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37–309 2008

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–11]

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION ACT

OF 2000

HEARING

BEFORE THE

STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

HEARING HELD

JANUARY 31, 2007
(II)

STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California, Chairman

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina

RICK LARSEN, Washington

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas

MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama

RUDY BARNES, Professional Staff Member

KARI BINGEN, Professional Staff Member

JASON HAGADORN, Staff Assistant
(III)

C O N T E N T S

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS

2007

Page

HEARING:

Wednesday, January 31, 2007, The Department of Energy’s Implementation

of the National Nuclear Security Administration Act of 2000 ......................... 1

APPENDIX:

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 ................................................................................ 31

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S IMPLEMENTATION OF THE

NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION ACT OF 2000

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Everett, Hon. Terry, a Representative from Alabama, Ranking Member, Strategic Forces Subcommittee .................................................................................. 4

Tauscher, Hon. Ellen O., a Representative from California, Chairman, Strategic Forces Subcommittee ..................................................................................... 1

WITNESSES

Aloise, Gene, Director, Natural Resources and Environment Division, U.S.

Government Accountability Office accompanied by James Noel, Assistant

Director of GAO .................................................................................................... 22

Bodman, Hon. Samuel W., Secretary of Energy, Department of Energy ............ 5

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS:

Aloise, Gene ...................................................................................................... 43

Bodman, Hon. Samuel W. ................................................................................ 35

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Letter from Los Alamos, National Security LLC, submitted by Hon. Samuel W. Bodman .............................................................................................. 61

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD:

Mr. Johnson ...................................................................................................... 75

Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 74

Ms. Tauscher ..................................................................................................... 67

(1)

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY’S IMPLEMENTATION OF

THE NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION ACT OF 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, STRATEGIC FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, January 31, 2007.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:15 p.m., in room 2226, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ellen Tauscher (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, STRATEGIC

FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE

Ms. TAUSCHER. Good afternoon. This hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Strategic Forces Subcommittee, on the

Department of Energy’s (DOE) implementation of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Act will now come to order. Let me begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses: Honorable Samuel W. Bodman, Secretary of Energy, and Mr. Gene

Aloise, Director of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO)

National Resources and Environment Division.

The hearing will consist of two panels today, with the secretary

appearing alone on the first. Mr. Aloise will be joined on the second

panel by James Noel, Assistant Director of GAO and a principal

author of the report that we are releasing today.

Let me thank each of you for appearing before the subcommittee

today.

This is our subcommittee’s first hearing in the 110th Congress

and my first as chairman of the subcommittee, so let me lay out

a couple of ground rules.

First, as Chairman Skelton instructed at our full committee organizational meeting, we will honor and enforce the five-minute rule

so that all subcommittee members have a reasonable chance to ask

questions.

Mr. Secretary, we will not impose a five-minute rule on you.

Second, I encourage all subcommittee members to be respectful

of our witnesses and, in turn, our witnesses to be respectful of the

subcommittee members, especially our limited time during hearings. We will all be grateful if you can keep your answers as concise as possible while answering the question.

Now let’s get started.

Today’s hearing is not being held because of recent leadership

changes at the NNSA, nor is it being held because of the latest Los

Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) security breach. Those issues
2

are relevant but not the motivation for today’s hearing, which is a

compilation of a long-awaited report from the GAO on the department’s progress in establishing the NNSA, a matter of longstanding and significant interest to this subcommittee.

In October 2004, my distinguished predecessor, Chairman Terry

Everett, and Ranking Member Silvestre Reyes asked the GAO to

conduct a comprehensive survey of the department’s progress in

implementing the fiscal year 2000 NNSA Act.

Specifically, the subcommittee asked GAO to evaluate the extent

to which NNSA had taken steps to, one, improve security at its laboratories and plants and, two, improve its management practices

and revive its organizational structure.

After a lengthy investigation, the report is complete. And I want

to compliment the GAO on what I believe to be a constructive and

illuminating assessment. My colleague, Mr. Thornberry, and I

helped draft the provision in the National Defense Authorization

Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2000, which created the National Nuclear Security Administration.

This committee’s and, indeed, Congress’s objective in establishing

the NNSA was simple: to address chronic, well-documented problems with security and management within the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex.

Congress took action in response to well-publicized espionage

charges, decades of documented mismanagement at DOE, and dozens of reports and studies that describe weak management, confused lines of authority and a lack of mission focus within DOE

military nuclear programs.

Heeding the advice of dozens of experts who had studied these

problems—this is some of the paper, by the way, produced by the

dozens of different experts and boards and commissions and Presidential advisory committees, including the most recent 1994 report

by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, known as

PFIAB—we approved the creation of a semi-autonomous agency

within DOE.

The rationale for semi-autonomous was to insulate the new agency from a culture within DOE that had undermined security and

management in the weapons complex, but also preserve for the secretary of energy ultimate authority for policy. Immediately after

passage of the NNSA Act, this committee began aggressive oversight of implementation of the act.

The committee established a special oversight panel on DOE reorganization, on which I served as the ranking member. That panel

issued two reports in February and October of 2000, assessing initial DOE efforts, and held hearings throughout the 106th and

107th Congresses.

We have modified the NNSA Act several times. Amendments to

the original statute were included in the fiscal year 2001, 2005 and

2007 National Defense Authorization Acts. Finally, in 2004, we

asked for the GAO report, which we are discussing today. So we

have been active.

Like GAO, we see progress in some areas. But as GAO has found

in this latest investigation, seven years after the NNSA Act was

created, we still face many of the same problems that drove us to

create the organization in the first place. These range from a lack
3

of human resources, whether among NNSA site office security personnel or NNSA headquarters program management staff, to difficulties in establishing effective budget and project program management processes.

Mr. Secretary, I have long been concerned about these problems,

most of which have been raised in other reports, like the recent Defense Science Board report or the former NNSA oversight panel. I

am concerned, because our national labs and weapons complex

sites need to have effective security procedures to protect the sensitive national security secrets they guard. And the NNSA must be

effectively run if the agency is to successfully manage critical challenges it faces, from the Reliable Replacement Warhead program,

to the effort to transform the complex.

I am supportive of these programs, but I need to have the confidence that the NNSA is an effective, competent organization, if

we are to embark upon these expensive, complicated activities. Furthermore, I need confidence that DOE is enabling the NNSA to

achieve top-notch science and security, rather than serving as one

big bureaucratic roadblock.

Frankly, Mr. Secretary, after reading your submitted testimony,

I am losing that confidence. In your statement, you acknowledge

that there has been improvements in the management of the nuclear weapons complex since the NNSA was established. But you

also indicate that the NNSA Act ‘‘created a significant obstacle to

realizing the benefits of functional accountability and sound management between the NNSA and the broader department.’’

Mr. Secretary, over the seven years since we established the

NNSA, the evidence is clear. DOE has never afforded the NNSA

the degree of autonomy Congress intended in the NNSA Act. So

from where I sit, it is not credible for the department to assert that

the NNSA Act has not worked because the department has not

given it a fair chance to work.

I do want to work with the department to address these problems. But the starting point for our partnership is clear: DOE must

honor the intent of the NNSA Act and grant NNSA the authority

Congress intended.

I know you believe in accountability, Mr. Secretary, as do I. But

I am concerned that you testify that ‘‘certain elements of the NNSA

Act present obstacles to management’s success across the weapons

complex.’’ But you decline to propose solutions. That is not accountability, in my judgment, and the issues that depend on NNSA require more than that.

So my bottom line is this. If the department cannot or will not

faithfully implement the NNSA Act, we will find a way to further

insulate the NNSA from the department.

Finally, the subcommittee members and I put together a comprehensive set of questions that we will need your help with, Mr.

Secretary. We will be drafting the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act in the next couple of months, and you can

be sure we will deal with these issues in that bill. So if you could

be timely with your responses to our questions, it would allow us

to factor in your views.

And with that, I welcome your testimony today.
4

Let me now recognize my good friend and colleague, Mr. Everett,

the ranking member of the subcommittee.

Mr. Everett.

STATEMENT OF HON. TERRY EVERETT, A REPRESENTATIVE

FROM ALABAMA, RANKING MEMBER, STRATEGIC FORCES

SUBCOMMITTEE

Mr. EVERETT. Well, I want to thank my friend, colleague and

chairwoman. And I want to join you in welcoming our distinguished guests today, our witnesses today, Honorable Sam

Bodman, Secretary of Energy, and Mr. Gene Aloise and Mr. James

Noel, both from the Government Accountability Office.

I would frame my focus at today’s hearing by asking two questions. First and foremost, why do we continue to have problems

with basic security at the nuclear weapons complex? And, second,

is the NNSA Act, which arose out of concerns over security in the

nuclear weapons complex, performing as intended, specifically in

the area of how NNSA interacts with the Department of Energy?

For years, this subcommittee has closely followed NNSA, the nuclear weapons complex security posture, and its relationship with

the Department of Energy. The GAO report which is now being released today was requested by me and my ranking member, Congressman Reyes, when I previously chaired this subcommittee.

I will also note that the long history of expertise for both Chairman Tauscher and Congressman Thornberry of this subcommittee,

who developed in their leadership of this committee’s special oversight panel on development—on Department of Energy reorganization following the passage of Title 32 of fiscal year 2000 National

Defense Authorization Act that established NNSA.

Most recently, in last year’s defense authorization conference

with our Senate colleagues, we merged the counterintelligence offices of NNSA and the Department of Energy, taken due to the concerns with how NNSA and the department were implementing the

NNSA Act.

Safeguarding our nation’s nuclear weapons design information,

the underlying rationale for establishing NNSA, is critical to our

national security. I am perplexed as to why we have continued to

have significant security problems at Los Alamos and perhaps elsewhere in the complex. I will also note that the GAO report highlights several areas of management of practices which NNSA and,

between NNSA and the department, now are not functioning

smoothly.

And significantly, I am especially interested in hearing the secretary as to whether NNSA can effectively execute the national security mission under the existing NNSA Act legislation or, alternatively, whether legislation requires changes. I will look forward

to hearing from our witnesses, and we actually need to find out

what we need to do to get this thing right.

And I want to thank the Madam Chairman for convening this

hearing. It is timely, with the release of the GAO report. Thank

you, Madam Chairman.

Ms. TAUSCHER. I thank the distinguished ranking member.

Apparently we may have been called for another vote. I wanted

to ask Mr. Thornberry if he had an opening statement.
5

Mr. Loebsack, do you have an opening statement?

Mr. LOEBSACK. No, I don’t. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, if you could give me a sense for

how long it will take for you to summarize your statement, perhaps

we could go ahead with that, and then we could break for a vote.

Secretary BODMAN. Five minutes.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Please go ahead. Mr. Secretary, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

STATEMENT OF HON. SAMUEL W. BODMAN, SECRETARY OF

ENERGY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Secretary BODMAN. Madam Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I am very pleased to be here before you to provide my

assessment of Title 32 in the National Nuclear Security Administration Act.

Let me begin by recognizing Chairman Tauscher, Ranking Member Everett for the terrific leadership they have shown in focusing

on this, which you have just talked about. Anybody that can work

their way through all those documents is my kind of person.

I also want to say that the men and women in the NNSA complex are a key national asset. The work that they do is critical to

our nation’s security, defense and scientific capabilities, and it is

among the most sensitive work performed in our government.

While we grapple with some of the challenges that it presents,

I continue to be committed to administering the NNSA Act as written to the best of my ability. Last July, based on a recommendation

of the department’s inspector general, following a security lapse at

the Albuquerque service center, I convened a task force to review

the separate organization of NNSA within the department.

The deputy secretary led the team that included the administrator of the NNSA, the undersecretary for science, and our general

counsel. Task force members identified language within the act

that prohibited the delegation of authority beyond the deputy secretary, as having created a significant obstacle to realizing the benefits of functional accountability and sound management between

the NNSA and the broader department.

After careful consideration of their review, I concluded that,

while certain elements of the act presented obstacles to management success across the weapons complex, we would continue to

work within the limits and under the guidance of that act. It does,

however, remain my belief that the creation of the NNSA as a separately organized entity within the department has not yielded all

of the beneficial results that the legislation’s authors intended.

Let me add here that my views on these issues are informed by

experience as deputy secretary in two other Cabinet departments,

with large, separately organized elements within them, both Commerce and Treasury. I am aware that the GAO just today has released a report in which it concludes that there continue to be serious flaws in the management practices across the weapons complex, particularly in the area of security.

And while I have not yet reviewed that report in any great detail, I can say generally that I certainly agree that problems persist. There is no doubt about that.
6

While we have much more to do, we have made it a top priority

to improve management within the entire department, including

the NNSA, and we are making progress, in my judgment, toward

that goal.

Madam Chairman, in the past, our partnership has led to very

constructive changes, with large beneficial impacts on our organization. A merger of intelligence and counterintelligence functions on

a department-wide basis is a good example of that type of cooperation, and I very much look forward to working with you in the future where similar opportunities arise.

That concludes my opening remarks, and I ask that the written

statement that I have prepared be entered into the record.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Without objection.

Secretary BODMAN. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Bodman can be found in

the Appendix on page 35.]

Ms. TAUSCHER. Let me just ask my colleagues. Apparently we

have a 15-minute vote on. Shall we go vote and then just come

right back? Does that work?

Is that fine with you, Mr. Everett?

Mr. EVERETT. Absolutely.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, I apologize. We will be back as

quickly as we can. Thank you.

Secretary BODMAN. Thank you.

[Recess.]

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, thank you, and thank you for the

witnesses’ indulgence. We don’t expect to have a vote imminently,

but why don’t we proceed with questions?

I am just going to yield myself some time to ask you a question,

and then to proceed on a five-minute rule to the other members.

Mr. Secretary, in your prepared testimony, you state, ‘‘Over the

last six years, an array of security breaches has continued to occur

in the weapons laboratory complex. These incidents call into question whether the arms-length management model prescribed by the

act is a workable and effective management tool.’’

I guess my question effectively is, are you suggesting that these

incidents would have been avoided if you had been granted greater

authority over the NNSA?

Secretary BODMAN. No.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, can——

Secretary BODMAN. I am trying to be responsive to your request

to be brief.

Ms. TAUSCHER. I appreciate that. So let me get it straight. If you

are not suggesting that if you had gotten more authority under the

NNSA Act, that these incidents wouldn’t have occurred. And I

sense a very real reluctance on your part to implement the act.

And you have made it clear that you don’t think that the act is

workable or that it will achieve the kinds of things that we intended.

What exactly, then, are we meant to do, in absence of getting

compliance on the act by you and the department, what are we

meant to do to stop these chronic, debilitating, embarrassing security breaches?
7

Secretary BODMAN. Well, first, Madam Chairman, I would say to

you, I believe we are implementing the act. I have every intention

of implementing the act and obeying the law. It seems to me that

is my job, and I am attempting to do it.

Now, you may not be happy with how I am doing it and may

have different views as to how I am doing it, but I want you to

know that, at least in my mind, I am attempting to deal with that

and trying as hard as I know how to implement that act. And I

wanted to say that.

Second, in order to understand the reasons for the continuing

issues on security, it strikes me that one has to look at sort of the

root cause of the problem. I think the root cause of the problem is

the so-called culture at Los Alamos. I mean, these issues largely—

they are not exclusively, but largely have been focused in Los Alamos.

And the problems of trying to manage a cultural change takes—

I can tell you, I have done it before. Perhaps you have, as well. It

takes time. So it is something that I think is—I am reasonably

comfortable that the current LANL board and the organization is

going to be effective. I am cautiously optimistic, let’s say, about

that. And I remain hopeful about that.

But it seems to me that is really the issue, is to try to manage

that laboratory better. And I believe that we have implemented the

act.

With all due respect to my friends from GAO, I would tell you

that they started at, which I had not realized, two years ago or

more, from I think what Ranking Member Everett said. And I

think that some of the problems—maybe not all, but many of the

problems—have been dealt with.

I do believe we are in better shape, in terms of the day-to-day

management, at least by my definition of it, which is a more supportive, cooperative interface between DOE members and NNSA

members.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, do you have two or three different

suggestions of how we can amend the NNSA Act to get better compliance and a more effective, organic organization?

Secretary BODMAN. I don’t really—I am not recommending any

changes in the NNSA Act. I think we can make it work. And so

the idea of going through the—that is one thing I looked at when

I think I mentioned that. We had a committee internally and

looked at, you know, are there changes that would make sense?

And I think that this can be made to work. I think we are making it work. And that is not to say all the problems are dealt with.

And I will continue to look at Los Alamos with a jaundiced eye.

My big concerns, frankly, and the act concern the multiplicity of,

you know, the replication of functions. I have two general counsels;

I have two congressional offices; I have two public affairs offices;

I have two senior financial people. I guess one isn’t really called a

Chief Financial Officer (CFO), per se, but effectively operates in

that fashion. And it is——

Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, with all due respect, Mr. Secretary, you are

not meant to have two. One is meant to be in the NNSA, and one

is meant to be for you. That is the problem, I think.
8

Secretary BODMAN. Well, the NNSA reports to me, I believe, and

therefore, in that sense, I have two. And so that is how I think of

it.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, maybe that is a culture issue we can work

on, too, because I think, to a certain extent, Mr. Secretary, this obviously all happened way before your time, both this President’s

time and—this is something that has happened over many administrations, Democrat and Republican, and many Congresses.

Secretary BODMAN. Right.

Ms. TAUSCHER. And part of the problem we had was that we had

all of these chronicles of embarrassing, debilitating, worrisome security breaches, management failures, project management lapses,

other things, and that we found ourselves with recurring suggestions that the weapons complex itself was not getting the kind of

attention it needed and it needed to have its own CFO, its own capabilities resident in that organization.

Secretary BODMAN. I understand.

Ms. TAUSCHER. And so I think that, you know, our intent was to

stop what had been this litany of mistakes and problems and create this organization. Now we have done that. Now we have not

only competed the weapons lab contracts, changed out directors,

closed labs temporarily, had all kinds of other things, and we still

find ourselves with similar situations.

And it resonates to me when you say ‘‘culture.’’ I understand

what you are saying. But we cannot allow this to continue. The

American people need to know that they are not only getting the

best science, but the best national security, in this——

Secretary BODMAN. I couldn’t agree more.

Ms. TAUSCHER. I agree.

Secretary BODMAN. You and I have the same objectives. I have

met with the LANL board. I have commissioned the Inspector General’s (IG) report. I have commissioned two further reports that

will be completed at the end of next month, at the end of February.

Ninety days is what I gave them. I started them in early December, all geared toward looking at the specifics of the security failures at Los Alamos and putting a program in place that will have

teeth to it and that will work.

And I would tell you that I am attempting to play a much more

proactive, aggressive role than my predecessors have, frankly of

both parties—it is not meant to be a partisan matter—that I believe has an opportunity to change the way that organization

thinks about both security, which is the discussion of the day, but

also safety matters, which is part of what I worry about, as well.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

As I said, we have a number of questions for the record that we

will be giving to you——

Secretary BODMAN. Okay.

Ms. TAUSCHER [continuing]. And we would hope that we could

have a timely response from you.

I am happy to yield time now to the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Everett.

Mr. EVERETT. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, I often kind of like just to get right to the heart

of the matter. Let me read some of your written statement.
9

On page four of that statement, second line down, ‘‘The NNSA

Act is unique in that it imposes severe limitations on the Secretary

of Energy’s management authority and, in my view, impedes the

Secretary’s ability to manage the organization effectively. For example, the Secretary is prohibited from directing subordinate

NNSA, Federal or contract personnel or authorizing any other than

the deputy secretary to exercise authority, direction or control over

them. This prohibition precludes me and my line managers from

many logical and effective workings with NNSA’s deputy administrators, associate administrators, or their subordinate employees.’’

Now, if I understood you correctly, you told the chairman that

you have contemplated no change in the NNSA Act. And my question would be, if you believe what is in your written statement—

well, two things. Number one, explain the written statement to me

a little further in detail. And, number two, if you believe this, then

why wouldn’t you want some changes?

Secretary BODMAN. Well, first of all, I believe the statement. I

believe it to be accurate. I believe that the problems that we have

experienced, the most recent problems that we have experienced,

are unrelated to that description. And it is evident to me that this

committee, among others, has worked very hard over a long period

of time to develop the NNSA Act.

And I have a view that we would be better off without aspects

of it. They are mentioned there. But I don’t think that they are

really at the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem is a

cultural issue with Los Alamos, and that is going to be there whatever changes we might make.

And so I have two years left, sir, in this job, and that is unless

the President changes his mind or you all do, or something, and

that I would hope that when we are completed that there would

be a sense that we have made significant progress.

There are two big issues within NNSA that I would just sort of—

if we step back and sort of look at it. One I think we get good credit

for. That is, when you look at the Defense Science Board, in effect

the message that was in that report that I received about a year

or a year-and-a-half ago, was that we had lost the confidence of the

Department of Defense in our management of the nuclear complex.

Tom D’Agostino, who is here, took on the assignment of being the

deputy administrator for defense programs and has done—I wish

he weren’t here—he has done a magnificent job in implementing

and improvements there. And so we are responding to that. That

is one big area that was, I think, the challenge.

The second big area is security within our system, security and

safety within our system, broadly defined, and at Los Alamos in

particular. And there we have failed. And I can tell you, it now has

much more of my personal attention than it did before, and we are

going to try to be proactive and very specific in terms of dealing

with it. And I would rather put my time and effort, Congressman,

into that, rather than in worrying about exactly what is involved

in changing the NNSA Act.

So it is strictly a matter of trying to put my time where I think

it can do the most good.

Mr. EVERETT. Mr. Secretary, two things. Number one, I spent

four years as the chairman of the Committee on Investigation and
10

Oversight on Veteran’s Affairs (VA). And I can tell you, to be honest with you, I started to give up that chairmanship because of the

culture within V.A., of their own little kingdoms that these directors of these hospitals had.

And, frankly, my wife talked me into keeping the subcommittee,

because we had done a lot of good things. But there are a lot of

things out there that we did not have the resources to get to. So

I understand the culture.

From my personal knowledge, we have been dealing with the culture issue on this, though, 10 to 12 years now. And it seems, at

some point in time, we ought to be making some headway. I have

often described government as like a huge, huge ship floating

downstream. And just to make a correction a little bit, it takes a

mighty force to do it. But after 10 or 12 years, it would seem to

me that we were beginning to make some headway or we would be

firing a bunch of folks at Los Alamos, to put it as blunt as I know

how.

The other thing—and you said that the last incident that happened at Los Alamos was not related to some of the things that I

have read here.

Secretary BODMAN. That is correct, sir. That is correct.

Mr. EVERETT. Can you tell me what is related to this, other than

culture?

Secretary BODMAN. Cost effectiveness of management. I mean,

you know, from my selfish standpoint, I would be better off with

NNSA ‘‘as a part of the department’’ and operating in that fashion

and without what I consider, as the chairman would, what I consider a duplication of efforts.

But we have made it work. I mean, it is not that big a deal, but

I just thought this was an occasion for me to come in and address

myself to this committee for the first time. And I thought it unwise

to do it without being honest and tell you that I do have some misgivings about the organization.

But I also think that it is important to say that I don’t think

they are—that these issues are the focus of the problems that we

are all wrestling with. So we have issues here, and we have problems over here, and I don’t think they link up.

Mr. EVERETT. Madam Chairman, I am not going to, you know,

take a lot more time. But the thing that concerns all of us, if we

want to zero in and put a culture in the middle of the bull’s eye,

it seems to me that, after 10 or 12 years, we ought to be able to

be making some progress on it.

And I recognize that you haven’t been here that long.

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVERETT. But speaking for myself on this committee, somehow or the other, we have to get—and I have been to Los Alamos

a number of times. But we have to get it across down there that,

you know, we are serious. And if the chairman mentioned the place

was closed down for six months at one time, and I don’t know—

you take, $300 million or $150 million, I don’t know which it was,

frankly.

If that doesn’t get their attention—and, of course, we have a lot

of belly-aching from the folks down there, you know, because of it.

And if that doesn’t get their attention, I don’t know what will.
11

Secretary BODMAN. Well, I guess if I could just respond to you,

sir, on that, I thing that I mentioned before, I have met with the

LANL board. In addition to what we have done, they have had

their own evaluative team in there to make a determination. And

I have a letter in here. I would be happy to read you the list of

issues that they have, that they are working on.

I want to try to, frankly, keep the pressure on them, because

that is where the first line of defense is. They are the ones that

are operating this laboratory. They are responsible for it. And I

think Administrator D’Agostino will use the contract, this new contract that we have negotiated, in the most effective way possible.

I do think it is important to remember that they have only been

there six months. And six months is some time, but when you

think about changing the culture of an environment, it is not a

long time.

They have imposed a mandatory drug testing program for the

first time in Los Alamos. I expect that we will look at expanding

that throughout the complex, so that we are starting to—and there

will be a manual written by our chief information officer, in conjunction with the chief information officer, working together with

the NNSA. The two of them will issue a manual that will have very

specific requirements that have been called out in a directive from

the deputy secretary.

And for the first time, we will have something that will be, in

effect, a part of the contract with the LANL organization. That did

not exist before, sir. And so I think that we are taking a number

of steps and changing the way we deal with the organization out

there, the formality with which we do it, and I believe, hopefully,

the effectiveness with which we do it.

Mr. EVERETT. Madam Chairman, I do have some questions that

we will come back to about the contract that was recently awarded,

but in fairness to the other members, I don’t have enough time.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Everett, do you want to ask the Secretary if

he is willing to share with us the LANL’s director’s ladder and

make it part of the record subsequently?

Mr. EVERETT. I would ask that.

Ms. TAUSCHER. To the extent that you can?

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, to the extent——

Ms. TAUSCHER. To the extent that you can.

Secretary BODMAN [continuing]. That I can, I would be happy to

read the—I can certainly give you the list of what they—the organization consists of Bechtel, University of California, BWXT, and

the Washington Group. The three corporate members are new

members of the management.

So, in effect, it really is a significant change. And they dispatched members from the parent organizations into Los Alamos

and the team that evaluated what the problems were.

And it was embarrassing, frankly. We just haven’t done it. And

so what we are attempting to do is to deal with a lot of the issues

that they have dealt with and the issues that—this has also been

looked at by the I.G. There is no shortage of expert opinions and

more reports, you know, that are——

Ms. TAUSCHER. By the pound.
12

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, and so we have plenty of that. And so

I think what we are trying to do is to act on it. And we are trying

to take steps. I don’t want to say anything more than that, than

we are taking steps.

But if I can make the entire letter available, I will do it. And if

not, I am sure I can make the list of what their summary of—it

is seven or eight different points of what they found when they

looked at the security breach in Los Alamos.

Mr. EVERETT. One final parting shot, Madam Chairman. I have

great confidence in Tom, and I recognize that, probably in the six

to eight months, he will have this culture thing straightened up.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Ms. TAUSCHER. I thank the distinguished ranking member.

I am now happy to yield five minutes to the gentleman from

Texas, Mr. Thornberry.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you being with us today. I am going

to have to continue a little bit along the same line, because I do

think, from passage of the NNSA Act until today, we have talked

a lot, rightfully so, about the culture of the complex, not just Los

Alamos, especially Los Alamos, but throughout the complex.

And yet I guess part of what is worrying me today may be the

culture within the Department of Energy. For example, when I

read from the Defense Science Board report from January 2006, a

year ago, they said that, you know, one option is to have the Secretary of Energy enforce the requirement that the Administrator be

autonomous and accountable, but it had little confidence in the

prospect for effective or lasting change within the Department of

Energy.

And I don’t mean to be nitpicky, but I see in your statement, too,

where, after this careful review, you decide that, after all, you all

would continue to comply with the law. And I realize it may be a

matter of wording, but in your statement that is essentially—we

would continue to work within the limits of the act, like there is

another choice.

And then, when I go through some of the specifics that the GAO

found—and I don’t want to take a lot of time with this—but, for

example, on procurement, it says, ‘‘DOE made a commitment to

issue NNSA specific acquisition procedures, but it has not done so,

and, as a matter of fact, the Department has blocked NNSA’s efforts to issue its own acquisition regulations. On information technology, both the DOE and NNSA offices of chief information officer

cannot reach agreement on which office is doing what. NNSA and

DOE don’t have a formal process for obtaining DOE approval of

NNSA specific procedures.’’

And it says specifically, ‘‘DOE’s office of general counsel has delayed the development of the process because it believes NNSA

should be treated like any other part of the Department.’’ And

there are safeguards and security, where it talks about DOE and

NNSA haven’t been able to agree on the formal procedures for safeguards and security.

Bottom line is you go through the specifics and where the road

blocks are, and helping NNSA be as effective as it can, I worry that
13

as much of the problem isn’t within the Department of Energy as

it is within the NNSA itself.

And I would like to say one other thing, and then obviously be

very attentive to whatever response you would like to give. It was

not an easy decision for this committee to agree to the merger of

intelligence and counterintelligence last year. For my part, I supported the change, only because I felt that there was a feeling within the department to make the NNSA Act work.

If, on the other hand, there is a feeling within the department

to do otherwise, then I am afraid that maybe I have made a mistake and that things are headed back the other way. And so I just

want to share with you, as far as I am concerned, I want to work

with the department to make this act and this complex as effective

as possible, because it is so dad-gum important.

If, on the other hand, we are back to turf wars and lawyers fighting, you know, I am going to be very discouraged about the prospects of doing so. So I would be very interested in your thoughts

on that.

Secretary BODMAN. I don’t know where to start, sir. Let me start

at the end, talk about the merger of the counterintelligence with

the intelligence office and between NNSA and the department.

That was, in my judgment, perhaps the most dysfunctional of all

the organizations, the counterintelligence particularly, the counterintelligence office. We had one staff and two sets of bosses. And

they were having turf warfare all the time about who did what to

whom. Now, they did finally, I think, a couple of fiscal years ago,

arrange priorities and set up what they would do and how they

would do it.

I did talk to the director of national intelligence about the issue.

I got advice from him. I got a recommendation from him as to a

leader. I think, if you were to have your staffs or even the committee have a hearing and have a discussion with the man who runs

that operation right now, he is extremely capable and very good.

And I am very pleased. I think you would be pleased if you were

to get a sense of what they are doing, how they are doing it.

You can’t do intelligence without counterintelligence, in my opinion. You have to have both. And one thing leads to another.

Now, as to the rest of it, I would just try to maybe give you a

brief response, and I would do more for the record, if you would

like. But I would tell you that we share the same objectives. We

are trying to get this right. I believe we have made more progress

than is indicated, from the little I have seen of the GAO report, because I have not read it all. I have looked at a summary of it and

so forth.

I have talked to the acting director, and I have talked to the

former director, the former administrator of the NNSA. And in

both cases, their responses have been that we have made a lot of

progress. We are much better than we were.

The goal here is to try to effectively bridge whatever gaps exist

between the department and the NNSA. And I believe we have

made progress on that. It is not a final product yet, but I can assure you that David Hill, the general counsel, is not attempting to

hold up anything. He knows full well the law. He is a very capable
14

guy. And he knows that the NNSA is different. Everybody knows

that within the department.

And we are attempting to do our best, and I think we are having

some success. I say that hesitantly, because what we have to talk

to you about today is not a very encouraging story, just what the

problems we have had in the Albuquerque service office, and then

in Los Alamos itself.

And I lived there every day, and I believe that it is better. I believe we are getting more effective cooperation. I have delegated

specifically to the deputy secretary, to Clay Sell, the job of meeting

every week with the full—he joins in with the leadership group

when they meet every week. And so he devotes a couple of hours

per week to that endeavor, to try to establish better relationships.

And I think he has accomplished that.

And it is he that reports back to me as to where and what he

believes is going on. And I think we have improved.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Madam Chairman, I am sorry I got carried

away, and I went on beyond my time.

Ms. TAUSCHER. No problem.

Mr. Loebsack, for five minutes.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today.

As a new member of the Congress and as a new member of this

committee and this subcommittee, I would just like you to enlighten me a little bit as to, what specifically are we talking about

when we talk about the culture? I mean, you know, we can talk

about government bureaucracies, all of them wanting to maybe

have their own little kingdoms, as was already mentioned.

But what specifically about Los Alamos and about, you know,

sort of the agencies, whatever, that we are talking about here,

what specific elements of the culture are we talking about? Because

it is not the same as Health and Human Services, for example, or

whatever.

Secretary BODMAN. Arrogance. Arrogance of the chemists and

physicists and engineers who work at Los Alamos. They think they

are above it all and that this is not an important part of what they

do. It has been that way for a long time. And it is that, in my judgment, that is the issue.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Do they believe that they can deal with the security issues on their own? Is that the case, the safety issues on their

own, or they just don’t want to be policed, or what it is, or supervised or whatever?

Secretary BODMAN. Well, they don’t want to be policed. I think

that is fair. They have a view that they are kind of above it, you

know, that they are doing—you have to understand, in dealing

with a world-class physicist, you know, that is the most important

thing in the world to that person, is physics, and that is what they

do, and that is their focus.

They worry less about—it is not that they are trying to, to my

judgment, in general. This woman was willfully breaking the law,

in my judgment. But in general there is an attitude that is there

that has to be changed. And I think it is going to get changed. And

the only way to change it that I know of is to be much more specific

and much more strict. And we are going to do that.
15

And the oversight office that is in Los Alamos, that reports to

Mr. D’Agostino, is likewise—we have had a change in leadership

there. And I think you will find that there is going to be a much

more strict interpretation of exactly what the requirements are,

being more specific and being strict with it.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Well, and related to that, I suppose, in some

ways, on page seven—and this is getting I think what Mr. Thornberry was talking about, to some extent—you know, your concerns

about authority, you know, you coming from the private sector,

where obviously things might operate a little bit differently than

the public sector, and you state here on page seven some of the

concerns about harmonizing the workings of the separate elements,

includes the authority to delegate necessary authority to subordinates of his or her own selection, your own selection, right, because

the secretary or chief executive cannot do it all alone in a complex

organization.

How have things changed since you have been in office then?

And you seem to be very concerned that, perhaps, what you would

like to see hasn’t been the case up to this point.

Secretary BODMAN. Well, it hasn’t been, but, by the same token,

as I have already stated, sir, you know, I think it can work. And

I think we can make it work, and we are doing our level best to

make it work.

The challenge is largely one of having these duplicative—what I

think of as duplicative activities. And there is a built-in natural resistance of one to the other. It is just that is human nature. That

is the way people are, and that is why the department secretary

and is working assiduously on this, is to try to break that down.

We also have a meeting with all of the leadership of the entire

department every week, every Monday morning for an hour, from

8:30 to 9:30. Everybody, both sides, that is to say that NNSA people and the Department of Energy people. It is funny when you

meet with people and you get to know them, sometimes things

work a little better. And it surprised me that that apparently had

not been the practice in the past, but it is now.

And so I think there is an improving relationship.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Any other things that you have been doing, besides having these meetings, once a week for an hour, to try to

break down those barriers?

Secretary BODMAN. The deputy is also devoting a significant part

of his time working with the NNSA. You know, I think it is—in effect, no, but we do talk pretty—as I have talked and addressed employee groups, the Department of Energy is the most Balkanized,

stove-piped place I have ever seen in my life. And we are trying

to break that down, and they know it.

It has also not been a bastion of managerial excellence. And we

are trying to improve that. And I think we are making some

progress. I am not here to tell you that we have solved all the problems, but I think we are making some progress on both fronts.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Okay. Thank you.

I yield back my time.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Larsen.

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
16

Secretary Bodman, thanks for coming this afternoon.

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LARSEN. Chairwoman Tauscher’s first question to you elicited a one-word response—I think it was ‘‘no’’—and that is, would

these problems have happened if you had been there? And the answer was no.

And I think the impetus for that question was based on your testimony, which was sort of kind of ‘‘I love you, I hate you’’ kind of

testimony, and it started off my saying that you want to work—

and you want to keep things working. And then you go through

this laundry list of all these bad things.

I think it was kind of, as I was reading it, it was kind of a backhanded compliment, a little bit. It sort of cries for, ‘‘Well, what

would you do to change what is going on?’’ And that is what Chairwoman Tauscher’s question was about.

So I want to ask it a little differently, if I could, with regards to

the security side of things. And this is, basically, in your testimony,

what gives you confidence that greater secretarial authority over

NNSA would solve these problems. Not to say that you, that it

wouldn’t have happened if you were there or weren’t there, but

what gives you confidence that greater secretarial authority over

NNSA would solve these problems?

Secretary BODMAN. Let me correct, at least, what I think is a correction of the question, that I felt I answered, that Chairman

Tauscher asked, and that was—it was not a matter of my personally being there. It was a matter of, if we made the changes that

I had talked about or the concerns that I expressed, and if we were

to have fixed those in a change of the act, would that have changed

the events at Los Alamos? And my answer to that was no.

It wasn’t a matter of my personal presence, just so that that is

clear. You know, I don’t know how to answer your question other

than by saying, you know, there are—this department is very

stove-piped. Everything operates by itself, in and of—whether that

has been there for 30 years or not, I don’t know, but it is the most

Balkanized, stove-piped place I have ever seen.

And it has been very difficult to break down and get people to

work with one another. It has been a major challenge. That has

been the major thing that we have attempted to do, and we have

tried to do it in a number of different ways, by exercising leadership, by allocating resources, by picking people that can do that

sort of work.

That is where the core of this is, I believe, because it is going

to be by bringing competence, knowledge, and a cooperative attitude of working with an organization that we hopefully can make

progress. But other than that, there is no magic bullet. And it is

not going to be done by changing the NNSA Act, in my opinion.

Mr. LARSEN. I perhaps have missed it. Have you yet sought out

a replacement for Ambassador Brooks?

Secretary BODMAN. We have interviewed a number of people.

And we are in the process of working our way through that. We

have not yet identified an individual.

Mr. LARSEN. It just seems to me as, looking back on the history

of this and certainly the history of the act, that the clear intent of

Congress was to keep NNSA semi-autonomous. And, as a result, I
17

think that the person you come up with, we would probably prefer

that person have that same kind of view toward NNSA, as well. Is

that something that you would agree with?

Secretary BODMAN. I would agree with it, but as long as there

is an attitude of trying to work, you know, cooperatively. It is not

a matter of trying to run it—I think, you know, it is not—let me

give you a good example.

A good example is Naval Reactors. Naval Reactors is also a part

of the NNSA. They are extremely competent. They are so competent, I don’t have to spend any time worrying about them, because they operate on their own. And I have been invited to go do

different things of a fun nature, and I frankly haven’t had the time

to do that. And so I haven’t.

And so I have not spent a lot of time with them, but they are

very, very autonomous and operate without much involvement at

all with this department. This department is one department, and

it is important to understand that. I guess that is a point I would

make.

The science office of, when you look at the three weapons laboratories, 20 percent of the budget in each of those laboratories comes

from the science department of the department. They are very important.

The environmental management activity of our department,

which is also, if you will, a civilian part—it is a non-weapons part

of what we do—that also has direct overlap and works very closely

with it. It is quite interesting. The first supercomputer that was

developed was not developed in the science office, although it has

now been exercised and worked there. It came out of Sandia.

And Sandia Laboratory built the first—I know you call it Red

Storm. It was the first supercomputer. And so that is now the basis

of what we put at Oak Ridge.

And so, if we were to separate this to the extent that Naval Reactors is separated, we would lose the synergies. We would lose a

lot of very positive things that have occurred.

And I guess the last thing I would say—again, forgive me,

Madam Chairman, but this is important that I try to deliver this—

the Energy Policy Act of 2005 elevated for the first time—we have

an Under Secretary of Science, Raymond Orbach. He is terrific. He

is a very capable man. He is my personal science adviser.

And so he works very closely in helping evaluate—he was the

one that did the evaluation on the National Ignition Facility, the

NIF, so called, out in Lawrence Livermore. He did the work on that

and convinced me that this was a good thing and that they knew

what they were doing and they were on top of it. I think that was

a good decision.

So he also works with me—every spring, I have to write a letter

to the President of the United States certifying that if, God forbid,

we need to use a nuclear weapon, it will work. And he works with

me to evaluate that.

So it really is an integrated department and that, to the extent

one were to separate it out and create autonomy, on the one hand,

you lose the kind of cooperative, supportive environment that I believe exists and has been extremely effective.
18

Ms. TAUSCHER. The gentleman’s time has expired. Thank you,

Mr. Larsen.

Mr. LARSEN. Sorry.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Spratt, for five minutes.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Secretary, thank you for your testimony. Let me

slip to slightly a different subject.

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPRATT. Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication has been a bone

of contention for eight or nine years now. Its cost, the necessity of

it, or its desirability, vis-a-vis other forms of disposal, such as immobilization, whether or not the Russian counterpart on the parallel track would ever come about, all of these things have been

swirling around in the argument. And those arguments almost

killed the program here in the House. The Continuing Resolution (CR) on the floor today does provide

some carryover money—$220 million, if I am not mistaken, which

is last year, 2006 funding—but it fences that money until August

the 1st. When I last saw the language, it required DOE to come

forward with a justification of the whole plutonium disposition program, not just the 34 metric tons in MOX, but everything.

That language may have been dropped, but the fence until August 1st is still there. And the purpose obviously—and particularly

from the Energy and Water Committee on our side—is to have

time for them to deny the funding for 2008, so that it would make

the use of the funds in 2007 futile.

The department has to come forward and make a strong, emphatic case for MOX fuel and for your whole plutonium disposition

project, if it is going to survive and if we are going to get out of

this year-to-year wrangle over whether it is worth doing. Are you

prepared to do that?

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPRATT. You are sold on it? You are satisfied with the program?

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir. I am satisfied with the program, in

that we made a commitment to the state of South Carolina. One

of my predecessors did, and I am here to honor it.

Mr. SPRATT. Yes, sir. Well, it is going to take several billion dollars, but part of the argument is to recognize that, if you don’t

spend it on MOX, you will have to spend on the mobilization, some

other form of——

Secretary BODMAN. Well, or, I mean, you know, I am an—you

have understand, sir, I am an engineer. And therefore, if I had my

way, probably I wouldn’t—this is kind of old-fashioned technology,

and I would do what the Russians are thinking about doing. I

would probably use a fast reactor and try to develop something. It

would then take 20 more years to get that developed, and used,

and all of that, and I think you would then have 20 more years of

plutonium around.

And, therefore, I have concluded that we are better off as a country employing the current technology that is available and making

the oxide of plutonium and using it in a conventional reactor. And

so we will do whatever we can do, and I have made that case, sir,

to the chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations Committee more than once.
19

Mr. SPRATT. It needs to be made one more time, at least, sir.

[Laughter.]

Secretary BODMAN. Then I will do it again, sir.

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much. One concern, though, is that

the Russians are not on track, that they are not going forward with

the MOX plant themselves. They would like to build a fast neutron

reactor. And lots of people have had apprehensions about it, because they look upon it as a breeder reactor.

Secretary BODMAN. No, I know. And I have talked to Mr.

Kiriyenko about that subject when he was last here in town. He

is the head of Rosatom, the atomic energy commission of Russia.

And I pointed out to him that we were having significant funding

problems in our Congress related to the MOX program, and that

we needed to get a commitment from them as to what they were

going to do and how they were going to do it.

Mr. SPRATT. You think that is going to be forthcoming?

Secretary BODMAN. I don’t know, to be honest with you, sir. I can

tell you that they have sort of made a halfway effort, but it is not

strong enough. And we will continue to work that issue.

Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much.

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Johnson, for five minutes.

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam Chair, I have no questions.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Turner, for five minutes.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Madam Chair. I thought we were going

back and forth, so I appreciate it. You guys sort of had a run going

over there.

Ms. TAUSCHER. We are actually doing by time that you came into

the hearing.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, in looking at the GAO report and the conclusion,

the last couple sentences, ‘‘While there have been continuing calls

for moving NNSA from DOE and establishing it as a separate

agency, we do not believe that such drastic change is necessarily

to produce an organization that can provide effective oversight of

the nation’s nuclear weapons complex.’’

And then, when you look at page 44, it raises the issue of moving

NNSA to DOD. Most of the discussion that is in this document relates to issues of management and effectiveness and control. And

you have been addressing that, and I know that a lot of the focus

has been on improvement and in ways in which we can all feel

more confident of the efficiency and effectiveness there.

But the item of page 44, move NNSA to DOD, raises an issue

that I wanted to ask you about that goes beyond issues of management. So, for a minute, let’s assume that everyone at DOE and

NNSA is doing everything perfectly well and to the best of their

ability.

Secretary BODMAN. That is a great leap, sir, but I will be happy

to assume that.

Mr. TURNER. I thought I would like to take you there for a moment.

Secretary BODMAN. Good.

Mr. TURNER. But just for a moment, but once you finally get

there, you still hit a ceiling. And that is something that I have a
20

concern about, in that there is a limitation as to NNSA’s and

DOE’s ability to provide security for facilities, a limitation that is

widely and publicly known, that DOD, in its weapons systems and

its ability to deploy, it does not have.

And I discussed with Ambassador Brooks when we toured several facilities, and it seems to me that, no matter how well you do

your job, that because of the ceiling, if you will, of what you are

able to do within providing security at NNSA, that we are still taking a risk that also needs to be addressed.

I would like your thoughts on that.

Secretary BODMAN. I don’t know what conversations you have

had with Ambassador Brooks. I would tell you that the decision

was made after the Second World War, I believe, to leave the control of nuclear weapons in civilian hands. And it ended up in our

department, as the way these things go.

Ms. TAUSCHER. A wise decision, in many people’s opinion.

Secretary BODMAN. And I think it probably is a wise decision.

But I think, you know, therefore you get faced with how much and

how far and how high is up. And I think, you know, that gets to

the design-based threat and the issues related to how we protect

our nuclear stockpiles and how we protect our special nuclear materials at the laboratories.

And I think we are well along—you know, I think I am quite

comfortable with where we stand on that front, especially if you

give the passage of another couple of years, where, at the end of

2008, we will be in compliance, I believe. And so I think we are

going to be—if you have visited, which apparently you have, with

Ambassador Brooks, you have gotten the sense for the kind of security that is there.

And after 9/11, we upped it, and that has been—I think we were

looking at a smaller number of people, and now we are looking at

more people, that would be bad people, and people inside the complex, and so forth. So if I got much further, it will be classified, but

I——

Mr. TURNER. But as to the matter that you have said, and the

design-based threat, I feel that both the gaps that you currently

have that you are stretching forward, I think are obviously important still.

But I do think that, to some extent, the design-based threat is

biased, in that it takes into consideration the inherent limitation

of your current authority. And even when you stretch to meet it,

I mean to 2008, that perhaps, if you did not have the experience

that you currently do, or had assistance, interagency assistance,

you would have a broader stretch.

So I wanted to raise that issue with you as you think of it, because, you know, there is no margin of error here, that——

Secretary BODMAN. No, no, no, I understand. I understand. I will

think about it. You know, all I can tell you is that I have no compunctions about asking for help if we need help. I will tell you that.

And so to the extent we need help from another department, I

know all the phone numbers.

Mr. TURNER. Very good.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Secretary BODMAN. Thank you.
21

Ms. TAUSCHER. The gentleman yields back.

Mr. Everett.

Mr. EVERETT. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

I just want to briefly make a comment here. You mentioned the

Naval Reactor program as a model.

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVERETT. We need to remember that is basically a military

culture there.

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVERETT. That is very much unlike what we see at Los Alamos. As I understand, and there is discipline imposed there if you

don’t strictly follow the rules. Now, I understand that the chain of

command goes roughly from DOE and NNSA down to the focus,

those who are running the laboratories.

Now, there is a contract there of where they can receive about

$70 million a year to run that——

Secretary BODMAN. Seventy million.

Mr. EVERETT. And I think that it is about $30 million of that

that is very baseline stuff. So there is $40 million that can be

awarded, or in the neighborhood of $40 million, for doing things

right, you know.

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. EVERETT. And we need some accountability all the way down

the line.

And, Madam Chairman, that is all I have to say about that. And

no response.

Ms. TAUSCHER. I appreciate your comments.

Mr. Thornberry, do you have another question?

Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you for being with us today. We

appreciate the fact that we had a series of votes and we delayed

you here, and we are very grateful for your contributions and for

the fact that you were so willing to come up and see us.

Don’t be a stranger. We would like to see you again soon. And

we look forward to working with you to address the critical challenges facing the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. And thank you

very much for your service to your country.

We would like to start the second panel.

Thank you again, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary BODMAN. Thank you. If I may, Madam Chairman, I do

have the letter from Los Alamos, which apparently is available,

and I can——

Ms. TAUSCHER. I appreciate that. It will be entered to the record.

Secretary BODMAN. Should I give it to you or——

Ms. TAUSCHER. Yes, you can give it to the staff, please. Thank

you.

Secretary BODMAN. Great.

[The letter referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 61.]

Ms. TAUSCHER. And we would like to thank Mr. D’Agostino, too,

for his excellent service and his readiness to always be available

for us. Thank you.

Secretary BODMAN. Thank you.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

If we could have the second panel please come to the table. We

apologize again for the fact that we had votes, and we apparently
22

may have votes in the next half an hour, 40 minutes, so we want

to show you as much time as we possibly can.

Mr. Aloise, Mr. Noel.

Mr. Aloise, you are the Director?

Mr. ALOISE. Yes.

Ms. TAUSCHER. And, Mr. Noel, you are the Deputy Director?

Mr. NOEL. Assistant Director.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Assistant Director. Is deputy a promotion? Because I can make that happen right now. I have the gavel. [Laughter.]

I am ready.

Mr. NOEL. Please, go right ahead.

Ms. TAUSCHER. No raise, though, under the C.R.

Thank you very, very much for your hard work, and thank you

for being here. You know, I often tell my colleagues and my constituents back home that I don’t know how we would actually get

our jobs done if, every few days, we didn’t call for a GAO study to

make sure things get done. And I know how hard you work, and

I know how diligent you are. And I hope you know how much we

appreciate the partnership that the Congress has with you.

We have fabulous, fabulous staffs, but not everybody can be everywhere at the same time. And you do give us a stand-off view

of things in much more depth than we are capable of many times

ourselves. So thank you very much for your service.

We would like to hear from you briefly, if you might. If you could

keep your remarks very brief, and then we can get to questions. We

would appreciate it.

So, Mr. Aloise.

STATEMENT OF GENE ALOISE, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT DIVISION, U.S. GOVERNMENT

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE ACCOMPANIED BY JAMES NOEL,

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF GAO

Mr. ALOISE. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you for

those kind remarks.

Madam Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am

pleased to be here today to discuss the actions needed to improve

the security and management of the nation’s nuclear programs. In

response to serious security and management weaknesses at our

nation’s nuclear weapons labs, the Congress in 1999 created a National Nuclear Security Administration as a simply organized entity within DOE.

Since its creation, NNSA has experienced security problems and

cost and schedule overruns on its major projects. My remarks,

which are based on a report being released today, will address

NNSA’s actions to improve security and management.

Producing a well-organized and effective agency out of what was

considered a dysfunctional enterprise has been a considerable challenge. While progress has been made in some areas, problems remain, with respect to security, NNSA’s relationship with DOE, and

project, program and financial management.

Regarding security, our analysis of internal and independent assessments found continuing weaknesses in physical security at sev-
23

eral NNSA sites, including the Y–12 National Security Complex,

Nevada Test Site, and Sandia National Lab .

Importantly, we also found weaknesses in cybersecurity throughout NNSA. According to current and former NNSA officials, the

cybersecurity program has received inadequate attention and was

poorly implemented.

There are, in our view, four factors that have contributed to

NNSA security problems, and these are: first, until recently, NNSA

did not have consistent leadership or direction at headquarters for

its security program; second, since NNSA was created, five of six

site offices, which have oversight of contractor security, including

Los Alamos, have not been staffed at the required level; third,

NNSA has not trained security officials in the skills needed for effective security oversight; and, fourth, weaknesses in DOE’s database for tracking security problems prevented NNSA from having

complete understanding of the overall effectiveness of its security

program.

Regarding NNSA’s relationship to DOE, we found that, almost

seven years after its creation, NNSA and DOE still have not determined how NNSA should function as a separately organized agency

within DOE. NNSA has focused considerable attention on reorganizing its internal operations, but it and DOE continue to struggle with establishing how NNSA should operate within the department.

Several factors have contributed to this situation, including the

fact that NNSA’s January 2000 implementation plan did not define

how it would operate as a separately organized agency within

DOE. As a result, some NNSA programs have established procedures for interacting with DOE, but others have not, and this has

resulted in organizational conflict. Even where procedures have

been developed, interpersonal disagreements have hindered effective cooperation.

Finally, while NNSA has improved its management practices, we

found several areas where weaknesses remain. Specifically, NNSA

has not, among other things, implemented a plan for improving

project management, identified all of its program managers and

trained them to a certified level of competence, and established an

independent group to review budget proposals and alternatives.

While there have been continuing calls for removing NNSA from

DOE and establishing it as a separate agency, we do not believe

such a drastic move is necessary to produce an agency that can

provide effective oversight over the nation’s nuclear weapons programs.

Our report makes a series of recommendations to the Secretary

of Energy and the Administrator to improve security oversight,

clearly define NNSA’s status as a separately organized agency, and

improve its program and project management. We believe that implementing our recommendations will go a long way toward producing the agency that Congress had in mind when it created

NNSA.

Madam Chairman, that concludes my remarks. We would be

happy to address any questions you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Aloise can be found in the Appendix on page 43.]
24

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you very much, sir.

I am just going to ask you a very brief, to-the-point question. The

Secretary’s testimony, while he acknowledged that he found the

NNSA Act objectionable in certain aspects, he also suggests that

recent security breaches demonstrate that the NNSA Act has not

been fully effective in addressing security problems in the weapons

complex.

In your view, has DOE ever granted the NNSA the degree of autonomy contained within the NNSA Act?

Mr. ALOISE. In our view, the NNSA Act has really never been

fully implemented. The agency really hasn’t had a chance to be

what Congress had intended it to be when it created it. So we see

no reason why the agency can’t function as the Congress has intended it to.

Ms. TAUSCHER. And what do you think has been the primary impediment for its reaching its maturity as an agency, over the seven

years since it has been created?

Mr. ALOISE. One of the main reasons is, for internal reasons,

they had not yet determined how it should function as a separately

organized agency. If you look at their 2000 implementation plan,

our staff did a word search on the term ‘‘separately organized agency,’’ and we can’t even find those words in the implementation

plan.

And that shows the kind of reluctance to fully implement the act

from the very beginning.

Ms. TAUSCHER. From the very beginning, Mr. Thornberry and I

and other members of this committee that were struggling with

what to do after a series of significant failures on security and

other management problems, including project management issues,

as Mr. Thornberry and I often say—we repeat each other sometimes—I often said, ‘‘Here you have the Department of Energy that

manages and regulates refrigerator coolant that also has the nuclear weapons.’’

And for a very long time, the kind of competencies and skills to

do, you know, a big portfolio of energy management policy, science

and technology, that also had the nuclear weapons, there was

something about what happened to the complex and it, at the end,

got shunted down in this kudzu-laden bureaucracy off to the side

by an assistant secretary.

And unless you really were looking at the organization chart and

paying attention, you almost couldn’t find it. And our decision was

very—we struggled with the decision. And, by the way, we didn’t

have any real support out of Secretary Richardson, when he was

DOE secretary.

But, you know, I think our concern is, is that, unless you have

an administration and a secretary in DOE that is going to implement the act and actually understand that we mean it, that we are

going to continue to have these overarching security problems that

are debilitating to, not only people’s confidence in the national security and the science, but doesn’t cause us to have a sense that

we can actually go onto bigger issues that we are meant to really

deal with, complex issues, complicated issues about Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), how do we reconstitute and reinvest in

the complex.
25

So if you can’t get the basic stuff right, I think we are very hesitant and the American people should be concerned as to how we

go forward. What do you suggest we could do? I mean, the Defense

Science Board has said, ‘‘Take it all the way out. Create a nuclear

weapons agency that is completely separate.’’ That is a recent recommendation.

Do you see what we could do as Congress to compel the secretary

to move toward implementation of the act? Or do you have other

suggestions on what we should be doing?

Mr. ALOISE. Well, one thing, of course, is the oversight that you

are providing today. And I would agree that if the tone is not set

at the top in DOE, it filters all the way down through the agency.

And if the employees in the DOE side see reluctance to implement

the act, they are going to see that, and they respond.

What our report lays out is a blueprint to fix what we have identified as wrong with NNSA, and that turns up being a separately

organized agency, not really coming to terms with what that

means, security, and project and program management.

We do believe, if the Secretary and the Administrator implement

our recommendations, the agency will get to where it needs to be.

But having said that, we don’t have any illusions that it is going

to be easy for them to implement our recommendations. Although

they said they agree with us, the proof is in the pudding to see if

they will really do that.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you.

Mr. Everett.

Mr. EVERETT. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Two questions, and somewhat related, although in the beginning

they may not appear to be so. The Secretary talked a lot about culture. And I guess the first question would be, if he implemented

the suggestions that you have in your report, do you think that

would solve the culture problem? Or do you believe it is simply culture?

And then the other question is—and you have to really work

hard to connect these dots—but Los Alamos is less than 30 square

miles. Lawrence Livermore is a mile; Sandia is a bit more, maybe.

Being such a large, spread-out complex and doing so much work

there, does that complicate the mission of NNSA?

Mr. ALOISE. Two things. Culture is a problem. It is a culture of

non-interference, a culture of low regard for security. The way I

think we need to get at that is through improving the oversight at

all of these labs, and especially Los Alamos.

Mr. EVERETT. May I interrupt you just a second? We have had

oversight after oversight after oversight.

Mr. ALOISE. Oversight at the security—at the site office. This is

DOE oversight.

Mr. EVERETT. Okay, thank you.

Mr. ALOISE. Our report points out that five of the six site offices

have been understaffed, in terms of their security staff. For example, Los Alamos was supposed to have 18 staff. It had nine. It

didn’t have the staffing; it didn’t have the resources; it didn’t have

the leadership at all levels.

The Office of Independent Oversight comes in once every 18

months or so. The site surveys come in a year or so. That is not
26

enough. Because you are fighting this culture out there, you need

more DOE, NNSA site oversight.

To get to your second point, and maybe I will let James address

that, about the size of Los Alamos, you are right. It is so big that

that is a problem. The blueprint is too large to really have a good

control over. I mean, they have consolidated some weapons material. They have beefed up their security. But there is actually a

void.

Mr. NOEL. Yes, I think it is a little more subtle than that, in

that, not only is the site very large, but it is spread out, as you

know, on these mesas. And the Federal office is actually on the

other side of a ravine in the town of Los Alamos.

And there is, again, going off what Gene is saying about culture,

there is been a culture of, ‘‘Hey, we will stay on our side of the ravine and let things happen over on the other side.’’ And that really

has to change. I mean, people have to go out, they have to kick the

tires, they have to knock on the doors, they have to see what is

going on.

Mr. EVERETT. I appreciate you connecting my dots for me.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Connecting the ravine.

Mr. NOEL. So that is another culture aspect that has to change.

And that is true throughout the department. It is not just in the

NNSA. That is a department-wide culture of, ‘‘You know, we hire

these contractors. They are the smartest guys in the world. We will

just kind of let them do their thing.’’

And when it comes to producing a nuclear weapon, no question.

But when we are talking about management, that is a different

world.

Mr. EVERETT. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Ms. TAUSCHER. I thank the distinguished ranking member.

Mr. Thornberry.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I want to join with the chair’s comments and appreciation

for what GAO has done since we passed the NNSA Act. Through

the special panel that this committee has, GAO has been tremendously helpful, and I appreciate y’all’s work, as well.

And I apologize. I am going to have to get downstairs for another

hearing. But let me just ask briefly, you were asked to start this

in 2004, and you just finished? How come it took so long?

Mr. ALOISE. Well, we actually started it in 2005, after we staffed

up for it. It was a very complex kind of dissection of the agency,

and we wanted to make sure we took the time mounting resources

to do it right. We interviewed former administrators; we interviewed lots of people connected with the complex, reviewed lots of

documents, reviewed lots of procedures.

We will take the hit. We should have done it sooner. We would

have liked to have done it sooner. It was more complex than anything else I think James and I have worked on.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Really? Well, really why I am asking is I got

an inference from the secretary that things have changed. You

know, this started in 2004, 2005. We are a lot better. And so what

I am really wondering is, those things that I mentioned to him,

procurement, the information officers, the procedures for DOE to
27

approve NNSA things, is that—do you have any reason to believe

that that is solved now?

Or are the things that you wrote about in your report still true

today, to the best of your knowledge?

Mr. ALOISE. Well, there have been improvements, but the problems still remain. That is why—I haven’t worked on many reports

that come on with 21 recommendations for improvement. And it

covers all of those areas you have mentioned.

Mr. NOEL. If I may, you know, that is a frequent thing that is

said about our reports, because it does take time to do something,

particularly of this scale. But let me give you a couple of examples.

In terms of the CIO, if you look at the report that the inspector

general just wrote about the situation at Los Alamos and the

thumb drive, I mean, the failures were from top to bottom. And one

of the failures was the CIOs not developing a policy, not working

together to get that problem done.

Another example, when we talked earlier about the counterintelligence situation, once the act was amended, the department contracted with Booz Allen Hamilton to look at how they would bring

the counterintelligence functions back together. This is a report

that we just got briefed on yesterday. And the findings that Booz

Allen Hamilton came up with were exactly the same ones that are

in our report.

So Gene is right. I mean, it is a moving situation. It is not completely static. But on a couple of very important items, you know,

the information we have is just as current now.

Mr. THORNBERRY. Thank you. Thank you.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Loebsack.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you. Just a quick question. You mentioned

the culture issue. I keep coming back to that, too.

The Secretary mentioned the culture of arrogance on the part of

the scientists and others, but you also mentioned that there is a

culture problem as far as the department is concerned, too. Can

you elaborate on that a little bit?

Mr. ALOISE. Yes, there is enough blame to go around on both

sides. NNSA feels they are a separately organized agency, so they

sometimes feel they don’t have to cooperate with the department.

The department feels like they can and should be able to direct

NNSA employees.

So there is still that culture of interpersonal relationships that

haven’t been worked out. Turf battles are still going on, that is still

being—kind of thing, at headquarters and even throughout the

complex, that you still see that.

Mr. NOEL. And, again, Gene made an earlier remark to this culture of least interference. That goes back to the Atomic Energy

Commission days of, you know, we will hire these very brilliant

people. We will tell them what we want them to do, which is protect the nation, and then, you know, we don’t really have to do anything else.

And up to a point, that is a good idea. But as history has shown

us, that extreme application of that produced some very serious environmental insults throughout the complex. And so now it is a

matter of finding that balance between telling them what we want

without telling them exactly how to do it, and at the same time
28

providing enough effective Federal oversight and Federal employees carrying out their fiduciary responsibility to make sure the taxpayer gets what they are paying.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Is it the case those doing oversight sometimes—

they simply don’t understand the problems, the technical problems,

also, of those they are supposed to be overseeing, so they feel somewhat intimidated perhaps? Or is that not a problem?

Mr. NOEL. Well, I think——

Mr. LOEBSACK. Just from a knowledge perspective.

Mr. NOEL. If you are talking about the functioning of a nuclear

weapon, then there is only a limited number of people that really

understand that. But if you are talking about rudimentary management or if you are talking about making sure that we know how

to keep thumb drives from being put into classified computers, that

is pretty simple stuff. And so most people ought to be able to stay

ahead of the curve on that, I think.

Mr. LOEBSACK. Thank you.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, Madam Chair. At a time when we have spent

$384 billion in a quagmire in Iraq that many would argue is not

really the war on terrorism at its inception, we have had our back

door open, allowing for the security breaches of our nuclear secrets,

in part because we don’t have enough manpower to secure these secrets.

And I find it spectacularly appalling that we would be in this

condition at this time, when nuclear terrorism is, indeed, a significant threat to the world. And we keep talking about culture differences playing a part in this, cultural differences between security personnel, if you will, or security concerns and then scientific

research.

But to me, it is a no-brainer: Security trumps research, in terms

of this cultural difference. Has there been anyone who has lost

their job as a result of a security breach, with respect to our nuclear secrets? And, also, has anyone been subject to criminal prosecution?

Mr. ALOISE. To be sure, there have been people who have, you

know, paid a price for that. And maybe James knows more about

that. But the point about the security, James mentioned the ports

and drives, and they right now, or they have already, epoxied all

the ports and some of the lap computers, so that people can’t stick

thumb drives in there.

That fixes a problem, but it doesn’t get at the root cause. And

the root cause is what we talk about in our report, and that is part

of the culture, the least interference, low regard for security, but

also not staffing the security staff properly, not training them properly, not giving them the resources they need to do the job.

And on the cybersecurity side, it collapsed from top to bottom, in

terms of implementation of that program.

On your specific question about has anybody been fired or held

accountable, I know there have been. I don’t know the specifics.

But, James, do you know?

Mr. NOEL. I don’t know the specifics, and I suspect we probably

couldn’t mention people’s names or positions in this kind of environment anyways.
29

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I don’t see it as rocket science to provide security for our nuclear secrets.

And I am happy, Madam Chair, that this Congress, this committee, this subcommittee is now exercising the appropriate oversight

to make sure that we get that back door closed and don’t suffer

these kinds of losses in the future.

Thank you.

Ms. TAUSCHER. I thank the gentleman’s comments. And I will

tell you that this committee, under current ranking member,

former Chairman Everett, has, in a bipartisan way, a significant

commitment to this. And I thank him for his energies.

I just have one final question, Mr. Director. This is just really a

fabulous document, and I know that you spent such a great amount

of time.

Page 67 is the comments from the NNSA. And I find, after the

dramatic number of recommendations, and the significance and the

specificity of your recommendations, that this letter is not exactly

saluting smartly and saying, ‘‘Aye-aye, I will do them immediately.’’

If anything, it is a little short on a commitment, and it is kind

of like, like I said earlier, kicking the can down the street, as far

as I see, in even recognizing that there are this appalling number

of recommendations that we have right now from you, that I think

we now have to take a serious look at on how we look to either incorporate them in legislation, whether we do it in the Defense Authorization Act, or whether we look specifically at the act itself in

a separate venue.

But is this the kind of thing that happens to you all the time?

Because I would be very frustrated, if I were you.

Mr. ALOISE. In addition to those, they provide some technical

comments, which we incorporate. I have to tell you, we had this

discussion, and kind of scratched our heads when we looked at this,

thinking, well, it is easy to say, but it is not going to be easy to

do, because, as I mentioned, one of them is to determine how

NNSA is going to function as a separately organized agency.

I think we will need your help to get these implemented.

Mr. NOEL. One vehicle for that, you know, by law, they are required within 60 days to respond to the authorizing and appropriating committees with the specifics about what they are going

to do, so——

Ms. TAUSCHER. The clock is running.

Mr. NOEL. Yes, I will look forward, as I am sure you all will, to

seeing what they say.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Everett, do you have any final comments?

Mr. EVERETT. Madam Chairman, I do not. But, in fact, I want

to be the first to congratulate you on this hearing——

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. EVERETT [continuing]. And for your first hearing as chairman of the committee.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. EVERETT. And I am very pleased with our working relationship. I look forward to it continuing.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Well, Mr. Everett, you are a distinguished Member of Congress, and you are a gentleman. And I am very inter-
30

ested in having the kind of partnership that we have. It is going

to, I think, accrue very well to the national security of the American people.

And I think it is important that everybody understand that this

is a bipartisan effort that we are working on, that there was absolutely no partisanship at all, and we did achieve, I think, the kind

of comity and respectfulness with certainly the Secretary that we

wanted to achieve.

And, once again, thank you very much, Mr. Director, Mr. Assistant Director, for your very, very hard work. And we look forward

to talking to you again soon.

The hearing is adjourned.

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam Chairman?

Ms. TAUSCHER. Yes, Mr. Johnson. I apologize.

Mr. JOHNSON. Before you adjourn, I want to apologize to Ranking

Member Everett. I do recall my first subcommittee. It was the organizational meeting, and I think, Madam Chair, you indicated

that I would enjoy serving on this committee because it was a very

bipartisan committee or subcommittee.

And in my youthfulness today, I have been kind of fighting a

lack of oversight on a couple of committees that I serve on, and so

I got carried away with my comments.

And actually, Mr. Everett, you are to be commended for the way

that you have conducted this subcommittee in the past. And that

is refreshing.

And so I want to apologize in public for mischaracterizing the affairs of this subcommittee.

Mr. EVERETT. I thank the gentleman from Georgia who I have

had a conversation with. There is no apology necessary. I appreciate the fact that, as the chairman has said, we have very controversial issues here. We don’t always agree. But we do it in a

very bipartisan way, and we try to move. And we have had hearing

after hearing in the past four years. But I appreciate the gentleman’s comments.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you.

Mr. EVERETT. And, again, I appreciate the chairman.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Thank you, sir.

Let me just say that I have enjoyed my first hearing, and I think

I will keep doing this. [Laughter.]

But let me just, first of all, let me thank our subcommittee staff

and committee staff, who are professional staff members who have

come up with some very good and interesting ideas and very good

support for all of our members.

And I want to thank them very much, all three that are sitting

here, that are just really superb professionals. And we couldn’t do

our work without them. And I am sure every member here wants

to thank their own personal staff, too, for their very hard work.

You know, we are going pretty much at 85,000 feet with our hair

on fire these days. And it is a very exciting prospect to chair this

subcommittee, and I am very pleased to have Mr. Everett as my

partner.

And this first subcommittee hearing of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee for this Congress is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 3:09 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X

JANUARY 31, 2007

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. TAUSCHER

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, in your prepared testimony you said the FY 2000 NNSA Act has ‘‘created a significant obstacle in realizing the benefits of functional

accountability and sound management between the NNSA and the broader Department.’’

Can you give specific examples of such obstacles?

Secretary BODMAN. Notable examples are the statutory prohibition of non-NNSA personnel being able, even with personal Secretarial authority, to direct or exercise

any ‘‘authority, direction or control’’ over NNSA employees, including those of the

weapons laboratories that are included as part of the NNSA by the NNSA Act, and

the related unprecedented limitation of the Secretary’s authority to delegate his authority to render guidance to NNSA personnel. These limitations have impeded the

Department’s ability to harmonize principled differences that inevitably can arise

among respective NNSA and non-NNSA Departmental elements responsible for

common or similar functions, such as environmental remediation at active NNSA

sites, cyber security, physical security, and procurement.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Mr. Secretary, in your testimony you point to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a model for a separately organized

element of a larger Cabinet-level department, and note that it was offered as one

model by the PFIAB report.

Why hasn’t the Department patterned the NNSA on the Naval Reactors organization, since it is already within the Energy Department, and exhibits in many respects precisely the sort of autonomy Congress intended for NNSA?

Secretary BODMAN. NOAA does not function under a statutory preclusion of Secretarial direction, through delegates or otherwise.

Prior to the enactment of the NNSA Act (which for the first time imposed such

restrictions with respect to Naval Reactors) the Naval Reactors program functioned

quite effectively, and continues to do so. Its ability to function semi-autonomously

(actually also quite independently) is a result of its record of superior performance

in conducting a program and overseeing a research complex that also are quite focused.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The GAO report does not recommend any changes to the NNSA

Act but rather finds that DOE and NNSA need to work together to better define

working relationships and conflict resolution methods. You do not recommend any

changes either, but in your prepared testimony you are critical of the Act in some

fundamental respects.

Do you agree with GAO’s assessment? Why or not?

Secretary BODMAN. The GAO report neglected altogether to address the limitations the NNSA Act imposes on the Secretary’s authority to exercise authority, direction or control of NNSA personnel through non-NNSA delegates of his own choosing. It is the absence of this customary and otherwise uniformly-available authority

in executive agencies that invites creation of the staff impasses that the GAO report

faulted. As to the GAO report’s observation that NNSA and non-NNSA elements

that perform common or similar functions should strive to work together, that admonition merely replicates guidance from the Deputy Secretary and the NNSA Administrator rendered over a year ago. The fact remains that the NNSA Act withholds from the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary the means to resolve such differences through delegates of their own choosing.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The Defense Science Board recently recommended that the NNSA

be reorganized as a ‘‘National Nuclear Weapons Agency’’ with the Administrator reporting to the President through a board of directors that would be chaired by the

Secretary of Defense, with the Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Homeland Security,

and Director of National Intelligence also serving on the board. Do you agree with

the DSB recommendation? Why or why not?

Secretary BODMAN. No, I do not agree with the Defense Science Board’s recommendation. Making the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) into

a separate agency reporting to a board of directors would make it considerably more

difficult to provide the NNSA with cabinet-level management, oversight and consultation as well as access to departmental assets such as the Department of Ener-
68

gy’s Office of Health, Safety, and Security which provides invaluable independent

oversight. The proposed arrangement would also create the need for new support

organizations to supply services that currently come from the Department of Energy.

In addition, the Secretaries of Energy, Defense, and Homeland Security, along

with the Director of National Intelligence have significant demands on their time

and would not likely be able to meet frequently so the normal benefit of a board

of directors arrangement would in reality not add the value intended by the Defense

Science Board’s recommendation. The NNSA’s missions are too important to U.S.

national security to burden it with what would surely be a cumbersome management arrangement. We need the right management at NNSA, not necessarily a

more complicated management structure.

Ms. TAUSCHER. You pressed vigorously for consolidation of the NNSA and DOE

counterintelligence offices. What is your assessment of the results of this consolidation? What specific benefits have been achieved with regard to identifying, preventing, and addressing threats to the complex?

Secretary BODMAN. Consolidation is helping us become more streamlined and

agile. When the CI analysis program decided recently to enhance collection against

one country of CI concern to the Department implementation moved quickly through

a single staff approval process, unhindered by competing management priorities. We

have also taken some very promising steps, in direction of more rapid flow of CI

‘best practices and initiatives’ across the complex. For example, the Department has

identified a need for more uniform application of limits to the retention of cyber information across the complex, and initiated two cyber pilot projects that will be evaluated for possible complex-wide application. DOE and NNSA field representatives

working together have identified the need for more consistent implementation

standards in areas such as the new CI evaluation process. Further, we are now

adapting the NNSA CI office’s effective performance management processes for use

in evaluating CI effectiveness at contractor sites across the entire DOE complex.

Consolidation is opening up opportunities for counterintelligence to enhance DOE

security by introducing new potential for internal information sharing. A key example of this is the tracking of suspicious activities across the entire DOE complex,

something that currently is done by security elements on a site-by-site basis. The

consolidated CI program is compiling and sharing such information from several

field locations, while evaluating how best to expand that practice and exploit the

information across the complex.

Background:

President Bush signed the National Defense Authorization Act that consolidated

NNSA and DOE counterintelligence offices on October 17, 2006.

Ms. TAUSCHER. You pressed vigorously for consolidation of the NNSA and DOE

counterintelligence offices. Are there other offices you believe should be consolidated? Will the Department propose further modifications to the FY 2000 NNSA Act

to authorize such consolidation?

Secretary BODMAN. As I indicated during my appearance before the Subcommittee, when there are problems that I believe cannot be overcome, I will send up legislation as I did with counterintelligence. At this time, I do not believe that there are

any issues that need to be addressed by proposing legislation.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Why have the human capital and staffing problems within NNSA

persisted—whether in the general counsel’s office or among site office security personnel—despite being identified as a concern more than seven years ago?

Secretary BODMAN. I would like to take this opportunity to convey Acting Administrator D’Agostino’s assessment that clarifies some misunderstanding about

NNSA’s staffing situation. First, let me say that NNSA does not have persisting

human capital and staffing problems. As NNSA reported to the Congress in a November 2004 report on workforce restructuring, they have made great strides since

its inception in March 2000 in rightsizing the enterprise and revitalizing management of the federal workforce.

NNSA has instituted aggressive approaches to recruitment and retention to ensure that critical staffing and leadership shortfalls in the future are not encountered. NNSA has occasional difficulty in filling positions in highly select circumstances, such as at remote locations like Los Alamos, New Mexico, or when

seeking highly selective technical and business skills. Overall, NNSA is not experiencing anymore difficulty in attracting and retaining highly qualified candidates to

fill critical skills positions in nuclear engineering, specialized security and Federal

contracting than other highly technical organizations.

NNSA has made major innovations and improvements in NNSA’s human capital

management programs the past several years. These innovations cover the Adminis-
69

trator’s statutory excepted service technical hiring authority and a complementary

pay-for-performance system; an NNSA-wide performance management and recognition system; and various programs of monetary incentives relating to recruitment

and retention, including a student loan repayment program. Two years ago, NNSA

instituted a Future Leaders Program to hire and develop entry-level technical,

project management, and business talent. So far, they have attracted 60 outstanding

interns to our workforce, and are planning to recruit a third class of 23 more interns

this coming June. NNSA has streamlined its hiring process, making greater use of automation, de- vising better marketing strategies and recruiting tools, and encouraging greater

managerial involvement in candidate evaluation and selection. They are making

maximum use of government-wide recruitment incentives. NNSA’s excepted service

employment and pay-for-performance system has allowed them to successfully compete with the private sector for top technical workers.

Most recently, NNSA and the Office of Personnel Management are designing an NNSA Demonstration Project to modify and waive parts of the government’s personnel laws and regulations to modify the General Schedule position classification and

pay systems to establish pay bands. The project will test (1) the effectiveness of

multi-grade pay bands in recruiting, advancing, and retaining employees, and in reducing the processing time and paperwork traditionally associated with classifying

positions, and (2) the effectiveness of basing pay increases on meaningful distinctions in levels of performance made under a credible, strategically-aligned performance appraisal system, thereby improving the results-oriented performance culture

in NNSA. The long-term goals of the project are to improve hiring by allowing

NNSA to compete more effectively for high-quality employees through the judicious

use of higher-entry salaries; motivate and retain staff by providing faster pay progression for high-performing employees; improve the usefulness and responsiveness

of the position classification system to managers; eliminate automatic pay increases

(i.e., annual adjustments that normally take effect the first day of the first pay period beginning on or after January 1 each year) by making increases performancesensitive; and to integrate with, build upon, and advance the work of several key

long-term human capital management improvement initiatives and projects currently underway in NNSA. Taken together, these initiatives and projects are indicative of a healthy, aggres- sive, and progressive human capital program.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Why has NNSA been unable to meet its own targets for security officials at the NNSA site offices?

Secretary BODMAN. Despite our efforts over the past several years that have placed a high priority on hiring critical skills, security personnel are below our desired strength for security professionals at both Headquarters and the site offices.

Part of our challenge has been locating highly qualified security professionals. Competition for these skills in the marketplace is intense, and to fill our immediate

needs, NNSA has mainly recruited retired military personnel to fill vacancies. To

meet future needs, NNSA has begun to recruit entry level security professionals

through its Future Leaders Program.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The GAO report found various management and staffing deficiencies with the NNSA.

Can you describe the authority of the NNSA budget office, and the relationship

of that office to the DOE CFO?

Secretary BODMAN. Upon the standup of the NNSA in 2001, it was determined

that the number of staff and capabilities required for a standalone finance and accounting system for the NNSA would require far too many personnel and financial

resources, and would not be an efficient way to work within the DOE management

and operating contractor system where NNSA executes the majority of its mission

programs. As such, NNSA uses the finance and accounting capabilities of the DOE,

and has the same relationship as other Departmental entities with the DOE CFO.

NNSA is fully integrated into the DOE budget and accounting systems and processes.

The financial aspects of the NNSA are handled through two NNSA entities. The

Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Evaluation function at Headquarters is responsible for all internal NNSA budget processes and for integration with the DOE

CFO’s planning and budgeting activities for budget formulation, justification and

execution. This office has administrative responsibility for all NNSA funds control

prior to the actual funding allotment, except for Naval Reactors, which interfaces

separately with the DOE CFO. The Office of Field Financial Management is responsible for the actual funding allotment from the DOE, and NNSA’s financial interface

with the M&O contractors and the DOE accounting system, and is legally responsible for funds control for programs and sites under its allotment.
70

Ms. TAUSCHER. In your view, does the DOE CFO have final authority over NNSA funds, including funds specifically appropriated by the Congress to the NNSA?

Secretary BODMAN. Yes, the DOE CFO has the authority by way of the Head- quarters funding allotment and its interface with the OMB and Treasury for overall

DOE funds control. Once the funds have been distributed to NNSA by allotment

from the DOE CFO, NNSA (and other allottees as well) has the final authority to

certify the funds in terms of the proper use, availability, and application consistent

with Congressional intent, Agency policy, and guidance to prevent legal and administrative funds violations.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Why are NNSA offices such as the General Counsel, PPBE and Congressional Affairs much smaller as compared to DOE, when NNSA makes up

40 percent of the Department’s budget?

Secretary BODMAN. When the NNSA was stood up they made a series of corporate ‘‘buy/borrow’’ decisions relative to the size of their staff organizations. This entailed

determining which functions they would staff (buy) and the functions they would

rely on the Department to support (borrow). For example, NNSA budget employees

staff positions necessary to operate and manage their statutorily mandated five-year

planning, programming, budgeting and evaluation systems and processes. The Department’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer handles the financial, accounting,

and over-all corporate level budget activities. This has served all parties well, especially the American taxpayer who has been spared the burden of paying for what

would have been duplicative efforts.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The FY 2000 NNSA Act granted substantial authority over the nuclear weapons complex to the NNSA but ultimate authority remained with the

Secretary of Energy. Secretary Bodman, what is the nature of the Department’s responsibility for security within the nuclear weapons complex.

Secretary BODMAN. Congresswoman Tauscher, as Secretary of Energy, I am ulti- mately responsible and accountable for the performance of the NNSA. I expect the

Administrator to keep me fully informed and to be fully accountable for the performance of all NNSA programs, facilities and employees. I expect the Administrator

(and the NNSA) to be fully responsive to Departmental requirements and expectations.

Through the Office of Health, Safety and Security (HSS), I establish Depart- mental environment, safety, health and security policy which applies to all elements, including NNSA. All Departmental elements are required to conform to

those policies as their terms specify. I also rely upon HSS to conduct corporate independent oversight of all safety and security disciplines and I have the expectation

that NNSA responds to those findings with effective correction actions to eliminate

any identified weaknesses. HSS also conducts enforcement investigations for safety

and security violations throughout the DOE, including within the NNSA. HSS undertakes enforcement actions against non-NNSA entities, and recommends enforcement sanctions and works with NNSA to undertake enforcement actions against its

contractors.

Under the Department of Energy’s ‘‘Government Owned—Contractor Operated’’

(GOCO) model the Department is responsible for establishing the overarching security requirements that must be followed and conducting periodic inspections to assess compliance against those standards. Contractor organizations implement the

security program according to Departmental or NNSA standards and guidance.

NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Security (DNS) is responsible for the overall management and oversight of the field security program across the nuclear weapons

complex. DNS establishes the strategic performance goals, develops complex-wide

funding needs, and provides the security budget required by the contractors to operate their respective security programs. DNS, working through the Federal Site Office security staff, is also responsible for providing performance assessment of the

contractor security programs, ensuring corrective action is taken and promoting

cross-complex sharing of best practices and lessons learned.

The authority to grant security clearances under the Atomic Energy Act was not

transferred to the NNSA under the NNSA Act. HSS is responsible for the investigation process, although NNSA officials evaluate with respect to NNSA personnel the

results of those investigations and determine whether a clearance is appropriate.

Cyber security is part of the NNSA Chief Information Officer’s responsibility, separate from the management of physical security and generally follows the same

processes as those described above for other security programs.

Ms. TAUSCHER. With respect to adherence to security practices, what are the

shortcomings of the Management and Operating Contractor?

Secretary BODMAN. Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) volume of classified

holdings is unnecessarily large, conducted in too many security areas, involves too

many people, and is spread out over too large of an area. Within the LANL model
71

it is the line/program organizations that establish and operate vault type rooms,

cyber networks, and other classified work areas, rather than security professionals.

There is a lack of operational formality and a failure to employ strict conduct of operations in established classified work areas. There is also a lack of communication

between the contractor and site office staff on cyber security implementation. Additionally, LANL security staff is stove-piped, does not have integrated operational

oversight mechanisms, and the self-assessment program does not reach deeply into

the organization.

Ms. TAUSCHER. What are the shortcomings of the federal workforce, both Depart- ment-wide, and NNSA specific?

Secretary BODMAN. The GAO recently commented on the staffing and skill short- falls of the NNSA professional security workforce. I generally agree with this assessment and intend to conduct a near term review of the number of security professionals within NNSA, both at Headquarters and in the field. I also intend to improve the training and qualification requirements of Federal security personnel.

Both of these actions will be completed by the end of Fiscal Year 2007. Additionally, NNSA has just completed a detailed workforce planning and succes- sion analysis and will use the results to make adjustments in workforce staffing to

address the ever increasing workload in fundamental security programs and in contractor oversight expectations.

Ms. TAUSCHER. What do you see as the Department’s role in establishing and maintaining both a proper cyber security policy and posture in the nuclear weapons

complex?

Secretary BODMAN. I have tasked the DOE CIO, Tom Pyke, with the responsibil- ity of developing cyber security policies for the Department. I have signed the order

that delegates the responsibility for implementing these policies to the Under Secretaries, which includes the Administrator of the NNSA.

I understand there is a highly productive working relationship between DOE and NNSA cyber security management. This approach has proven very effective in expediting the development of many of the new and updated cyber security policies and

their implementation to improve the cyber security posture of the Nuclear Weapons

Complex.

Ms. TAUSCHER. How do you assess the Department’s effectiveness in working with NNSA in the cyber security area?

Secretary BODMAN. The working relationship between the respective DOE and NNSA Chief Information Officers is a highly productive, collaborative partnership

in managing cyber security. The Department and NNSA share the same goals for

cyber security and have a successful partnership in developing and implementing

polices. As DOE policies are developed, this partnership ensures that NNSA requirements are considered in developing these new policies and that the NNSA can implement these policies to meet its specific needs.

Ms. TAUSCHER. In creating NNSA, the Congress intended for the new agency to

have substantial autonomy in executing the policies established by the Secretary of

Energy, including substantial autonomy over budget execution. However, as the

GAO report confirms, the NNSA and DOE budget offices have not clearly defined

their roles, and there has plainly been interference by the Department on NNSA

budget execution.

What is the value added by Departmental offices in execution of NNSA’s programs and budget affairs?

Secretary BODMAN. There is value added in terms of ‘‘checks and balances’’ in the

DOE CFO certifying funds availability for external transactions such as appropriation transfers or congressional reprogrammings. These are discrete transactions that

occur on an as-needed basis—five to fifteen times annually.

Ms. TAUSCHER. This Committee, and the House, felt strongly enough about NNSA

having authority to execute its own budget that the House-passed version of the FY

2005 National Defense Authorization Act, we included a provision that would have

required that NNSA reprogramming requests come straight to the defense committees in Congress, without review by the DOE CFO.

What is the value added by having the DOE CFO review NNSA reprogramming

requests?

Secretary BODMAN. There is value added in terms of ‘‘checks and balances’’ in the

DOE CFO certifying that NNSA funds are available and put into reserve in the

DOE financial system before requesting external transactions such as appropriation

transfers or congressional reprogrammings. These are discrete transactions that

occur on an as-needed basis—five to fifteen times annually.

There is no value in the CFO performing a programmatic review of the NNSA

programmatic decisions that led to the requirement for the financial transaction,

and little value in editorial review of the correspondence itself.
72

1See, for example, National Ignition Facility: Management and Oversight Failures Caused

Major Cost Overruns and Schedule Delays, GAO/RCED–00–271 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 8,

2000); Nuclear Weapons: Opportunities Exist to Improve the Budgeting, Cost-Accounting, and

Management Associated with the Stockpile Life Extension Program, GAO–03–583 (Washington,

D.C.: July 28, 2003) and Nuclear Weapons: NNSA Needs to Refine and More Effectively Manage

Its New Approach for Assessing and Certifying Nuclear Weapons, GAO–06–261 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 3, 2006).

Ms. TAUSCHER. Does the FY 2000 NNSA Act allow DOE officials below the level

of the Deputy Secretary to exercise authority over NNSA officials?

Secretary BODMAN. The NNSA Act (Public Law 106–65, as amended) does not

allow DOE officials to exercise authority over NNSA officials. Section 3220 of the NNSA Act contains a general prohibition against non-NNSA Departmental employees (other than the Secretary or Deputy Secretary acting

through the Administrator) exercising ‘‘authority, direction and control’’ over

NNSA’s employees and contractors. However, Section 3220 was amended in 2006 to

provide that NNSA employees are subject to the authority, direction and control of

the Secretary acting through the Director of the Office of Intelligence or the Office

of Counterintelligence with respect to intelligence and counterintelligence activities. NNSA employees are responsible to, and subject to the authority of, the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary ‘‘acting through the Administrator.’’ NNSA employees

may receive direction from the Secretary and Deputy Secretary through the Administrator, and are responsible to the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Administrator

for carrying out the tasks they have been directed to perform.

In addition, the Secretary and his staff may direct officials of the Department who

are not within the NNSA to review the programs and activities of the Administration and to make recommendations to the Secretary regarding NNSA’s conduct of

those programs and activities, including consistency with similar programs and activities conducted by other programs within the Department. To facilitate such oversight, DOE employees may request information from NNSA employees, and NNSA

employees must provide the information requested expeditiously.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The GAO report identifies several areas of business operations/

interfaces between the Department and NNSA that require improvement.

Can these improvements be made under the existing NNSA Act legislation or is

a legislative remedy required to enhance and improve the relationship between the

Department and NNSA?

Mr. ALOISE. We do not believe that legislative change is necessary to produce an

organization that can provide effective federal oversight of the nation’s nuclear

weapons complex. All of GAO’s recommendations can be implemented under the existing NNSA Act.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Given the difficulties in establishing the NNSA as a semi-autonomous agency within DOE, can you elaborate on why GAO disagrees with calls for

a wholly independent NNSA?

Mr. ALOISE. We do not support amending the NNSA Act to create an independent

NNSA because we do not believe that the NNSA Act has been given a real chance

to work. As we document in our report, the Secretary of Energy at the time of

NNSA’s creation vigorously opposed the creation of the Administration. Consequently, DOE’s Implementation Plan for the establishment of NNSA never identified how the two organizations would work together. In this environment, we found

a patchwork of often dysfunctional relationships between NNSA and its counterparts in DOE. More recently, in his statement before the Subcommittee, the current

Secretary of Energy expressed reservations about the NNSA Act, potentially undermining any attempts to make the act work. Finally, it is important to recognize that

there is no perfect organizational structure. In our view, changing structures now

would only cause more time to be spent reorganizing and realigning, taking time

away from the important task of ensuring that our nation’s nuclear programs are

managed effectively and efficiently.

Ms. TAUSCHER. How critical are the management recommendations you make to

the successful execution of such major initiatives as the Department’s Complex 2030

plans and Reliable Replacement Warhead program? What are the risks to these initiatives if your recommendations are not implemented?

Mr. ALOISE. Over the last several years we have documented significant project

and program management weaknesses associated with NNSA’s largest efforts including the National Ignition Facility (NIF) project, the Stockpile Life Extension

Program (SLEP), and NNSA’s program for developing a process for certifying that

the stockpile is safe and reliable, known as the Quantification of Margins and Uncertainty (QMU).1 These weaknesses resulted in major cost increases and schedule

slippages.
73

While NNSA has addressed some of our past findings, our January 2007 report

for the Subcommittee found that additional effort will be needed to address the

project and program management weaknesses that still exist at NNSA. Because the

Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) and transformation of the complex represent

a project and a program that vastly exceed the scale of the NIF and SLEP efforts,

we believe that it is vital to improve project and program management in order to

avoid the cost and schedule overruns that have characterized past NNSA efforts.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The Defense Science Board recently recommended that the NNSA

be reorganized as a ‘‘National Nuclear Weapons Agency’’ with the administrator reporting to the President through a board of directors that would be chaired by the

Secretary of Defense, with the Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Homeland Security,

and Director of National Intelligence also serving on the board.

What are GAO’s views on the Defense Science Board’s recommendation to remove

NNSA from DOE and establish it as a separate agency?

Mr. ALOISE. We reviewed the Board’s recommendation as part of our work and

met with the Chairman of the Board to discuss its proposal. We did not find any

evidence that convinced us that implementing the proposed reorganization would

necessarily improve the security or management weaknesses we identified. Moreover, as we noted above, such a large-scale reorganization would distract NNSA, or

its successor, from addressing the root causes of its management problems which

involve not having the right people, with the right skills, in the right places to provide effective federal security and management oversight of NNSA’s contractors.

Ms. TAUSCHER. In its technical comments on your report, DOE’s Office of General

Counsel indicates that it believes that the NNSA Act’s prohibitions on ‘‘authority,

direction and control’’ have prevented DOE and NNSA from better defining their

working relationship.

Do you agree with that view?

Mr. ALOISE. As discussed in our report, within the construct of the NNSA Act,

several offices within DOE and NNSA have attempted to develop policies and agreements on how they will interact. While some of these policies and agreements were

adopted, their adoption has not guaranteed good working relationships. Instead, because the officials in the involved offices have not followed the policies and/or have

not communicated with each other effectively, organizational conflict has resulted.

This outcome is not the result of the NNSA Act, but rather is the result of the actions of NNSA and DOE officials.

Ms. TAUSCHER. The 1999 report of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory

Board (PFIAB) described a DOE management of the nuclear weapons complex as

a ‘‘dysfunctional bureaucracy’’ that embodied ‘‘science at its best and security at its

worst.’’

To what extent do you believe that NNSA has addressed the problems identified

in the PFIAB report that led to its creation?

Mr. ALOISE. As we stated in our report to the Subcommittee, we believe that

NNSA has made some progress in addressing the findings of the PFIAB report. Specifically, NNSA has streamlined its organization and improved the lines of authority

and accountability. It has also implemented an improved financial management system through its Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Evaluation (PPBE) process.

Moreover, in response to the revised Design Basis Threat, NNSA sites have made

significant improvements in how they physically protect weapons grade material.

Nevertheless, as we document in our report, significant weaknesses remain in

NNSA’s security and management programs, particularly with respect to cyber security.

Ms. TAUSCHER. As the Secretary testified, many of the security breaches that

have occurred in the nuclear weapons complex have occurred at Los Alamos National Lab.

What should be done differently by the following entities to improve the security

posture at the Los Alamos National Laboratory?

(1) Management and Operating Contractor?

(2) NNSA?

(3) Department of Energy?

Mr. ALOISE. We did not directly study the security activities of the Management

and Operating (M&O) contractor as part of our work for the Subcommittee. However, we would note that the DOE Inspector General’s recent Special Inquiry on

cyber security at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) found weaknesses

throughout the lab’s security program ranging from developing and implementing
74

2DOE, Office of the Inspector General, Special Inquiry on ‘‘Selected Controls over Classified Information at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’’, (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 27, 2006). 3See, for example, Hanford Waste Treatment Plant: Contractor and DOE Management Prob- lems Have Led to Higher Costs, Construction Delays, and Safety Concerns, GAO–06–602T

(Washington, D.C.: April 6, 2006) and Nuclear Waste: Absence of Key Management Reforms on

Hanford’s Cleanup Project Adds to Challenges of Achieving Cost and Schedule Goals, GAO–04–

611, (Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2004).

security policy through ensuring adequate internal controls over persons handling

classified information.2

Regarding NNSA, the key action NNSA needs to take to improve security at LANL is to have an adequate and effective security staff at the Los Alamos Site

Office (LASO). However, as we documented in our report to the Subcommittee,

LASO has consistently not had sufficient staff, with up-to-date training to provide

effective oversight to ensure that LANL meets its obligations under DOE’s security

orders.

Turning to the Department of Energy, DOE needs to ensure that the Office of Independent Oversight in DOE’s Office of Health, Safety and Security provides comprehensive periodic oversight of both the NNSA and the LANL security programs.

While the Office of Independent Oversight has reviewed LANL frequently regarding

physical security improvements in the wake of September 11, the DOE Office of Inspector General’s recent report on cyber security failures at LANL determined that

one of the causes of the problems had been infrequent inspections by the Office of

Independent Oversight.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Cyber security policy has been identified as an area of weakness by a number of review panels, including your report. What do you see as the Department’s role in establishing and maintaining both a proper cyber security policy and posture in the nuclear weapons complex?

Mr. ALOISE. Under the construct of the NNSA Act, it is the Department’s responsibility to establish policy—such as in the area of cyber security—and NNSA’s responsibility to implement that policy effectively. In response to a cyber attack in

2005 that successfully penetrated and removed detailed personnel information on

more than 1,500 employees, DOE’s Office of Chief Information Officer (CIO) issued

a February 2006 Revitalization Plan to systematically upgrade DOE’s cyber security

posture over a 12-month period. In light of the most recent failures at LANL, in

our view, it remains an open question whether this plan has been effectively implemented. While we did not address the Revitalization Plan as part of our work for

the Subcommittee, we have recently been asked to do so by the House Committee

on Energy and Commerce.

Ms. TAUSCHER. How do you assess the Department’s effectiveness in working with NNSA in the cyber security area?

Mr. ALOISE. In our report to the Subcommittee, we identified difficult working re- lationships between the NNSA CIO and the DOE CIO as an example of where organizational conflict has resulted. Since both offices have a major influence on the effectiveness of NNSA’s implementation of DOE’s cyber security polices, we would expect that this lack of effective working relationships has reduced NNSA’s effectiveness in the cyber security area.

Ms. TAUSCHER. Your report lays out 21 recommendations to improve the operation of NNSA.

How do the management problems you found at NNSA compare with the rest of

DOE?

Mr. ALOISE. Unfortunately, many of the same problems with cost and schedule slippage we see on NNSA’s major projects also occur throughout the Department.

The root causes are also the same—weak project and program management and

oversight.3

Ms. TAUSCHER. Do you believe that if the Department of Energy (DOE) and NNSA implement your recommendations NNSA will become a more effective agency?

Mr. ALOISE. Our recommendations were intended to provide a targeted, but com- prehensive solution to the major organizational; security; and project, program and

financial management weaknesses at NNSA. If fully implemented, we believe our

recommendations will result in more effective oversight of the nation’s nuclear

weapons programs.

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS

Mr. ROGERS. For more than 30 years, the International Nuclear Analysis (INA) program has provided the U.S. government with information and analysis to sup-
75

port various non-proliferation and intelligence efforts. This program has tracked the

flow and modeled the use of nuclear materials throughout the world, and is considered by many users to be a critically important tool in monitoring materials that

could be used by terrorist, including some 200,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and

200,000 tons of plutonium. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

abruptly terminated funds for this program for fiscal year 2007 stating they will replace it with alternative freely available information. It is my understanding that

many of the ‘‘freely available’’ databases do not have the detail or the most up-todate information that is necessary in today’s volatile non-proliferation arena. There

is strong concern that termination of INA will break the uninterrupted chain of materials monitoring in raise the prospect that the validity and reliability of the program will be lost.

Please provide a detail plan on how the Department non-proliferation intelligence

program would be projected to replace the capabilities and resources that INA currently provides. Please identify the number of Department personnel who would

take the INA responsibility, and the allocated cost of their time and required support.

Secretary BODMAN. The Department of Energy (DOE) has been relying on public

and internal nuclear related databases to provide DOE program managers and staff

with valuable unclassified and classified information on the status and direction of

nuclear and radiological activities around the world for many decades. While the attached list is by no means comprehensive it does illustrate the breath of data available from existing databases other than INA. These databases provide a more comprehensive overview of nuclear and radiological facilities and materials of national

security and non-proliferation interest than is available from the INA database. The

information in these databases is timely, accurate, comprehensive, and more directly

valuable to DOE programs than the INA database. Data is verified to ensure integrity by the IAEA and the Department’s laboratories and programs. Furthermore,

the information in these databases is available to DOE programs on a need to know

basis at little or no extra cost to DOE because the tracking of this information is

a fundamental element of each programs day-to-day mission to implement their program. These databases include:

Database Source Classification of Data

Power Reactor Information

System

International Atomic

Energy Agency

Unclassified

Research Reactor Database International Atomic

Energy Agency

Unclassified

International Nuclear

Information System

International Atomic

Energy Agency

Unclassified

Foreign Fissile Material Data

Inventory

Idaho National Laboratory Unclassified

Nuclear Fuel Supply and Price

Report

Department of Energy

(NE–1)

Unclassified

Kazakhstan Spent Fuel

Disposition

DOE/NA–21 OUO/FGI

Russian Research Reactor Fuel

Return

NA–21 Official Use Only

Reduced Enrichment for Research

and Test Reactors

NA–21 Official Use Only

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Please identify and explain what the ‘‘freely available’’ sources for

this information will be, and provide the justification that this activity will be as

timely, accurate, and comprehensive as the information that INA has provided to
76

date. I am particularly concerned about how this open source information will be

verified to ensure it is not being manipulated by any entity which would wish to

hide the diversion of dangerous nuclear material.

Secretary BODMAN. The Department of Energy (DOE) has been relying on public

and internal nuclear related databases to provide DOE program managers and staff

with valuable unclassified and classified information on the status and direction of

nuclear and radiological activities around the world for many decades. While the attached list is by no means comprehensive it does illustrate the breath of data available from existing databases other than INA. These databases provide a more comprehensive overview of nuclear and radiological facilities and materials of national

security and non-proliferation interest than is available from the INA database. The

information in these databases is timely, accurate, comprehensive, and more directly

valuable to DOE programs than the INA database. Data is verified to ensure integrity by the IAEA and the Department’s laboratories and programs. Furthermore,

the information in these databases is available to DOE programs on a need to know

basis at little or no extra cost to DOE because the tracking of this information is

a fundamental element of each programs day-to-day mission to implement their program. These databases include:

Database Source Classification of Data

Power Reactor Information

System

International Atomic

Energy Agency

Unclassified

Research Reactor Database International Atomic

Energy Agency

Unclassified

International Nuclear

Information System

International Atomic

Energy Agency

Unclassified

Foreign Fissile Material Data

Inventory

Idaho National Laboratory Unclassified

Nuclear Fuel Supply and Price

Report

Department of Energy

(NE–1)

Unclassified

Kazakhstan Spent Fuel

Disposition

DOE/NA–21 OUO/FGI

Russian Research Reactor Fuel

Return

NA–21 Official Use Only

Reduced Enrichment for Research

and Test Reactors

NA–21 Official Use Only

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