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98–888 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–79] 

NATIONAL ACADEMIES STUDY ON PEER 

REVIEW AND DESIGN COMPETITION IN 

THE NNSA NATIONAL SECURITY 

LABORATORIES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JANUARY 12, 2016 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama, Chairman 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado, Vice Chair 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

MARK TAKAI, Hawaii 

BRAD ASHFORD, Nebraska 

PETE AGUILAR, California 

DREW WALTER, Professional Staff Member 

LEONOR TOMERO, Counsel 

MIKE GANCIO, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Cooper, Hon. Jim, a Representative from Tennessee, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Strategic Forces ............................................................................ 2 

Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman, Subcommittee 

on Strategic Forces ............................................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Dahlburg, Dr. Jill P., Co-Chair, Committee on Peer Review and Design Competition Related to Nuclear Weapons, National Academies of Sciences .......... 4 

Peercy, Dr. Paul S., Co-Chair, Committee on Peer Review and Design Competition Related to Nuclear Weapons, National Academies of Sciences .......... 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Cooper, Hon. Jim .............................................................................................. 21 

Peercy, Dr. Paul S., joint with Dr. Jill P. Dahlburg ...................................... 22 

Rogers, Hon. Mike ............................................................................................ 19 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Comments of Richard L. Garwin ..................................................................... 37 

Comments of Roy Schwitters ........................................................................... 41 

Summary from National Academies report ‘‘Peer Review and Design 

Competition in the NNSA National Security Laboratories’’ ..................... 45 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Cooper ........................................................................................................ 54 

Mr. Franks ........................................................................................................ 56 

Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 53 

(1) 

NATIONAL ACADEMIES STUDY ON PEER REVIEW AND 

DESIGN COMPETITION IN THE NNSA NATIONAL SECURITY LABORATORIES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, January 12, 2016. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:31 p.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Rogers (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

STRATEGIC FORCES 

Mr. ROGERS. Good afternoon, the subcommittee will come to 

order. I want to welcome our witnesses, who are co-chairs of the 

National Academies of Science panel that conducted a study on 

these issues. Today’s hearing is on Peer Review and Design Competition in the NNSA [National Nuclear Security Administration] 

National Security Laboratories. 

This committee launched this study a few years ago because it 

wanted an objective, nonpartisan review of these two foundational 

aspects of our nuclear deterrent. Quoting from the committee report in 2013, quote: ‘‘The committee believes that peer review and 

design competitions are critical components of nuclear stockpile 

stewardship. Because of their importance, the committee believes 

that an independent assessment is needed to understand the effectiveness of current practices,’’ closed quote. 

It is clear that without effective peer review and design competition within our nuclear weapons labs, the long-term health and viability of our deterrent is in danger. So we asked the National Academies to review these two issues and give us their assessment. And 

at the risk of stealing their thunder, our witnesses are reporting 

that while, quote, ‘‘The state of peer review at the weapons labs is 

healthy and robust, the state of design competition is not. The 

NNSA complex must engage in robust design competitions in order 

to exercise the design and production skills that underpin stockpile 

stewardship and are necessary to meet evolving threats,’’ close 

quote. 

So the report card is mixed, and we need to understand why. 

More importantly, we need to hear the witnesses’ recommendations 

on what we and the administration should be doing about it. Because at its core, the credibility of our nuclear deterrent rests on 

the ability of our scientists and engineers to design, build, and field 

weapons in a timely way. The witnesses state that the nuclear en-
2 

† The Summary from the report is included in the Appendix. The full report can be found at 

http://www.nap.edu/read/21806/chapter/1. 

terprise needs to exercise, on a regular ongoing basis, the full suite 

of nuclear weapons design, development, engineering, and production capabilities needed to respond to the evolving threats. 

This committee has recently taken steps in this direction by creating the Stockpile Responsiveness Program, and the Foreign Nuclear Weapons Prototyping Program. I will be curious to hear what 

the witnesses think of these efforts and what more should be done. 

Coupled with our Project Atom hearing in November, today’s 

hearing should focus our efforts on preparing for the dynamic and 

highly uncertain nuclear future. We must ensure our nuclear enterprise is ready to meet the future. With the guidance of our witnesses, I am confident we can do just that. Thank you for testifying 

today and leading the study. We know it takes time to do these 

things, and we very much appreciate this time and effort. 

Our witnesses today are Paul Peercy, co-chair, National Academies Study Committee that conducted this study and Dean Emeritus of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, 

Madison; and Dr. Jill Dahlburg, co-chair of the National Academies 

Study Committee. In her day job, Dr. Dahlburg is with the Naval 

Research Lab, although she is not here in that capacity today. 

With that, let me turn to the ranking member, my friend and colleague from Tennessee, for any statement he would like to make. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogers can be found in the Appendix on page 19.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JIM COOPER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 

TENNESSEE, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON STRATEGIC FORCES 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, congratulations on the victory last night. I stayed up until midnight to see 

that. It was an amazing, amazing game. Second, I would like to 

ask unanimous consent to insert my opening statement for the 

record, as well as the testimony of Dr. Garwin and Dr. Schwitters. 

Unfortunately, they were not able to be here today, but—— 

Mr. ROGERS. Without objection. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning on page 37.] 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses. These are extremely important questions, and I hope that we can receive the wisdom of the 

panelists today and do the right thing for the country. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper can be found in the Appendix on page 21.] 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman and the witnesses’ joint 

statement will be entered, without objection, into the record. 

Mr. ROGERS. I would also like to enter into the record the full 

report of the National Academy Study Committee. Without objection, that will be submitted as well.† 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 45.] 
3 

Mr. ROGERS. We have copies of the report for each of the members and have a few available for others as well. 

We will now ask our witnesses to make 5-minute opening statements summarizing their statement. Dr. Peercy, we will start with 

you. You are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL S. PEERCY, CO–CHAIR, COMMITTEE 

ON PEER REVIEW AND DESIGN COMPETITION RELATED TO 

NUCLEAR WEAPONS, NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES 

Dr. PEERCY. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Chairman, 

Ranking Member Cooper, and members of the subcommittee, thank 

you for the opportunity to discuss the results of our National Academies report, Peer Review and Design Competition in the NNSA 

National Security Laboratories. My co-chair, Dr. Jill Dahlburg, and 

I have prepared this joint statement, and I want to ask Jill to 

please chime in at any time during my comments. 

Our report was released on October 15, and it is a product of a 

very strong committee whose members have extensive experience 

and excellent credentials in this area. The statement of the task 

given to the National Academies for the study was specified as 

noted in the fiscal year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act 

[NDAA]. It charged our committee with assessing the quality and 

effectiveness of design competition. The charge specified particular 

dimensions of these assessments, which were carefully addressed 

in our study and report. The study was supported by the National 

Nuclear Security Administration which went out of its way to provide the committee with full information relevant to these tasks. 

Let me begin with the bottom line, which Chairman Rogers has 

already noted. The state of peer review at the DOE [Department 

of Energy] weapons lab is healthy and robust, but the state of design competition is not. 

The NNSA complex must engage in robust design competition to 

exercise design and production skills that underpin the stockpile 

stewardship, and are necessary to meet evolving threats. 

Recent competitive design studies, such as the reliable replacement warhead, RRW, were useful design and modeling exercises, 

but were not true design competitions because they did not result 

in the creation of an engineering prototype, and the latter step is 

necessary to provide essential feedback on the viability and practicality of a design. 

Therefore, the committee recommended that to exercise a full set 

of design skills necessary for an effective nuclear deterrent, the 

NNSA should develop and conduct the first of what the committee 

envisions as a series of design competitions that integrate the full, 

end-to-end process from novel design conception, through engineering, building, and non-nuclear testing of a prototype. 

The process should exercise a full range of skills in the complex 

needed to produce a new weapon, but this should be done with the 

clear understanding that this prototype would be a nuclear device, 

not a warhead, and that the prototype would not enter the stockpile. 

Maintaining nuclear weapon design skills through design competitions is necessary for our nuclear deterrent workforce to be 

fully capable of designing and building weapons to meet evolving 
4 

threats, understanding the status and direction of foreign nuclear 

weapons programs, and determining the best and most cost-effective approaches to resolving problems that arise during stockpile 

weapon surveillance and life extension programs. 

It is important to emphasize that the scientists and engineers 

who designed and built the weapons currently in the stockpile have 

either retired, or soon will retire and these design-and-build competitions are essential for training the next generations of weapons 

designers for transferring the knowledge from the current generations to future generations, and for maintaining production skills 

within the NNSA complex. 

The committee made other recommendations. I would like to 

bring three of these to your attention. The first, design competition 

between independent teams that use different approaches and 

methods are extremely valuable, especially in a system as complex 

as a nuclear weapon where we do not have comprehensive understanding of the physics. We also gain increased confidence in the 

safety and reliability of weapons in the stockpiles when they are 

assessed by independent teams using different approaches and 

methods. 

These observations led the committee to recommend that Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories continue to 

maintain independent design capabilities using different approaches and methods to enable independent peer review of critical 

technical issues. Sandia National Lab should, likewise, carry out, 

for high priority issues, competitive designs with independent 

teams that use different approaches followed by peer review of 

component subsystems and the full system. 

Next, while noting that the peer review process is basically 

healthy, the committee recommended two minor changes to 

strengthen the peer review process. 

And finally, the committee recommended steps to be followed in 

future design competitions to avoid the detrimental aspects of the 

RRW competition. 

So, thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. And we 

remain at your disposal for questions. 

[The joint prepared statement of Dr. Peercy and Dr. Dahlburg 

can be found in the Appendix on page 22.] 

Mr. ROGERS. And I thank you. Dr. Dahlburg, did you want to 

summarize your opening statement? 

Dr. DAHLBURG. I would like to. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROGERS. You have an extra 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DR. JILL P. DAHLBURG, CO–CHAIR, COMMITTEE ON PEER REVIEW AND DESIGN COMPETITION RELATED 

TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS, NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF 

SCIENCES 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Okay. So I would like to hark back to what Paul 

said, which is, it is important to emphasize the scientists and engineers who designed and built the weapons currently in the stockpile have either retired or soon will retire. And what we need to 

do is make sure that we have a cadre of people who are going to 

be able to maintain the stockpile into the indefinite future. I think 
5 

we all agree, as long as we have nuclear weapons, we must be confident in these weapons. 

The analogy I often think of is, like, actually cooking. If you want 

to make something in the kitchen and you are trying to train someone else to make what you are already cooking, you can write down 

a recipe and they can follow it. If they have never cooked before, 

the odds are that they are not really going to know how to do it. 

You can make a video, and they can look at it and then try it from 

that. But the odds are, they are not going to have quite the same 

expertise as if they actually come in the kitchen with you, and they 

learn how to do what you mean by a pinch of salt, or by stirring 

the flour with the butter. And when you train that way, then you 

have a group of people who are going to be able to do what is necessary at each stage of replacement warheads, at each stage of designs in the future. 

And I want to emphasize that what we are talking about are prototype devices. The design and fabrication should exercise the full 

range of skills needed to produce a new weapon. Doesn’t mean 

produce one, it just means you have to make sure that these people 

know every aspect of what they are doing. The design should be 

able to be certified in a manner consistent with the testing moratorium. This is absolutely mandatory. The prototype nuclear explosive package should be fully integrated with all of the Sandia components. So it is not just the piece that the Livermore and Los Alamos might work on, but across all of the three laboratories. 

If they require new Sandia electronic components, the prototypes 

of these components should also be designed and produced in parallel. And it should be a device, not a warhead. That is, stockpileto-target type scenarios should be considered by assimilation or 

testing, but there should be no expectation of actually getting 

something that looks like it is going into the stockpile. 

And this is, I believe, necessary in order to train that next generation workforce, which is every bit as important for a deterrent 

as the hardware that they are maintaining. That is my statement. 

[The joint prepared statement of Dr. Dahlburg and Dr. Peercy 

can be found in the Appendix on page 22.] 

Mr. ROGERS. Great, I appreciate the opening statements. We will 

now open to questions, and I recognize myself for the first set of 

questions. Dr. Peercy and Dr. Dahlburg, let’s start with the good 

news you bring to us. Your team found that the peer review was 

strong, healthy within the NNSA labs. So tell us why. 

Dr. PEERCY. I think it is there because it was built in from the 

early culture of excellence and a fear of failing, because they did 

not understand the materials they were using. So they really wanted, they wanted their designs peer reviewed by others before they 

put them into test. 

Mr. ROGERS. How was that carried out, that peer review? 

Dr. PEERCY. So that peer review started out being carried out, 

primarily, from other scientists in the same laboratory. And then 

as time passed and especially after Lawrence Livermore National 

Laboratories failed on its first three tests, the peer review became 

laboratory-to-laboratory much more. And in the case of Sandia National Laboratories, a branch was built in Lawrence Livermore, 
6 

and they reviewed the Albuquerque designs, and the Albuquerque 

team reviewed the Lawrence Livermore designs. 

The cultures of those two branches were very different. The culture of the Sandia Lab in Livermore took on the culture of Lawrence Livermore National Lab and the culture of the Sandia Lab 

in Albuquerque took on the culture of the Los Alamos National 

Labs. And so that gave purely independent teams designing each 

other’s work, and that is why we recommended that that be maintained going forward, especially for high-consequence items. 

And we also recommended that the peer review be codified a bit 

more. Sandia has written guidelines for what type of peer review 

when, and we recommended that Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore create their own short, written guidelines. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Yes, and actually short is to the point. We don’t 

want this to turn into another process that becomes a time sink. 

just something that they can explain. Because right now, they do 

very informal peer review, peer-to-peer, and it goes higher and 

higher until, finally, the lab director is involved, and there should 

be something of a checklist that says at the level of uncertainty, 

this is the kind of peer review that we require. 

Mr. ROGERS. Good. How do the labs determine what level or 

types of peer review is required for various programs or projects 

and is the process formal, informal, ad hoc, or structured? 

Dr. PEERCY. So the process has been a bit ad hoc at the nuclear 

design laboratories, Los Alamos and Livermore. Sandia is a much 

more formal process. And they continue to formalize it. And Sandia 

also has—although it does not have a complete—a competitor that 

does a complete end-to-end design of the non-nuclear components 

for a given weapon, if you look across American industry, every one 

of those different parts are designed and sold. So those are customers for Sandia, and they are also reviewers of Sandia. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. Is the peer review process strong on the nonnuclear side of the business given that there is only one lab, 

Sandia, that is doing non-nuclear? 

Dr. PEERCY. Yeah, it is strong, and it was made strong partly because the other—some other institutions, like the Department of 

Defense, use the same products, some of the same products; but, 

also, there are competitors in the private sector. And they provide 

the same products, and so there is competition, not on the complete 

spectrum from one company, but if you take—if you integrate all 

of the companies, you have the complete spectrum. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. Let’s move over to the less than good news 

side of the news you brought us. The report says your team, quote, 

‘‘is deeply concerned about the state of the design competition in 

all three laboratories,’’ closed quote. It goes on to say that, quote, 

‘‘Recent design studies have been good analysis and modeling exercises, but they did not result in the actual engineering and fabrication of components and systems,’’ closed quote. 

Why is this distinction important, and why should the labs be 

pursuing actual engineering and prototype fabrication with a clear 

guidance that the weapon would not actually be produced and deployed? 

Dr. PEERCY. I think the committee thinks that is important because we do not have complete understanding of the physics of the 
7 

materials and the processes that go into the weapon. So you look 

at—you do the best you can with experiments, but you can’t reach 

all of the experimental region you need, and then you do models 

and simulation based on that. But you find that the two different 

labs’ models give different answers. So the question is, which one 

is right? 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. 

Dr. PEERCY. And that is why you do this. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. And there are, in addition to the workforce, we 

need to understand the status and direction of foreign nuclear 

weapon programs, and we also need to determine the best and 

most cost-effective approaches to resolving problems that do arise 

during surveillance and the life extension programs. So these three 

are the key reasons. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. The report notes that designing and producing prototypes of new nuclear weapons designs will help address evolving threats. Why does conducting modeling or computer 

simulations not get the job done here, and why do we need to go 

all the way to full designs and the building of prototypes? Your 

microphone. 

Dr. PEERCY. Sorry. It was very clear for the nuclear components 

why you need to do the prototyping and testing. And—— 

Mr. ROGERS. Go ahead and explain why. 

Dr. PEERCY. Pardon? 

Mr. ROGERS. Go ahead and explain. You said it is obvious. 

Dr. PEERCY. Oh, okay, because you don’t know if the design is 

going to work. Right off the bat, you don’t know first, if it is a viable design that can be built. A lot of the early designs could not 

be built. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. And there is more than that. When you are doing 

a simulation, you are modeling the real world, and there are aspects in that simulation that you made assumptions, in many 

ways. The numerics themselves are assumptions, and the physics 

packages are also assumptions. So as you go into more and more 

extreme states of matter, in large cases, you are guessing because 

you can’t have measured every point that you are simulating. 

Therefore, you have to do some form of validation with physics. 

And that is why you need to do actual experimentation. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. Last thing I want to ask is, why does the report stress that a, quote, ‘‘clean slate,’’ closed quote, design competition—why is that important? 

Dr. PEERCY. So the committee thinks that is important because 

you want to stimulate the nuclear engineering package designers 

to think about how to design a new weapon, and you want to stimulate the Sandia National Labs, who have a lot of work doing life 

extension programs to actually think about how they would build 

the supporting electronics and systems for a different nuclear package. 

So right now, the life extension programs only look at existing 

nuclear packages. And that exercises part of Sandia’s expertise, but 

not all that is needed, and, of course, no new nuclear packages are 

being designed. So Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore need that 

exercise. 
8 

Mr. ROGERS. If that clean-slate competition were pursued, does 

the administration 3+2 nuclear stockpile strategy exercise the full 

range of skills and design competition your study recommends? 

Dr. PEERCY. We didn’t hear much about the 3+2, but from what 

we heard about the 3+2, it does not exercise the full range. Because 

the 3+2 basically takes existing nuclear packages, or, at least, the 

footprint of those, and works around those. 

Mr. ROGERS. Okay. With that, I yield to the ranking member for 

any questions he may have. 

Mr. COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to explore 

first the degree of unanimity behind the report; first, of your committee members. 

Dr. PEERCY. So all of the committee members agree with that report. 

Mr. COOPER. So no dissenting views? No—— 

Dr. PEERCY. There was no minority views. 

Mr. COOPER. How about among the reviewers? 

Dr. PEERCY. Pardon? 

Mr. COOPER. How about among the reviewers? 

Dr. PEERCY. Well, the reviewers had a lot of suggested improvements, which we appreciate. But the reviewers, some of the reviewers did not fully support the conclusions of the report. I think that’s 

a fair statement. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Yes. But in the end, I think we accommodated all 

of the reviewer comments in the document that you are holding. 

Mr. COOPER. Are we allowed to see the reviewer comments? 

Mr. WEIDMAN. No, they are held quiet within the Academy, by 

the Academy’s guidelines. 

Mr. COOPER. So is it fair to say that this is supported by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine? 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Yes. Absolutely. 

Mr. COOPER. So how would you characterize the opinions of scientists who disagree with you, who are members of the Academy? 

Dr. PEERCY. I don’t know. I am—I suspect there are disagreeing 

opinions. In fact, I know there are two that I just saw this morning 

that I think you entered into the record. And I think there is a difference of opinion as to whether or not we actually have enough 

knowledge to design a new weapon if an adversary designs a new 

weapon and we need to move into a new space that we have not 

been in without a skilled workforce. And I think there is a big difference of opinion over that. You want to add to that? 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Yeah, so that is why I started with my analogy 

about cooking. It is something that we all know. And my reason for 

being on this committee was that I truly feel that that workforce 

is an essential pillar of our nuclear deterrent. 

So from the perspective of what we wrote, we wrote this in order 

to make sure that that workforce was going to continue into the 

next 30 to 50 years. 

Mr. COOPER. I think you are touching on the core issue here, 

which is really a personnel issue. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Uh-huh. 

Mr. COOPER. Especially the sensitive subject of quality of personnel. Some people who are brilliant refuse to work on nuclear 

weapons at all, in any form. 
9 

Dr. PEERCY. That is right. 

Mr. COOPER. So we don’t have that talent pool. So we have to 

make do with those who are willing to do this work, this necessary 

work. So how do we cope with this? You use a cooking analogy. 

That is important, and I don’t want to cut you off, Dr. Peercy. Go 

ahead if you would like. 

Dr. PEERCY. I was just going to say that the NNSA is responsible 

for providing and maintaining the capabilities necessary to sustain 

a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile for the Nation and its allies. And using her analogy and other analogies, if 

you don’t know how to build a weapon because you’ve never built 

one, and there is—and you can’t even write down the recipes for 

it on paper, how do you know you have got—you have maintained 

the capabilities to sustain that nuclear weapon stockpile for the 

Nation and its allies? 

Mr. COOPER. Well, let’s be very careful how we speak here, because to say there are no recipes, I think would be inaccurate. Dr. 

Dahlburg was saying, you know, there is knowledge retention. It 

is a question of actually doing it, the cooking process, the pinch of 

salt, the stirring in the butter, whatever the analogy is. In medicine, in residency training, each one, treat one, teach one. But here, 

you are cutting it more finely, because you are talking about a prototype, a nuclear device; not a warhead. But what works is a warhead. So you are stopping short. You want a real-world competition, but then you don’t want to actually build anything. 

So this is a very tricky dividing line here. How do you make it 

real without it being real? And one element that was completely 

missing from the report is the State Department aspect, because 

you are kind of assuming that other nations won’t see this as a 

threat or a problem when there is no input from that sphere. A further question is, we do a lot of forensic work on other things, and 

we learn a lot from that. And that is not as a competition right 

there using—that is more of an Olympics than what you are talking about. You are talking about a national competition, not an 

international Olympic competition. So there are a lot of moving 

pieces here, but, fundamentally, these are personnel issues. And 

personnel issues are very difficult to address. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. And so, I guess we are both scientists, and applied physicists, and so speaking from our personal experience, if 

you don’t actually compare your work with experimentation, you 

can delude yourself very easily. Now, I recognize NNSA has done 

a marvelous job categorizing the large body of knowledge that exists. This is, indeed, the case. It is the workforce, and it is our opinion that if we want to maintain that for 30 years, we better have 

a little bit more hands-on experience. And so—— 

Mr. COOPER. But you limit the degree of hands-on experience. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Well, for two reasons. One is that we are responding to an NNSA charge. So we spoke within the sphere of the 

NNSA. So our goal was to make sure that the NNSA complex is 

entirely addressed. Beyond that, the report did not—— 

Mr. COOPER. But the goal is a safe, secure, and reliable stockpile. 

It is not pleasing NNSA bureaucrats. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Oh, heavens no. But it is—oh, no, no, no, no, no, 

that is not what I meant. What I meant is, we were addressing a 
10 

charge. In a report of this nature, the recommendations can only 

recommend back to NNSA. So we can’t go outside of that and recommend to the State Department or to other agencies. 

Mr. COOPER. Would the recommendations have been different if 

you had been able to recommend to other agencies, if the leash had 

been—— 

Dr. PEERCY. We probably would have taken this further. There 

was discussion among the committee about flight tests. And we did 

not recommend flight tests for three reasons. One reason was we 

wanted to keep it within the current budget. We didn’t want to see 

a big—a large expense that has to be in place. Second reason is 

that we wanted to make sure we didn’t send the wrong signal as 

to why we were doing this program, and flight—to an adversary, 

flight test might do that. But the third reason is, flight tests are 

in the purview of the Department of Defense [DOD], and not the 

Department of Energy. And we were charged within the NNSA 

purview. 

Mr. COOPER. And you don’t fear that subcritical testing would 

have any of those negative implications? 

Dr. PEERCY. No, I don’t fear the subcritical testing would have 

those, as long as there are no nuclear emissions. 

Mr. COOPER. But you put your own blinders on not wanting to 

deal with State Department issues, or budget issues, or DOD 

issues, or—— 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Well, I think that is—we tried to stay true to the 

charge. And so the charge itself was to actually address the quality 

of the peer review, the incentives for peer review. We are done with 

those. The alternate methods for peer review, we addressed that, 

and then where design competition is, what is the health and status and what is going to happen to design competition. And so that 

was what the report was about. If you would like to charge us to 

do another report, the same committee would probably—— 

Dr. PEERCY. Then broaden it. We would be happy to do that. 

Mr. COOPER. The challenge in life is to get at the truth. No one 

can ever achieve it completely. But we are trying to—— 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Of course. 

Mr. COOPER [continuing]. Model it. And it is very difficult—— 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Of course. 

Mr. COOPER [continuing]. Because there are a lot of moving parts 

here. But I have overstayed my welcome. I will let the chairman 

move on. I know Dr. Fleming is here. 

Mr. ROGERS. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana, Dr. Fleming, for 5 minutes. 

Dr. FLEMING. Thank you, and thank you to our panel team. Just 

so I can understand some of the statements that you make is kind 

of filled with jargon, and kind of vague references. So I want to try 

to understand. What we have is a stockpile of nuclear weapons, 

which, for the most part, were built many years ago. The people 

who built them, for the most part, probably have retired or died by 

now. And what I think you are saying is, beyond other things, you 

want to create a whole other generation of people who are capable 

of keeping up the stockpile, overhauling them when necessary, and 

maybe even some day replacing them, if necessary. 
11 

We are already talking about the modernization of weapons. I remember when I first came to Congress in 2009, getting a lecture 

on the fact that we were still using what was equivalent to television tube technology in some of our nuclear weapons. Obviously, 

something—I mean, you wouldn’t—probably wouldn’t find a television repairman today, much less one who could actually fix a TV 

like that. 

So I get all of that. That makes a lot of sense. But when you said 

that you have to test it to validate it, and it makes a lot of sense, 

how far do you take that? Do you actually do some type of nearnuclear reaction, or simulated reaction, or how far do you get along 

the line to actually validate the accuracy of your studies? 

Dr. PEERCY. So that is a very good question because you can do 

a lot of tests on the components and the subsystems, and then if 

you want to test the full system, you would take out the warhead. 

You take out the nuclear package, and put in a dummy package 

that behaves like the nuclear package but does not have any radioactive material. 

Dr. FLEMING. Right. 

Dr. PEERCY. Okay. So that will test the full system. 

Dr. FLEMING. Right. 

Dr. PEERCY. And you hopefully can test without any nuclear explosions, the nuclear package independently. 

Dr. FLEMING. So you understand that nuclear trigger and, obviously, the response of plutonium, or whatever that you have in 

there. So you go all the way up to that point with the various interacting systems which you have to modernize going forward. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. And also the complex itself. So I will use a completely different build, so that I don’t get in any trouble. Say you 

are building a space flight instrument. Okay? And so you have this 

instrument and you are going to have to get it to technology 

ready—TRL [technology readiness level] level 9, and it is going to 

go in a satellite. In order to do that, you have to design it; then 

you have to make sure that you can procure the parts. You have 

to work with someone who might build a camera; have to understand the electronics, and so on. And in order to do all of this, you 

have to reach into different places of the space flight hardware 

community. 

Dr. FLEMING. Uh-huh. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Similarly, with the NNSA, there are many different places that someone who is designing this instrument is 

going to need to go. And if you don’t go as far as a design, you 

won’t be testing that aspect. Do I know the telephone numbers? 

Can I actually call somebody at the plant and see if they can build 

this thing? So it is that part of the testing that we are talking 

about. 

Dr. FLEMING. Yeah, so it sounds like to me that you wouldn’t 

even be coming close to violating any sort of test bans or anything 

like that because you are not really using directly nuclear material. 

You are using all of the devices up to that point? 

Dr. PEERCY. That is correct. 

Dr. FLEMING. So that is important. So the National Nuclear Security Administration’s labs are not doing the weapons designs 

needed for the eventuality to modernize nuclear weapons arsenal. 
12 

So my question is this: The report states that your study group is 

deeply concerned about the state of design competition at all three 

laboratories. Would you please elaborate on this concern? What 

specifically concerns you about this? I know you have touched on 

it some, but maybe you can encapsulate that. 

Dr. PEERCY. So, I think the concern about the design competition 

was that we have not really had a design competition for the full 

weapon since 1992. Right. There have been some modeling and 

simulations, but that doesn’t tell you if they are going to work. And 

then when you look at the non-nuclear parts of the weapon, and 

Jill touched on this, look at how fast the electronics changes, how 

fast communication changes. I mean, you are not going to be able 

to buy the components in those weapons that are in there today. 

You are going to have to design whole new ones. You may not find 

an industry out there that is building those. Then you have got to 

build them in-house. And you have got to know what you need, and 

you have got to have the experts to do it. 

Dr. FLEMING. Okay. And so the advantage of prototyping is you 

may know all of the systems work perfectly, but you don’t know if 

they all work perfectly together. Would that be a fair—— 

Dr. PEERCY. That is correct. 

Dr. FLEMING. Okay. Okay. Well, I think that answers my questions. Thank you. 

Mr. ROGERS. I thank the gentleman. We have just been called for 

votes. But I wanted to just close with one question first, before I 

recognize the ranking member for any closing questions. 

How did your recommendation for design competition align with 

the programs this committee has created through legislation in recent years? Specifically, with the Stockpile Responsiveness Program created by section 3112 of the fiscal year 2016 NDAA? 

Dr. PEERCY. I think it is very well-aligned. I think the two are 

quite well-aligned. I think your legislation goes further. It goes 

with the flight tests, but other than that, they are the same. 

Mr. ROGERS. Would you recommend any modifications to our legislation? 

Dr. PEERCY. I don’t have any. No, I think it is very good. 

Mr. ROGERS. Great. All right. Does the ranking member have 

any more questions? 

Mr. COOPER. Do the heads of Los Alamos or Sandia or Lawrence 

Livermore have the authority today, when they evaluate personnel, 

to test them and see how good they are at solving problems, including design problems? 

Dr. PEERCY. I would assume so. Yeah. 

Mr. COOPER. So are we really talking about anything new here, 

except an extramural way of formally having a process of competition, because in competition, some people win, some people lose. 

Dr. PEERCY. I think the thing that we are talking about is, when 

you do a design and you don’t understand the physics, you don’t 

know if what you have designed will work. And that’s the bottom 

line. 

Mr. COOPER. But we have competency testing for physicists, and 

some are better than others. 

Dr. PEERCY. That is certainly true. 
13 

Mr. COOPER. And, presumably, lab directors pay and reward 

those who do a better job. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. Sure, but—— 

Mr. COOPER. And they test them with real-world circumstances. 

They are doing testing today. They are not sitting on their hands. 

Dr. DAHLBURG. No, it is true. But that is why we have—I mean, 

as you know, we have experimental science because even the best 

physicists in the world can be surprised by—— 

Mr. COOPER. But they are testing today, different things. 

Dr. PEERCY. They are testing the capability of given a problem 

in which you actually can figure out the physics, you can solve that 

problem. Now, if I give you a problem which you can’t solve, you 

can’t solve it. And that is what we are talking about. 

Mr. COOPER. Well, you have confused me, but not being a physicist, I am somewhat handicapped, but I will turn that over to the 

chairman. 

Mr. ROGERS. Someone who is really handicapped there. Listen, 

thank you all very much. You have been very helpful. We appreciate your participation. For other members who couldn’t be here 

to ask some questions, we will submit to you in writing, and then 

ask that you respond to those in a timely manner if you could. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

JANUARY 12, 2016 

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JANUARY 12, 2016 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JANUARY 12, 2016 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS 

Mr. ROGERS. Your group’s report says that some ‘‘recent design studies have been 

good analysis and modeling exercises, but they did not result in the actual engineering and fabrication of components and systems.’’ Why is this distinction important— 

why should the labs be pursuing actual engineering and prototype fabrication (with 

the clear guidance that the weapon would not actually be produced and deployed)? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. Analysis and modeling alone, no matter how carefully and expertly performed, can only be an approximation to reality, and the validity is limited by our assumptions and by gaps in our knowledge of physics at the 

extreme scales of nuclear weapons science. The Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program has improved understanding of weapons physics and has enabled the performance of unique basic science experiments. The data generated are 

useful in peer reviews and for providing feedback to nuclear explosive package 

(NEP) designers. However, ASC alone does not exercise the complete set of skills 

needed for actual design and engineering of an NEP. I fully concur with our committee’s assessment of the future, wherein maintaining the full range of nuclear weapon design skills at the NEP laboratories—as well as production skills within the 

NNSA complex—is essential, to achieve three objectives: 1) Maintaining a credible 

nuclear deterrent workforce that is capable of designing and building weapons to 

meet evolving threats; 2) Understanding the status and direction of foreign nuclear 

weapon programs and thus strengthening the nonproliferation regime; and, 3) Determining the best and most cost-effective approaches to resolving problems that 

arise during stockpile weapons surveillance and Life-Extension Programs (LEPs). 

REF: Report pages 25, 48, 49. 

Mr. ROGERS. In carrying out the Stockpile Responsiveness Program created by 

section 3112 of the FY2016 NDAA, should the program specifically look at new designs and creative solutions, or should it adhere solely to existing weapon designs 

and techniques? Is this the program to pursue the ‘‘clean slate’’ designs your report 

recommends? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. While our study did not examine the Stockpile 

Responsiveness Program per se, the recommendations in our report suggest that 

such a program should explore the full spectrum of technical creativity and innovation that would be consistent with a true blank slate design competition that includes engineering and building a prototype; the report specifies that prototype design and production should exercise the full range of skills in the NNSA complex 

needed to produce a new weapon. However, it is important at the same time to keep 

in mind that the series of design competitions that the report recommends—which 

include designing, engineering, building, and non-nuclear testing of a prototype, 

with the non-nuclear components integrated into the design and fabrication of the 

prototype—are also envisioned by the committee to be of modest cost and managed 

so as to impact neither the cost of nor the schedule for delivering Life Extension 

Programs (LEPs) or the 3+2 program plan. 

REF: Report pages 48, 49. 

Mr. ROGERS. Regarding your study’s recommendation for full and robust design 

competitions, can you elaborate on how they should be conducted? How often do you 

recommend such competitions be conducted, what would they entail, how many people would be involved, and how much would they cost? Do you envision this effort 

would require significant additional funding, or could it be accomplished through a 

repurposing of existing research and development programs? Do you think design 

competitions would detract from or complement other weapons programs, like life 

extension programs and infrastructure modernization? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. Roughly speaking, the committee imagines a design competition as involving a few dozen laboratory staff members, with a larger 

number in the first year of each competition, plus some prototype development and 

experiments up to and including hydrodynamic tests. Such design competitions 

should be initiated periodically (perhaps every five years) to allow learning from 

mistakes and for the continuous development of judgment and skills of the nuclear 

weapons enterprise workforce. Regarding impact to other programs, our committee’s 

consensus view is that the laboratory staff activities that would take place during 
54 

the alternative design competitions would be focused applications of science and engineering skills that should happen anyway under the laboratories’ science campaign and engineering campaign, so that the incremental cost of the competitions 

would be modest, while the benefit to the nation would be immense. 

REF: Report pages 48, 50. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. COOPER 

Mr. COOPER. Could the NNSA labs do more to leverage other entities for peer review, such as the JASONs group, the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the United 

Kingdom, or cleared groups of university or industry experts? Would this lead to 

gains in effectiveness or efficiency? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. First, our study committee observed that all three 

of the nuclear weapons labs currently recognize the need for and thus exercise the 

relevant multiple types of review, including: external peer review, involving persons 

actively engaged in equivalent work outside the lab who review a lab’s work in an 

particular area; internal peer review, involving persons from the same lab actively 

engaged in equivalent work (but not in the work being reviewed), who review the 

lab’s work in the given area; subject-matter reviews, involving internal and external 

subject matter experts, who review a lab’s execution of, or capabilities in, particular 

areas of science and engineering; and, technical reviews of programs or projects, involving internal and external experts, such as this question addresses, who may not 

have as full a range of expertise as the people performing the original work but who 

provide technical scrutiny and checking of selected aspects of the work. Then, on 

the topic of the nuclear weapons-related systems and science reviews that the labs 

currently participate in during a typical year, the committee developed the following 

semi-quantitative conclusions: 1) Each lab already participates in some 800 nuclear 

weapons systems and/or weapons science-related peer reviews in a given year; 2) 

About half of those reviews are internal and the other half involve some experts 

from other NNSA labs and/or from outside the nuclear weapons complex; and, 3) 

Substantial staff time and resources are involved in organizing, preparing for, conducting, and responding to these already ongoing reviews. Hence, we concluded that 

in the main, these processes are already healthy and robust, and accordingly our 

report’s recommendations for improvement are modest, i.e., that LLNL and LANL 

should ensure short written guidance for a graded approach to peer review, and 

SNL should strengthen and broaden its use of outside experts on its peer review 

teams. 

REF: Report pages 11, 26, 42, 44. 

Mr. COOPER. The report notes that ‘‘Recommendation 4 [the recommendation to 

build prototypes based on new designs] might be seen by some critics as promoting 

an aggressive posture that would put the United States in a position to manufacture 

new nuclear weapons quickly and thus fuel a new global nuclear arms race.’’ Can 

you elaborate on these risks? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. To avoid the fundamental risk of losing a core 

capability that could be essential for responding to evolving national security 

threats, our committee realized that the NNSA complex needs a means of exercising, on a regular and ongoing basis, the full suite of nuclear weapons design, development, and engineering capabilities through true design competitions. To clarify 

what we envision these competitions to encompass, in order to minimize the possibility of our report being misunderstood, we explicitly noted that a prototype developed in a design competition should be a ‘‘nuclear device,’’ not a warhead. Implementation of our Recommendation 4 would help develop and maintain the most important of national nuclear security assets—a competent, focused workforce with 

demonstrated skills and judgment—and would instill confidence by all stakeholders 

(including adversaries) in the ability of this workforce to maintain the nuclear deterrent. 

REF: Report pages 5, 6, 49. 

Mr. COOPER. Your report stresses that a ‘‘clean slate’’ design competition is important. Would this respond to specific military requirements? Would it help sustain 

the current arsenal, or be geared toward developing a new arsenal? How often do 

you recommend such efforts be conducted, what would they entail, and how much 

would they cost? How would you ensure that this effort does not detract from other 

priorities such as life extension programs and infrastructure modernization, or from 

the mission of understanding foreign nuclear weapons designs? Are there any risks 

of using a clean slate approach to new nuclear weapons designs and building prototypes? 
55 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. Our report did not propose linking these design 

competitions to specific military requirements. However, we noted that the design 

should be such that the consensus of the design community would be that the design could be certified in a manner consistent with the nuclear testing moratorium—that is, it should be close enough to a vetted design to permit that consensus. 

Once hands-on experience of the NEP labs’ science and engineering personnel in nuclear weapons design or testing would be lost, it could seriously compromise the nation’s defensive posture and would be difficult to reestablish. The committee unanimously judged that a blank slate approach to exercising the full range of skills in 

the NNSA complex needed to produce a new weapon should significantly help to 

ameliorate this immense risk. Please note that the other questions raised here are 

addressed in my responses to Questions #2 and #3 above. 

REF: Report pages 47, 49. 

Mr. COOPER. What other skills are not exercised through life extension programs? 

And should those be exercised as well? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. Life Extension Programs (LEPs) for the warheads 

in the enduring stockpile systems are planned far in advance, and extend over the 

next several decades. In an LEP, components that are known to suffer from deterioration or obsolescence within the time frame considered in the LEP are replaced; 

other components that may degrade more slowly with time or fail abruptly after a 

time longer than that examined may or may not be replaced. As a result, the ‘‘aging 

clock’’ of these latter components continues to tick. In some LEPs, components may 

need to be changed to improve the safety and security of the warhead. Assessment 

of the performance of changed components is a significant challenge, especially because the skills associated with designing and developing nuclear explosive packages—and, in the process, strengthening understanding of the linkages between the 

design and performance—have not been thoroughly exercised in the nuclear weapons complex for more than 20 years. From the perspective of a long-term view, the 

nation must have in place the capability to anticipate and respond to potential new 

threats the country could face in the future. To attempt this with a future workforce 

without validated experience in weapon design and development would be very 

risky. Accordingly, reliably validated workforce experience should be cultivated and 

routinely exercised, in complement with and also in support of LEPs. 

REF: Report pages 40, 41. 

Mr. COOPER. The report notes that engineering and producing prototypes of new 

nuclear weapons designs will help address evolving threats. What are these threats 

and how would building new prototypes help address them? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. Perhaps even in the later years of the Cold War, 

the nuclear threat landscape appeared more static, and the United States stabilized 

and reduced its stockpile. After the cessation of nuclear explosion testing, the 

United States and its allies put their main efforts into maintaining the existing 

stockpile. Today, as foreign stockpiles and their doctrines for use are modernizing, 

several countries are contemplating the development of nuclear capabilities, and terrorism is spreading around the world, the nuclear threat landscape consequently is 

again evolving. NNSA, entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring unimpeachable 

confidence in the nation’s nuclear warheads through its nuclear complex—which 

consists of the three nuclear weapons labs, the test site, and the production plants— 

requires for proper preparedness a focused science and engineering enterprise of 

high quality and technical staff of high competence and good judgment. The functions of peer review and design competition contribute essentially to these attributes, and accordingly both functions should be exercised routinely. 

REF: Report pages 40, 41. 

Mr. COOPER. Are there other means, such as advanced computer simulation, that 

could help understand new designs? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. Advanced computer simulations would be essential to every step of the design competitions we recommend. However, as noted in 

response to Question #1, analysis and modeling alone, no matter how carefully and 

expertly performed, can only be an approximation to reality, and the validity is limited by our assumptions and by gaps in our knowledge of physics at the extreme 

scales of nuclear weapons science. 

Mr. COOPER. Are there any risks to the quality of peer review done between Los 

Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory if the 

members of the boards of both labs are identical? Might a same board provide and 

require the same incentives or promote the same culture, that could limit the maximum effectiveness of peer review, that might not otherwise be true of other independent peer reviews? What measures are in place to mitigate such risks? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. The report alludes to this concern in the first full 

paragraph on p. 28, which reads as follows: 
56 

‘‘With many staff and managers moving from one laboratory to another today, and 

with continued encouragement from DOE/NNSA and others for the two NEP laboratories to cooperate—including sharing codes and analysis practices—some observers 

have raised the concern that the laboratories’ independence may be compromised by 

moving toward more commonality. The laboratory directors should monitor the composition of peer review panels to avoid this possibility.’’ 

Our committee believes that as long as each lab director is independently attentive and vigilant about this issue, such a possibility will be avoided. 

Mr. COOPER. Did any members of the NAS committee that wrote this report have 

ongoing contracts with either of the NNSA nuclear design laboratories? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. I understand that that this sort of question is one 

that is faced by nearly all Academies studies. How does one attract the most knowledgeable experts on a particular subject to serve on the study committee and yet 

ensure that the committee’s deliberations are not influenced by particular matters 

that give rise to conflicts of interest? The Academies have developed an elaborate 

vetting process used in forming committees, to balance any biases and ensure that 

study members will not benefit financially from potential committee activities or 

recommendations. The National Academies vetting process was fully exercised for 

our study. Moreover, the report of our 14-member committee is a consensus product; 

all members agreed with the entire document, which was also reviewed by an independent set of nine outside experts (listed in the report). Because it successfully 

went through that external review, the report is an official product of the National 

Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and not of the study committee 

members. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FRANKS 

Mr. FRANKS. How urgent is the issue of expert nuclear scientists and engineers, 

who know how to design and build these nuclear devices, retiring and leaving the 

industry? Will these competitive design programs mitigate these critical losses? 

Dr. PEERCY and Dr. DAHLBURG. The number of nuclear explosion package (NEP) 

laboratories’ science and engineering personnel with hands-on experience in nuclear 

weapons design and nuclear explosion testing continues to decrease and—unless 

changes are made—this number will reach zero in the next decade or so. Once NEP 

hands-on experience would be lost, it could limit the nation’s strategic options, and 

it would be difficult to reestablish. Accordingly, the issue is very urgent. Although 

it was considered too expensive for every design competition to result in the production of a prototype during the Cold War, those competitions that did reach the prototyping stage provided the feedback that designers needed to stay at the cutting 

edge. Hence, today as well, design competitions, and the subsequent testing of components, subsystems, and systems (within the limits of national policy and agreements) are critical to developing the next generation NEP designers with expertise 

that goes beyond analysis and modeling. It is the committee’s strong consensus view 

that design competitions as described in our report would exercise the full set of 

NEP design skills necessary for an effective nuclear deterrent. 

REF: Report pages 5, 47, 48. 

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