinrich. Would you mind if it is two?
Mr. Langevin. Don't push it, Heinrich.
Mr. Heinrich. Okay. I'll pick one. Secretary D'Agostino, I
am very pleased at the direction in funding this year at Sandia
in terms of RTBF, the Readiness In Technical Base & Facilities,
the direction that it is heading in fiscal year 2011, although
it is significantly lower than the levels we saw just a couple
of years ago in fiscal year 2009. And I am particularly
concerned about the ramifications of that over time with regard
to Microsystems and Engineering Sciences Applications (MESA),
the Major Environmental Test Facilities, and the need to not
fall behind in terms of the recapitalization of that facility
to make sure that as the fabrication facility stays up-to-date
with industry standards and is able to fully support the next
generation of microelectronics for our stockpile systems. Do
you share some of those concerns?
Secretary D'Agostino. I do share--I would say, generally, I
share concerns on this balance between, you know, making sure
we don't fall behind on our recapitalization efforts and
maintaining facilities, particularly as we bring new facilities
online.
General Harencak, who is here with me, actually, runs
defense programs. He and I have talked about deferred
maintenance quite a bit. We have talked about the fact that we
have had great success, frankly, in our program in
recapitalization resources and in the science resources and in
the Directed Stockpile Work (DSW) resources, that sometimes we
have to make sure--not sometimes, we always have to make sure
that we don't forget just taking care of business on a day-to-
day basis with our current facilities.
So he actively looks at that, and he is going to be getting
back to me in the not-too-distant future, and we are going to
talk about, what do we need to do to make sure, particularly
since we are in the throes of developing our fiscal year 2012
program and budget right now, on how do we make sure that we
don't find ourselves in a situation 10 years from now where we
say, well, if I had just taken care of this facility, we
wouldn't be in the position that we are in. So that is a
constant concern of mine.
Mr. Heinrich. Mr. Chairman.
Do I get the full five minutes? Okay. Last question.
Secretary Triay, you have heard this one before. But I
wanted to ask, what are you doing to meet DOE's responsibility,
not just to clean up these legacy sites, but to assess and
restore the natural resources that have been damaged at DOE
sites around the country? And just to provide some context for
folks. That is a statutory responsibility and one that is, I
think, more easily met when you do the two together as opposed
to in series.
Secretary Triay. Thank you very much for that question. I
recently met with Secretary Ron Curry just on this particular
question. And we thank you for your leadership throughout this
process.
I am happy to report that we have made a decision on doing
the assessment for damages and that we are going to be in the
process of issuing the request for proposal, the system is
going to be issuing the request for proposal.
And we will provide the resources for that assessment. In
addition to that, as a matter of policy, you and I have
discussed, in these venues plus one-on-one, the wisdom of not
waiting until after all of the cleanup is completed to start
restoring and addressing the damages.
So we are committed to doing that simultaneously--the
cleanup as well as the damages, because at the end of the day,
we think that that is more cost-effective, plus much more
responsible to the concerns that have been expressed at places
like Los Alamos.
We are committed to working with you as well as Secretary
Curry on pressing forward. And we believe that the State has
actually shown a tremendous amount of leadership, and we want
to ensure that we take full advantage of that leadership shown
by New Mexico.
Mr. Heinrich. I thank you for your progress on that front.
I really do.
Mr. Langevin. I thank the gentleman.
And I am going to take the prerogative of the chair to ask
one last question. But before I do, Mr. Larsen had asked for
some time, for a few minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just a few minutes. Secretary D'Agostino, I wanted to let
you know that I will be following up with you and your office
with regards to the framework for a memorandum of agreement for
interactions between NNSA and the broader national security
community, and some of the suggestions that I have been hearing
from some folks. So I will follow up with you and your staff on
that.
Secretary D'Agostino. Yes, sir.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you.
Mr. Langevin. I thank the gentleman.
And lastly, for Mr. D'Agostino, last year the JASON
scientific panel's review of NNSA Life Extension Program found
that the Stockpile Surveillance Program is becoming inadequate.
They concluded that, ``continued success of stockpile
stewardship requires implementation of a revised surveillance
program.''
So my question is, has the NNSA revised the surveillance
program in ways that will ensure the continued success of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program? And if so, can you describe them
to the committee?
Secretary D'Agostino. The answer is, yes, we have revised
it. And the fiscal year 2011 request will allow us to fully
implement those plans. And let me describe the plans if I
could.
We have made a concerted shift not to just put more money
into what we call the Enhanced Surveillance line, which is
developing tools for future types of surveillance that we can
do, but actually taking apart warheads and collecting a lot of
data out of those particular warheads. So that is the
additional resources, about $55 million more than we had
previously in the fiscal year 2011 request, will allow us to
take apart that full sweep of warheads that we were originally
planning on doing.
Another element of the revision of the surveillance program
is to fully exploit the data that we do have. In many respects,
in the past, what was done, it was just of a rote, take apart X
number of units per years, gather this information and focus it
that way. What we want to do is actually factor in--start
focusing where we are looking based on the information we get
out of what our codes tell us, what our predictions tell us we
should be looking for. That way it is a bit more of a focused
surveillance than just kind of a broad surveillance across the
board.
The final element of surveillance is trying to take
advantage of dismantling nuclear warheads. Obviously, we have
an active program of dismantling nuclear warheads, and there
are opportunities to fully exploit all of that information that
comes out of that, in addition to what we would regularly call
a normal surveillance activity, where we take the warhead apart
and then put it back together again.
So this fiscal year 2011, fiscal year 2012, fiscal year
2013 program that we have in front of us will address, in my
opinion and in the opinion of our experts in defense programs,
the core of what the JASONs were talking about. But the key,
again, will be sustaining this over time, sustaining that level
of focus. Let's not let the resources drift away from the
surveillance area like we have done in the past, as we tried to
balance things as they got smaller and smaller. So sustaining
it over time will be important.
Mr. Langevin. I agree, and I hope that you will allow us to
work with you and make sure that you have the tools and
resources that you need to continue your work and also the
work, particularly, in the surveillance program.
Secretary D'Agostino. Yes, Mr. Chairman. It would be an
honor to do that.
Mr. Langevin. Lastly, I want to thank you publicly for
accompanying me to my first trip to the labs at Sandia and Los
Alamos. It was an eye-opening event and time well spent.
And I deeply appreciate all the work that you are doing
there and all the work of the folks at the labs. It is
outstanding work and an important national asset, and thank
you.
Secretary D'Agostino. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Langevin. If there is nothing else, with that, I want
to thank our witnesses for their testimony today. As always, it
has been very helpful and enlightening.
And the members may have additional questions that they
will submit for the record, and I would ask that you respond to
those expeditiously in writing.
With that, thank you again, and the committee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:00 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
March 25, 2010
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
March 25, 2010
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
March 25, 2010
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. The unclassified report of the JASON panel also
contained the following conclusion: ``JASON finds no evidence that
accumulation of changes incurred from aging and LEPs have increased
risk to certification of today's deployed nuclear warheads.''
Do you agree with this assessment? Could you provide the committee
with your perspectives on the issue?
Secretary D'Agostino. Mr. Chairman, I agree with this finding. Our
annual assessment process provides me with a rigorous assessment of the
status of our stockpile. The accumulations of small changes that are
inherent in component aging and refurbishment of aging components, take
our warheads further from the designs whose safety and reliability were
certified in the era when nuclear tests were conducted. What the JASON
captured in this finding, and reinforced in their report and
recommendations, is that the success of Stockpile Stewardship has
allowed us to mitigate the risk due to these changes. As we make
changes, we investigate birth defects and aging issues through
surveillance. We then drive our science and engineering teams at the
laboratories to understand the impacts so we can understand the
consequences, and then suggest and implement solutions. Throughout this
process, which is the essence of stewardship, it is my goal to choose
the options that decrease our future risks. This includes maintaining a
full suite of options for warhead life extensions that help enable U.S.
nuclear policy.
Mr. Langevin. Finally, the JASON panel found that: ``All options
for extending the life of the nuclear weapons stockpile rely on the
continuing maintenance and renewal of expertise and capabilities in
science, technology, engineering, and production unique to the nuclear
weapons program.'' The panel went on to express its concern that ``this
expertise is threatened by lack of program stability, perceived lack of
mission importance, and degradation of the work environment.''
Do you agree with the conclusions of the JASON panel, and if you
do, will you describe to the committee how you plan to address the
concerns about program stability, perceived lack of mission importance
and the work environment?
Secretary D'Agostino. Mr. Chairman, I agree with JASON's
recognition of our critical skills needs. We are in the middle of a
fairly long transition from a time early in Stockpile Stewardship when
our ranks were replete with seasoned experts firmly grounded in testing
the as-designed stockpile to one likely in the next decade where we no
longer have any such expertise, including our Laboratory Directors.
Today's annual assessment of the stockpile is a mix of expert judgment
guided by a much better informed scientific understanding than we ever
had in the past. Our efforts require us to push strongly into the
science, technology, engineering, and manufacturing unique to the
nuclear weapons program. I believe it is possible to preserve this base
of human capital, by exercising it routinely on important problems of
nuclear design, development and production. Additionally, I have been
working to transition from a nuclear weapons complex to a national
security enterprise because I believe that for my laboratories to
remain vital in the skills of the nuclear mission, we need to think
more broadly of the mission and what it will take to attract scientists
and engineers into the complex in a time when the lure of working on
the U.S. nuclear arsenal is diminishing.
Mr. Langevin. Would ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty change any current plans for the Stockpile Stewardship Program?
If so, please describe how.
Secretary D'Agostino. Mr. Chairman, the Stockpile Stewardship
Program is designed and executed to maintain certification of the
nuclear weapons stockpile without underground testing. Under the
program, experiments are conducted to assess the current state of the
stockpile and the results are validated against data collected from the
underground nuclear tests conducted prior to the end of testing in
1992. We have successfully mitigated the risk to the stockpile of
accumulating changes, and we currently do not see obstacles that would
divert us from this path in the future. In order to execute the
program, we will need to recapitalize many of our facilities and sites,
as we have proposed. If we can maintain program stability into the
future, then we can ensure that the scientists and engineers continue
to work to mitigate the risks to the U.S. stockpile without having to
resort to our previous model of nuclear testing as the ultimate arbiter
of these decisions.
Mr. Langevin. One of the most significant initiatives contained in
the FY 2011 budget is funding for the design of both the Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) facility at Los Alamos and the
Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at Oak Ridge Y-12.
To what extent are the design specifications for these major
infrastructure projects dependent on the size of the nuclear weapons
stockpile?
Secretary D'Agostino. Both facilities are sized at the minimum
capacity and capability needed to support the current stockpile and
planned stockpile reductions announced by the Administration. CMRR and
UPF design specifications are based on the production work necessary to
support the stockpile objectives in the Nuclear Posture Review, and the
core capabilities to support a variety of National Security Enterprise
missions that require plutonium and highly enriched uranium. The design
of both CMRR and UPF are largely insensitive to reductions in stockpile
levels, with capacity-related features such as the quantity and type of
equipment and floor space sized to the minimum necessary to provide
core capabilities. Future reductions in stockpile size would not allow
for substantial reduction in the size or capability of either facility.
Mr. Langevin. How confident are you that the NNSA's budget can
accommodate construction of these two major projects concurrently in
the out-years without affecting other major elements of the stockpile
stewardship program?
Secretary D'Agostino. Assuming the President's FY 2011 request is
enacted into law, NNSA is fully committed to completing construction in
2020 and transitioning to full operations for CMRR and UPF by 2022.
Construction resource requirements for CMRR and UPF will extend
throughout this decade. The FY 2011 President's Budget establishes an
adequate level of funding to continue design and prepare for the start
of construction activities for both projects, while providing
sufficient resources for the other major elements of the stockpile
stewardship program. Budget requirements in the out-years for these two
facilities will be identified after we have established the design and
cost baselines by the end of FY2013.
Mr. Langevin. The Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization
Program (FIRP) is scheduled to sunset in 2013. However, the backlog of
deferred maintenance in the nuclear weapons complex has not been
eliminated. FIRP was originally designed to reduce deferred maintenance
in the NNSA to industry standards by 2011, but annual funding levels
have fallen short of requirements.
Does the FY 2010 budget for NNSA reduce the overall backlog of
deferred maintenance in the weapons complex? If not, should the FIRP
program be extended?
Secretary D'Agostino. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 budget for the NNSA
helps to stabilize, rather than reduce the overall backlog of deferred
maintenance, which has continued to grow in recent years. The FY 2010
Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program (FIRP) deferred
maintenance reduction projects are funded at $94 million, which is
approximately 38% of the projected $250 million needed annually to
reduce the backlog. In order to maintain Mission Critical facilities as
a priority, other facilities have been operating under worsening
conditions and increasing amounts of deferred maintenance.
With regard to the program's duration, the FIRP end date is FY 2013
as legislated in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2007.
The NNSA understands that at the conclusion of FIRP, the logical
program to receive dedicated out-year funding in support of continued
deferred maintenance reduction is the Institutional Site Support
program within Defense Programs Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities.
Mr. Langevin. How much funding would be required on an annual basis
over the five years of the Future Years Nuclear Security Plan (FYNSP)
to reduce the backlog of deferred maintenance to private industry
standards?
Secretary D'Agostino. Our experience demonstrates that the
Stockpile Stewardship Program mission was most efficiently supported
when FIRP budgets were provided on the order of $200 to $250 million
annually. This includes funding of both recapitalization projects and
disposition projects targeted at deferred maintenance reduction.
However, we need to continually evaluate the proper funding for
deferred maintenance as the enterprise undergoes changes.
Mr. Langevin. NNSA's budget request contains an almost 40-percent
reduction in funding for weapons dismantlement and disposition from the
FY 2010 level.
In light of the significant backlog of retired systems in storage,
please explain why NNSA is reducing funding for dismantlement
activities by such a significant percentage in one fiscal year?
Secretary D'Agostino. The FY 2011 request of $58M brings us back in
line with our dismantlement funding profile and is sufficient to meet
FY 2011 requirements. In recent years, NNSA has met or exceeded its
planned dismantlement rates due to investments in efficiencies and
additional funding from Congress. FY 2010 saw a large increase of
$43.4M in the dismantlement budget (from $52.7M in FY 2009 to $96.1M in
FY 2010--an increase of more than 82%) which is being used for enabling
technologies such as material disposition, efficiency improvements, and
completing the nuclear explosive safety bases for the W84 and B53
dismantlements. These activities will allow NNSA to maintain our
established dismantlement rate while adding two additional weapons to
the dismantlement stream.
The investments in efficiencies and the additional funding have
provided NNSA with flexibility in adjusting resource commitments in
balance with Life Extension Programs and surveillance activities in the
near term, and we remain committed to dismantle all currently retired
weapons by 2022.
Mr. Langevin. What are NNSA's nonproliferation priorities? What are
the primary areas of progress, and the main challenges facing NNSA
nonproliferation efforts?
Secretary D'Agostino. While the various nonproliferation programs
at NNSA have developed a variety of methodologies over the years for
prioritizing the threat reduction efforts within their programs'
purview, DNN also makes use of a risk assessment methodology to
prioritize and evaluate trade-offs across the full range of
nonproliferation programs that would otherwise defy easy comparisons.
These risk trade-offs are used to inform decisionmaking, and the full
scope of national security demands is evaluated within available
resources throughout the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and
Evaluation (PPBE) process.
Some fundamental principles underlie the DNN risk assessment
methodology. First, even with the hypothetical situation of unlimited
resources, it is not possible to completely eliminate all proliferation
risk. Second, not all threats are equally probable or consequential.
Therefore, the DNN program management methodology reflects the view
that it is possible to manage and minimize the many variable risks by
addressing the most credible and most serious threats before attempting
to mitigate lesser threats.
To implement this approach, NNSA prioritizes activities considered
part of the first line of defense against nuclear terrorism and
proliferation: funding for efforts to secure special nuclear materials
at their site of origin, as it becomes progressively more difficult to
detect and secure such material once it has been moved; and material
disposition to reduce the total amount of material that requires
security. NNSA then focuses down the risk continuum on second line of
defense activities to detect materials in transit, especially across
international borders and other transit sites, to reduce the
availability of the technologies and technical expertise to create
these materials, and securing radiological source materials. The DNN
activities to implement these objectives directly contribute to the
President's nuclear security and nonproliferation agenda as outlined in
his April 2009 speech in Prague, Czech Republic, and constitute DNN's
highest priorities.
In terms of progress, working with our Russian partners, DNN has
made remarkable achievements. These include: the verifiable
downblending of over 380 MT of Russian weapons-origin highly enriched
uranium (HEU) into LEU fuel for use in U.S. power plants; the return of
over 1,239 kg of Russian-origin HEU; the completion of security
upgrades at 93% of Russian nuclear sites of concern; and the shutdown
of Russia's last three weapons-grade plutonium-producing reactors, the
last of which was shut down in April 2010. Additionally, we are taking
concrete steps to dispose of at least 68 MT total (34 MT each) of U.S.
and Russian weapons-grade plutonium.
However, in order to implement the President's Prague speech
objectives--especially his call to secure all vulnerable nuclear
material across the globe within four years--DNN will require expanding
our security cooperation with Russia and other key countries, pursuing
new partnerships to secure nuclear materials, and strengthening nuclear
security standards, practices, and international safeguards. Remaining
DNN priorities and challenges include securing these new bilateral and
multilateral partnerships and international consensus needed to achieve
this four-year goal.
Mr. Langevin. Are there any areas where NNSA could do more to
accelerate and strengthen its nonproliferation programs if it had more
funding, or does the FY2011 budget request reflect all current needs
and capabilities?
Secretary D'Agostino. Last year in Prague, the President announced
a new American effort, working with our international partners, to
secure vulnerable nuclear materials around the world within four years.
The Department will play a key role in these efforts. Implementing this
plan will require expanding security cooperation with Russia and other
key countries, pursuing new partnerships to secure nuclear materials,
and strengthening nuclear security standards, practices, and
international safeguards.
Our FY 2011 budget request fully funds early efforts to support the
President's historic nuclear security agenda, as a first step in
meeting this multiyear initiative. Among other priorities in this area,
the FY2011 budget provides for the acceleration and expansion of threat
reduction efforts, including beginning efforts to remove over 1,650
kilograms; converting an additional 7 research reactors to the use of
low enriched uranium fuel; pursuing additional nuclear security
upgrades at 19 Russian sites; and expanding nuclear security
cooperation to new countries outside of Russia and states of the former
Soviet Union. Funding and personnel resources to fully implement these
Administration commitments are requested in the FY2011 President's
Budget and are reflected in the out-year funding for these programs.
Mr. Langevin. NNSA plans for fissile materials disposition have
slowed in recent years, first as a liability dispute between the U.S.
and Russia delayed work, and later as Congress expressed reservations
about proceeding with construction of the U.S. MOX Fuel Fabrication
Facility at the Savannah River Site. Moreover, the FY 2008 Consolidated
Appropriations Act reduced funding for the MOX facility and transferred
funding for the facility from NNSA's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
program to the Office of Nuclear Energy. However, the FY 2011 budget
request restores funding for the MOX facility and reflects a transfer
of all funding for the facility back to Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation.
What is the current status of construction of the MOX facility and
what are the plans going forward, including the timeline for
completion?
Secretary D'Agostino. As of May 2010, the MOX Fuel Fabrication
Facility project is on schedule and within budget, with 43% complete
overall (design, procurement, construction, testing). Construction
activities are 22% complete. To date, over 72,000 cubic yards of
concrete and 13,000 tons of reinforcing steel have been installed in
the main 500,000 square foot MOX Process Building structure.
Installation of coatings, process tanks and process piping are also
ongoing in the main MOX Process Building. Additionally, 10 of the 16
auxiliary buildings have been completed and are in use to support the
MOX construction effort. Besides facility construction, large amounts
of engineered process equipment are being procured and are being
fabricated by suppliers.
The MOX Process Building structure is scheduled to be completed in
2011 with installation of process equipment continuing until 2014. Cold
system testing is scheduled to begin in 2012 and continue into 2016.
Construction of the MOX project is scheduled to be completed in October
2016, at which point nuclear materials, hot system testing and
manufacture of MOX fuel are scheduled to begin.
Mr. Langevin. What is the status of the Russian Surplus Fissile
Materials Disposition program, and is the program moving forward in a
manner that is consistent with the program's nonproliferation
objectives?
Secretary D'Agostino. On April 13, 2010, the United States and
Russia signed a Protocol to amend the Plutonium Management and
Disposition Agreement (PMDA) to reflect Russia's revised plutonium
disposition program. The amended PMDA commits Russia to dispose of 34
metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium under conditions that make the
Russian disposition program consistent with U.S. nonproliferation
objectives. Russia's revised program is based on irradiating surplus
weapon-grade plutonium in Russia's fast reactors operating under
certain nonproliferation conditions including removal of the weapon-
grade plutonium producing ``blanket'' in the BN-600 reactor, redesign
of the BN-800 reactor from a plutonium breeder to a plutonium burner,
and implementation of monitoring and inspections to verify that Russia
is fulfilling the terms of the amended Agreement. Under the amended
PMDA, both countries expect to start plutonium disposition in 2018 and
finish disposition in the mid 2030s.
Mr. Langevin. In recent years, the committee has emphasized its
strong concern with the use of fast reactors under the Russian Surplus
Fissile Materials Disposition program and has conveyed its expectation
that NNSA pursue a disposition path for Russia's surplus weapons-grade
plutonium which ensures that any reactors used under the program do not
produce plutonium and include necessary monitoring and inspection
controls. What is the status of NNSA's efforts in this regard?
Secretary D'Agostino. Russia's revised disposition program codified
in the amended PMDA is based on irradiating surplus weapon-grade
plutonium in Russia's fast reactors operating under certain
nonproliferation conditions, including removal of the weapon-grade
plutonium producing ``blanket'' in the BN-600 reactor, redesign of the
BN-800 reactor from a plutonium breeder to a plutonium burner, and
implementation of a monitoring and inspections regime to verify that
Russia is fulfilling the terms of the amended Agreement. In addition,
the revised PMDA contains strict limits on reprocessing and prohibits
the plutonium disposed of from ever being used for weapons purposes. We
expect the above activities to be among those funded by the U.S. $400
million contribution referenced in the amended PMDA. Meanwhile, Russia
is spending over $2 billion to implement its revised disposition
program. A document laying out the key elements of a monitoring and
inspection (M&I) regime was approved by the two sides in March and
contact was initiated with the IAEA regarding its role in conducting
PMDA related M&I activities.
Mr. Langevin. What is NNSA doing to address issues of limited staff
capacity, capabilities and resources, which have created challenges for
implementation of critical nonproliferation programs in past years?
Secretary D'Agostino. The FY 2011 NNSA Budget Request provides for
259 FTEs for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program. This
represents a 22% increase over FY 2009 staffing levels. The increased
staffing ceiling is commensurate with the increased funding provided
for nonproliferation programs to ensure that the required Federal
personnel to plan, manage, and oversee the operations of the Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation program are provided.
In the past several years, NNSA has implemented workforce planning
and a phased hiring strategy to ensure that appropriate staff resources
are available by FY 2011 to execute the requested programmatic
increases. We are working to assure that as attrition occurs, we make
internal reallocations to target increased personnel support to growing
mission areas Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation.
Mr. Langevin. Do you expect any NNSA nonproliferation programs to
have significant uncosted unobligated balances in FY 2010? If so,
please describe the factors contributing to such balances. Please also
describe any progress by NNSA to limit uncosted unobligated balances
for nonproliferation programs and the rationale, if any, for
maintaining a certain level of such balances for these programs.
Secretary D'Agostino. No. The year-end projection of less than 10-
percent uncommitted uncosted balances for the DNN programs is well
within thresholds for uncosted balances recognized by the Department,
and the Government Accountability Office, and is a reasonable level to
ensure continued operations into FY 2011, especially in recognition of
the expected long-term continuing resolution.
Because of the nature of the nonproliferation program activity,
much of it takes place outside of the United States and encompasses
smaller operating and capital-type projects executed in partnerships
with foreign governments that are not completed for a number of years
after initiation. In recognition of this different program execution
pattern, the Congress and the NNSA agreed a number of years ago on
semi-annual reporting of uncosted and uncommitted balances for programs
funded under the DNN appropriation, which is a better metric of the
progress and funding availability in these programs.
Uncosted balances generally represent goods and services on order.
Uncommitted balances are funds not yet placed on contract. For the
fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, NNSA is projecting uncommitted
balances of less than 10 percent for the Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation (DNN) appropriation. The projected year-end
uncommitted percentage varies by program, from less than 6 percent for
the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program,
to approximately 18 percent for the Nonproliferation and International
Security Program (NIS). Delays in planning activities and technology
development to support eventual resumption of denuclearization
activities in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are
contributing to slightly higher projected uncommitted balances for this
program.
DNN uncommitted balances have been reduced from approximately 15
percent five years ago to about 11 percent at the end of FY 2009. A
number of process improvements have been made to help achieve this
change, including adjustments in contracting methods, oversight
procedures, and additional analysis during the budget formulation
process to insure the most efficient and effective use of each dollar.
Mr. Langevin. Recognizing that the Department is ultimately
responsible for the solvency of the pension programs maintained for the
employees of DOE's major contractors, could you provide the committee
with a description of the fiscal health of these plans?
Secretary D'Agostino. The rounded funded status for each is listed
below with our lowest funded status being 84%.
Kansas City Aero 93%
Kansas City Hourly 97%
Los Alamos 104%
Livermore 146%
Nevada Test Site 87%
Pantex Guards 91%
Pantex MTC 91%
Pantex Non-Barg 86%
Sandia PSP 205%
Sandia RIP 98%
Y-12 Security 97%
Nevada Security 95%
Nevada Security LV 97%
Y-12 94%
Naval Reactors KAPL Salary 85%
Naval Reactors KAPL Hourly 85%
Naval Reactors Bettis 84%
Mr. Langevin. What actions are NNSA and DOE taking to address any
shortfalls in its contractor-managed pension programs?
Secretary D'Agostino. We engage our contractors on a routine basis
to ensure our budgets accurately reflect expected plan contributions
and to understand the investment strategies utilized by our
contractors. Because, under the terms of our contracts, we are required
to reimburse contractor pension costs within contractual limits, we
urge our contractors to focus on decreasing the volatility of required
annual contributions and cost containment.
However, reducing pension costs is extremely difficult as the costs
reflect incurred costs that are impacted by a number of market
conditions, including the market bond rates used to value liabilities
to the present. While most NNSA contractors have closed their defined
benefit pension programs to new entrants and have shifted to defined
contribution programs for new contractor employees, the cost for
funding the closed defined benefit pension programs will not decline
significantly until market conditions improve over an extended period
of time.
Pension liabilities are a series of cashflows payable in the future
that consist of the present value of all future benefit payments
discounted to the present using required IRS discount rates. Pension
cost increases result from (1) normal benefit accruals, (2) drops in
the discount rate, (3) investment losses, and (4) new pension plan
entrants. Defined benefit programs that continue to allow new entrants
experience liability growth beyond growth associated with benefit
accruals and market conditions. Once a plan is closed to new entrants,
pension costs are largely affected from year to year by market
conditions.
The U.S. suffered what amounts to a ``pension perfect storm'' in
2008 as declines in the stock market reduced asset valuations
significantly, while reductions in interest rates increased liability
valuations. Even with the general equity market upswing over the past
year, the growth in liability valuations has continued to greatly
surpass the growth in assets, making it difficult to significantly
improve the funded status of individual plans. Our contractors utilize
a variety of investment techniques such as liability driven investments
to minimize the contribution volatility; however, they also choose to
mitigate their financial burden by balancing this technique with more
aggressive investment approaches that present the opportunity for
higher returns. In either case, until market forces provide for relief
in the valuation of liabilities NNSA contractors will continue to see
large annual defined-benefit pension contributions. NNSA has a
centralized Contractor Human Resources group responsible for working
directly with our contractors to maintain a vigilant review of all
pension and other benefit costs.
Mr. Langevin. The Department of Energy received $5.1 billion for
Defense Environmental Cleanup through the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009. Are you on track implementing the Recovery
Act projects and funding?
Secretary Triay. The Recovery Act requires all funding to be
obligated by the end of FY 2010, and spent within five years of
obligation. The Office of Environmental Management (EM) established a
very aggressive goal of spending the majority of the money by the end
of FY 2011 in order to maximize the creation of jobs. The EM Recovery
Act program has obligated more than $5.4 of the $6 billion of Recovery
Act funding, and more than $2.3 billion has been paid out.
Approximately 10% of the 91 EM Recovery Act projects are now scheduled
to extend into FY 2012. In regard to project performance, a recent GAO
report identifies that a number of the Recovery Act projects are not
currently meeting their original cost and schedule goals. Examples of
these project variances include: greater than initially planned volumes
of contaminated soils, resulting in higher costs for excavation and
disposal; delays due to changes in initial waste type characterization
assumptions; and contract issues causing delays in work start date.
EM Senior Management continues to be fully engaged with all the
Recovery Act projects on a regular basis, including monthly project
reviews with each of the sites. EM Management also requires each
project with less than satisfactory performance to develop a recovery
plan that fully defines the issues and contains the corrective actions
necessary to bring the projects back on track and within cost and
schedule. At this time it appears that all of the projects are
recoverable and will meet Recovery Act performance objectives.
Mr. Langevin. Will you meet your stated goal of reducing the active
cleanup footprint by 40 percent by fiscal year 2011? When will these
cleaned up lands be transferred back to the communities?
Secretary Triay. The Office of Environmental Management (EM) is on
track to complete 40-percent footprint reduction by the end of Fiscal
Year 2011. Footprint reduction is defined as the physical completion of
EM activities with petition for regulatory approval to follow. The bulk
of the footprint reduction is at Richland and Savannah River. Although
EM will be complete with the active cleanup of these areas, there will
still be long-term ground water monitoring activities in some areas
that will necessitate institutional control.
There is no schedule or plan to transfer the land due to the
ongoing groundwater remediation activities and the fact that some of
the sites belong to another Program's mission and EM's responsibility
is only to clean the site up.
Mr. Langevin. Are you on track to execute all of the additional
funding before it expires?
Secretary Triay. Since all Recovery Act work is scheduled to be
completed by FY 2012, we will spend all the funds before they expire in
FY 2015.
Mr. Langevin. Will all defense cleanup sites be able to meet their
respective regulatory milestones in FY10 and FY11?
Secretary Triay. EM defense cleanup sites are currently positioned
to meet all regulatory milestones in FY 2010 and FY 2011.
Mr. Langevin. President Obama has indicated that he does not intend
to pursue Yucca Mountain as a long-term repository for high-level
waste. Yucca Mountain remains designated, by law, as a repository for
high-level radioactive waste.
What are the implications of the cancellation of the Yucca Mountain
repository on EM's ability to manage and consolidate defense waste?
Secretary Triay. The Department remains committed to meeting its
obligations for managing and ultimately disposing of spent nuclear fuel
and high-level radioactive waste. The Administration's decision not to
proceed with the Yucca Mountain repository does not affect the Office
of Environmental Management's (EM) plans to retrieve and treat for
long-term interim storage high-level waste currently stored in tanks or
to treat and stabilize and store spent nuclear fuel. EM is focused on
addressing environmental and health risks by placing high-level waste
and spent nuclear fuel in safe and stable configurations for long-term
interim storage.
EM's near term plans to treat the high-level waste for interim
storage and to safely store spent nuclear fuel are not impacted by the
decisions to evaluate alternatives for spent nuclear fuel and high-
level waste.
Mr. Langevin. In November 2009, you implemented an organizational
restructuring of EM's senior leadership. This included the creation of
new positions for the Chief Technical Officer and Chief Business
Officer, and changed reporting lines for many EM offices.
The Office of Environmental Management has undergone several
organizational changes in its short history. How does this latest
reorganization improve upon the reorganization implemented by your
immediate predecessor? Why was another reorganization needed?
Secretary Triay. By having the Office of Environmental Management
(EM) Field Organizations report directly to my office--the Office of
the Assistant Secretary--I have clearly established direct authority
and accountability for the execution of the EM program. This also
recognizes and sharpens the focus of EM Headquarters. Program
definition, priorities, policy, planning, budgeting and oversight are
the province and responsibility of the headquarters organization.
Program implementation is a Field responsibility.
The reorganization is intended to make clear the roles and
responsibilities of headquarters and field entities. Specifically,
Office of Environmental Management (EM) Field Managers are directly
responsible and accountable to my office for program implementation. If
the Field Managers perform well and deliver their projects at cost and
on schedule, they will be given more responsibility. However, if they
have difficulty with project success, there will be greater involvement
from Headquarters. For Field Managers, this provides a new mindset on
the headquarters interface, but it also raises expectations on
performance. This management approach will not be ``one-size-fits-
all.'' It will be based on how successful the Field Managers are in
delivering projects on time and within cost.
In addition, the creation of a Chief Business Officer and Chief
Technical Officer provides me with a fully integrated team of senior
leaders to ensure that EM speaks and acts with one voice. Together, we
will assure that the entire organization is led in a more cohesive and
consistent manner.
Mr. Langevin. The Safety Board has been evaluating the safety basis
for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford
Site, and technical issues remain open. The established annual funding
baseline, intended to provide programmatic stability for the WTP, is
$690 million annually. The budget request for FY 2011 contains $740
million for the WTP.
Secretary Triay, considering the outstanding technical concerns
regarding the safety criteria for the Waste Treatment Plant, why did EM
choose to request an additional $50 million for FY 2011 above the
established $690 million per year level to accelerate engineering,
design, and procurements?
Secretary Triay. The Office of Environmental Management (EM) is
committed to resolving the remaining major technical issues and
completing the Waste Treatment Plant project within the currently
approved cost and schedule baselines. To achieve these commitments, EM
plans to resolve the major outstanding technical issues over the next
few months, and to pursue completion of the engineering design as soon
as possible. To facilitate this, some vendor design information for
engineered equipment will be required. So in addition to increased
design efforts, there will be some additional procurement costs in FY
2011 associated with securing the necessary vendor design information
as well. The completion of the vendor and contractor engineering design
will allow for better planning and reducing risks associated with the
delivery of material, completion of construction, and preparation for
commissioning.
Mr. Langevin. The Safety Board has been evaluating the safety basis
for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) at the Hanford
Site, and technical issues remain open. The established annual funding
baseline, intended to provide programmatic stability for the WTP, is
$690 million annually. The budget request for FY 2011 contains $740
million for the WTP.
Chairman Winokur, please discuss your ongoing technical evaluation
relating to the Pretreatment facility. Do you have confidence that the
WTP is on a strong footing to accelerate spending in FY 2011?
Dr. Winokur.
1. Ongoing technical evaluation of the Pretreatment Facility.
The Board is continuing to review the resolution of current safety-
related design issues, emerging safety-related elements of the
Pretreatment Facility (PTF) design, and the continued development of
the PTF safety documentation. The primary areas of Board concern remain
(1) the development of the hydrogen mitigation strategies associated
with hydrogen in pipes and ancillary vessels (HPAV), and (2) adequate
pulse jet mixing to ensure that process vessels maintain hydrogen
concentrations below flammable limits and to prevent the build-up of a
critical mass of fissile material. These concerns are well documented
in the Board's Quarterly Reports to Congress and remain a significant
technical risk for the project.
The Board is also reviewing other safety-related aspects of the
Pretreatment Facility (PTF) design, including the classification and
design of safety-related structures, systems, and components required
to protect the public and collocated workers. Major safety-related
systems still under review include the process vessel ventilation
system, the safety class aspects of the electrical distribution system
including the emergency diesel generator design, and the pulse jet
mixing systems in Newtonian vessels.
The Board is continuing to review safety-related documentation, as
it is prepared by the Department of Energy-Office of River Protection
(DOE-ORP) and its contractor Bechtel National Incorporated (BNI) in
support of the safety and design bases for the PTF. For example, in the
month preceding this response, the project issued revised calculations
supporting the classification of safety-related systems (severity level
assessments), and a revised Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis
(PDSA) addendum. The project is continuing to develop the waste
acceptance criteria (WAC), i.e., the technical basis supporting which
wastes will be allowed to be sent from the High Level Waste Tanks to
the PTF, as well as tank farm strategies to characterize and control
the waste input to the PTF. As an aside, the Board will also have to
evaluate the impacts of the WAC on existing as well as planned Tank
Farm facilities and functions. The Board anticipates that DOE-ORP will
continue to develop the required safety-related documentation for the
PTF well into the future, e.g., until the final documented safety
analysis is completed in support of facility operation.
2. Confidence to accelerate spending.
The Board believes that DOE's ability to effectively accelerate
spending in FY 2011 depends on their capability to manage the existing
technical risk and properly identify and manage future technical risks.
DOE-ORP has assessed the uncertainties associated with these unresolved
issues and concluded that design and procurements could proceed based
on a presumption that these risks will be resolved in the near future.
The Board remains concerned that the resolution of these technical
issues will impact the facility's design. Therefore, any additional
resources DOE can apply to address these technical issues will be
beneficial. Beyond this, the Board is not in a position to comment on
DOE's ability to accelerate spending in Fiscal Year 2011.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SPRATT
Mr. Spratt. As you know, the Administration is proposing to
reprogram $115 million from the Office of Civilian Waste Management,
intended to defend the combined operating license application for Yucca
Mountain. While I believe this is a clear contradiction to
Congressional intent, there are also real effects this will have on
operations at various NNSA sites, including SRS. Many projects
including MOX, the Salt Waste Processing Facility and the Defense Waste
Processing facility have Yucca Mountain in the Record of Decision as
the ultimate site waste disposal. In addition, there are penalties to
be paid to South Carolina should the material not be removed.
How much extra cost would Yucca not opening add to your long-term
budget costs? Also, would you have to amend every EIS mentioning Yucca?
How long would that take? How much would it cost?
Secretary D'Agostino. At this time we have not identified any
additional cost incurred due to the closure of the Yucca Mountain
repository project and the Office of the Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management. We are evaluating the impacts on Departmental environmental
documents mentioning Yucca Mountain as the destination for the spent
nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, but do not believe it is
necessary to amend the environmental impact statements. The Department
is still committed to meeting its obligations to remove and dispose of
the spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. The Blue Ribbon Commission
will be evaluating options, and depending on the actions the government
will take in the future, all appropriate environmental requirements
will be met.
Mr. Spratt. How much has DOE contributed to the Nuclear Waste Fund?
How much has DOE contributed to the fund? How much is budgeted in FY11?
Will you suspend payments to the fund should Yucca be taken off the
table?
Secretary D'Agostino. The Department does not contribute to the
commercial Nuclear Waste Fund, but, instead, receives monies from the
Fund to the extent that Congress appropriates them. No funds from the
Nuclear Waste Fund have been requested for DOE in the President's FY
2011 budget request. The Administration does not believe that payments
by industry into the Nuclear Waste Fund should be suspended.
Mr. Spratt. As you know, the Administration is proposing to
reprogram $115 million from the Office of Civilian Waste Management,
intended to defend the combined operating license application for Yucca
Mountain. While I believe this is a clear contradiction to
Congressional intent, there are also real effects this will have on
operations at various NNSA sites, including SRS. Many projects
including MOX, the Salt Waste Processing Facility and the Defense Waste
Processing facility have Yucca Mountain in the Record of Decision as
the ultimate site waste disposal. In addition, there are penalties to
be paid to South Carolina should the material not be removed.
How much extra cost would Yucca not opening add to your long-term
budget costs? Also, would you have to amend every EIS mentioning Yucca?
How long would that take? How much would it cost?
Secretary Triay. The Secretary has determined that Yucca Mountain
is not a workable option and has established the Blue Ribbon Commission
to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end
of the fuel cycle including all alternatives for the storage,
processing, and disposal of high-level waste and used nuclear fuel. The
Department remains committed to meeting its responsibilities for the
disposal of high-level radioactive waste and used nuclear fuel. Until a
new option is selected, any analysis of the long-term budgetary
implications for NNSA sites would be speculative.
In the case of the Hanford Tank Closure and Waste Management EIS,
which was in preparation when DOE moved to withdraw the Yucca Mountain
license application, an analysis was performed of the impacts of
continuing to store vitrified waste on site.
Mr. Spratt. How much has DOE contributed to the Nuclear Waste Fund?
How much has DOE contributed to the fund? How much is budgeted in FY11?
Will you suspend payments to the fund should Yucca be taken off the
table?
Secretary Triay. The Department's contribution for disposal of its
used fuel and high-level waste in a combined repository has been direct
funded through appropriations since 1993. Funds are under a separate
account entitled the Defense Nuclear Waste Appropriation and are not
deposited into the Nuclear Waste Fund. Funds are expended annually and
do not accrue interest. To date, the government has funded
approximately $3.75 billion to the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management (OCRWM) for the government share of the costs of OCRWM.
The Department has stated its intent to meet its obligations to
dispose of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste and therefore has no
basis to suspend collection of fees from nuclear utilities to the
Nuclear Waste Fund. The Department will continue to evaluate the
adequacy of the fee annually as it is required to do by the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LARSEN
Mr. Larsen. Administrator D'Agostino, I understand the NNSA is
engaging other national security agencies such as the Department of
Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Intelligence
Community to develop a framework or Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for
interactions between NNSA and the broader national security community.
As you well know, several national laboratories--including a number of
Science laboratories, like PNNL in my home state of Washington--are
major contributors to the Department's national security mission and
that of other national security agencies and departments. Will this MOA
exclusively apply to NNSA weapons labs, or will it apply more broadly
to other DOE laboratories that help the NNSA fulfill its mission, and
therefore bring more DOE assets to bear on the national security
challenges we face as a nation?
Secretary D'Agostino. The NNSA has taken a leadership role for the
Department of Energy in forging strategic partnerships with other
agencies with national security responsibilities, in the area of
national security science, technology and engineering (ST&E). NNSA has
been working with the Department of Homeland Security, the Director of
National Intelligence and the Department of Defense in the development
of a multiagency governance charter to provide a forum for the national
security agencies to align the DOE's significant laboratory ST&E
infrastructure with complex national security problems that are
important to the nation. The governance charter will establish an
interagency council of federal officials where both long-term and
urgent mission needs can be discussed and balanced against the
Department's current and future capabilities at its national
laboratories. Any laboratory among the full suite of DOE national
laboratories could potentially be engaged in this effort, including
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Following the Secretary's
vision, all of the Department's national laboratories will be involved
in this dialogue.
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