**GAO-08-1032T**                      Published: Jul 17, 2008. Publicly Released: Jul 17, 2008.                  

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## Highlights

Over the past several years, a serious effort has begun to comprehensively reevaluate how the United States maintains its nuclear deterrent and what the nation's approach should be for transforming its aging nuclear weapons complex. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), is responsible for overseeing this weapons complex, which comprises three nuclear weapons design laboratories, four production plants, and the Nevada Test Site. In December 2007, NNSA issued a draft report on potential environmental impacts of alternative actions to transform the nuclear weapons complex, which NNSA refers to as Complex Transformation. NNSA's preferred action is to establish a number of "distributed centers of excellence" at sites within the existing nuclear weapons complex, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory for plutonium capabilities, the Y-12 Plant for uranium capabilities, and the Pantex Plant for weapons assembly, disassembly, and high explosives manufacturing. NNSA would continue to operate these facilities to maintain and refurbish the existing nuclear weapons stockpile as it makes the transition to a smaller, more responsive infrastructure. GAO was asked to discuss NNSA's Complex Transformation proposal. This testimony is based on previous GAO work.

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## Topics

National Defense

AccountabilityCost analysisFederal agency reorganizationIndustrial facilitiesLaboratoriesNuclear facilitiesNuclear facility securityNuclear weaponsNuclear weapons plant securityNuclear weapons plantsPlutoniumProgram managementReporting requirementsStrategic planningUraniumWeapons industryWeapons research and developmentCost estimatesProgram goals or objectivesProgram implementation