GAO Report - Nuclear Weapons: Improved Management Needed to Implement Stockpile Stewardship Program Effectively (Chapter Report, 12/14/2000, GAO/GAO-01-48)

Nuclear Weapons: Improved Management Needed to Implement Stockpile Stewardship Program Effectively (Chapter Report, 12/14/2000, GAO/GAO-01-48)

The National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Defense
Programs seeks to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's
nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing. This report discusses
the Department of Energy's (DOE) management of its National Nuclear
Security Administration's Stockpile Stewardship Program, focusing on the
program's plans, budgeting, organization, and life extension process.
Although the Office of Defense Programs has tried to address some of the
challenges facing the Stockpile Stewardship Program, more improvements
are needed. The Office of Defense Programs has developed an extensive
planning process to improve the management of its Stockpile Stewardship
program. So far, however, the plans are missing vital information. The
Office has developed a new structure for its fiscal year 2001 budget
that can improve the overall management of the Stockpile Stewardship
Program. Several external and internal studies have found that the
Office of Defense Programs has a dysfunctional organization with unclear
lines of authority that lead to a lack of accountability. Finally, one
of the nine types of nuclear weapons in the current stockpile has begun
the life extension process--a step that will be necessary to keep the
nation's nuclear weapons safe and reliable without explosive testing.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
 REPORTNUM:  GAO-01-48
     TITLE:  Nuclear Weapons: Improved Management Needed to Implement
	     Stockpile Stewardship Program Effectively
      DATE:  12/14/2000
   SUBJECT:  Internal controls
	     Future budget projections
	     Nuclear weapons testing
	     Strategic planning
	     Accountability
IDENTIFIER:  DOE Life Extension Program
	     DOE Stockpile Stewardship Program
	     W87 Warhead
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GAO-01-48
The Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Committee on
Appropriations, House of Representatives
December 2000 NUCLEARWEAPONS Improved Management Needed to Implement
Stockpile Stewardship Program Effectively
GAO- 01- 48
Letter 5 Executive Summary 6 Chapter 1
16 Background on DOE's
DOE's Historical Mission in Designing and Maintaining the Nuclear Weapons
Stockpile 16 Office of Defense
The Mission and Structure of DOE's Nuclear Weapons Complex Programs Mission
and
Has Changed 21 Structure
The Reconfigured Weapons Complex Faces Challenges and Constraints 29
Chapter 2 34
Further Improvements The Office of Defense Programs Has Developed a New
Planning
Process to Fit Its Changing Mission 34 Are Needed in the
The Stockpile Stewardship Program's Plans Are Incomplete and Office of
Defense
Are Not Linked With Management Controls 37 Programs' Planning
Conclusions 43 Recommendations for Executive Action 43
Process Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 44
Chapter 3 46
Revised Budget The Office of Defense Programs Has Developed a New Budget
Structure for the Weapons Activities Account That Is Intended Information
Needed to
to Improve Program Management 46 Improve Management
The New Structure Was Not Implemented Consistently 48 of the Stockpile
DOE Amended the Fiscal Year 2001 Budget Submission to Improve Consistency,
but the Revisions Miss the Opportunity to Improve
Stewardship Program Program Management 52
Conclusions 52 Recommendation for Executive Action 53 Agency Comments and
Our Evaluation 53
Chapter 4 55
Fundamental DOE Has Reorganized the Office of Defense Programs to Meet Its
Changing Mission 55 Organizational and
DOE's Attempts to Reorganize Have Not Addressed All of the Leadership
Changes
Organizational and Leadership Issues 63 Needed for Successful
Conclusions 72 Recommendations for Executive Action 73
Implementation of the Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 73
Program's New Mission Chapter 5
75 Management
The Office of Defense Programs Has Begun a Major Program to Extend the Life
of Nuclear Weapons in the Stockpile 75 Improvements Needed
The Only Life Extension Conducted to Date Experienced Significant for the
Office of
Design and Production Problems Due to Management Weaknesses 77 Defense
Programs to
Improved Management Processes Have Been Developed for Future Life
Extensions, but More Needs to Be Done 83
Conduct Successful Conclusions 84
Stockpile Life Recommendations for Executive Action 85
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 85 Extensions
Appendixes Appendix I: Explanation of How Modern Nuclear Weapons Work 86
Appendix II: Scope and Methodology 88 Appendix III: Comments From the
Department of Energy's National
Nuclear Security Administration 91 Tables Table 1: Roles of the Production
Sites in the Nuclear Weapons
Complex, 1988 20 Table 2: Weapons in the Enduring Stockpile 22 Table 3:
Management and Operating Contractor Employment in the
Nuclear Weapons Complex, 1988 Through 2000 28 Table 4: Federal Staffing in
the Office of Defense Programs, 1991
Through 2000 29 Table 5: Office of Defense Programs Three- Tiered Planning
Structure 36
Table 6: Major Studies of DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program 56 Table 7:
Major Responsibilities of Office of Defense Programs'
Headquarters and Field Offices Reporting to the Office of Defense Programs
59 Table 8: Nuclear Weapons Complex Facilities That Participated in
the W87 LEP 76 Table 9: W87 LEP Cost Estimate Comparison 77
Figures Figure 1: Traditional Weapons Development and Production Cycle 18
Figure 2: Nuclear Weapons Complex, 1988 19 Figure 3: The New &ldquo;6.
X&rdquo; Weapons Refurbishment Cycle 24 Figure 4: DOE's Reconfigured Nuclear
Weapons Complex-
Sites' Roles in 2000 and Employment Changes, 1988 Through 2000 26 Figure 5:
Organization of the National Nuclear Security
Administration and the Office of Defense Programs, as of October 1, 2000 62
Figure 6: Simplified Drawing of a Modern Nuclear Weapon 86
Lett er
December 14, 2000 The Honorable Ron Packard Chairman The Honorable Peter J.
Visclosky Ranking Minority Member Subcommittee on Energy and Water
Development Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives
As requested, this report addresses the Department of Energy's (DOE)
management of its National Nuclear Security Administration's Stockpile
Stewardship Program. Specifically, it discusses the Administration's
approach to the program's (1) planning, (2) new budget structure, and (3)
organizational and leadership structure. In addition, we were asked to
assess the program's experience with extending the life of nuclear weapons
in the stockpile and the management processes used for overseeing life
extensions.
As arranged, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan no
further distribution of this report until 15 days after the date of this
letter. At that time, we will send copies of the report to the Honorable
Bill Richardson, Secretary of Energy; John A. Gordon, Administrator,
National Nuclear Security Administration; Madelyn R. Creedon, Deputy
Administrator for Defense Programs, National Nuclear Security
Administration; the Honorable Jacob J. Lew, Director, Office of Management
and Budget; and other interested parties. We will make copies available to
others upon request. Please call me at (202) 512- 3841 if you or your staff
have any questions about this report. Major contributors to this report
include James Noël, Chris Pacheco, Delores Parrett, and Mark Gaffigan.
(Ms.) Gary L. Jones Director, Natural Resources
and Environment
Executive Summary Purpose Within the Department of Energy (DOE), the
National Nuclear Security
Administration's Office of Defense Programs is responsible for the nation's
nuclear weapons stockpile. In response to changes in the international
climate in the late 1980s, the Office of Defense Programs downsized and
restructured the nuclear weapons complex to focus on a new mission- known as
the Stockpile Stewardship Program- to maintain the safety and reliability of
the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile indefinitely without nuclear testing.
However, the Stockpile Stewardship Program faces a difficult set of
challenges and constraints. For example, the program seeks to extend the
life of nuclear weapons well beyond the minimum for which they were
originally designed and to replace testing with scientific study,
simulation, and refurbishment. In addition, the existing infrastructure in
the nuclear weapons complex is very old- much of it dating from the 1940s
and 1950s- making it difficult and expensive to maintain. Downsizing the
complex over the last decade has also created imbalances in the federal and
contractor workforce, such as an inability to hire the necessary number of
skilled technicians and scientists. Finally, there is uncertainty about the
level of program activities that the Stockpile Stewardship Program's annual
funding of about $4.5 billion can support. To successfully address these
issues, the Office of Defense Programs has attempted to develop new
management approaches.
In this context, the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, House Committee on
Appropriations, asked GAO to evaluate three aspects of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program's management. Specifically, GAO was asked to assess the
program's (1) planning process, (2) new budget structure, and (3)
organizational framework. In addition, GAO was asked to assess the program's
experience with extending the life of nuclear weapons in the stockpile and
the management processes used for overseeing life extensions.
Background From the beginning of the Manhattan Project in the 1940s, a
primary mission of DOE and its predecessor agencies has been to design,
test, and
build the nation's nuclear weapons. To accomplish this, the Office of
Defense Programs oversaw a nuclear weapons complex operated by a variety of
contractor organizations and composed of three national nuclear weapons
design labs, a nuclear weapons test site, and 10 production plants that
produced the materials and parts and manufactured the nation's nuclear
weapons. Weapon designs were continually being replaced by new
designs; accordingly, the old weapons were being removed from the stockpile,
thus keeping the average age of the stockpile low. At its peak, prior to the
end of the Cold War, this weapons complex employed about 60, 000 people and
had a budget of about $8 billion annually.
With the end of the Cold War, the Office of Defense Programs' mission
changed as tensions with the former Soviet Union were eased, the first
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty reducing the size of the nation's nuclear
stockpile was negotiated, and a moratorium on nuclear testing was declared.
In response, DOE significantly restructured the nuclear weapons complex to
meet its new mission of ensuring the safety and reliability of the stockpile
under the Stockpile Stewardship Program. While the three nuclear weapons
design labs were retained, the test site and the production infrastructure
were significantly reduced in size, resulting in a reduction in employment
for fiscal year 2000 to about 26, 000 and an annual budget of about $4.5
billion. A key task for the reconfigured nuclear weapons complex is
extending the life of the nuclear weapons in the stockpile well beyond that
for which they were originally designed. Most recently, in March 2000, the
Office of Defense Programs and its federal headquarters and field personnel
became part of the new National Nuclear Security Administration.
Results in Brief Over the last few years, the Office of Defense Programs has
taken steps to address the principal challenges facing the Stockpile
Stewardship Program.
However, additional improvements are needed in order to (1) remedy
weaknesses in the program's planning processes, (2) ensure that required
budget information for effective cost management is available, (3) correct
organizational and leadership deficiencies, and (4) develop an effective
management process for overseeing the life extension process for nuclear
weapons.
With respect to planning, the Office of Defense Programs has developed an
extensive planning process to improve the management of its Stockpile
Stewardship Program; however, the plans generated by this process are
incomplete in two important respects. First, the Office of Defense Programs
is still trying to determine some key requirements for the Stockpile
Stewardship Program, such as validating the quantities of weapons to be
refurbished. Until this process is complete, important aspects of the
program- and, thus, the plans associated with them- are subject to change.
Second, a congressionally mandated, cross- cutting plan to manage the life
extension of nuclear weapons- known as the Stockpile
Life Extension Program Plan- does not contain complete information on
important issues, such as firm commitments to modify facilities or hire and
train additional staff to ensure that the production plants can meet the
current schedule for weapons life extensions, and does not contain budget
information. More fundamentally, while the Office of Defense Programs has
developed over 70 plans, it has not integrated them into its system of
management controls for the program, including the program's budget and the
mechanisms used to oversee its contractors. The lack of effective
integration essentially prevents the separate components of the program from
functioning as a cohesive entity. Officials in the Office of Defense
Programs have acknowledged these weaknesses in the planning processes and
identified ongoing efforts to address them. However, those activities cannot
be completed until firm program requirements are in place.
Concerning budgeting, the Office of Defense Programs has developed a new
structure for its fiscal year 2001 budget, organized around three major
program activities, that can improve the overall management of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program. The new structure allows the program to potentially
identify the variable costs of the program- those that change as the
workload changes- and the fixed costs- those that represent the cost of
keeping the nuclear weapons complex open and ready to do work. Program
managers and outside technical experts believe that this new structure holds
significant promise because identifying the program's fixed and variable
costs can be a useful tool for improving the program's cost management.
However, two problems arose during the budget's development. First, the labs
and production plants did not apply the program's new budget formulation
definitions consistently. Second, the Department's Office of the Chief
Financial Officer was concerned that the program's application of the new
structure was not consistent with various accounting standards and certain
laws and regulations that contain accounting requirements. In response, an
amendment to the program's budget submission for fiscal year 2001 was
developed. However, the amendment makes determining the program's fixed and
variable costs difficult, in turn, making the amount of funding that could
be saved if an activity is cut difficult to ascertain.
With respect to the program's organization, several external and internal
studies have found that the Office of Defense Programs has a dysfunctional
organization with unclear lines of authority that lead to a lack of
accountability. Although DOE has made repeated attempts to reorganize the
nuclear weapons program, the Office of Defense Programs still does not have
a clear organizational structure or, until recently, formal control
over all of the sites performing substantial amounts of work for the
Stockpile Stewardship Program. Specifically, the program remains fragmented
at the headquarters level, and the division of roles and responsibilities
between headquarters and the field is unclear. In addition, until October
2000, three of the eight contractors performing substantial amounts of work
for the weapons program reported to other program offices at DOE rather than
directly to the Office of Defense Programs, including one of the weapons
design laboratories and two of the production facilities. This situation
reduced program integration and made it harder for managers to balance
competing resource priorities. A recent reorganization is being implemented
to correct this problem. Finally, the program has experienced considerable
leadership instability. Specifically, the Office of Defense Programs has
seen its proportion of offices vacant or with acting managers increase from
17 percent in 1996 to almost 65 percent in 2000. This instability has led to
a lack of consistent management direction. In some cases, key management
decisions on organization and leadership issues, such as setting priorities
for the program, have been deferred for years.
Finally, one of the nine types of nuclear weapons in the current stockpile
has begun the life extension process- a step that will be necessary to keep
the nation's nuclear weapons safe and reliable without explosive testing.
The ongoing life extension of the W87 warhead, which is carried on the
Peacekeeper missile, experienced significant design and production problems
that have raised its costs by over $300 million (about 70 percent) and
caused a key milestone in the schedule to be delayed about 2 years. Numerous
factors contributed to this outcome. The original design to enhance the
structural integrity and extend the stockpile life of the W87 did not work
as planned. In addition, all of the major production facilities in the
nuclear weapons complex experienced significant problems from such factors
as restarting production capabilities that had been moved during the
downsizing of the complex and addressing safety and technician training
issues. However, at the heart of many of the problems was an inadequate
Office of Defense Programs management process and unclear leadership, which
prevented the Office from adequately anticipating and mitigating the
problems that arose. As a result of the program's experience with the W87
life extension, management improvements have been adopted, such as the
development of a formal process for managing future life extensions that
parallels the proven process that DOE has used for decades to design, test,
and build new nuclear weapons. However, additional management improvements,
such as establishing a program manager for each life extension, are needed
before the Office of Defense
Programs begins extending the life of two additional warheads- the W76 and
W80- that form a significant portion of the stockpile.
Principal Findings Further Improvements Are
The Office of Defense Programs has made progress in developing a new Needed
in the Office of
planning process for the Stockpile Stewardship Program and is planning
Defense Programs' Planning
further improvements, such as a comprehensive database to help integrate
Process
the multitude of individual plans currently being developed. The program's
planning process is underpinned by guidance that provides an overall
strategy for the Stockpile Stewardship Program. A new, detailed planning
structure has been developed to implement the science and production
components that compose the Stockpile Stewardship Program. Finally, the
Congress directed that a plan for a major part of the program's work-
stockpile life extensions- be developed. The Office of Defense Programs has
issued an interim Stockpile Life Extension Program Plan, which is intended
to ensure that life extension activities for weapons are planned in detail,
coordinated fully, and executed within fiscal resources.
While the Office of Defense Programs has developed over 70 Stockpile
Stewardship Program plans, they are not complete enough to fully support the
Stockpile Stewardship Program's successful implementation. The plans are
incomplete in two ways. First, the program still does not have all of its
work requirements finalized, such as decisions on upgrades to major weapons
systems, that will drive the program's scope, schedule, and costs. Second,
the Stockpile Life Extension Program Plan is not yet complete because
planners do not have important information on plant capacity. For example,
one production plant is unable to estimate its capacity for producing
certain weapons components because it does not have a current, validated
model for doing so. Without this information, managers cannot effectively
plan for meeting future life extension work requirements.
The Office of Defense Programs' plans are not effectively linked to the
program's management controls. For example, milestones in the plans are not
effectively linked to budgets at the site level, resulting in conflicts
between work requirements and available funding to adequately perform the
work. Milestones and other performance management information contained in
the plans are also not systematically and regularly incorporated into
contracts governing the operation of laboratory and
production sites. Finally, although the Office of Defense Programs'
management recognizes that it is critical for the science work of weapons
design and development to be integrated with the production plants'
processes and capabilities, two separate program plans have been prepared
for the science and production parts of the program that cover the
activities directly supporting specific weapons in the stockpile, such as
the day- to- day care of the weapons, as well as planned life extensions.
However, having two separate program plans makes the integration of the
science and production parts of the program more difficult to achieve, and
important crosscutting issues can be overlooked.
Revised Budget Information Prior to its budget submission for fiscal year
2001, the Office of Defense
Needed to Improve the Programs divided its operating budget submission into
two broad program
Management of the activity categories, which made determining with precision
where funds
Stockpile Stewardship were being spent difficult. To address this problem,
the Office of Defense
Programs began to develop a new structure around three different Program
activities, known as Campaigns, Directed Stockpile Work, and Readiness in
Technical Base and Facilities. Outside technical experts and Office of
Defense Programs officials believe that developing and implementing this new
program activity structure can improve the Stockpile Stewardship Program's
cost management. For example, a comprehensive internal review of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program (called the &ldquo;30- Day Review&rdquo;)
concluded that the three new activity categories would allow program
managers to more clearly understand the fixed and variable costs of the
nuclear weapons complex. The study saw the Campaigns and Directed Stockpile
Work activities as encompassing the variable costs of the actual work
performed by the nuclear weapons complex, while the Readiness in Technical
Base and Facilities activity encompasses the fixed costs associated with the
program- the costs of &ldquo;keeping the doors open.&rdquo; The
implementation of this approach would, according to the review, provide
Office of Defense Programs, lab, and production plant managers with
&ldquo;an improved and coordinated tool for determining the costs associated
with managing the nuclear weapons complex.&rdquo; Managers within the Office
of Defense Programs held similar views.
While program officials have supported this new structure, its
implementation has experienced two consistency problems. First, when the
structure was used to develop the program's budget submission for fiscal
year 2001, the labs and production plants did not apply the new budget
definitions consistently. While the production plants included all of their
fixed costs in Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities, the labs did
not. Second, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer believed that the way
the program activity structure was being applied was not consistent with
various accounting standards and certain laws and regulations that contain
accounting requirements and could impair the Department's ability to get a
satisfactory opinion on its financial statement.
Since the original budget submission, DOE and program budget officials have
developed an amendment. One of the effects of this amendment has been to
shift fixed costs for the plants from the Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities activity to the Campaigns and Directed Stockpile Work activities.
While this was done to ensure that the labs and plants treat overhead in a
consistent way, it means that the fixed and variable costs are no longer
clearly delineated in the program's budget, making it more difficult to
identify the amount that could be saved if an activity is cut and, thus,
weakening the program's ability to improve cost management.
Fundamental Organizational Over the past few years, internal and external
studies of DOE's Stockpile
and Leadership Changes Stewardship Program have pointed out numerous
management problems.
Needed for the Successful In particular, the studies all noted the
confusing, overlapping, and, at times,
Implementation of the conflicting lines of authority within DOE and within
the Office of Defense
Programs. In response to these findings, the Secretary of Energy Office of
Defense Programs'
reorganized reporting relationships between DOE's field and headquarters New
Mission
offices in April 1999, and the Office of Defense Programs consolidated two
of its headquarters offices in August 1999. Finally, additional
organizational changes are expected as the National Nuclear Security
Administration's new leadership begins to address problems in implementing
the new agency.
However, DOE's attempts to reorganize the Office of Defense Programs have
not addressed all of the organizational issues. Problems remain in the
structure of the Office of Defense Programs at three levels- within the
headquarters programmatic offices, between headquarters and the field
offices, and between the contractors overseeing weapons complex sites and
their federal overseers in the field and headquarters. With respect to the
headquarters offices, while the August 1999 consolidation reduced
headquarters' programmatic offices from three to two, it left the split
between the science offices and the production offices in place. This
bifurcated structure has resulted in widespread dissatisfaction with the way
the program is being managed among DOE and contractor officials at all
levels and has led to duplication of effort and difficulties in getting the
work done. Regarding the relationships between headquarters and the field
offices, one of the key problems noted in a major management study 3 years
ago was the existence of &ldquo;two headquarters&rdquo;- one in the Office
of Defense Programs' headquarters and one in the Albuquerque Operations
Office. This situation still exists because clearly defined roles and
responsibilities are lacking, and officials in both Offices, including the
program's Principal Deputy for Operations, noted problems with uncertainty
about what managers in headquarters and in the field are authorized to do.
Finally, organizational issues between the Office of Defense Programs, DOE's
field offices, and DOE contractors remain unresolved. Even after repeated
reorganization and realignment attempts, until October 2000, the Office of
Defense Programs did not have control of the contracts for all of the sites
performing substantial amounts of work for the Stockpile Stewardship
Program, such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and two of the
program's key production facilities- the Y- 12 Plant at Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, and Tritium Operations at Savannah River, South Carolina. This
organizational structure made the integration and coordination of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program difficult and diffused accountability for the
overall performance and management of key weapons complex activities. A
recent reorganization was designed to correct this problem; however,
implementation of the reorganization has just begun, and important issues,
such as the specific reporting chain for the new area offices, are still
being addressed.
Finally, the Office of Defense Programs has suffered from instability in its
leadership and management team. An analysis of senior management positions
in headquarters shows that the proportion of offices vacant or with acting
managers has increased from 17 percent in 1996 to almost 65 percent in 2000.
The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board noted in its 1999 report
that consistent leadership is a hallmark of effective programs and that
longevity is a key to leadership. The lack of consistent management
direction was cited by officials in the field and in headquarters as an area
of concern. The high level of turnover in the Office of Defense Programs may
be contributing to the substantial number of useful management improvements
identified to respond to the various study recommendations that have not
been fully implemented. The turnover may also contribute to the fact that
the same problems are enumerated year after year without effective and
decisive action being taken to resolve them. Finally, the high rate of
turnover impairs the Office of Defense Programs' ability to provide
consistent and effective leadership, to take decisive action on difficult
problems, and to identify those who should be held accountable for results.
Management Improvements While the life extension program for the W87 warhead
is the first, and only,
Needed for the Office of life extension program conducted to date under the
Stockpile Stewardship
Defense Programs to Program, DOE expects that all of the weapons in the
stockpile will have to
Conduct Successful undergo life extensions in the future if they are to
remain safe and reliable.
During the early 1990s, DOE recognized the need to make structural Stockpile
Life Extensions
enhancements to, and extend the life of, the W87. Since accomplishing this
required disassembly and refurbishment, DOE and the Department of Defense
decided to initiate a program to extend the life of the W87 for an
additional 30 years.
The life extension program for the W87 has experienced both design and
production problems that contributed significantly to a 2- year schedule
delay in a key milestone for the program and a cost increase of $300 million
(about 70 percent). The original design to enhance the structural integrity
and extend the stockpile life of the W87 did not work as planned, and a
major redesign was required. All of the major production facilities in the
nuclear weapons complex- the Kansas City, Y- 12, and Pantex Plants-
experienced significant production problems that resulted from such factors
as restarting production capabilities that had been moved during the
downsizing of the complex and addressing safety and technician training
issues.
Underpinning the problems experienced during the life extension program for
the W87 was the Office of Defense Programs' lack of an effective management
structure and leadership. While the Office of Defense Programs has
historically used a very detailed program management process to design and
build new nuclear weapons, the life extension program for the W87 was
conducted with little management structure. For example, the Office did not
develop an overall program plan or cost baseline to manage the entire life
extension process for the W87. With respect to leadership, no one person
within the Office of Defense Programs was expressly in charge of the life
extension program for the W87. During the design phase, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory's program managers led the effort, while during the
production phase, DOE's Albuquerque Operations Office officials were in
charge. During the transition between these phases, many participants felt
that who was in charge was not clear. Without an effective management
structure and leadership, the potential impact of many of the problems
encountered were neither anticipated nor effectively mitigated.
As a direct result of its experience with the W87, the Office of Defense
Programs has developed a specific management structure for future life
extension programs; however, the development of this process is not
complete. For example, the revised process does not solve the lack of clear
program management leadership throughout the life extension process. Rather,
it continues the current practice of multiple program managers at multiple
locations. In addition, GAO found that, to date, there has been no formal
attempt to catalogue the lessons learned from the W87 life extension and
directly communicate them to managers of upcoming life extension programs.
Recommendations In order to assist DOE in its mission of effectively
maintaining the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile,
this report contains
recommendations to the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration designed to improve program planning, the budget information
available to decision makers, the organization of the program, and the
management process for future stockpile life extensions. (See chs. 2, 3, 4,
and 5 for GAO's specific recommendations.)
Agency Comments and GAO provided DOE's National Nuclear Security
Administration with a draft
GAO's Evaluation of this report for review and comment. In general, the
Administration's
Office of Defense Programs agreed with the findings and recommendations of
the report. In particular, the Office stated that the report presented a
balanced perspective and accurately portrayed areas needing further
improvement and management attention. The Office also cited instances where
it had recently taken management action, such as reorganizing its field
office structure, to correct some of the problems GAO identified. GAO
believes that these actions are positive steps and has recognized them
throughout the report.
The Office did express concern that GAO's recommendations to address program
planning weaknesses and improve management data possibly were premised on
misinterpretations of the fundamental underpinnings of weapons activities.
However, in both cases, the Office promised to take action to comply with
the intent of GAO's recommendations. While the actions the Office has
promised are a useful beginning, the full extent of action GAO recommended
is needed to address the problems GAO identified. Therefore, GAO has
retained both recommendations. More detailed discussions of the National
Nuclear Security Administration's comments are included in chapters 2, 3, 4,
and 5. The Administration's comments appear in full in appendix III.
Background on DOE's Office of Defense
Chapt er 1
Programs Mission and Structure Within the Department of Energy (DOE), the
National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Defense Programs is
responsible for designing and maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons
stockpile. In the past, this mission has included the design, testing, and
manufacture of new weapons systems, as well as the maintenance of existing
systems. In the late 1980s, the Office of Defense Programs' mission changed
as a result of the easing of Cold War tensions with the former Soviet Union
and the negotiation of arms reduction and weapons test limitation treaties.
In response, the Office of Defense Programs downsized and restructured the
nuclear weapons complex to focus on a new mission of extending the life of
existing nuclear weapons through scientific study, simulation, and
refurbishment. However, the reconfigured weapons complex faces a difficult
set of challenges and constraints.
DOE's Historical Since the beginning of the Manhattan Project, DOE and its
predecessor
Mission in Designing agencies have been responsible for designing and
maintaining the nation's
nuclear weapons. DOE's weapons program was structured to work with and
Maintaining the
the Department of Defense (DOD) to define the nation's nuclear weapons
Nuclear Weapons
needs and to manage the design and production of the weapons selected
Stockpile
for the stockpile. To fulfill this mission, DOE managed a complex of
research and production facilities, employing thousands of workers.
The Historical Mission of From the beginning of the Manhattan Project in the
1940s, DOE and its
the Office of Defense predecessor agencies have been responsible for
designing, testing, and
Programs Was to Design, building the nation's nuclear weapons- weapons that
would be deployed
Test, and Build Nuclear by the military. While the first nuclear weapons
were relatively simple
devices, modern nuclear weapons are complex. Most modern nuclear Weapons
weapons consist of three sets of assemblies inside a case- a primary, a
secondary, and a set of nonnuclear components. The primary is the fission
stage of a nuclear weapon. Detonated first, the primary produces the
extremely high temperatures and pressures required to produce fusion in the
weapon's secondary. The secondary, or thermonuclear stage, of a nuclear
weapon produces its energy through the fusion of deuterium and tritium
nuclei. The nonnuclear components control the use, arming, and firing of the
weapon. (See app. I for a simplified explanation of the mechanics of a
generalized modern nuclear weapon.) Explosive testing of the devices was
used to validate designs and to ensure that changes to fix potential or
existing problems or address changing military requirements worked as
expected.
DOE's Weapons Program DOE and DOD work together to produce the Nuclear
Weapons Stockpile
Was Structured to Meet Memorandum, which is forwarded to the President for
approval annually.
Military Requirements for The memorandum contains a detailed listing of the
nuclear weapons to be
Continuous Production included in the stockpile, along with weapons
retirements and other
information concerning adjustments to the stockpile. Once the memorandum is
approved, it forms the basis for DOE's weapons program planning, embodied in
the Production and Planning Directive. This directive lays out the
requirements for the nuclear weapons complex for the current year plus 5
years and directs planning for the succeeding 5- year period. The directive
is converted into specific direction for the complex by DOE's Albuquerque
Operations Office and serves as the primary basis for budget development.
The production of new weapons for the stockpile has traditionally been
managed through a seven- phase process. (See fig. 1.) Old weapons designs
were continually being replaced by new designs; the removal of old weapons
from the stockpile kept the average age of the stockpile low. Production
plant capability was maintained by the constant flow of new weapons programs
that paid for the repair, replacement, and upgrading of facilities and
capital equipment. Because of the continuing pipeline of new weapons
programs, the production plants were also able to maintain adequate capacity
to provide the labs' designers with weapons components for testing without
derailing production schedules.
Figure 1: Traditional Weapons Development and Production Cycle
Phase 1: Phase 2:
Phase 2A: Phase 3:
Phase 4: Phase 5:
Phase 6: Phase 7: Weapon
Program Design
Development Production
First Quantity
Dismantlement conception feasibility
definition engineering
engineering production
production study
and cost and stockpile study
deployment
Exploratory Joint DOEDOD Completion
Development Adaptation of
Designers Full- scale
Retirement studies
feasibility of design
design development
certify weapon production
from stockpile study
definition definition
design Military
Initiate Production
Weapons characteristics
DOE- DOD Cost study
Develop Pilot
production inspection
returned from and stockpileto- agreement
production production
(FPU) and quality
DOD target
on division of processes
assurance sequence
development Product
Implement programs
Temporary drafted
and Design testing
engineering quality control
implemented storage
procurement procedures
Phase 1 responsibilites
Pilot Process
Deployment Disassembly
report production
engineering Implement
in stockpile and disposal
Final military program
inspection engineering
characteristics defined
Tooling procedures
Routine prepared
surveillance, Disassembly
Training and Prototype
Issue Final maintenance,
and disposal POG formed
acceptance procurement
Weapon and repair of
for new equipment
and inspection Design Report
deployed weapon
production and Major
weapons Test and
Assembly handling
Release procedures
DRAAG Quality
recommends Evaluation
acceptance Release and Complete
DOD/ NWC Engineering
accept design Release issued
Decision to proceed to Phase 6
Legend DRAAG = Design Review and Acceptance Group FPU = First Production
Unit NWC = Nuclear Weapons Council POG = Project Officers Group Source:
GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
Nuclear Weapons Were By 1988, the nuclear weapons complex employed about
60,000 people and
Produced by a Nationwide had a total budget of about $8 billion per year.
DOE oversaw 3 national
Complex of Facilities weapons laboratories, a nuclear weapons test site, and
10 production sites.
(See fig. 2.) These sites were operated for the government by management and
operating contractors, who employed most of the people working in the
nuclear weapons complex.
Figure 2: Nuclear Weapons Complex, 1988
Idaho Chemical Processing Plant
Uranium recovery from spent nuclear fuel
WA
Hanford Reservation
Plutonium production Nuclear materials processing
Mound Plant Nevada Test Site
Detonators Nuclear testing
Small explosive components Nonnuclear experiments
Feed Materials Production Center Lawrence Livermore
Uranium feed material for
National Laboratory
production reactors Nuclear weapons design Nuclear research and development
Oak Ridge Reservation Sandia National Laboratories
Lithium metal targets Nonnuclear research and development
Highly enriched uranium Weapons system integration
Special nuclear materials
Los Alamos National Laboratory Savannah River Site
Nuclear weapons design Plutonium and tritium production
Nuclear research and development Nuclear materials processing
Tritium separation, purification, and packaging
Sandia National Laboratories
Nonnuclear research and development
Pinellas Plant
Weapons system integration Neutron generators
Detectors and testing devices
Rocky Flats Plant
Pit production
Kansas City Plant
Plutonium casting and machining Nonnuclear component production
Pantex Plant
Assembly and disassembly High explosives Surveillance
Note: Sandia National Laboratories has two facilities, one in California to
support the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and one in New Mexico to
support the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This map shows both locations.
Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
Each of the sites identified in figure 2 had a defined role in the nuclear
weapons complex. The three national laboratories- Los Alamos (N. Mex.),
Lawrence Livermore (Calif.), and Sandia (N. Mex. and Calif.)- designed
weapons to meet military requirements. Los Alamos and Livermore designed the
nuclear portions of the weapons; Sandia designed the
nonnuclear components and ensured that all components of the systems worked
in an integrated manner. Confidence in the stockpile was maintained by
testing, mostly performed at the Nevada Test Site, which hosted over 900
nuclear weapons tests. The various production sites produced weapons- grade
materials or components, assembled weapons, performed quality assurance and
maintenance functions on the weapons in the active stockpile, and dismantled
weapons retired from the stockpile. (See table 1.)
Table 1: Roles of the Production Sites in the Nuclear Weapons Complex, 1988
Site Location Purpose
Feed Materials Production Center Fernald, Ohio Production of feed materials
for complex reactor sites Hanford Reservation Richland, Wash. Production
reactor producing plutonium; materials
processing Idaho Chemical Processing Plant Idaho Falls, Idaho Recover
uranium from spent test reactor and naval
propulsion reactor fuels Kansas City Plant Kansas City, Mo. Produce and
procure nonnuclear metal, plastic, and
electronic components Mound Facility Miamisburg, Ohio Research, development,
and production of detonators
and other small explosive components Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
Paducah, Ky. Enrichment of uranium Pantex Plant Amarillo, Tex. Weapons
assembly, fabrication of chemical explosives,
quality control, repair, retirement, disposal, and disassembly of retired
weapons
Pinellas Plant Largo, Fla. Produce neutron- generators, detectors, and
testing devices
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Piketon, Ohio Enrichment of uranium Rocky
Flats Golden, Colo. Cast and machine plutonium components Savannah River
Plant Aiken, S. C. Production reactors to produce plutonium and tritium;
materials processing; and tritium separation, purification, and packaging
Y- 12 Plant Oak Ridge, Tenn. Production of lithium metal target material for
tritium production; processing and fabrication of highly enriched uranium,
lithium, and other special materials
Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
The Mission and Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has made
several key
Structure of DOE's decisions that have directly affected the mission of
DOE's nuclear weapons
complex. As a result of these decisions, the composition of the stockpile
Nuclear Weapons
and, consequently, the mission of the nuclear weapons complex has Complex
Has Changed
changed from &ldquo;design, build, and test&rdquo; to extending the life of
existing nuclear weapons through &ldquo;scientific study, simulation, and
refurbishment.&rdquo; To address this new mission, DOE created the Stockpile
Stewardship Program in 1992, introduced new planning processes, and
reconfigured the nuclear weapons complex and its workforce.
DOE's Mission Has Been Since 1945, the nuclear weapons labs have designed
more than 95 different
Changed in Response to nuclear weapons. Of these weapons, about 25 types
were in the active
International Events stockpile during the Cold War era. In 1990, the United
States had about
21, 000 nuclear weapons. However, in 1991, two major events changed the
country's nuclear posture- the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START
I) between the United States and Russia was signed, and the United States
announced a new arms control initiative that resulted in the withdrawal of
the Army's nuclear weapons from overseas bases and the retirement of several
thousand nuclear warheads. START I will reduce the number of strategic
nuclear weapons in the U. S. stockpile to 6, 000 when fully implemented in
2001. 1 A second treaty (START II) ratified by the United States and Russia
will further reduce the U. S. strategic stockpile to about 3, 500 weapons.
In 1995, the administration announced that it would pursue a Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty that would limit nuclear testing by participating countries
to extremely low levels, referred to as zero yield. While the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty was rejected by the U. S. Senate in October 1999, a
unilateral U. S. moratorium on testing that began in 1992 continues. At the
present time, the U. S. stockpile consists of nine weapons types. (See table
2.) The lifetimes of the weapons currently in the stockpile will be extended
well beyond the minimum life for which they were originally designed-
generally about 20 years- increasing the average age of the stockpile and,
for the first time, leaving DOE with large numbers of weapons 30 to 40 years
old.
1 These treaties limit only the number of strategic nuclear weapons that can
be loaded on treaty- specified and treaty- verified strategic missiles and
bombers. The total U. S. stockpile is larger than the number of weapons
allowed under START because the stockpile contains weapons that are not
covered by the treaties.
Table 2: Weapons in the Enduring Stockpile Warhead or bomb mark Description
Laboratories Primary use Military service
B61 3/ 4/ 10 Tactical bomb Los Alamos, Sandia Air to surface Air Force B61
7/ 11 Strategic bomb Los Alamos, Sandia Air to surface Air Force W62 ICBM
warhead Lawrence Livermore, Sandia Surface to surface Air Force W76 SLBM
warhead Los Alamos, Sandia Underwater to surface Navy W78 ICBM warhead Los
Alamos, Sandia Surface to surface Air Force W80 0/ 1 ALCM/ ACM/ TLAM- N
Los Alamos, Sandia Air to surface, Air Force, Navy warhead underwater to
surface B83 0/ 1 Strategic bomb Lawrence Livermore, Sandia Air to surface
Air Force
W87 ICBM warhead Lawrence Livermore, Sandia Surface to surface Air Force W88
SLBM warhead Los Alamos, Sandia Underwater to surface Navy
Legend ALCM/ ACM/ TLAM- N = designations for cruise missiles. ICBM =
intercontinental ballistic missile. SLBM = submarine launched ballistic
missile. Source: FY 2000 Stockpile Stewardship Plan, DOE (Mar. 15, 1999) p.
1- 3.
DOE's Weapons Program As a result of changes in arms control, arms
reduction, and
Has Been Restructured to nonproliferation policies, DOE was directed by a
1993 Presidential
Address the Changing Decision Directive and by the National Defense
Authorization Act for
Mission Fiscal Year 1994 to &ldquo;establish a stewardship program to ensure
the
preservation of the core intellectual and technical competencies of the U.
S. in nuclear weapons.&rdquo; The Stockpile Stewardship Program 2 was
&ldquo;. . . developed to increase understanding of the basic phenomena
associated with nuclear weapons, to provide better predictive understanding
of the safety and reliability of weapons, and to ensure a strong scientific
and technical basis for future United States nuclear weapons policy
objectives.&rdquo; 3 The Stockpile Stewardship Program is organized around
three major program segments- Campaigns, Directed Stockpile Work, and
Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities. Starting in fiscal year 2001,
these categories will be used for budgeting as well as program planning.
2 Formerly, called the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program. 3 See
Record of Decision Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Stockpile
Stewardship and Management, Department of Energy (61 Fed. Reg., 68014, Dec.
26, 1996).
Campaignsare technically challenging, multiyear, multifunctional efforts
conducted across the Office of Defense Program's laboratories, production
plants, and the Nevada Test Site. They are designed to develop and maintain
the critical capabilities needed to enable continued certification of the
stockpile into the foreseeable future, without underground testing.
Campaigns have milestones and specific end- dates or goals, effectively
focusing research and development activities on clearly defined
deliverables. Directed Stockpile Workincludes the activities that directly
support
specific weapons in the stockpile. These activities include the current
maintenance and day- to- day care of the stockpile, as well as planned life
extensions. Readiness in Technical Base and Facilitiesincludes the physical
infrastructure and operational readiness required to conduct Campaign and
Directed Stockpile Work activities at the production plants, laboratories,
and the Nevada Test Site. This includes ensuring that the infrastructure and
facilities are operational, safe, secure, compliant, and ready to operate. 4
In addition, a major part of DOE's new Stockpile Stewardship Program is the
Stockpile Life Extension Program, which establishes a planning process by
which life extension activities for weapons are managed, enabling the
weapons laboratories to develop viable options for maintaining the safety
and reliability of the U. S. nuclear stockpile. To implement the Stockpile
Life Extension Program, DOE has developed a revised weapons acquisition
process, called the &ldquo;6. X process&rdquo; for the Stockpile Life
Extension Program. The 6. X process replaces Phase 6 in the traditional
weapons development and production cycle (shown in fig. 1) with a new series
of steps designed to assess the weapons, determine options for changes, and
direct the performance of the chosen option. (See fig. 3.)
4 Under the current budget system, construction projects to provide new
facilities are budgeted for separately. Once the facilities are built, they
will come under the jurisdiction of the Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities category.
Figure 3: The New &ldquo;6. X&rdquo; Weapons Refurbishment Cycle
Phase 6.1: Phase 6.2:
Phase 6.2A: Phase 6.3:
Phase 6.4: Phase 6.5:
Phase 6.6: Concept
Feasibility study Design
Development Production
First Full- scale assessment
and option definition
engineering readiness
refurbishment production downselect
and cost study engineering
Review of Joint DOE/ DOD
Design Engineering
Process First
Full- scale stockpile
in- depth analysis definition
and production prove- in
refurbishment refurbishment evaluation,
development unit delivery
baselining, Extended
Program Product
Continue and experience
service life planning
Development qualification
First weapon retrofit considerations
test support refurbishment
evaluation Risk
Baseline cost Certification assessment
System analysis
Process models and tests
REST (must, should,
trade- offs characterization
evaluation etc.)
(design and cost) Impact
Type and trainer assessment
support Life extension
LEP proposal (design and option
production) formulation
LEP approval Initiate POG interface
Workload Concurrent engineering
analysis Nuclear Weapons Council's approval DOE decision
Legend LEP = Life Extension Program POG = Project Officers Group REST =
Retrofit Evaluation System Test Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's information.
To support the Stockpile Stewardship Program, DOE has also proposed building
several large experimental facilities, including the National Ignition
Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Dual Axis
Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory,
and the Processing and Environmental Technology Laboratory at Sandia
National Laboratory. These facilities, along with greatly enhanced
computational capabilities, are meant to enable weapons designers to develop
sophisticated, three- dimensional models of nuclear weapons explosions to
supplement existing data collected during tests. 5 The ultimate goal is to
enable DOE and DOD to jointly certify the safety and reliability of the
enduring stockpile without the use of nuclear testing.
In addition, the Congress established the National Nuclear Security
Administration in October 1999 as a semiautonomous agency within DOE with
responsibility for the national nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, and naval
reactors programs. The agency was established to correct longstanding
management problems at DOE, which were most recently highlighted by major
security problems at its national laboratories.
The Weapons Complex Has DOE significantly restructured the nuclear weapons
complex to meet its
Been Restructured to Meet new mission of ensuring the safety and reliability
of the stockpile under the
New Mission Requirements Stockpile Stewardship Program. While the three
weapons design labs were
retained, the Nevada Test Site and the production plant's infrastructure
were significantly reduced in size. (See fig. 4.) Some or all weapons
program work was discontinued at eight production sites, leaving only four
in the reconfigured nuclear weapons complex. In addition, some production
work was transferred to two of the weapons design labs.
5 See Nuclear Weapons: DOE Needs to Improve Oversight of the $5 Billion
Strategic Computing Initiative( GAO/ RCED- 99- 195, June 28, 1999) and
National Ignition Facility: Management and Oversight Failures Caused Major
Cost Overruns and Schedule Delays (GAO/ RCED- 00- 141, Aug. 8, 2000).
Figure 4: DOE's Reconfigured Nuclear Weapons Complex- Sites' Roles in 2000
and Employment Changes, 1988 Through 2000
WA
Nevada Test Site
Nonnuclear experiments Employment change: (64%)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Nuclear weapons design Nuclear research and development Employment change:
2%
Y- 12 Plant Sandia National Laboratories
Uranium components Nonnuclear research and development
Salt components Employment change (both sites): (15%)
Secondary assembly Employment change: (36%)
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Nuclear weapons design Nuclear research and development Plutonium components
Savannah River Site
Detonators Tritium recycling Employment change: 50%
Tritium production Employment change: (90%)
Sandia National Laboratories
Nonnuclear research and development Weapons system integration Neutron
generators Nonnuclear components Employment change (both sites): (15%)
Kansas City Plant
Nonnuclear components
Pantex Plant
Employment change: (57%) Assembly and disassembly High explosives
Surveillance Employment change: 10%
Notes: Sandia National Laboratories has two facilities, one in California to
support the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and one in New Mexico to
support the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This map shows both locations.
Numbers shown in parenthesis indicate the percent decrease in employment
from 1988 to 2000. Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
In addition, the specific missions of some sites have also changed. For
example, because sites where weapons material production reactors were
located, such as Savannah River, no longer operate those reactors, the
production of new weapons- grade plutonium has been discontinued. Some
functions of closed sites were transferred to other portions of the complex,
whereby the weapons labs took on limited production functions in addition to
their research, development, and design functions. For example, a limited
capacity to produce plutonium pits 6 is being developed at Los Alamos
National Laboratory to replace the production capability lost when the Rocky
Flats Plant closed, and the production of neutron generators was transferred
from the Pinellas Plant to Sandia National Laboratories. 7 The role of the
Pantex Plant was expanded to include temporary storage of strategic reserve
pits, and all uranium purification and reprocessing was consolidated at the
Y- 12 Plant.
Employment throughout the complex peaked in 1990 and began to decline after
that date as production ceased at many sites and those sites were
transferred to DOE's Office of Environmental Management for environmental
cleanup. (See table 3 for management and operating contractor employment
data.) However, that decrease has not been spread uniformly throughout the
complex. From 1988 through 2000, employment at Los Alamos has increased
about 50 percent, while the Savannah River Site has seen Defense Programs'
employment fall about 90 percent. 8 Overall, the remaining production plants
have had to manage a 66- percent decrease in employment, while the labs have
increased employment about 9 percent.
6 A pit is the initial, subcritical assembly of fissile material in a
nuclear weapon. In such an assembly, a fission chain reaction can be
sustained only by the addition of neutrons from an independent source.
7 A neutron generator is a device that produces neutrons that are injected
into the pit of a nuclear weapon to initiate the chain reaction that changes
the reaction to a self- sustaining, or critical, reaction within the weapon.
8 While these workers have left the nuclear weapons complex, not all of them
have left DOE, since many former nuclear weapons complex workers were
transferred, along with facilities, to the Environmental Management Program.
Table 3: Management and Operating Contractor Employment in the Nuclear
Weapons Complex, 1988 Through 2000
Employment by fiscal year Percent change,
1988 through Weapons complex site 1988 1992 1995 2000
2000
Rocky Flats Plant 4, 990 5, 332 935 0 (100) Pinellas 1, 565 1,386 511 0
(100) Mound 1, 754 1,305 679 0 (100) Oak Ridge/ Y- 12 Plant 5, 615 5,384 4,
767 3,612 (36) Savannah River 16,616 14, 796 7, 618 1, 714 (90) Pantex Plant
2, 462 2, 529 3,007 2, 706 10 Kansas City Plant 5, 760 3, 941 2, 984 2, 499
(57) Nevada Test Site 4, 609 4, 216 2,406 1, 670 (64) Lawrence Livermore
National
3, 841 3, 609 3,251 3, 934 2 Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory 3,
173 3, 194 3, 143 4, 746 50
Sandia National Laboratories 4, 278 4,548 4, 168 3,620 (15) Other 167 1, 598
359 2 (99)
Total 54, 830 51,838 33,828 24,503 (55)
Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
Total federal employment in the complex has also declined about 34 percent
over the last decade from a high of 3, 241 in fiscal year 1993 to 1,749 in
fiscal year 2000. Employment in the Office of Defense Programs headquarters
office has fallen by about 20 percent from 1991 through 2000. (See table 4.)
The majority of federal staff is located in the Albuquerque Operations
Office. 9 In fiscal year 2000, the Albuquerque Operations Office had more
than 2- 1/ 2 times as many federal staff as headquarters did (744 to 276,
respectively), making the former the largest federal office in the complex.
As of March 1, 2000, headquarters and field personnel working in
9 The staff of the Transportation Safeguards Division are not included in
the total staffing for the Albuquerque Operations Office because DOE now
reports this unit separately. The Transportation Safeguards Division staffs
DOE's program to ship materials that require special security measures, such
as nuclear weapons and materials, to and from military locations and between
facilities in the weapons complex within the continental United States.
the weapons program became employees of the new National Nuclear Security
Administration.
Table 4: Federal Staffing in the Office of Defense Programs, 1991 Through
2000 Employment by fiscal year
Percent change 1991 through Location 1991 1993 1995 2000
2000
Headquarters 343 515 366 276 (19.5) Albuquerque a 1, 340 1, 495 964 744
(44.5) Idaho 21 27 0 0 (100.0) Nevada 305 362 307 235 (23.0) Oakland 63 91
87 83 31.7 Oak Ridge 81 97 77 59 (27.2) Rocky Flats 130 185 0 0 (100.0)
Savannah River b 384 469 18 29 (92.4) Secure Transportation a a 366 323 a
Total 2, 667 3,241 2, 185 1,749 (34.4)
a Until 1995, the staff level for the Albuquerque Operations Office included
staffing for the Secure Transportation function. Beginning in 2000, DOE
began tracking Secure Transportation as a separate decision unit. DOE's
figures account for that change retroactively for the period from fiscal
year 1995 through fiscal 2000. Thus, the percent change in staffing for the
Secure Transportation unit from fiscal year 1991 to fiscal 2000 cannot be
calculated from the available data. However, the unit has an average
staffing level of 330 for the period from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal
2000. b In fiscal year 1991, the staffing level for Savannah River included
staffing for the reactor restart
program that was discontinued after fiscal 1992. Source: GAO's analysis of
DOE's data.
The Reconfigured DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program faces difficult
challenges and
Weapons Complex constraints. The directors of DOE's nuclear weapons
laboratories
acknowledge that the ability to continue to certify the nation's nuclear
Faces Challenges and
weapons without testing is problematic. In addition, the existing
Constraints
infrastructure in the nuclear weapons complex is very old- much of it having
been built in the 1940s and 1950s- making it difficult and expensive to
maintain. Downsizing has also created imbalances in the federal and
contractor workforce. Finally, DOE must determine what program its funding
of about $4.5 billion annually can support. Meeting these challenges
requires long- term planning and budget support to ensure that all parts of
the weapons complex can perform their missions.
Stockpile Stewardship Among the questions that remain to be answered about
Stockpile
Seeks to Replace Testing Stewardship are several that bear on whether the
enduring stockpile can be
With Simulation Based on maintained without testing. As time passes, the
weapons themselves will
the Results of Experiments change as the materials used in them age in
&ldquo;dynamic and not necessarily
predictable ways,&rdquo; according to the Director of the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory. In addition, according to the Director of the Sandia
National Laboratories, exhaustive nonnuclear tests of components and systems
are needed. Finally, new computer models are being developed to predict the
performance of various aspects of nuclear weapons. The most advanced
supercomputers available today do not provide &ldquo;sufficient accuracy and
... sufficient detail to provide maximum confidence in the stockpile,&rdquo;
according to the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Another issue is deciding what changes can and should be made to weapons in
the enduring stockpile- defining the requirements for each weapon in the
enduring stockpile. Some changes are inevitable, since some of the processes
and materials used for particular components are no longer available.
However, weapons are most likely to have defects requiring action early in
their life cycle, that is, shortly after changes have been introduced into a
design. Thus, even changes that would generally be viewed as beneficial,
such as those designed to improve safety, could introduce new defects.
Evaluating whether changes will be made to a weapon will hinge on having a
good understanding of the requirements and trade- offs involved.
Recapitalization of the Although DOE has met production goals over the last
decade, DOE officials
Nuclear Weapons Complex's acknowledge that they have done so by neglecting
the infrastructure and
Infrastructure to Efficiently allowing some key production capabilities to
become unusable. In order to
Perform Its Mission Will Be continue to maintain the existing cadre of
weapons, DOE must maintain all
of the processes and capabilities required to rebuild or refurbish any
Expensive
component of any weapon in the enduring stockpile. The basic capabilities
needed to maintain the stockpile do not vary significantly in relation to
the number of weapons or the number of weapons types in the stockpile,
leading to high fixed costs to maintain production capability. Senior DOE
officials acknowledge that the condition of the infrastructure, especially
at the production facilities, has deteriorated to the point that it
threatens DOE's ability to meet its stockpile stewardship mission.
Much of the infrastructure of the nuclear weapons complex was originally
built in the 1950s. Buildings of that age are expensive to maintain and
operate under the best of conditions and often cannot meet current safety
and environmental standards without expensive renovations. Preventive and
corrective maintenance spending has been reduced and, at the production
plants, is a fraction of what comparable private industry facilities spend.
For example, contractor officials at the Pantex Plant reported that they
have been able to reinvest only 1 to 2 percent of the value of capital
equipment each year to fund the repair and replacement of capital equipment
and productivity improvements. In contrast, they estimate the average
reinvestment in private industry for capital equipment at about 9 to 11
percent per year. Overall, program officials believe that 3 to 5 percent
should be the reinvestment goal for the entire facility.
In addition, officials at both Y- 12 and Pantex reported that there are
infrastructure projects that should be started now if they are to meet the
current Stockpile Life Extension Program schedule, but these projects are
not funded. While projects to correct problems with the infrastructure, such
as making major repairs, take 5 to 7 years to plan, budget, and implement,
some existing infrastructure conditions reported by the production plants
have the potential to shut down work and represent potential safety hazards.
For example, the Y- 12 Plant has been unable to fund the maintenance or
demolition of an obsolete wooden cooling tower that represents a fire
hazard. Because the operating cooling tower is situated immediately adjacent
to the obsolete cooling tower, a fire in the old tower could destroy both,
leading to a shut down of operations. At the Pantex Plant, specially
designed blast- mitigating roofs that cover the cells and bays used for
working with high explosives in nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly
operations need constant repair to prevent native plants from rooting in
cracks, causing leaks that can restrict or stop production activities. At
the Y- 12 Plant, some facility walls and roofs are in such poor condition
that workers are no longer able to work in portions of some production
buildings.
Rebuilding the Weapons In addition, with the reconfiguring of the complex
and decrease in program
Complex Workforce budgets, many of the sites have been unable to do the
hiring necessary to
Presents Additional supply the complex with skilled technicians, machinists,
engineers, and
Challenges scientists. Weapons design and production require unique skills
and
process knowledge, as well as a national security clearance. As workers have
left the nuclear weapons complex, those skills have been lost to the
complex, even when the workers were still employed by contractors operating
other DOE programs, such as workers transferred along with sites to the
Environmental Management Program. For example, technicians
dismantling weapons must be certified before they are allowed to work on a
specific weapon type. Gaining certification requires rigorous training,
including hands- on work on the weapon under the supervision of a certified
technician, while maintaining certification requires that the technicians
continue working on the process for which they are certified. In some cases,
only one or two people with knowledge of key processes remain at a site.
This situation has resulted in an aging workforce and lost opportunities to
pass knowledge and skills from one generation of workers to the next. Each
site's situation is unique in terms of the challenges that the site must
meet to recruit new workers in key skill areas. But, while the sites have
plans for renewing their workforce, a senior DOE official acknowledges that
these plans have not been fully funded.
Fitting the Stockpile DOE's weapons budget fell from about $8 billion a year
in the late 1980s to
Stewardship Program Into about $4.5 billion in the late 1990s. In October
1997, an agreement was
the Reduced Budget struck between DOE, the Office of Management and Budget,
and the
National Security Council on a 10- year budget of $45 billion for the
emerging Stockpile Stewardship Program. That agreement helped to stabilize
the weapons program during the early part of the transition to its new
mission. However, DOE officials believe that it has since become clear that
$4.5 billion a year in funding may not pay for the program that was
envisioned at that time- building new experimental facilities,
recapitalizing the nuclear weapons complex's infrastructure, rebuilding
atrophied production capabilities, and extending the life of all of the
weapons in the stockpile by an additional 30 years. Thus, according to
senior Office of Defense Programs managers, DOE recognizes that it must more
clearly articulate the choices inherent in level funding of the program so
that policymakers can decide whether to rescope the objectives of the
program or change the funding constraint.
DOE Has Begun to Make In response to its new mission, DOE has made changes
to the management
Management Improvements structure of the Office of Defense Programs to
implement the Stockpile
to Address These Stewardship Program and to implement the new National
Nuclear Security
Challenges and Implement Administration. The Office of Defense Programs has
also begun to take
steps to meet the challenges and constraints that face the Stockpile Its New
Mission
Stewardship Program. For example, the Office of Defense Programs has
developed new planning processes to fit its changing mission. (See ch. 2.)
The Office has also developed a new budget structure to provide additional
management information. (See ch. 3.) DOE and the Office of Defense Programs
have made numerous changes in the Stockpile Stewardship
Program's organizational structure to address the changing demands of the
program's new mission. (See ch. 4.) Finally, the Office of Defense Programs
has begun to develop management processes to oversee the weapon life
extension process. (See ch. 5.)
Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs' Planning
Chapt er 2
Process The Office of Defense Programs has developed an extensive,
multitiered planning process to manage its Stockpile Stewardship Program;
however, the plans generated by this process are incomplete in two important
respects. First, the Office of Defense Programs is still trying to determine
some key requirements for the Stockpile Stewardship Program, such as
validating the quantities of weapons to be refurbished. Until this process
is complete, important aspects of the program, and thus the plans associated
with them, are subject to change. Second, a congressionally mandated, cross-
cutting plan to support the life extension of the nuclear stockpile- known
as the Stockpile Life Extension Plan- does not contain complete information
on such important issues as production plant capacity and budget issues.
More fundamentally, while the Office of Defense Programs has developed over
70 plans, it has not integrated them into its system of management controls
for the Stockpile Stewardship Program, including the program's budget and
the mechanisms used to oversee its contractors.
The Office of Defense The Office of Defense Programs' planning process is
evolving from a
Programs Has process intended to support a design, test, and build mission
to a process
designed to better fit the Office's revised Stockpile Stewardship mission of
Developed a New
refurbishing the existing stockpile under a nuclear test moratorium. As
Planning Process to Fit
such, many elements of the planning process are being adjusted to better fit
Its Changing Mission
current mission needs, including the structuring of an entirely new set of
plans for carrying out the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
DOE's Strategic Plan and Two documents are intended to provide the overall
plans for DOE's nuclear
the Stockpile Stewardship weapons program- DOE's Strategic Plan and the
Office of Defense
Plan Describe the Overall Programs' Stockpile Stewardship Plan. DOE's
Strategic Plan represents the
Strategy for the Stockpile fundamental basis for all planning within the
Department. It sets the longterm
directions and policies to be carried out by the Department's Stewardship
Program
programs and field organization. The Strategic Plan contains four business
lines- Energy Resources, Environmental Quality, National Nuclear Security,
and Science. The National Nuclear Security business line includes a set of
performance goals and strategies for addressing how DOE will effectively
support and maintain a safe and reliable stockpile without nuclear testing.
The Stockpile Stewardship Plan (or so- called &ldquo;Green Book&rdquo;) was
first developed in 1995 to describe to customers, such as DOD, the Office of
Defense Programs' efforts to support and maintain a safe and reliable
stockpile. This plan consists of a &ldquo;corporate- level, multiyear
program plan
that describes the Stockpile Stewardship strategy.&rdquo; Annual preparation
of the plan was required by the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 1998. However, according to planning officials in the Office of
Defense Programs, past Stockpile Stewardship Plans simply listed program
activities and did not serve as a comprehensive planning document that set
priorities and allocated resources. As a result, some users found the plan's
usefulness limited.
A New, Detailed Planning To improve planning for the Stockpile Stewardship
Program, the Office of
Structure Has Been Defense Programs has recently developed a new planning
structure. This
Developed to Implement the structure is built around two high- level
efforts: (1) Research, Development,
Stockpile Stewardship and Simulation and (2) Military Application and
Stockpile Operations. The
Research, Development, and Simulation effort is intended to encompass
Program
the research capability necessary to support a safe and reliable stockpile,
while the Military Application and Stockpile Operations effort is intended
to include the regular maintenance of weapons in the stockpile. For each
effort, the Office of Defense Programs has defined a three- tiered planning
structure situated below the top- level Strategic Plan and the Stockpile
Stewardship Plan. This three- tiered structure is intended to bring together
high- level requirements- strategic performance goals- with lower- level
objectives, strategies, and performance measures, such that each lowerlevel
plan provides an additional level of detail. Table 5 provides more detail on
this structure. Finally, to accommodate the variety and differing nature of
work within the Stockpile Stewardship Program, the Office of Defense
Programs organized work within its new planning structure into three areas-
Campaigns, Directed Stockpile Work, and Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities. (See ch. 1 for a definition of these areas.)
Table 5: Office of Defense Programs Three- Tiered Planning Structure Tier
Plan Description
1 Research, Development and These plans define responsibilities for
activities described in the Stockpile Stewardship
Simulation Plan; and Military Plan and &ldquo;higher- level planning
documents,&rdquo; such as the DOE Strategic Plan.
Application and Stockpile Operations Plan
2 Program Plans These plans exist for each major area of work, such as for
Campaigns, Directed Stockpile Work, and Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities. They describe &ldquo;what&rdquo; will be done to fulfill each
program's responsibilities for the Stockpile Stewardship Plan.
3 Implementation Plans These plans describe &ldquo;how&rdquo; the various
programs and campaigns will accomplish their objectives and milestones for
doing so. Some of these plans are weapon- specific.
Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
In addition to this new planning structure, the Office of Defense Programs
has retained other planning processes from its prior mission. Some of these
processes provide work direction for the production plants, while others
serve as site- level strategic plans. For example, the annual Production and
Planning Directive provides detailed guidance regarding monthly schedules of
production for the production plants. At the strategic level, each site
performing Office of Defense Programs activities is required to prepare
annually a 10- Year Site Plan for the long- range management of its
facilities and infrastructure.
A Stockpile Life Extension Because the nation is no longer performing
nuclear tests and producing
Program Plan Has Also new weapons, the life of the current stockpile must be
extended. The
Been Developed complexity of the task and the extent and size of the current
nuclear
weapons complex make this a major challenge. As a result, in fiscal year
1996, the Office of Defense Programs established the Stockpile Life
Extension Program, managed by the Office of Military Application and
Stockpile Operations.
To plan for the work of stockpile life extension, the Congress, in Section
3133 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000,
required DOE to prepare an annual Stockpile Life Extension Program Plan that
was due in January 2000 and thereafter with each subsequent annual budget
submission. The plan's goal is to ensure that stockpile life extension
activities are planned in detail, coordinated fully, and executed within
fiscal resources. In the act, the Congress also required the Secretary of
Energy to incorporate mechanisms into the plan to (1) expedite the
collection of information necessary for the Stockpile Life Extension
Program; (2) ensure
the assignment of roles and missions for each laboratory and plant,
including allocating workload, modernizing facilities, and retaining worker
skills; and (3) identify the funds needed in current and future fiscal years
and allocate funds by weapon type and facility.
The Stockpile While the Office of Defense Programs has developed over 70
Stockpile
Stewardship Program's Stewardship plans with varying levels of detail, these
plans are not
complete enough to fully support the successful implementation of the Plans
Are Incomplete
program and are not linked to program management controls. First, the and
Are Not Linked
Office of Defense Programs is in the process of reassessing and prioritizing
With Management
important program requirements for maintaining a safe and reliable
stockpile. Until this process is complete, important aspects of the program,
Controls and the plans associated with them, are subject to change. Second,
the
Stockpile Life Extension Program's plan does not have the current and
complete information necessary to detect and correct plant capacity
shortfalls and lacks information necessary to address site workload and
budget issues. Third, planning efforts are not fully linked to management
controls such as program budgets, contracts, and other associated plans.
Stockpile Stewardship Plans Following the defeat of the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty in October
Are Not Based on Firm 1999, the Secretary of Energy directed the Under
Secretary to conduct a
Work Requirements review of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, called the
&ldquo;30- Day Review.&rdquo;
One key finding of this review was that the Stockpile Stewardship Program
did not have a formal process for (1) assessing the program's requirements,
that is, what actually needs to be done; (2) developing implementation
plans, with corresponding scopes, schedules, and budgets; and (3)
prioritizing the work. The 30- Day Review concluded that this situation had
put significant stress on the program as it tried to accept additional
requirements without additional budget resources.
In response, the Office of Defense Programs established a Requirements
Assessment and Implementation Team in May 2000 to review, prioritize, and
approve program activities for maintaining a safe, secure, and reliable
stockpile. The team's mission includes assessing and prioritizing DOE's
activities and validating program requirements (i. e., determining what work
requirements are valid and necessary). The team will review the developed
options for extending the life of weapons in order to balance military needs
with the limited resources available. According to planning officials in the
Office of Defense Programs, requirements for the Stockpile Stewardship
Program will be &ldquo;validated&rdquo; through a series of negotiations to
take place with DOD and others between now and the end of fiscal year 2001.
Although most of the Stockpile Stewardship Program's plans were considered
to be &ldquo;final&rdquo; in May 2000, planning officials in the Office of
Defense Programs have stated that the plans will require significant change
as a result of the effort to redefine work requirements. For example, the
Requirements Assessment and Implementation Team is awaiting information from
DOD for validating warhead quantities relative to that Department's delivery
systems- missiles, airplanes, or submarines. While information is not due
until December 2000, it is needed to accurately plan for production plant
capacity needs.
According to the Office of Defense Programs, the Stockpile Stewardship
Program is working to develop valid requirements between DOE and DOD, and
update plans to reflect requirement changes, which is an ongoing process. In
addition to the Requirements Assessment and Implementation Team process, DOE
is currently defining the pace, scope, and schedule for the W80, W76, and
B61 stockpile life extensions with DOD. Initial agreement was reached on the
W80 in a Nuclear Weapons Council meeting held in October 2000, and the W76
and B61, respectively, will be addressed at the November and December 2000
meetings. On the basis of its activities, DOE has developed a draft letter
describing the concerted efforts of the team to enhance the communications
of weapons requirements between DOD and DOE. The Office of Defense Programs
also stated that DOD recently transmitted to DOE prioritized weapons
requirements. DOD has agreed upon a single list, and DOE and DOD will work
together to refine this list into one that is more accurate, consistent, and
complete for both Departments. This list will be refined and presented to
the Nuclear Weapons Council, in a future meeting, as a path forward for the
Stockpile Stewardship Program.
The Stockpile Life The Stockpile Life Extension Program Plan is also
incomplete. This plan,
Extension Program Plan Is which focuses on extending the life of various
nuclear weapons in the
Incomplete nation's stockpile, was not expected to be finalized until after
September
2000, but now, the information has been delayed until the submission of the
budget request for fiscal year 2002 in early 2001. In the meantime, the
Office of Defense Programs produced an &ldquo;interim plan;&rdquo; however,
this plan is incomplete. While the interim plan thoroughly describes the
planning process, it does not meet all of the requirements stated in the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000. In particular, it
does not yet
effectively collect complete and current information necessary to implement
the program, does not address potential plant capacity issues, and does not
include budget information.
We found that information used in the interim plan regarding plant capacity
was not complete. For example, Y- 12 Plant capacity estimates for producing
certain weapons components at that site are not available because the Y- 12
Plant does not have a current, validated model for estimating plant
capacity. The contractor at the Y- 12 Plant agrees that such information is
needed and expects to develop a complete and validated model in fiscal year
2003.
The interim plan also does not address how to remedy potential plant
capacity shortfalls. For example, by 2016, Pantex officials expect the
beginning of a 6- year period where workload may significantly exceed plant
capacity for performing a variety of weapons operations and tests. Although
the draft 10- Year Site Plan for Pantex describes these potential
shortfalls, the Stockpile Life Extension Program plan does not specifically
address how to deal with them. In particular, it does not establish
activities and make firm commitments to modify facilities or hire and train
additional staff to prevent impacts to the schedule. Although separate and
more detailed Implementation Plans are intended to describe
&ldquo;how&rdquo; the work will be accomplished, they do not address these
capacity issues either.
Finally, the interim plan does not include budget information necessary for
managing the Stockpile Life Extension Program's funds. Specifically, the
plan neither projects budget needs for the program nor allocates funds
either by weapon type or by facility. Without such basic budgeting
information, managers in the Office of Defense Programs cannot use the plan
for budget decisions. As noted above, weapons- specific Implementation Plans
intended to address how the work will be completed also do not include this
budget information. As of June 2000, according to a key planning official in
the Office of Defense Programs, although the Office had attempted to include
budget information for one weapon system, the information was not yet valid
and useable. The Office of Defense Programs subsequently stated in November
2000 that budget information is available for two weapons systems- the W76
and W80.
Planning Efforts Are Not The standards we have developed require federal
agencies to establish and
Linked to Management maintain an effective system of internal controls over
their operations. 1
Controls Internal controls include such things as the plans used to meet
missions,
goals, and objectives. In an August 1999 memo, the acting Assistant
Secretary for Defense Programs stated that the implementation of the Office
of Defense Programs' management controls &ldquo;is envisioned to have annual
program execution controlled through written implementation plans linked to
budgets, contracts, and other performance management documents.&rdquo; The
memo set a goal of completing the implementation of these controls by
October 1, 2000. Although the Office of Defense Programs has developed over
70 plans, it has yet to fully integrate them into the program's management
controls as envisioned by the acting Assistant Secretary.
Stockpile Stewardship Plans The various Stockpile Stewardship Program plans
are not adequately
Have Not Been Integrated With linked to the program's budget, rendering them
less useful to decision
Program Budgets makers and setting up the potential for conflicts between
work
requirements contained in the plans and the budget resources available to
adequately perform the work. For example, the program's overall Stockpile
Stewardship Plan- the &ldquo;Green Book&rdquo;- historically has not
contained detailed budget information. Although program officials told us
that the primary customer of the Green Book is the military, the Director of
the Air Force's Nuclear Weapons and Counter Proliferation Agency told us
that the Green Book has had limited usefulness for him because he cannot
tell how much emphasis the Office of Defense Programs is placing on various
activities without knowing how much they are spending on the activities.
However, officials from the Office of Defense Programs believe that although
earlier drafts of the plans did not contain budget data, DOD and others were
provided with budget details in briefings and follow- on discussions. Our
review of the Stockpile Stewardship Plan for fiscal year 2001, recently
approved by the Secretary of Energy on June 12, 2000, shows that it now
contains detailed budget information.
With respect to conflicts between work requirements and funding, we found
several examples during our fieldwork. For example, when the laboratories
specify new requirements for weapons test assemblies (units with mock
components used for testing purposes), the plants must perform
1 See Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government( GAO/ AIMD-
00- 21.31, Nov. 1999).
many activities to fully understand the design and build a new production
line for the assemblies that will meet the new specifications- not a quick
and simple task, according to plant officials. However, the plants often
receive these and other types of testing requirements outside of the
planning and budgeting processes. Plant officials told us that when they
receive such additional requirements, they are expected to simply &ldquo;do
it all.&rdquo; To compensate, officials reported that they have met such
additional requirements by cutting back on facility maintenance. For
example, according to Pantex officials, the plant's deferred maintenance
backlog increased from about $130 million in fiscal year 1998 to about $195
million in fiscal 1999. To correct this problem, yet another Program Plan,
this one for managing infrastructure issues across the nuclear weapons
complex, is being developed, according to planning officials in the Office
of Defense Programs.
This is not a new problem. A March 1997 study by the Institute for Defense
Analyses also found a weak link between the program's work requirements and
its budget. 2 Specifically, the study found that there was no single,
disciplined process for ensuring that all decisions with resource
implications are weighed against one another in a complete and consistent
fashion. The study found no formal means to evaluate and resolve
disagreements.
Plans Are Not Linked to The work of the Stockpile Stewardship Program is
carried out by
Contracts contractors that operate the design laboratories and production
plants for
the Office of Defense Programs. To date, milestones and other performance
measurement information contained in the Program and Implementation Plans
have not been systematically incorporated into contracts used to manage the
operation of the laboratories and production plants. According to key
planning officials in the Office of Defense Programs, the Office of Planning
and Integration has only been recently asked to generate a list of items
that should be addressed in assessing the contracts presently up for award
and in developing contractor performance assessment plans for fiscal year
2001. This would be the first time that Program and Implementation Plans
were used to assess contracts and performance assessment plans. However, the
completion of this effort will depend on the success of the effort to
reassess program requirements; therefore, the time frame for completion
remains uncertain.
2 The Organization and Management of the Nuclear Weapons Program, Institute
for Defense Analyses( IDA Paper P- 3306, Mar. 1997).
More fundamentally, while the Program and Implementation Plans for the
various Campaigns contain numerous milestones and deliverables, the Office
of Defense Programs has not established a method for tracking and holding
contractors accountable for the milestones and deliverables. According to a
key planning official in the Office of Defense Programs, the Office will
soon establish a team to develop a detailed process to provide for periodic
updates of Campaign milestones and deliverables and to evaluate progress.
Plans Are Not Fully In order to be effective, the various Program Plans need
to be integrated
Integrated With Other Plans with each other. For example, in order to
conduct work in the Directed
Stockpile Work area, weapons research and development activities need to be
integrated with the efforts of the production plants. However, all of the
Directed Stockpile Work is not integrated into a single Program Plan.
Rather, the Office of Research, Development, and Simulation, which oversees
the research and development activities, has its own Program Plan, while the
Office of Military Application and Stockpile Operations, which oversees
production activities, has a separate program plan.
Because of these two separate Directed Stockpile Work Program Plans,
important cross- cutting issues can be overlooked. For example, significant
and unexpected design changes to weapons' Life Extension Options can create
problems for the production plants that must produce components from designs
provided by the weapons laboratories. While the Directed Stockpile Work
Program Plans acknowledge the need to annually update the Life Extension
Options, they do not address how changes will be minimized or the impacts on
the plants mitigated. Planning officials in the Office of Defense Programs
agree that these two plans could be better integrated; however, they are
awaiting key decisions on program requirements and a potential
reorganization that they believe could help remedy this situation.
More broadly, the Office of Defense Programs does not have an effective
approach for integrating all of the plans in the Stockpile Stewardship
Program. As noted earlier, the Office has over 70 Program and Implementation
Plans. Currently, if a change occurs in one plan that affects another, such
as a change in a deliverable or milestone, the coordination of this change
with the other plan must be done on an ad hoc basis. Program officials may
need to gather and search through an extensive list of plans or contact an
extensive list of individuals before they are assured that they have
reliable and current information. This can be difficult and time
consuming, given the number of plans that exist. Planning officials in the
Office of Defense Programs agree that a single focal point document to
provide a common linkage between the plans would be a useful tool for
achieving and sustaining the program's integration. They said they expect to
develop a large- scale database for this purpose.
Conclusions The Office of Defense Programs' comprehensive planning process
represents an important step in improving how the Stockpile Stewardship
Program is managed. However, until the Office determines the requirements
that will drive the program, its planning process cannot be considered
complete. Moreover, a significant portion of the Stockpile Stewardship
Program will be the effort to extend the lifetime of the nation's nuclear
stockpile. As the Congress recognized in the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2000, a comprehensive Stockpile Life Extension Program
plan that includes information on capacity, workload, and budget is vital to
successfully managing the integrated activities of the design labs and
production plants and to making well- informed decisions on issues such as
recapitalizing production infrastructure in a resourceconstrained
environment. Finally, in order not to become hollow documents sitting on a
shelf, the Office of Defense Programs' plans need to be integrated with key
management controls, such as budgets and contracts, and must be linked with
each other. Program officials have told us of many initiatives that they
have under way to deal with these issues. While we commend these efforts, we
believe that the program must act on all of these initiatives, especially
the establishment of requirements, as quickly as possible.
Recommendations for To ensure that the Stockpile Stewardship Program has a
planning process
Executive Action that is complete and supports the management of the nuclear
weapons
complex and the extension of the life of the nation's nuclear weapons
stockpile, we recommend that the Administrator of the National Nuclear
Security Administration direct that the Deputy Administrator for Defense
Programs do the following:
Complete, as expeditiously as possible, the process of establishing valid
program requirements and update the program's plans to reflect requirement
changes. Ensure that the completed Stockpile Life Extension Program plan
contains all of the information required by the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, especially information on plant
capacity and budget. Ensure that the planning process is fully integrated
with management
controls, and that the plans' milestones are reflected in contractors'
performance
criteria and evaluations, the process is coordinated with the budget
planning and formulation
process, and an overall planning mechanism is developed that links
individual
plans with other plans across both the science and production segments of
the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
Agency Comments and The National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of
Defense Programs
Our Evaluation agreed with our recommendations that it needs to validate the
Stockpile
Stewardship Program's requirements and to integrate its planning process
with its management controls. As evidence of this, it cited a variety of
what it called &ldquo;incremental steps&rdquo; that it is taking or planning
to take. For example, it stated that various efforts are under way to
resolve the pace, scope, and schedule for the W80, W76, and B61 stockpile
life extensions. In addition, it noted that on October 12, 2000, the
Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration directed the
development of a corporate- level strategic plan, to cover the time frame
for fiscal years 200317. Finally, to help ensure that the program plans'
milestones are reflected in contractors' performance criteria and
evaluations, the Office of Defense Programs stated that it has directed
field offices to negotiate contracts that add specific self- assessments
addressing planning and execution processes. We agree that these initiatives
have the potential to improve the management of the Stockpile Stewardship
Program. However, we believe that it is too soon to determine how
effectively they will be implemented and, hence, whether they will lead to
substantial improvements. We are encouraged by the actions that the new
leadership of the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Office of
Defense Programs has taken to improve planning for the program, as
delineated in the comments on a draft of this report. (See app. III.)
With respect to our recommendation that the Office of Defense Programs
ensure that the completed Stockpile Life Extension Program plan contains all
of the information required by the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2000, the Office expressed the view that stockpile life
extension is a &ldquo;process&rdquo; -not a &ldquo;program.&rdquo; It stated
that the stockpile life extension process supports the Directed Stockpile
Work Program, which is
part of the Stockpile Stewardship Program's new budget structure. The Office
stated that it would comply with the intent of the recommendation by
providing the information requested by the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2000 as part of the Directed Stockpile Work plans to be
submitted with its budget request for 2002. We are encouraged that the
Office intends to make the information available to the Congress, albeit by
an alternative reporting method. However, we believe that regardless of
whether the Office calls it a &ldquo;process&rdquo; or
&ldquo;program,&rdquo; the final result must include information on
capacity, workload, and budget, so that the Office can successfully manage
the integrated activities of the design labs and production plants and make
well- informed decisions in a resource- constrained environment.
Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the Stockpile
Chapt er 3
Stewardship Program The Office of Defense Programs has developed a new
program activity structure within the Weapons Activities budget
presentation. The Office developed this new structure to enhance its
management of the program in several ways that better reflect its current
and future missions; focus budget justification on major program thrusts;
and improve the linkage between planning, budgeting, and performance
evaluation. In addition, program managers and outside technical experts
believe that this new structure holds significant promise for identifying
the fixed and variable costs of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, thus
improving cost management. This new structure was first used in developing
the program's budget request for fiscal year 2001. However, two problems
arose. First, the labs and production plants did not apply the program's new
budget formulation definitions consistently. Second, DOE's Office of the
Chief Financial Officer was concerned that the program's budget structure
was not consistent with various accounting standards and certain laws and
regulations that contain accounting requirements. Consequently, an amendment
to the program's budget submission for fiscal year 2001 was developed.
However, the amendment makes it difficult to determine the program's fixed
and variable costs.
The Office of Defense Prior to its budget submission for fiscal year 2001,
the Office of Defense
Programs Has Programs divided the operating portion of the Weapons
Activities account
into two broad program activities- stockpile stewardship and stockpile
Developed a New
management. Stockpile stewardshipwas defined as the set of activities Budget
Structure for
needed to &ldquo;provide the physical and intellectual infrastructure
required to the Weapons Activities
meet the scientific and technical requirements of the (overall) Stockpile
Stewardship Program.&rdquo; Stockpile managementactivities included DOE's
Account That Is historical responsibilities for surveillance, maintenance,
refurbishment,
Intended to Improve and dismantlement of the enduring stockpile. However,
each category was
dominated by a single large activity known as core stewardship and core
Program Management
management, which made it difficult to determine where funds were being
spent with precision. For example, in the Office of Defense Programs' budget
submission for fiscal year 2000, core stewardship accounted for 48 percent
of the stockpile stewardship activity's budget request, while core
management accounted for 73 percent of the stockpile management activity's
budget request. The lack of clarity associated with this broad structure
caused concern both at DOE and in the Congress.
In February 1999, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Development,
and Simulation, who manages the stockpile stewardship activity, began to
develop a new program activity structure to improve the
planning process for his program and more closely integrate the program with
the needs of the stockpile. The new structure was built around three new
program activities- Campaigns, Directed Stockpile Work, and Readiness in
Technical Base and Facilities. (See ch. 1 for a definition of these
activities.) Within each of these three activities is a set of more detailed
subactivities. For example, within the Campaigns activity are individual
campaigns to study, among other things, the primary in a nuclear weapon or
to develop a new capability to produce nuclear weapons pits. 1,2 Similarly,
the Directed Stockpile Work activity includes subactivities to conduct
surveillance or produce components that need regular replacement within
nuclear weapons. Finally, the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities
activity includes subactivities to capture the costs for the operation of
its facilities. In submitting its new program activity structure to the
Office of the Chief Financial Officer for review and approval for use in the
budget submission for fiscal year 2001, the Office of Defense Programs
believed that the new structure would, among other things, better reflect
its current and future missions; focus budget justification on major program
thrusts; and improve the linkage between planning, budgeting, and
performance evaluation.
Outside experts and Office of Defense Programs officials both believe that
developing and implementing the program's new program activity structure are
critical to effective management. Specifically, in October 1999, the
Secretary of Energy directed the Under Secretary of Energy to conduct a
comprehensive internal review of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (called
the &ldquo;30- Day Review&rdquo;). As part of this review, conducted by the
Under Secretary and a group of senior technical advisors, the program's new
activity structure was examined. The 30- Day Review strongly supported the
new program activity structure and what it called the program's &ldquo;new
business model.&rdquo;
In particular, the 30- Day Review stated that the three new activity
categories would allow program managers to more clearly understand the fixed
and variable costs of the nuclear weapons complex. The study saw
1 The primary is the fission stage of a nuclear weapon. Detonation of the
primary produces the extremely high temperatures and pressures required to
produce fusion in the weapon's secondary.
2 A pit is the initial, subcritical assembly of fissile material in a
nuclear weapon. In such an assembly, a fission chain reaction can be
sustained only by the addition of neutrons from an independent source.
the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities activity as encompassing the
fixed costs associated with the program. These costs included those
associated with maintaining the infrastructure, facilities, capital
equipment, construction, and other functions that are necessary to have a
viable nuclear weapons complex. The 30- Day Review saw the Campaigns and
Directed Stockpile Work activities as encompassing the variable costs of the
actual work performed by the nuclear weapons complex. The implementation of
this approach would, in the view of the 30- Day Review, provide Office of
Defense Programs, lab, and production plant managers with &ldquo;an improved
and coordinated tool for determining the cost associated with managing the
nuclear weapons complex.&rdquo; The 30- Day Review saw the identification of
the program's fixed and variable costs, along with improved program
planning, as essential to improving the management of the program.
Program officials have echoed the views of the 30- Day Review. For example,
the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Development, and Simulation
told us it is vital that the Office of Defense Programs gets a handle on the
fixed costs associated with Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities. He
felt that these costs were &ldquo;eating the program alive&rdquo; and that
the Office had to find ways to reduce them. In a similar vein, the Director
of the Office of Planning, Analysis, and Nuclear Weapons Integration, under
the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Military Application and Stockpile
Operations, told us that the Office of Defense Programs needs to be able to
identify and trend the costs that make up Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities, such as security and safety, so that it is able to exercise
effective cost management. Finally, the Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Nuclear Weapons Stockpile believes that Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities should represent the program's fixed costs, including overhead,
while the Campaigns and Directed Stockpile Work should capture the marginal
cost of doing a specific activity. Representing the costs for Campaigns and
Directed Stockpile Work in this way makes it clear what is actually saved if
an activity is cut. Currently, he noted, if one were to cut a campaign, the
program would not save all of the funds associated with that campaign, since
a significant portion goes to overhead.
TheNewStructureWas While the Office of Defense Programs has developed a new
structure that
Not Implemented promises to be a useful tool for improving program
management, including
cost management, the implementation of the structure has been hampered
Consistently
by two problems. First, the labs and production plants did not apply the
program's new budget formulation definitions consistently. Second, the
Department's Office of the Chief Financial Officer was concerned that the
program's application of the new structure was not consistent with various
accounting standards and certain laws and regulations that contain
accounting requirements.
The Program's Labs and The principal problem the Office of Defense Programs
experienced in
Plants Did Not Consistently executing its new program activity structure was
in the Operation of
Implement the New Facilities subactivity category in the Readiness in
Technical Base and
Structure Facilities activity. The Operations of Facilities category
accounts for $1.3
billion (28 percent) of the Office of Defense Program's $4.6 billion budget
request for Weapons Activities for fiscal year 2001. This category is
defined in the budget request as the Office of Defense Programs' share of
the &ldquo;cost of all structures, equipment, systems, materials, procedures
and personnel necessary to provide program sponsors with a facility that is
safe, secure, reliable and &lsquo;ready for operations'&rdquo;- or what many
program officials believed were the fixed costs of conducting the program.
However, this definition was applied inconsistently. For example, Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory included in Operations of Facilities only the
costs for the National Ignition Facility's operations and facility's ramp-
up; a facility known as Superblock, where plutonium is handled; and other
unspecified facilities. 3 The other two weapons labs- Los Alamos and Sandia-
were only slightly more expansive, including the costs for capital
equipment, general plant projects, and waste management with specific
facilities.
In contrast, the three major production plants- Y- 12, Kansas City, and
Pantex- included not only the cost of specific facilities but also the costs
for capital equipment; general plant projects; environment safety and health
programs; security; and, most significantly, overhead. The broader
application of the definition by the production plants meant that they
included all of the costs needed to operate a facility in the Operations of
Facilities subactivity. The Office of Defense Programs recognized in its
budget submission that, for the production plants, all site overhead was
included in the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities activity. The
Office did not specify that lab overhead was not included. But, according to
program officials, the labs did not include all site overhead costs in the
Operations of Facilities subactivity. In its budget submission, DOE
recognized that there were problems and said that it might offer some
technical amendments to its budget request.
3 The National Ignition Facility is still under construction.
The inconsistent application of the definition makes the Office of Defense
Programs' budget submission misleading. On the one hand, because the labs
did not include all of their facility and overhead costs in the Readiness in
Technical Base and Facilities activity, the cost of simply keeping the
weapons complex open- ready for operations- is understated. The impression
is created that operating the labs and production plants is consuming only
about one- third of the Office of Defense Programs' resources. In contrast,
DOE's functional cost reports have shown that, typically, the Office of
Defense Programs' costs for general and mission support- a rough equivalent
for operation of facilities- consumed over 40 percent of every operating
dollar from fiscal year 1995 through fiscal 2000. Conversely, the impression
is also created that more budget resources are going directly to supporting
the stockpile. However, since each of the labs must fully recover its costs,
if the costs are not in the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities
activity, then they must be contained in the Campaigns or Directed Stockpile
Work activity.
DOE's Chief Financial While the Office of Defense Programs was completing
its budget
Officer Was Concerned submission for fiscal year 2001, DOE's Office of the
Chief Financial Officer
About the Budget began raising concerns regarding the budget treatment of
Readiness in
Submission's Consistency Technical Base and Facilities. According to the
Deputy Controller, in
addition to the issue of the inconsistent application of the definition With
Accounting Laws and
discussed above, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer had the following
Regulations
concerns: DOE's management and operating contractors are required to comply
with cost accounting standards and to disclose their practices in formal
disclosure statements approved by departmental contracting officers.
Pursuant to Cost Accounting Standard (CAS) No. 418, contractors are required
to accumulate indirect costs in cost pools and to allocate these costs
consistently on the basis of the causal or beneficial relationship of the
indirect costs to final cost objectives. In the Deputy Controller's view, if
the Office of Defense Programs' share of overhead costs is allocated only to
the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities activity and not to all
benefiting programs and projects, this would constitute a CAS violation and
would place the contractors in noncompliance with the CAS provisions of
their contracts with the Department. DOE is required to comply with
Statements of Federal Financial
Accounting Standards (SFFAS) promulgated by the Federal Accounting Standards
Advisory Board (FASAB). One of these Statements, SFFAS No. 4, Managerial
Cost Accounting Standards, requires federal agencies
to provide reliable and timely information on the full cost of federal
programs, their activities, and outputs. According to the Deputy Controller,
if the Office of Defense Programs' share of overhead costs is allocated only
to the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities activity and not to all
benefiting programs and projects, the Department would be in noncompliance
with the intent of the Managerial Cost Accounting Standards, the federal
equivalent of generally accepted accounting principles. Under the Federal
Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996,
agencies are required to comply with federal financial management systems
requirements contained in Office of Management and Budget Circular A- 127,
Financial Management Systems, and federal accounting standards issued by
FASAB. One of the specific purposes of this act is to require federal
financial management systems to support full disclosure of federal financial
data, including the full costs of federal programs and activities so that
programs and activities can be considered on the basis of their full costs
and merits. In conducting audits of federal financial statements, cognizant
auditors are required to report whether an agency's financial management
system substantially complies with federal financial management system
requirements and federal accounting standards. In the Deputy Controller's
view, the failure to comply with CAS at the contractor level and to meet the
full cost reporting requirements contained in SFFAS No. 4 would result in a
lack of substantial compliance with the Federal Financial Management
Improvement Act.
Finally, the Government Management Reform Act of 1994 amended the
requirements of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 by requiring, among
other things, the annual preparation and audit of organizationwide financial
statements of 24 executive departments and agencies, including DOE. In the
Deputy Controller's view, the failure to comply with both CAS and the
federal financial accounting standards as well as lack of substantial
compliance with the provisions of the Federal Financial Management
Improvement Act could result in the auditor's qualification or disclaimer of
opinion on DOE's financial statements.
These concerns were raised in January 2000- very late in the budget
development cycle. Consequently, DOE and program budget officials decided to
submit the budget as developed with a caveat that recognized the problems
with the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities activity.
DOE Amended the Since the original budget submission, DOE and program budget
officials
Fiscal Year 2001 have developed an amendment to the program's original
budget submission
for fiscal year 2001. One of the principal effects of this amendment has
Budget Submission to
been to shift overhead costs for the production plants from the Readiness
Improve Consistency,
in Technical Base and Facilities activity to the Campaigns and Directed but
the Revisions Miss
Stockpile Work activities. This was done to ensure that the labs and plants
treat overhead in a consistent way and to address the Deputy Controller's
the Opportunity to concerns. Program budget officials told us that they also
made additional
Improve Program adjustments to correct for errors that occurred when the
budget
submission for fiscal year 2001 was originally prepared. For example, they
Management
found that Sandia was accounting for a facility under a campaign activity
that should have been included in the Readiness in Technical Base and
Facilities activity. They felt that errors of this latter type were a normal
outcome of making such a large change in the program's budget and accounting
system. According to DOE's Office of the Chief Financial Officer and program
budget officials, the amendment has been transmitted to the staffs of the
House and Senate Appropriations Committees and authorization committees. In
creating the amendment to the Office of Defense Programs' budget request for
fiscal year 2001 to address the concerns of the Office of the Chief
Financial Officer, the program has made it difficult to determine its fixed
and variable costs. Officials in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer,
including the Deputy Controller, indicated that understanding the
relationship between cost and activity levels was necessary and that fixed
and variable costing was one method of accomplishing this. They felt that a
spreadsheet that delineated fixed and variable costs could be developed.
Conclusions The Office of Defense Programs has taken an important step
toward improved program management with its new program activity structure.
We agree with the views of the 30- Day Review and various program officials
that understanding and measuring the fixed and variable costs of the program
are vital to improving the cost performance of the program and making well-
informed decisions about program trade- offs when faced with a constrained
budget. Such information will also be important to the Congress as it
exercises its oversight role. We recognize that DOE needs to meet a variety
of financial management requirements, such as the cost accounting standards,
and the amendment the Department developed represents an initial attempt to
reflect some of these types of concerns in its budget submission. However,
more needs to be done to give program officials and congressional
decisionmakers the information on fixed and
variable costs they need. If the Department is committed to improving
program management through a new program activity structure, it needs to
find a way to more closely relate this new budget structure to its cost
accounting framework.
Recommendation for To improve the management and oversight of the Stockpile
Stewardship
Executive Action Program, we recommend that the Administrator of the
National Nuclear
Security Administration direct the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs
to develop a method to relate its new program activity structure to DOE's
cost accounting considerations so that fixed and variable costs of the
program's activities can be determined and made available when the program
makes its annual budget submission.
Agency Comments and The National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of
Defense Programs
Our Evaluation stated that the determination of the program's fixed and
variable costs was
never an essential purpose of its new program activity structure. Rather,
the Office felt that the purpose of the new program activity structure was
to improve the program's management by, among other things, aligning the
program's planning, budgeting, and performance evaluation functions. By
placing emphasis in our report on understanding the program's fixed and
variable costs, the Office believed that we were implying that it had failed
to meet a goal of its new program activity structure. While the Office
recognized the value of understanding the program's fixed and variable
costs, it felt that it was required to amend its budget submission for
fiscal year 2001 in order &ldquo;to comply with Federal accounting statutes
and regulations.&rdquo; However, consistent with our recommendation, it did
offer to develop additional information on cost elements for submission with
its budget request for fiscal year 2002 with the understanding that it would
not change its method of cost accounting.
We recognize throughout our report that the program's new activity structure
serves multiple purposes and believe it is an important step forward in
improving the program's overall management structure. However, we believe
that understanding the program's fixed and variable costs is vital to
effective program management, especially when the program is faced with a
constrained budget. This is consistent with the views of the Secretary's 30-
Day Review and numerous program officials. However, we have modified our
recommendation to make it clear that we do not expect DOE to engage in a
wholesale modification of its cost
accounting systems. In the end, we believe that the Office's willingness to
develop additional cost information and include it with its budget request
is an important first step to improved program cost management.
Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for Successful
Chapt er 4
Implementation of the Program's New Mission Over the past few years,
internal and external studies of DOE's Office of Defense Programs have
pointed out numerous management problems. In response, DOE has identified
and begun implementing dozens of specific actions intended to address the
problems identified in these studies. In particular, DOE has made repeated
attempts to reorganize the Office of Defense Programs; however, these
efforts have met with only limited success. For example, the Secretary of
Energy instituted a reorganization in April 1999 that clarified some
departmental level reporting relationships between headquarters and field
offices. The Deputy Secretary made further adjustments to departmental
reporting relationships, effective October 2000. In addition, the Office of
Defense Programs is currently engaged in another realignment of its own
headquarters and field structure. However, the implementation of these
changes, which should help to clarify the organizational structure and give
the Office of Defense Programs formal control over all of the sites
performing substantial amounts of its work, have just begun. Just as
importantly, a 1999 presidential report noted that consistent leadership is
a hallmark of an effective program and that longevity is a key to
leadership. However, the Office of Defense Programs has seen its proportion
of offices vacant or with acting managers increase from 17 percent in 1996
to about 65 percent in 2000.
DOE Has Reorganized The Office of Defense Programs' organizational structure
and leadership
the Office of Defense have been critiqued numerous times since the Stockpile
Stewardship
Program was created in 1992. These internal and external reviews of the
Programs to Meet Its
program have repeatedly cited organizational problems that deter the
Changing Mission
program's managers from effectively implementing the Stockpile Stewardship
Program. In response to those critiques, DOE has made changes to the
program's organizational structure, ranging from a DOEwide reorganization to
changes within the Office of Defense Programs.
The Office of Defense Almost immediately after the Stockpile Stewardship
Program was created
Programs' Organizational in 1992, reviews of the organization and content of
the new program began.
Structure Has Been Since 1994, six major studies have been conducted by
external review
Critiqued in Numerous groups and internal DOE task forces. (See table 6.) In
addition, both the
Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service have
Studies Since the Stockpile
written numerous reports on various aspects of the program. Some of these
Stewardship Program Began
studies examined the program as a whole, while others focused on specific
portions of the program, such as the selection of a new tritium production
source or the changing roles of the laboratories.
Table 6: Major Studies of DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program Type of Study
title Authoring group Date study Focus of study
Science Based Stockpile JASON, The MITRE
Nov. 1994 External; Contribution to scientific Stewardship Corporation under
DOE
understanding and national goals, contract
maintaining and renewing technical and scientific skills, and maintaining
confidence in the stockpile without nuclear testing
The Organization and Institute for Defense
Mar. 1997 External; Program's roles, responsibilities, and
Management of the Nuclear Analyses (a. k. a., 120- Day
under DOE organization
Weapons Program Study)
contract Report of the Commission on
Commission on Mar. 1999 External;
Issues surrounding the recruitment Maintaining United States
Maintaining United States legislative
and retention of scientific, Nuclear Weapons Expertise to
Nuclear Weapons mandate
engineering, and technical Congress and the Secretary of
Expertise (a. k. a., Chiles personnel; and weapons complex
Energy Commission)
infrastructure Science at Its Best, Security at
President's Foreign June 1999 External Security and counterintelligence Its
Worst Intelligence Advisory
threats to the nuclear weapons Board
laboratories and effectiveness of responses to those threats
FY 1999 Report of the Panel to Foster Panel Nov. 1999 External;
Critical needs for preserving existing Assess the Reliability, Safety, and
legislative test data, ensuring production Security of the United States
mandate capability, and improving the Nuclear Stockpile
stockpile certification process U. S. Department of Energy
DOE Under Secretary and Nov. 1999 Internal;
Structure, balance, and ability of the Stockpile Stewardship Program
Senior Technical Advisors requested by
Program to maintain a safe, secure, 30- Day Review
(a. k. a., 30- Day Review) Secretary of
and reliable nuclear weapons Energy
stockpile without nuclear testing
The studies cited continuing problems with the Stockpile Stewardship Program
in the areas of overall management, organization, priority setting, external
relations, and maintenance of a viable infrastructure and workforce. With
respect to the program's organization, for example, the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board found that DOE had a dysfunctional management
structure with convoluted, confusing, and often contradictory reporting
channels. 1 In addition, they found that diffuse authority has led to a lack
of accountability, a finding echoed by the Foster Panel, which found
&ldquo;clouded lines of authority and blurred responsibility and
accountability.&rdquo; 2 The 120- Day Study cited ambiguities and overlaps
in the roles of headquarters and the Albuquerque Operations Office as a
primary source of inefficiencies and conflict within the program. Finally,
the Chiles Commission cited uncertainties created by unclear government
roles in the supervision of operations. 3
More broadly, the studies cited issues requiring decisive leadership action,
such as setting priorities and allocating resources among competing needs.
For example, the Chiles Commission expressed concern over the balance of
funding between the production plants and the laboratories and a lack of
consistency in priorities, leading to inefficient cycles of program stops
and starts. Finally, DOE's own 30- Day Review reported significant gaps in
the production complex- such as pit- manufacturing capability, special
materials processing, and the capability to implement new certification and
recertification techniques- owing to a lack of investment in production
capability. 4
1 Science At Its Best, Security At Its Worst, President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board (June 1999), pp. 3- 4. 2 FY 1999 Report of the
Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States
Nuclear Stockpile, Foster Panel (Nov. 1999), p. 10.
3 Report to Congress and the Secretary of Energy, Commission on Maintaining
United States Nuclear Weapons Expertise (a. k. a., the Chiles Commission)
(Nov. 1999), p. 16. 4 Stockpile Stewardship Program 30- Day Review,
Department of Energy (Nov. 23, 1999).
In Response to Critiques, DOE and the Office of Defense Programs' management
recognize that
DOE Has Made Changes to serious problems exist and have taken some steps to
address the
the Program's recommendations made in the studies. Overall, DOE has proposed
a total
Organizational Structure of 136 actions in response to recommendations in
the four major studies-
the 120- Day Study, the Chiles Commission, the Foster Panel, and the 30- Day
Review- that dealt primarily with management issues. 5 Overall, about 48
percent of the actions identified have been completed, meaning that a
onetime action is finished or that a continuing action (such as instituting
a revised planning process) is now part of routine operations. 6 In addition
to those specific actions, DOE has made changes to the organizational
structure of the Office of Defense Programs.
Until the advent of the Stockpile Stewardship Program in 1992, the Office of
Military Application and Stockpile Management within the Office of Defense
Programs oversaw all of the nuclear weapons programs. Those activities were
coordinated at the field level by the Albuquerque Operations Office. With
the establishment of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, the oversight of the
stockpile management and maintenance portion of the work continued to be
overseen by the Office of Military Application and Stockpile Operations at
DOE's headquarters. However, the science portion of the work, done primarily
at the nuclear weapons laboratories, was allocated to two other programmatic
offices at headquarters- the Office of Strategic Computing and Simulation
and the Office of Research and Development. In August 1999, management in
the Office of Defense Programs consolidated the two programmatic offices
that oversaw the science portion of the Stockpile Stewardship Program to
create the Office of Research, Development, and Simulation. Thus, the Office
of Defense Programs is currently organized in two programmatic offices-
Research, Development, and Simulation (DP- 10) and Military Application and
Stockpile Operations (DP- 20). (Table 7 shows how the Office of Defense
Programs has divided responsibility for its programs among the
5 We did not analyze DOE's responses to the November 1994 JASON study
because its recommendations dealt primarily with technical research issues.
We also did not analyze DOE's responses to the June 1999 report by the
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board because its recommendations
dealt primarily with security and counterintelligence issues.
6 About 9 percent of the proposed actions have been deferred owing to the
unavailability of funding or have been dropped because the Office of Defense
Programs did not concur that the cited changes need to be made. The
remaining 43 percent of proposed actions had not been completed as of July
2000.
headquarters and field offices.) Finally, in response to the October 1999
passage of legislation establishing the semiautonomous National Nuclear
Security Administration, the Secretary issued an implementation plan for the
new agency in January 2000.
Table 7: Major Responsibilities of Office of Defense Programs' Headquarters
and Field Offices Reporting to the Office of Defense Programs
Office Location Responsibilities
Research, Development, and Simulation (DP10) Headquarters Programmatic
oversight of the weapons labs and Nevada Test
Site Lead on eight campaigns Joint lead with DP- 20 on three campaigns
Oversight of experimental programs Oversight of advanced simulation
development Maintenance and development of infrastructure at weapons labs
and Nevada Test Site Military Application and Stockpile Operations
Headquarters Programmatic oversight of the weapons production complex (DP-
20) Lead on seven readiness campaigns
Joint lead with DP- 10 on three campaigns Oversight of the production
complex Oversight of the directed stockpile work at production facilities
located at weapons labs Maintenance and development of infrastructure at
production
plants and production facilities at weapons labs Albuquerque Operations
Office Field Execution of directed stockpile work at production plant sites
Contract oversight for Los Alamos and Sandia Contract oversight for Pantex
Plant and Kansas City Plant
Nevada Operations Office Field Execution of test readiness and subcritical
experiment program at Nevada Test Site Contract oversight of Nevada Test
Site
Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
Since DOE was established in 1977, virtually every Secretary has made
management reforms and reorganizations at the departmental level. In April
1999, the Secretary of Energy reorganized the Department's programmatic and
field offices . This reorganization changed the reporting relationships
between the field offices and headquarters program offices. Previously, the
field offices had reported to the Secretary through the Office of Field
Management. 7 As a result of the changes ordered by the Secretary, the
Albuquerque and Nevada Operations Offices have begun reporting directly to
the Office of Defense Programs. Most recently, the Deputy Secretary
announced yet another restructuring, effective October 1, 2000.
Under the April 1999 reorganization, the Office of Defense Programs'
responsibilities for the various sites in the weapons complex varied,
depending on whether the sites reported directly to the Office of Defense
Programs or to another program office within DOE. For two field offices- the
Albuquerque and Nevada Operations Offices- the Office of Defense Programs
served as the Lead Program Secretarial Office. A Lead Program Secretarial
Office is responsible for institutional health and long- term planning,
landlord activities, 8 and overall site integration and operations. Lead
Program Secretarial Offices also have line accountability for environment,
safety, and health; for safeguards and security; and for the implementation
of departmental policy. However, as noted in chapter 1, substantial
stockpile stewardship work is performed at three other sites- the Y- 12
Plant in Oak Ridge (Tenn.), Savannah River Tritium Operations (S. C.), and
Lawrence Livermore (Calif.)- that did not report to the Office of Defense
Programs under this reorganization. For those sites, the Office of Defense
Programs served as Cognizant Secretarial Office and was considered a
&ldquo;customer&rdquo; of the field office where its work was being
performed.
Finally, in October 1999, the Congress passed legislation establishing the
National Nuclear Security Administration as a semiautonomous agency within
DOE with responsibility for the nation's nuclear weapons, nonproliferation,
and naval reactors programs. As of March 1, 2000,
7 Under the April 1999 Department- wide reorganization, the Office of Field
Management was renamed the Office of Field Integration, and a Field
Management Council was established to serve as a coordination point and
conflict resolution vehicle for inter- program relations.
8 &ldquo;Landlord activities&rdquo; refers to providing the physical and
corporate infrastructure for site operations, including facilities
maintenance and repair, roads, and utilities.
headquarters and field personnel of the Office of Defense Programs became
employees of the new agency. (See fig. 5.) In the summer of 2000, the
Administrator and Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs were selected
and confirmed, providing a new leadership team for the National Nuclear
Security Administration.
Figure 5: Organization of the National Nuclear Security Administration and
the Office of Defense Programs, as of October 1, 2000
Secretary of Energy
Under Secretary and Administrator
for the National Nuclear Security
Administration Deputy Administrator
Deputy Administrator Deputy Administrator for
for Defense for Defense Programs
Nuclear Nonproliferation Naval Reactors Assistant Deputy
Albuquerque Operations Office Administrator,
Military Application and Stockpile Operations
Nevada Operations Office Assistant Deputy
Administrator, Oakland Operations Office
Research, Development, and Simulation
Oak Ridge National Nuclear Security
Assistant Deputy Administration Area Office
Administrator, Program Support
Savannah River National Nuclear Security Administration Area Office
Source: Compiled by GAO from DOE's and the National Nuclear Security
Administration's data.
DOE's Attempts to Organizational structure problems, including confusing and
overlapping
Reorganize Have Not roles and responsibilities and a lack of clear
accountability, continue to
plague the Office of Defense Programs. In addition, instability in the
Addressed All of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program's leadership has led to a lack of consistent
Organizational and
management direction. Standards we have developed require federal agencies
to establish and maintain an effective system of internal controls
Leadership Issues
over their operations. 9 Such a system is the first line of defense in
safeguarding assets and preventing and detecting errors. Under our
standards, managers should, among other things, ensure that their staff have
the required skills to meet organizational objectives, that the
organizational structure clearly defines key areas of authority and
responsibility, that progress be effectively measured, and that operations
be effectively monitored.
Problems Remain in the In spite of repeated attempts to improve the
organizational structure of the
Organizational Structure at Office of Defense Programs, problems remain at
three levels- within the
Three Levels Stockpile Stewardship Program's headquarters, between
headquarters and
the field offices, and between contractor- operated sites and their federal
overseers. These problems result in overlapping roles and responsibilities
for the federal workforce overseeing the Stockpile Stewardship Program and
confusion and duplication of effort for the contractors implementing the
program at sites in the nuclear weapons complex.
The Structure of the Office of In 1998, a Program Integration Task Force
consisting of representatives
Defense Programs Remains from throughout the downsized weapons complex
identified fragmentation
Fragmented at the Headquarters in the Office of Defense Programs
headquarters as &ldquo;a structural obstacle&rdquo;
Level to the coherent planning, prioritization, and execution of the
Stockpile
Stewardship Program. They identified instances in which the research and
development, simulation, and production portions of the program- managed by
three separate headquarters' offices- were not synchronized to support
planned stockpile refurbishments. As part of the August 1999 reorganization
of the Office of Defense Programs, the two science offices- the Office of
Strategic Computing and Simulation and the Office of Research and
Development- were consolidated to create the Office of Research,
Development, and Simulation, and definitions of the headquarters offices'
roles and responsibilities were issued. However, the
9 Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government( GAO/ AIMD- 00-
21.3.1, Nov. 1999).
definition of &ldquo;missions&rdquo; and &ldquo;functions&rdquo; for the new
Office of Research, Development, and Simulation did not specifically mention
integration with the production program, even though the coordination of
effort and allocation of resources between the two are critical to the
Stockpile Stewardship Program's success.
While this action reduced fragmentation in the science offices, it left the
split between the science program and the production program in place. This
bifurcated structure has resulted in widespread dissatisfaction with the way
the program is being managed. Officials at DOE's headquarters, field
offices, labs, and production plants repeatedly cited to us numerous ways
that the split between the science and production portions of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program at the headquarters level negatively affects
coordination throughout the complex. For example, the Office of Research,
Development, and Simulation and the Office of Military Application and
Stockpile Operations share responsibility for several campaigns, including
the Advanced Design and Production Technologies campaign. Officials at both
the labs and production plants told us that each headquarters organization
has provided different amounts of funding and imposed different reporting
requirements on the contractors doing the work under this campaign. This has
resulted in difficulties in getting the work done, as well as duplication of
effort, as the contractors attempt to satisfy the requirements of the two
groups.
Organizational Issues Between One of the key problems noted in 1997 in the
120- Day Study was the
Headquarters and the Field existence of &ldquo;two headquarters&rdquo;- one
in the Office of Defense Programs'
Remain Unresolved headquarters and one in the Albuquerque Operations Office.
The study
noted that, with the end of the design and production of new weapons, there
had been a natural tendency for &ldquo;mission creep,&rdquo; whereby
Albuquerque attempted to assume policy and planning responsibilities
typically performed by a headquarters function and the Office of Defense
Programs' headquarters staff became more heavily involved in the Stockpile
Stewardship Program's execution- an Albuquerque responsibility.
Three years later, this situation still persists. For example, officials in
the Albuquerque Operations Office believe that headquarters is still trying
to give specific program direction to the contractors, a function that is
properly the responsibility of the contracting officer located in the
Albuquerque Operations Office. For example, they noted that headquarters
staff gave direction to the Kansas City Plant about how many specific
weapons components to produce. They noted that specific production
direction has always been contained in documents produced by the Albuquerque
Operations Office. Conversely, officials at the Nevada Operations Office
have similar concerns, and the Operating Office Manager noted that many
headquarters and field staff are not &ldquo;staying in their boxes&rdquo;
organizationally. Finally, the Principal Deputy for Operations told us that
there have been problems, since headquarters and field staff are &ldquo;not
playing well together&rdquo; because roles and responsibilities are not
clearly defined.
Underlying this problem is the fact that the document- a memorandum- that
defines the roles and responsibilities of the Office of Defense Programs and
the Albuquerque Operations Office was last issued in May 1968, clearly
predating the creation of the Stockpile Stewardship Program. In this memo,
the then Division of Military Application in headquarters was responsible
for the &ldquo;overall management of the weapons development and production
program,&rdquo; while the Albuquerque Operations Office managed the
production complex, including &ldquo;determining production responsibilities
and schedules.&rdquo;
DOE officials told us that there have been several attempts during the last
several years to resolve and clarify the organizational relationships
between the Office of Defense Programs' headquarters and its field
structure; however, none of them have been successful. Elaborating on
comments made in the 120- Day Study, officials told us that this problem has
been allowed to exist because the former Assistant Secretary for Defense
Programs was simply not interested in management and organizational issues.
Officials at levels as high as the Field Office Manager level told us that
the former Assistant Secretary relied on an informal network of trusted
associates to run the nuclear weapons program and placed little stock in
formal organizational structure.
Most recently, the Principal Deputy for Operations has begun yet another
effort to resolve the organizational problems within the Office of Defense
Programs. While waiting for the National Nuclear Security Administration's
new Administrator and Deputy Administrator to be selected and confirmed, he
implemented several small efforts, such as hiring new technical staff. He
expects a renewed effort now that a new Administrator and Deputy
Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration have been
installed. Although the scope of the realignment effort is still being
defined, he believes that a fundamental principle that needs to underpin
this effort is that the Office of Defense Programs needs to clearly assign
responsibility for each of its various programs. He also felt that it
was important to move federal program oversight as close to the contractors
as possible and that the Office needed to move to a climate where everyone
considered themselves part of the Office of Defense Programs- not
headquarters staff or field staff. Officials in the Albuquerque and Nevada
Operations Offices told us that they support the Principal Deputy's efforts
and agree with the principles embodied in the realignment effort.
Both the 120- Day Study and the Chiles Commission report contain important
principles that can guide any eventual reorganization. In particular, the
120- Day Study also advocated moving the people doing the program work of
the Office of Defense Programs as close to the field as possible. The study
supported a smaller headquarters staff focused on toplevel management tasks,
such as strategic management and dealing with the Stockpile Stewardship
Program's external customers- the Department of Defense and the Congress.
The Chiles Commission endorsed the recommendations of the 120- Day Study,
noting that the Office of Defense Programs needed to be structured to
eliminate overlapping responsibilities between headquarters and the
Albuquerque Operations Office. Like the 120- Day Study, the Chiles
Commission felt that headquarters staff should focus on top management
tasks, while the field staff should be responsible for operational tasks,
such as contract management, facility operations, and oversight.
Organizational Issues Between A key finding of the Chiles Commission was
that direct reporting chains
the Office of Defense Programs, should be established for operations offices
administering nuclear
DOE's Field Offices, and DOE weapons contracts. The study stated that such a
structure would provide
Contractors Also Remain the Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs with
oversight authority for
Unresolved all facilities supporting the nuclear weapons program, as well as
for the
execution of the program. 10 The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board found that &ldquo;( c) onvoluted, confusing, and often contradictory
reporting channels make the relationship between DOE headquarters and the
labs, in particular, tense, internecine, and chaotic.&rdquo;
10 This position is now the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs in the
National Nuclear Security Administration.
In April 1999, the Secretary of Energy reorganized DOE to bring all of DOE's
field offices, like the Albuquerque Operations Office, under a specific
headquarters program office. However, under that departmental structure, not
all of the field sites that performed work for the nuclear weapons complex
reported directly to the Office of Defense Programs. Specifically, while the
Albuquerque and Nevada Operations Offices (and their contractors) reported
directly to the Office of Defense Programs, contractors operating the
Savannah River Tritium Operations, the Y- 12 Plant at Oak Ridge, and the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were overseen by operations offices
that reported to either the Office of Environmental Management or the Office
of Science. 11 While the Deputy Secretary of Energy directed in August 1999
that memorandums of agreement be implemented promptly to further define
relationships between multiple program offices sharing a single site, the
Office of Defense Programs had finalized only two of the three agreements
needed as of August 2000.
11 The Albuquerque Operations Office oversees the Office of Defense
Programs' contractors at the Kansas City Plant, the Pantex Plant, the Los
Alamos National Laboratory, and the Sandia National Laboratories.
Specifically, for the Oakland Operations Office, the memorandum of agreement
between the Office of Defense Programs, the Office of Science, and the
Oakland Operations Office defined how the two headquarters program offices
would interact with the operations office to oversee operations at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Both the Office of Defense Programs
and the Office of Science fund the Oakland Operations Office. The Office of
Defense Programs was assigned landlord responsibilities for Lawrence
Livermore, including safety and security functions, although the landlord
function is usually filled by the Lead Program Secretarial Office (at that
time, the Office of Science). Furthermore, as &ldquo;cognizant secretarial
office,&rdquo; the Office of Defense Programs was accountable only for the
infrastructure and construction that support Defense Programs work. However,
the Office of Science Programs was responsible for overseeing the programs,
facilities, construction, and operations at the lab that served its
programs. Finally, the Oakland Operations Office, which reports to the
Office of Science, managed the contract with the University of California
for operating the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. While the overall
budget for the Office of Defense Programs has decreased about 31 percent
over the last decade, the budget for Defense Programs' work at Lawrence
Livermore has risen by about 75 percent to about $746 million for fiscal
year 2000 (more than half of the total budget for the lab). 12 Yet,
performance expectations for Lawrence Livermore were set by the Oakland
Operations Office- not by the Office of Defense Programs. Thus, the April
1999 reorganization perpetuated a structure that made the integration and
coordination of the Stockpile Stewardship Program very difficult and
diffused accountability for the overall performance and management of a key
Office of Defense Programs site.
As we noted in our recent report on the National Ignition Facility, one of
the causes of the significant cost and schedule overruns that this key
Stockpile Stewardship Program facility experienced was the unclear chain of
command between DOE's headquarters and the Oakland Operations Office. 13
While the Office of Defense Programs funded the National Ignition Facility
and assigned a project director at headquarters, the day- to- day
supervision of the facility was assigned to a project manager in the Oakland
12 This analysis is based on April 2000 budget data provided by the Office
of Defense Programs' Office of Program Analysis and Financial Management. 13
See National Ignition Facility: Management and Oversight Failures Caused
Major Cost Overruns and Schedule Delays( GAO/ RCED- 00- 141, Aug. 8, 2000).
Operations Office who reported to the Office of Science- not to the project
director in the Office of Defense Programs. Although a 1997 memorandum of
understanding on the National Ignition Facility defined the field project
manager's responsibilities, it left unchanged the misdirected reporting to
the Office of Science rather than to the Office of Defense Programs, which
was responsible for the project. Laboratory officials told us they
considered DOE's chain of command confusing and really did not know to whom
they reported on a day- to- day basis. Since our report was finalized,
however, the Office of Defense Programs has begun making improvements
designed to strengthen the management and oversight of the National Ignition
Facility. For example, the Department has created a new headquarters
National Ignition Facility Project Office whose manager is dedicated to the
project. These actions are encouraging, but since implementation has only
just begun in many areas, an assessment of their ultimate value is
premature.
In October 1999, the Congress passed legislation that established the
National Nuclear Security Administration. 14 One reason for the agency's
creation was to correct the confused lines of authority and responsibility
within DOE's nuclear weapons program. However, the plan that DOE prepared to
implement the agency laid out an organizational structure that was virtually
the same as it was before the new agency was established. The January 2000
implementation plan simply moved the Office of Defense Programs and the
field offices that are associated with it to the National Nuclear Security
Administration. As a result, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the
Sandia National Laboratories reported through the Albuquerque Operations
Office to the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, but activities at
the Savannah River Tritium Operations, Oak Ridge Y- 12 Plant, and Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory continued to report through operations offices
that were not part of the agency's field structure.
Effective October 2000, the Deputy Secretary of Energy took further action
to reorganize reporting relationships between DOE's headquarters and
operations offices. This action complies with congressional direction to
eliminate &ldquo;dual- hatting,&rdquo; that is, staff serving in both DOE
and National Nuclear Security Administration positions simultaneously. Under
this reorganization, the Oakland Operations Office, which oversees the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will report to the National
14 National Nuclear Security Administration Act (P. L. 106- 65, Title XXXII,
Oct. 5, 1999).
Nuclear Security Administration. In addition, a new Area Office reporting to
the Office of the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs will be
established in Oak Ridge to oversee the Y- 12 Plant. Similarly, a new Area
Office in Savannah River will oversee Tritium Operations and other National
Nuclear Security Administration operations at that site and report to the
National Nuclear Security Administration. However, DOE and National Nuclear
Security Administration officials recognize that full implementation of
these changes will take some time. For example, it has not yet been decided
whether the Savannah River Area Office will report directly to the National
Nuclear Security Administration Administrator or another senior National
Nuclear Security Administration official. In addition, memorandums of
agreement covering coordination between the National Nuclear Security
Administration and other DOE program offices that share the Oakland,
Savannah River, and Oak Ridge sites will need to be negotiated. Finally,
relationships between the new Area Offices at Oak Ridge and Savannah River
and the existing Operations Offices at those sites must be defined and
agreements implemented.
Leadership Issues Also The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
identified factors that
Remain Unresolved they believe lead to management and programmatic success.
The first of
these factors is strong leadership to set standards and expectations
regarding performance and accountability. For effective leadership, they
found that longevity is a key ingredient. DOE's 30- Day Review also found
that the program must take a long view that extends decades into the future
to be effective, which we believe reinforces the need for a long- term focus
and consistent leadership. However, analysis of the senior management
positions in the Office of Defense Programs indicates a pattern of
instability. 15 The proportion of offices vacant or with acting managers has
increased from 17 percent in 1996 to almost 65 percent in 2000. As of
January 2000, the Office of Defense Programs had 57 offices, including those
headed by directors. Thirty- nine of those offices were headed by officials
in an acting capacity, while 6 officials headed multiple offices. Out of 28
offices in the Office of Defense Programs headed by a senior manager, 18
were staffed on an acting basis.
15 We defined senior management positions as those ranging from the
Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs through the directors of the
program offices, such as DP- 13- the Office of Research, Development, and
Testing Facilities.
The lack of consistent management direction was cited by managers at many of
the field sites in the nuclear weapons complex, as well as by headquarters
officials. As the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board noted,
lack of consistent leadership leads to initiatives that, once started, are
often changed or dropped when leadership changes. For example, the Secretary
proposed establishing the Stockpile Management Integration Council in his
June 1997 report to the Congress on actions taken to respond to the 120- Day
Study. The Council was to serve as a conflict resolution vehicle for
coordination between the various components of the Office of Defense
Programs at the field and headquarters levels. According to DOE officials,
that council was never fully implemented because one Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Military Application and Stockpile Operations retired and the
new Deputy Assistant Secretary, seeking a different forum, developed a
quarterly program review. This program review, in which the field sites
participate, could accomplish the same objectives as the Council. However,
some officials told us that these quarterly reviews focus on short- term
problems and do not effectively address the longer term needs that are most
pressing for their sites.
In a similar vein, the Office of Defense Programs has been aware of
longstanding problems caused by the failure to maintain facilities and has
been studying infrastructure issues for at least 5 years. However, some
sites reported that adequate funding for basic maintenance needs has not
been provided for as much as a decade. As a result, the complex now has
significant vulnerabilities in its ability to produce the components and
materials needed to maintain the weapons in the enduring stockpile. In
response, the Office of Defense Programs sought limited supplemental funding
for emergency maintenance needs for fiscal year 2000 and- once again- began
a new planning effort in May 2000.
Finally, as noted earlier, the Office of Defense Programs has been
implementing dozens of specific actions intended to address an array of
organizational issues, including responses to recommendations to improve the
program's management and leadership in such areas as organization, planning
and integration, infrastructure and workforce management, and external
relations. We assessed what impact these actions, when fully implemented,
were likely to have on the Stockpile Stewardship Program's effectiveness.
Overall, we believe that about 47 percent of the proposed actions should
improve the program's effectiveness. However, fully 45 percent of the
actions proposed do not completely address the problem. 16 In some cases,
key management decisions on organization and leadership issues, such as
setting priorities for the program, have been deferred for years.
The root cause of the instability in the Office of Defense Programs'
leadership is not clear. As noted earlier, the previous Assistant Secretary
was generally believed not to have had significant interest in management
issues. In addition, the Principal Deputy for Operations believes that the
turnover among the Stockpile Stewardship Program's managers was due to the
program's organizational problems, which created significant frustration
among managers as they jockeyed for turf and left them uncertain about what
actions they were authorized to take.
Conclusions The Stockpile Stewardship Program cannot be effective without an
effective organizational structure to carry it out. Numerous analyses, as
well as our work, have shown how problems with the organization of the
relationships between the Office of Defense Programs, its field offices, and
its contractors have led to inefficiencies and conflict within the Stockpile
Stewardship Program. However, these analyses have provided the principles
that should guide the reorganization of the program, which include clearly
defining the roles and responsibilities of headquarters and field officials,
moving program management officials as close to the action as possible, and
bringing all of the field structure and contractors that carry out the
program under one organization. The National Nuclear Security
Administration's implementation gives DOE a chance to fundamentally
restructure the convoluted organization of the Office of Defense Programs,
16 Some actions (about 9 percent) were either deferred or limited because of
resource constraints, such as the extent of laboratory security upgrades
that can be funded. We did not include those actions in this category.
rationalize oversight and reporting relationships, and institute new
processes where needed. However, the current realignment of the headquarters
and field structure will not succeed without the full support of the new
leadership of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Likewise, we
believe that the resolution of these issues is necessary for the Stockpile
Stewardship Program to be successful.
While all organizations have some turnover in management positions, we
believe that the high level of turnover indicated by the predominance of
acting managers in the Office of Defense Programs is not healthy and may be
contributing to the substantial number of useful management improvements
that have been identified but not fully implemented. The implementation of
the new National Nuclear Security Administration provides opportunity, as
well, for the Office of Defense Programs to identify the reasons for
management turnover and address them.
Recommendations for To improve the Stockpile Stewardship Program's
management, we
Executive Action recommend that the Administrator of the National Nuclear
Security
Administration direct the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs to take
the following steps:
Reorganize the program so that roles and responsibilities between
headquarters program offices and between headquarters and field staff are
clearly defined and so that program management officials are located as
close as possible to the programs they manage. Ensure that the October 2000
field structure's reorganization is
implemented in a way that ensures clear lines of authority between the
Office of Defense Programs and its contractors and that clearly defines and
establishes effective relationships between the National Nuclear Security
Administration and the DOE program offices that share some of its sites.
Identify the reasons for the high level of management turnover in the
program and take prompt and decisive action to provide greater management
consistency and stability for the program.
Agency Comments and The National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of
Defense Programs
Our Evaluation agreed that there is a need to resolve organizational
ambiguities and to
improve the understanding of roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities
between headquarters and field elements. The Office also highlighted the
actions it has taken or is planning to take that will address our
recommendations. These actions include implementing the October 2000 DOE
reorganization; appointing a new Acting Chief Operating Officer, whose
function is to provide operational oversight, guidance, and coordination for
the nuclear weapons complex; and making permanent personnel assignments as
quickly as possible to improve organizational stability. We agree that these
actions have the potential to improve management of the Stockpile
Stewardship Program. While we have made changes to the report to recognize
these initiatives, we believe that it is too soon to determine how
effectively they will be implemented and, hence, whether they will lead to
substantial improvements. However, we are encouraged by the actions the new
leadership of the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Office of
Defense Programs have taken to improve the organization and leadership of
the Office of Defense Programs, as delineated in their comments on a draft
of this report. (See app. III.)
With regard to the issue of the high level of management turnover identified
in this report, the National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of
Defense Programs agreed that greater organizational stability is desirable
but did not consider the level of turnover abnormally high, given the
technical nature of the work and the opportunities available to highly
educated and skilled personnel. The Office pointed out that the former
Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs served for over 6 years and that
his Principal Deputy, who served as Acting Assistant Secretary until the
Deputy Administrator took office, has been with the Stockpile Stewardship
Program since 1996. However, we believe that the increasing level of
turnover and the widespread dissatisfaction with the lack of consistent
management direction among federal and contractor officials we interviewed
are indicative of serious problems. While we are pleased with the new Deputy
Administrator's efforts to make permanent personnel appointments, we
continue to believe that the Office of Defense Programs should make
additional efforts to identify the underlying causes of the management
turnover and take appropriate steps to correct those underlying problems.
Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs to Conduct
Chapt er 5
Successful Stockpile Life Extensions The Office of Defense Programs is about
to embark on a series of life extensions for the weapons in the nation's
nuclear stockpile. To date, only one stockpile life extension has been
attempted- the extension of the W87 nuclear warhead. This life extension
experienced significant design and production problems that raised its costs
by over $300 million and caused schedule delays of about 2 years. Numerous
factors contributed to this outcome. The original design to enhance the
structural integrity and extend the stockpile life of the W87 did not work
as planned. In addition, all of the major production facilities in the
nuclear weapons complex experienced significant problems as they attempted
to restart an atrophied complex. At the heart of many of the problems was an
inadequate Office of Defense Programs management process and unclear
leadership, which prevented the Office from adequately anticipating and
mitigating the problems that arose. Virtually all of the participants in the
W87 life extension recognize that there are important lessons to be learned
from their experiences, and some management improvements have been started.
However, more action is needed before the Office of Defense Programs begins
extending the life of two additional warheads- the W76 and W80- that form a
significant portion of the stockpile.
The Office of Defense The current U. S. nuclear weapons strategy is to
maintain the existing
Programs Has Begun a stockpile of weapons indefinitely without underground
nuclear testing.
However, nuclear warheads, even while in storage, can change over time.
Major Program to
For example, radioactive materials may cause decay in metals and Extend the
Life of
corrosion in joints. In addition, plastics and other organic materials
change Nuclear Weapons in
with age and exposure to heat and radiation. Consequently, all warheads in
the stockpile are expected to require periodic refurbishment and
the Stockpile remanufacturing in order to extend their life. While the
Office of Defense
Programs is about to embark on a series of life extensions for the weapons
in the nation's nuclear stockpile, to date, only one stockpile life
extension has been attempted- the extension of the W87 nuclear warhead.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore) designed the W87 nuclear
warhead during the1980s. Currently deployed by the Air Force on the
Peacekeeper missile, the W87 was produced from 1986 through 1989 and first
deployed in December 1986. During the early 1990s, DOE recognized the need
to enhance the structural integrity and extend the stockpile life of the
W87. Since accomplishing this required disassembly and refurbishment, DOE,
in agreement with the Department of Defense, decided to conduct a life
extension program (LEP) to evaluate the
expected lifetime of the components in the W87 and replace the parts needed
to extend the life of the W87 for an additional 30 years.
As summarized in table 8, carrying out the W87 LEP has involved the effort
of virtually all of the labs and production facilities within the nuclear
weapons complex.
Table 8: Nuclear Weapons Complex Facilities That Participated in the W87 LEP
Participant Role
Lawrence Livermore National Develop and certify design changes to the
nuclear Laboratory (Livermore) portion of the W87.
Los Alamos National Laboratory Peer review the design changes that Livermore
(Los Alamos) proposed. Fabricate detonator parts.
Sandia National Laboratory Develop and certify changes to the nonnuclear
portion (Sandia) of the W87.
Kansas City Plant Refurbish and fabricate new detonator/ arming and safing
devices and other nonnuclear parts.
Y- 12 Plant Disassemble and rebuild components of the nuclear portion of the
W87.
Pantex Plant Disassemble the W87, ship parts to Kansas City and Y12 for
refurbishment or replacement, and reassemble the W87 using new or
refurbished parts.
Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
The Office of Defense Programs is about to begin several additional
stockpile life extension programs for warheads that represent a significant
portion of the nation's nuclear arsenal. Specifically, the Office of Defense
Programs is in the process of studying how to extend the life of the W76
nuclear warhead- which is carried by the Navy on Trident nuclear submarines-
and the W80 nuclear warhead- which is used by both the Air Force and Navy on
cruise missiles. The first production unit dates for these weapons are
scheduled for later this decade. According to officials in the Office of
Defense Programs, the costs for these life extensions promise to be
significantly higher than those associated with the W87 LEP.
The Only Life The W87 LEP experienced both design and production problems as
the
Extension Conducted result of an inadequate management structure and unclear
leadership.
Consequently, the W87 LEP experienced both schedule delays and cost to Date
Experienced
overruns. With respect to schedule slippage, the W87 LEP was officially
Significant Design and
begun in September 1994. The first production unit of the refurbished W87
Production Problems
was originally scheduled for the first quarter of fiscal year 1997; however,
as a result of the problems discussed below, this date slipped to February
Due to Management 1999. The first production unit was achieved in February
1999. The W87
Weaknesses LEP is currently scheduled for completion in fiscal year 2004.
Regarding
costs, the estimated cost of the W87 LEP has risen from an original estimate
of about $440 million to a current estimate of about $747 million- an
increase of almost 70 percent. (Table 9 contains details on the W87 LEP cost
estimate.)
Table 9: W87 LEP Cost Estimate Comparison
Dollars in millions
Current cost Original cost Cost element estimate estimate Percent increase
Design $92 $46 101.7 Production 655 394 66. 0
Total $747 $440 69. 7
Source: GAO's analysis of DOE's data.
Design Issues Added to Livermore developed an initial design to enhance the
W87's structural
Program Costs integrity and extend its stockpile life and subjected the
design to a series of
ground and flight tests. After a September 1996 flight test, Livermore
decided that a major redesign was required. While the redesign effort did
not ultimately affect the slippage of the first production unit date from
1997 to 1999, officials at Livermore and the Office of Defense Programs told
us that the redesign effort placed considerable pressure on the labs and
production plants and contributed to the increase in costs, particularly
with respect to design. According to a program official in the Office of
Defense Programs' Office of Stockpile Systems, Livermore's effort to
redesign the W87 approximately doubled the design cost of the W87 LEP.
Livermore's initial design was subjected to a peer review by Los Alamos.
During a peer review, one nuclear design laboratory reviews the work of
the other design laboratory in order to provide an independent technical
assessment of the adequacy of the originating laboratory's work. Peer review
has become increasingly important, since underground nuclear tests are no
longer available to verify design issues. Peer reviews are required for the
development of a new nuclear weapon and were used during the W87 LEP as
well.
Production Problems Were The need to develop a revised design had a major
effect on the production
Experienced Throughout complex and the cost of production. To meet
Livermore's redesign
the Complex requirements, the plants had to develop new materials and new
production
techniques, which added time to the production process. The Office of
Defense Programs' cost data are not of sufficient quality to precisely
determine to what extent the redesign increased production plant costs;
however, program officials acknowledge that it had a major effect. Just as
importantly, all of the major production facilities in the nuclear weapons
complex- Kansas City Plant, Y- 12, and Pantex- have experienced significant
production problems during the W87 LEP. These problems, which resulted from
such factors as restarting an atrophied production complex and addressing
safety and technician training issues, led directly to slippage in the W87
schedule and contributed to the program's increased costs.
Restarting Production Was The Kansas City Plant is responsible for the
production of nonnuclear
Difficult components for nuclear weapons, such as radars, timing devices,
gas
reservoirs, plastic products, and products requiring special technology
capabilities. For the W87, Kansas City's major effort was refurbishing and
manufacturing detonators. Originally, the W87's detonators were manufactured
at the Office of Defense Programs' Mound Plant in Ohio. When Mound was
closed in 1990 as part of the consolidation of the nuclear weapons complex,
production for the detonators used in the W87 was transferred to the Kansas
City Plant and Los Alamos. As part of the W87 LEP, the Office of Defense
Programs intended to reuse detonators taken from the W87s that Pantex was
disassembling and to manufacture new detonators. Both processes experienced
significant restart problems.
With respect to the reuse of existing detonators, Albuquerque Operations
Office and Livermore officials assumed that the reacceptance rate of the
detonators would be about 80 to 90 percent. However, Livermore developed
very strict reacceptance criteria in order to reduce the risk of introducing
new problems during the W87 LEP. According to Albuquerque Operations Office
and Kansas City Plant officials, this resulted in an actual
reacceptance rate of only about 45 percent, placing considerable pressure on
Kansas City to begin new detonator production.
The production of new detonators was fraught with numerous problems,
including the following:
The original production process had not been adequately documented. When
Mound was closed, the people who knew how to produce detonators were not
retained, resulting in a loss of process knowledge. Leftover production
material from Mound that Kansas City had planned
to reuse had not been adequately stored, rendering it useless. The detonator
parts that Mound produced were actually built to closer
tolerances than the tolerances shown on the drawings; therefore, when Kansas
City built the parts to the tolerances in the drawings, they would not work.
These problems did not affect the February 1999 first production unit date;
however, they did cause internal schedule slippage. Consequently, according
to Kansas City Plant officials, Kansas City had to develop an aggressive and
expensive recovery schedule. They estimated that Kansas City's production
costs increased from about $4.5 million to $32.4 million.
Safety and Training Issues The Y- 12 Plant's principal mission involves
manufacturing (including
Contributed to Production refurbishment), disassembly, and surveillance of
the secondary stage of
Delays nuclear weapons. 1 In September 1994, Y- 12 went into a stand- down
because
of extensive concerns about safety practices at the plant. The contractor
had to rework safety procedures and improve technician training on a
facility- by- facility basis within the plant, gradually bringing Y- 12 back
up one function at a time. According to program officials, the stand- down
at Y12 directly contributed to the Office of Defense Programs' decision to
slip the first production unit date from the first quarter of 1997 to
February 1999. While the facilities necessary to support the W87 LEP were
brought up first, the restart is still not complete. This could affect
future LEPs.
1 A nuclear weapon consists of two stages- a primary and a secondary. The
primary is the fission stage of a nuclear weapon. Detonated first, the
primary produces the extremely high temperatures and pressures required to
produce fusion in the weapon's secondary. The secondary, or thermonuclear
stage, of a nuclear weapon produces its energy through the fusion of
deuterium and tritium nuclei.
Technician training at the Pantex Plant, where the nation's nuclear weapons
are disassembled, repaired, and assembled, also affected production. In
order to work on any particular nuclear weapon, Pantex technicians must be
trained and certified. The technicians who were going to perform the W87 LEP
were working on other weapons programs when the LEP began. Similar to the
situation at Y- 12, some of this training had to do with ensuring that
technicians performed operations safely. Consequently, delays occurred while
these technicians completed their current workload and then were trained and
certified. According to Albuquerque Operations Office officials, while
Pantex met the first production unit date of February 1999, problems with
technician training caused them to miss the June and July 1999 shipments.
After Pantex fell behind, it went to overtime and double shifts to try to
catch up. However, Albuquerque Operations Office officials said that the
technicians were not proficient enough to work at the accelerated rate that
they were trying to achieve. As a result, the technicians damaged the W87's
detonators when they tried to install them on this accelerated schedule.
Albuquerque Operations Office officials were able to persuade headquarters
officials to stop trying to meet the accelerated schedule and to return to
the regular schedule. Once they returned to the regular schedule, the
problem stopped. Albuquerque Operations Office officials hope that when the
technicians gain more experience, they can make up the deliveries that
Pantex missed. This problem also affected detonator production at Kansas
City, since the Office of Defense Programs had not assumed that there would
be any damage at Pantex when it set up the original production schedule.
Finally, in addition to safety issues, Y- 12 experienced problems when
production actually began. For example, certain materials needed for the W87
were no longer being manufactured by outside vendors. This required Y- 12 to
develop production processes in- house or to reuse existing materials. As
with the Kansas City Plant, meeting these requirements added to the cost of
the effort.
Changing Requirements Caused Once a design lab has developed the
requirements for a redesigned
Conflict Between the Plants and weapon, the production plants must develop
and implement production
Livermore methods. The design lab, in turn, must certify that these methods
produce
the required part or component. Changing requirements dictated by the design
lab- Livermore- contributed to the problems experienced during the
production process. As noted earlier, part of these changing requirements
resulted from the need for a redesign. However, plant
officials repeatedly told us that Livermore added additional requirements as
they went through the production cycle. For example, Livermore required the
plants to capture much more data on the parts they were manufacturing than
they had in the past. While plant officials conceded that these data should
be useful in the future, they felt that these requirements had not been
adequately anticipated and budgeted for, putting extra pressure on them
during the production process.
Management Weaknesses A major contributing factor to the problems
experienced during the W87
Contributed to the W87's LEP was the Office of Defense Programs' lack of an
effective management
Problems process and leadership. Without an effective process and
leadership, the
potential impact of many of the problems encountered was neither anticipated
nor effectively mitigated.
While the Office of Defense Programs has historically used a very detailed
program management process to design and build new nuclear weapons, the W87
LEP was conducted without such a process, as shown in the following
examples:
The Office of Defense Programs did not develop an overall program plan to
manage the entire W87 LEP process. According to a program official, the W87
was begun with a one- line directive in the fiscal year 1995 Production and
Planning Directive to &ldquo;extend the life of the W87.&rdquo; This one-
line directive continued to be contained in subsequent Production and
Planning Directives and was the only official program guidance given until
fiscal year 1999, when detailed production guidance was given to the
production plants regarding monthly production and schedule. The Livermore
project manager did develop a briefing for the Office of Defense Programs on
how the lab intended to proceed with the design; however, the contents of
this briefing were never integrated into the Production and Planning
Directive in order to create an overarching plan. The Office of Defense
Programs did not develop an overall cost and
schedule baseline to guide the design process. Without a cost baseline, the
design process was funded out of Livermore's operating funds, providing
little oversight and control over program costs when they escalated. The
Office of Defense Programs did not develop an overall cost baseline
for the entire W87 LEP. As a result, we developed an overall estimate of the
W87 LEP for this review from the best available data.
The Office of Defense Programs did not implement any overall system of
change control for the W87 LEP. Consequently, as design and production
changes occurred, the Office was not able to effectively oversee the
process.
In addition to the lack of an effective management process, the W87 LEP
lacked consistent, coherent leadership, as shown below:
No one person within the Office of Defense Programs was expressly in charge
of the W87 LEP. The program official in headquarters responsible for the W87
LEP saw his role as one of being an &ldquo;integrator&rdquo; of the views of
the different individual program managers at the labs, plants, and
Albuquerque Operations Office. In contrast, the Albuquerque Operations
Office has clear authority over the production plants; however, its ability
to direct the labs is more limited. 2 Moreover, during the course of the W87
LEP, the responsibility for program management at the Albuquerque Operations
Office turned over four times. Leadership of the program appeared to, in the
words of one participant,
&ldquo;move around,&rdquo; depending on which phase the program was in. For
example, during the design phase, Livermore program managers led the effort,
while during the production phase, Albuquerque Operations Office officials
were in charge. During the transition between these phases, many
participants felt that who was in charge was not clear. The Director of the
Air Force's Office of Nuclear Weapons and Counter Proliferation- the
customer for the W87 LEP- told us that the Air Force was often cast in the
role of resolving disputes between the labs and the production plants.
In trying to explain why the Office of Defense Programs' management of the
program was so weak, the former Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Nuclear Weapons Stockpile provided the most comprehensive explanation. He
said that, when the Office of Defense Programs was in the regular business
of designing and producing weapons, each participant knew his/ her role and
how to manage the process. Once the Office of Defense Programs got out of
the business in the late 1980s, people simply forgot how. He stressed that
the more time that passes until the Office of Defense Programs begins full-
scale refurbishments, the worse the problem
2 As a result of the Deputy Secretary's September 26, 2000, memorandum on
field restructuring, the Y- 12 Plant and the Tritium Operations at the
Savannah River Site no longer report to the Albuquerque Operations Office.
(See ch. 4 for further discussion.)
of not having people with first- hand program management knowledge will
become.
Without a management process and consistent leadership, the Office of
Defense Programs was unable to effectively anticipate many of the problems
they faced and to effectively resolve areas of disagreement. For example,
despite the fact that the Mound production plant had been shut down and the
processes moved to Los Alamos and Kansas City, Office of Defense Programs
officials assumed that there would be no start- up problems. An Office of
Defense Programs official told us that, when they developed cost estimates,
they used the same contingency factors they had in the past and did not
allow for any start- up problems.
Improved Management As a direct result of its experience with the W87 LEP,
the Office of Defense
Processes Have Been Programs has developed a specific management process for
future life
extension programs called the &ldquo;6. X process.&rdquo; The 6. X process
uses the Developed for Future
management framework that the Office of Defense Programs employed for Life
Extensions, but
over 40 years to successfully design and build the nation's nuclear arsenal
More Needs to Be
and applies it to the refurbishment process. By doing so, the 6. X process
requires the use of a management process, such as the development of the
Done plans and cost and schedule estimates, that we found missing in the W87
LEP. However, the development of the 6. X process is not complete. While a
joint DOE /DOD version of the 6. X process has been approved, a more
detailed Office of Defense Programs version that defines such things as the
role of the participants and how and when peer review will be used during
the life extension process is still under review. More importantly, on the
basis of our review of draft documents and discussions with program
officials, the revised 6. X process does not solve the problem of a lack of
clear leadership in the Office of Defense Programs throughout the life
extension process. Rather, it continues the current practice of multiple
program managers at multiple locations.
We identified a relatively new Office of Defense Programs management
practice- known as the multisite performance- based incentive- which has
shown promise for more effectively integrating the actions of the nuclear
weapons complex. Specifically, for fiscal year 2000, part of the fee earned
by the Kansas City, Y- 12, and Pantex Plants is based on their meeting the
ultimate delivery schedule to the final user- the Air Force. This incentive
requires the three contractors to work closely together because, if one
contractor should cause the delivery schedule to be missed, none of the
contractors will earn the monthly available fee. During fiscal year 2000, we
found general agreement that the multisite incentive program had met its
expected benefit of improving cooperation and communication and meeting
production goals. Several participants suggested that this program should be
extended to include the labs when they serve as a production plant. For
example, as noted earlier, in the case of the W87, Los Alamos produces
detonator parts. In addition, it was suggested that linking the design labs
into such an incentive program could serve to align the interests of all of
the parties throughout the life extension process.
Finally, all of the participants involved in the W87 LEP agree that
significant &ldquo;lessons learned&rdquo; need to be applied to future life
extensions if the W87's problems with cost and schedule are to be avoided.
For example, in addition to the need for a more coherent management process,
many participants agreed that the weapons complex cannot assume in the
future that previously shut- down processes can be easily restarted.
However, we found that, to date, there has been no formal effort to
catalogue the lessons learned and directly communicate them to managers and
participants in the W76 and W80 LEPs. We did find some evidence of informal
communication within some organizations; however, while acknowledging its
importance, Office of Defense Programs officials said that the formal
development and transmission of lessons learned had not been a high
priority.
Conclusions While some of the problems encountered during the W87 LEP were
probably unavoidable, an effective management process and clear
leadership could have mitigated their impact. All of the participants agreed
that important lessons have been learned from the W87 LEP and that the
Office of Defense Programs has taken some actions, such as the development
of the 6.X process, to make improvements. However, because of the importance
of future life extensions to the nation's stockpile, we believe that more
needs to be done. Specifically, we believe that the Office of Defense
Programs needs to ensure that one overall manager is accountable for each
life extension program. This role is critical to ensuring that the many
participants in a life extension stay focused on cost and schedule as the
life extension moves through the process. In addition, we believe that the
Office of Defense Programs needs to actively pursue the use of multisite
incentive programs for future life extensions. In doing so, the Office of
Defense Programs should explore mechanisms for including the design labs in
these incentive programs to ensure that the incentives of all parties are
clearly aligned. Finally, we believe that that a W87 lessons learned
document, with recommendations for additional management
changes, if necessary, needs to be developed and formally communicated to
all participants in the current W76 and W80 life extensions.
Recommendations for To improve the management of the stockpile life
extension program, we
Executive Action recommend that the Administrator of the National Nuclear
Security
Administration direct the Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs to do
the following:
For each life extension, establish a manager who is responsible for and
accountable for the entire life extension program. Use the multisite
incentive approach in future life extensions to align, to
the maximum extent possible, the performance incentives of all of the
participants, including the design labs and the production plants. Develop
and transmit a W87 life extension program &ldquo;lessons learned&rdquo;
report with recommendations for additional program management changes, if
needed, to all participants in ongoing and future life extension programs.
Agency Comments and The National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of
Defense Programs
Our Evaluation concurred with our recommendations regarding improving the
management of future life extension activities and stated that it was
planning to take action on each recommendation. Specifically, the Office
stated that it was planning to (1) appoint a &ldquo;super&rdquo; program
manager for each life extension, (2) link the performance of all sites
contributing to the Stockpile Stewardship Program through new management and
operating contracts, and (3) require that a &ldquo;lessons learned&rdquo;
document be immediately produced for the W87. While we support the Office of
Defense Program's proposed actions, we are concerned about how it describes
the super program manager position. Specifically, in its comments on our
report, the Office states that this position will be responsible only for
&ldquo;coordinating&rdquo; all activities for each life extension program.
As we noted in our report, there are already managers who integrate, or
coordinate, activities in the program. We believe that each life extension
program needs a manager who does more than simply coordinate. In our view,
one person who is responsible and accountable for each life extension is
needed. Without such a position, the problems experienced on the W87 LEP,
such as a lack of focus on cost and schedule, could easily be repeated.
Appendi xes Explanation of How Modern Nuclear Weapons
Appendi xI
Work The following simplified explanation of how modern nuclear weapons work
is adapted from the Department of Energy's (DOE) Draft Programmatic
Environmental Impact Statement for Stockpile Stewardship and Managementand
the Congressional Budget Office report entitled Preserving the Nuclear
Weapons Stockpile Under a Comprehensive Test Ban. 1,2 Most modern nuclear
weapons consist of three sets of components- a primary, a secondary, and a
set of nonnuclear components- enclosed in a case. (See fig. 6.)
Figure 6: Simplified Drawing of a Modern Nuclear Weapon
Explosive Permissive action link
actuators coded control Nuclear explosive
package Gas transfer
system Radar
Parachute Contact
Neutron fuse
generators Safing components Arming and
Subcritical Supercritical
firing mass mass Battery
Aerodynamic structure
Chemical explosive
The diagram is a symbolic representation of the design elements of a nuclear
weapon. None of the symbols represent actual designs.
Before firing Implosion Source: Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact
Statement for Stockpile Stewardship and Management, DOE, p. S- 4.
1 Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Stockpile
Stewardship and Management, Department of Energy (Dec. 1996), p. S- 4. 2
Preserving the Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Under a Comprehensive Test Ban,
Congressional Budget Office (CBO Papers, May 1997), pp. 11- 15.
The primary stage of the weapon produces large amounts of energy, which is
used to ignite the secondary. Most primaries consist of a &ldquo;pit,&rdquo;
or central core surrounded by high explosive. Pits are typically made of an
isotope of plutonium. 3 An electrical charge triggers detonators, causing
the layer of high explosives to burn and detonate. As shown in the inset in
figure 6, this compresses the material in the pit, enough to form a critical
mass, that is, one that can sustain a nuclear fission chain reaction. 4
Usually, that reaction is enhanced, or &ldquo;boosted,&rdquo; by injecting a
mixture of tritium and deuterium gases into the pit by a gas transfer
system. Those gases are stored in reservoirs until the firing sequence is
initiated. The net result of the reactions occurring in the primary stage is
the production of large amounts of nuclear particles (neutrons) and energy
(X- rays and gamma rays) that are essential for igniting the secondary stage
of the weapon.
The secondary contains components that focus the X- rays from the primary-
stage explosion onto the fusion cylinder in the weapon, resulting in a
radiation- induced implosion that creates the conditions necessary for
thermonuclear fusion. 5 The fusion reaction is accompanied by the release of
great amounts of energy and fast neutrons and generally takes place only
under extreme heat and pressure.
This sequence of events is controlled by the nonnuclear components of the
weapon- mechanisms that control the arming and firing of the weapon. All of
the components shown in figure 6, except those in the nuclear explosive
package, are nonnuclear components. Components for &ldquo;use control&rdquo;
are included in the weapon to ensure that only authorized persons use the
weapon. For example, the permissive action link coded control, shown in the
schematic, precludes arming and/ or launching the weapon until the insertion
of a prescribed code or combination.
3 Isotopes of an element all have the same number of protons in their
nuclei, for example, a plutonium atom has 92 protons, but have different
numbers of neutrons. Isotopes usually have nearly identical chemical and
physical properties, but they may differ greatly in their nuclear
properties.
4 Fission occurs when the nucleus of an atom is split into two lighter parts
and is usually accompanied by the release of neutrons and large amounts of
energy. 5 Fusion occurs when light nuclei are joined, or fused, to form a
heavier nucleus.
Appendi xII
Scope and Methodology During the course of our work, we visited seven of the
eight facilities currently working for the Office of Defense Programs. These
included the Nevada Test Site, the Kansas City Plant (Mo.), the Pantex Plant
(Tex.), the Y- 12 Plant in Oak Ridge (Tenn.), the Los Alamos National
Laboratory (N. Mex.), the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Calif.),
and the Sandia National Laboratories (N. Mex. and Calif.). We also met with
DOE officials in the Albuquerque Operations Office in New Mexico and the
Nevada Operations Office in Nevada, as well as DOE and contractor officials
at each of the sites listed, to discuss all of the objectives of the job. We
did not visit the Tritium Operations site at Savannah River, South Carolina,
because we had recently completed intensive work with that office during our
review of DOE's plans to reinstitute the production of tritium, a gas used
in nuclear weapons. 1 We also met with officials in the Office of Defense
Programs' headquarters offices, including the Principal Deputy for
Operations, and numerous officials in the Office of Research, Development,
and Simulation and the Office of Military Application and Stockpile
Operations to discuss all of the objectives of the job.
Specifically, to determine if the Stockpile Stewardship Program has a
comprehensive planning process that effectively integrates its various
components, we obtained copies of DOE's Strategic Plan; DOE's annual
Stockpile Stewardship Plan; all of the available program and implementation
plans for the Campaigns, Directed Stockpile Work, and Readiness in Technical
Base and Facilities activities; and the interim Stockpile Life Extension
Program plan. We also obtained copies of the relevant site plans, such as
Institutional Plans and 10- Year Plans at the national laboratories and the
production plants. We assessed the Office of Defense Program's planning
efforts against our standards for internal control and assessed the interim
Stockpile Life Extension Program plan against the criteria given in the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000. 2 We also met with
officials in the Office of Defense Programs' headquarters planning offices
to review the status of the various plans and to discuss their efforts for
improving the integration of the plans. Finally, we discussed planning
issues with officials at each of the national laboratories, the Nevada Test
Site, and the production plants.
1 See Nuclear Weapons: Challenges Remain for Successful Implementation of
DOE's Tritium Supply Decision( GAO/ RCED- 00- 24, Jan. 28, 2000). 2
Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government( GAO/ AIMD- 00- 21,
Nov. 15, 1999).
To review the new budget structure proposed by the Office of Defense
Programs for fiscal year 2001 and assess if it would help improve the
Stockpile Stewardship Program's management, we met with officials in the
Office of Defense Programs' Office of Program Analysis and Financial
Management, including the director of the latter Office, other senior
officials in the former Office, and officials in DOE's Office of the Chief
Financial Officer, including the Deputy Controller. We also asked officials
at the field offices for details of how they were implementing the new
program activity structure and the potential effects of various activity
structures on their operational efficiency. Finally, we reviewed the Office
of Defense Programs' budget submission for fiscal year 2001 and supporting
documentation on the development of the new program activity structure.
To assess if the Office of Defense Programs is organized to effectively
carry out the Stockpile Stewardship Program, we reviewed six major studies
of the program issued by internal and external reviewers since the program's
inception. We selected four of those studies for an in- depth analysis of
their findings and recommendations and of DOE's responses to their
recommendations. We met with senior DOE officials, including the DOE Under
Secretary, and with senior officials in the Office of Defense Programs,
including the Principal Deputy for Operations, the Director of the Strategic
Planning Staff, the Executive Assistant, the Associate Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Operations and Readiness, and officials from the Office of the
Deputy Assistant Secretaries for Military Application and Stockpile
Operations and the Office of Program Support, to discuss their responses to
these studies. We prepared draft matrices of the recommendations, DOE's
proposed responses, and the current status of DOE's responses; these
matrices were updated by senior Office of Defense Programs officials and
reviewed by the Principal Deputy for Operations for accuracy and
completeness. We analyzed DOE's responses to the recommendations for
effectiveness, basing our analysis on all of the information gathered during
our site visits and meetings with DOE and contractor officials. Finally, we
analyzed staffing turnover in the Office of Defense Programs by reviewing
DOE's listings of senior management personnel, which denote whether an
incumbent is in permanent or acting status or whether the position is
vacant, and discussed the reasons for the turnover observed with the
Principal Deputy for Operations.
To assess if the Office of Defense Programs has an effective management
process in place to oversee the life extension programs for weapons in the
stockpile, we met with officials in the Office of Defense Programs'
headquarters and field offices, including the Associate Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Nuclear Weapons Stockpile and the Director of the Office of
Stockpile Systems. We used the ongoing refurbishment of the W87 as a case
study of the life extension program process. We reviewed the available data
on the estimates of cost and schedule for the W87 life extension program. In
addition, we met with the senior officials at each of the field sites
responsible for overseeing the life extension program for the W87 and
discussed the problems DOE has encountered with that life extension and the
reasons for those problems. Finally, we reviewed the Office of Defense
Programs' formal documentation of the new 6. X life extension process.
We conducted our review from June 1999 through October 2000 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Comments From the Department of Energy's
Appendi xI II
National Nuclear Security Administration See comment 1. See comment 2. See
comment 3.
See comment 4. See comment 5.
Now on p. 6. See comment 6.
Now on p. 9. See comment 5.
Now on p. 9. See comment 6.
Now on p. 10. See comment 7.
Now on p. 10. See comment 6.
Now on p. 14. See comment 6.
Now on p. 15. See comment 7.
Now on p. 17. See comment 6.
Now on p. 21. See comment 6.
Now on p. 21. See comment 6.
Now on p. 23. See comment 6.
Now on p. 27. See comment 6.
Now on p. 31. See comment 8.
Now on pp. 43- 44. See comment 2.
See comment 2.
See comment 2.
Now on p. 34. See comment 6.
Now on p. 34. See comment 9.
Now on p. 38. See comment 6.
Now on pp. 38 and 39. See comment 6.
Now on p. 39 See comment 10.
Now on p. 39. See comment 6.
Now on p. 40. See comment 6.
Now on p. 42. See comment 6.
Now on p. 44. See comment 2.
Now on p. 53. See comment 3.
Now on pp. 8, 11, and 12. See comment 6.
Now on pp. 8, 11, 12, 47, and 48. See comment 3.
Now on pp. 47 and 48. See comment 11.
Now on p. 50. See comment 12.
Now on p. 52. See comment 6.
Now on p. 52. See comment 6.
Now on p. 73. See comment 13.
See comment 4.
Now on p. 67. See comment 5.
Now on p. 67. See comment 5.
Now on p. 69. See comment 5.
Now on pp. 69 and 70. See comment 5. Now on p. 73. See comment 13.
Now on p. 85. See comment 7.
See comment 7. See comment 7. Now on p. 78. See comment 6.
Now on pp. 78 and 79. See comment 6.
Now on p. 81. See comment 6.
Now on p. 82. See comment 5.
The following are GAO's comments on the National Nuclear Security
Administration's letter dated November 7, 2000.
GAO's Comments 1. The report referenced is now numbered GAO- 01- 48. 2. Our
reply to the National Nuclear Security Administration's concern about our
planning recommendation appears at the end of chapter 2.
3. Our reply to the National Nuclear Security Administration's concerns
about our budget recommendation appears at the end of chapter 3.
4. Our reply to the National Nuclear Security Administration's concern about
instability in the Office of Defense Programs' leadership and management
appears at the end of chapter 4.
5. Changes have been made to the text where appropriate to incorporate
information on changes being developed and/ or implemented by the National
Nuclear Security Administration.
6. We concur with this comment, and changes have been made to the text where
appropriate.
7. Our reply to the National Nuclear Security Administration's comments on
our recommendations to improve the stockpile life extension process appears
at the end of chapter 5.
8. The purpose of including the comments of the contractor officials in the
background chapter was to establish that the production complex is currently
being undercapitalized, not to determine the exact extent of the
undercapitalization. Nevertheless, we have also included the Office of
Defense Programs' estimate of the appropriate level of capitalization in our
report.
9. We do not concur with this comment. The interim Stockpile Life Extension
Program Plan does not contain complete information on plant capacity.
Specifically, as stated in the report, the Y- 12 Plant's capacity estimates
for producing certain weapons components at that site are not available
because the Y- 12 Plant does not have a current, validated model for
estimating plant capacity.
10. We do not concur with this comment. We, again, reviewed the Production
and Planning Directive (provided by the National Nuclear Security
Administration with its comments) and found only references to the fact that
studies will be performed to address the potential capacity shortfalls at
Pantex. However, the document did not provide specific plans for addressing
the issues, such as establishing activities or making firm commitments to
modify facilities or hire and train additional staff to prevent impacts to
the schedule.
11. We have used the definition of fixed and variable costs contained in
DOE's 30- Day Review. We believe that this definition makes clear that the
Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities category represents, in essence,
the fixed costs of the program.
12. We believe that functional costs do represent a reasonable surrogate for
the fixed costs of the program. However, we have made changes to the report
to make clearer the time frame of the functional cost data that we cite.
13. Our response recognizes organizational changes made by DOE and the
National Nuclear Security Administration. The recommendation has been
redirected to the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security
Administration and refocused on the effective implementation of the recent
organizational changes that took effect October 1, 2000.
(141356) Lett er
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GAO United States General Accounting Office
Page 1 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Contents
Contents Page 2 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Contents Page 3 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 4 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
United States General Accounting Office Washington, D. C. 20548
Page 5 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 6 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 7 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 8 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 9 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 10 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 11 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 12 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 13 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 14 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Executive Summary Page 15 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 16 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 17 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 18 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 19 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 20 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 21 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 22 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 23 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 24 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 25 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 26 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 27 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 28 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 29 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 30 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 31 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 32 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 1 Background on DOE's Office of Defense Programs Mission and
Structure
Page 33 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 34 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 35 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 36 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 37 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 38 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 39 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 40 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 41 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 42 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 43 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 44 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 2 Further Improvements Are Needed in the Office of Defense Programs'
Planning Process
Page 45 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 46 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
Page 47 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
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Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
Page 49 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
Page 50 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
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Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
Page 52 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
Page 53 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 3 Revised Budget Information Needed to Improve Management of the
Stockpile Stewardship Program
Page 54 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 55 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 56 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 57 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 58 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 59 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 60 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 61 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 62 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 63 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 64 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 65 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 66 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 67 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 68 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 69 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 70 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 71 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 72 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 73 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 4 Fundamental Organizational and Leadership Changes Needed for
Successful Implementation of the Program's New Mission
Page 74 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 75 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 76 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 77 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 78 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 79 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 80 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 81 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 82 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 83 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
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Chapter 5 Management Improvements Needed for the Office of Defense Programs
to Conduct Successful Stockpile Life Extensions
Page 85 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 86 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix I
Appendix I Explanation of How Modern Nuclear Weapons Work
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Page 88 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix II
Appendix II Scope and Methodology
Page 89 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix II Scope and Methodology
Page 90 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Page 91 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III
Page 92 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 93 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 94 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 95 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 96 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 97 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 98 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 99 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 100 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 101 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 102 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 103 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 104 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 105 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
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Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
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Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 108 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
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Appendix III Comments From the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
Security Administration
Page 111 GAO- 01- 48 Nuclear Weapons
United States General Accounting Office Washington, D. C. 20548- 0001
Official Business Penalty for Private Use $300
Address Correction Requested Bulk Rate
Postage & Fees Paid GAO Permit No. GI00
*** End of document. ***
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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Nuclear Weapons: Improved Management Needed to Implement Stockpile Stewardship Program Effectively (Chapter Report, 12/14/2000, GAO/GAO-01-48)
