To identify the number of facilities NNSA has identified to transfer to EM and their condition, we reviewed DOE and NNSA policies, guidance documents, and data related to the management of facilities. Specifically, we reviewed NNSA’s 25-year site plans, which identify each site’s plans for the disposition of contaminated facilities they manage and generally plan for the years 2013 through 2037. We also analyzed data NNSA uses to track the condition of its facilities and their associated surveillance and maintenance costs. Specifically, we used NNSA’s data to identify contaminated nonoperational facilities, operational facilities that will be considered nonoperational over the next 25 years, and the annual cost to maintain these facilities. NNSA collects these data from its sites biannually and combines them into one database. To assess the reliability of the data elements needed to answer our objectives, we reviewed NNSA’s processes for verifying these data and related documents and interviewed agency officials knowledgeable about the data. We also corroborated the data obtained from NNSA headquarters with data we collected from the six NNSA sites that manage these facilities. On the basis of these steps, we determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for our purposes. We also reviewed planning and policy documents that NNSA uses to identify and manage facilities before they are transferred to EM. In addition, we visited two of the six NNSA sites with contaminated facilities—Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California and the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) in Tennessee—to view contaminated facilities and interview officials that are familiar with facility surveillance and maintenance. We selected these two sites because NNSA identified them as having some of the most contaminated facilities and because these sites have both operational and nonoperational facilities; because this is a nonprobability sample, our observations at these sites cannot be generalized to all NNSA sites but provide illustrative examples of sites with contaminated operational and nonoperational facilities. We also interviewed officials in NNSA’s Office of Infrastructure and Capital Planning, which is responsible for collecting the facility data from the sites, as well as the Office of Field Financial Management. To determine the extent to which EM considers the risks of NNSA’s contaminated nonoperational facilities and the costs to maintain them, we reviewed DOE and EM policies and guidance documents related to the facility transfer process and prioritization of EM’s cleanup work. Specifically, we reviewed DOE’s Transition Implementation Guide and EM’s Standard Operating Policies and Procedures for Excess Facility Transfer to the Office of Environmental Management, among others. We also interviewed officials at EM’s Office of Deactivation and Decommissioning and Facility Engineering, which developed EM’s transfer process. To identify if and how a facility’s risk was factored into the transfer process, we reviewed NNSA memorandums that identify risks associated with its contaminated facilities and those outlining transfer decisions between EM and NNSA. To learn how EM prioritizes cleanup work and funding, we interviewed officials from EM’s Program Planning and Budget Office. We also interviewed officials at EM’s site offices for Y- 12 and LANL because those sites have some of the oldest and most contaminated facilities, according to NNSA documents. Additionally, we interviewed EM officials to compare EM’s actions to assess and prioritize risks with federal standards for internal control. We conducted this performance audit from December 2013 to March 2015 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. NNSA is one of the largest organizations in DOE, overseeing nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation, and naval reactor missions at eight sites across the United States. NNSA is responsible for providing the United States with safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons in the absence of underground nuclear testing and maintaining core competencies in nuclear weapons science, technology, and engineering. Operating with a budget of $11.2 billion in fiscal year 2014, work activities to support NNSA’s national security missions are largely carried out by management and operating contractors; an arrangement with historical roots. Since the Manhattan Project produced the first atomic bomb during World War II, NNSA and its predecessor agencies have depended on the expertise of private firms, universities, and others to carry out research and development work and efficiently operate the facilities necessary for the nation’s nuclear defense. Ensuring a safe and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile is an extraordinarily complicated task and requires state-of-the-art experimental and computing facilities, as well as the skills of top scientists in the field. The life cycle of an NNSA facility includes several phases, including planning and acquisition, maintenance, operation, and disposal. According to DOE’s policy on asset management, a program office, such as NNSA, must notify DOE’s Office of Acquisition and Project Management when it determines that a facility is not fully utilized or is not needed for the mission of the program office. DOE then determines whether the facility could be used by another program office. If the facility is not accepted for use by another program office, DOE determines it to be excess. At this point, if the facility is contaminated with chemicals and/or radiological materials as a consequence of nuclear weapons production and/or nuclear energy research, the facility becomes eligible for potential transfer to EM for decontamination and decommissioning. EM established a multistep transfer process in 2011 for NNSA and other DOE program offices to transfer their contaminated facilities to EM for decontamination and decommissioning. EM’s transfer process consists of nine steps beginning with NNSA or another program office nominating a facility for transfer. Once nominated, EM reviews the facility to confirm that it meets EM’s eligibility requirements for transfer—the facility must be considered excess to all DOE mission needs, not just to the program office; contaminated with chemical or radiological contaminants resulting from nuclear weapons research and/or production, not contamination resulting solely from construction material, such as asbestos; and an individual, self-contained facility, and not part of a larger complex. After EM confirms a facility is eligible for transfer, EM evaluates it in more detail and, if necessary, the program office performs necessary stabilization activities, such as structural repairs and any other identified actions to ensure the facility is in stable condition prior to transfer to EM (see fig. 1). When EM confirms a facility is eligible for transfer, however, the facility is not transferred to EM until it has funding available to immediately begin decontamination and decommissioning. EM adopted this funding- dependent disposition policy, as a practice, in 2007 and formalized it as part of its transfer policy in 2011. Prior to 2001, EM had been given responsibility for hundreds of excess facilities from other DOE program offices without any additional resources to manage them, according to EM officials. Until EM has funds available to immediately begin disposition, program offices, such as NNSA, are responsible for maintaining their nonoperational facilities through activities known as surveillance and maintenance. Surveillance and maintenance activities may include, for example, periodic inspections of structures, as well as preventive, predictive, and corrective maintenance. These activities may also include the maintenance of selected systems and equipment essential for transition and disposition activities, such as maintaining ventilation systems, to ensure, at a minimum, that any contamination is adequately contained and that the potential hazards to workers, the public, and the environment are eliminated or mitigated and controlled. Cleanup work at DOE’s sites is governed by one or more regulatory agreements or orders that establish the scope of work to be performed at a given site and the dates by which specific cleanup milestones must be achieved. Cleanup work is performed at some sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). CERCLA, commonly known as Superfund, provides federal authority to respond to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, and contaminants that may endanger public health or the environment, and it established a trust fund to pay for cleanup activities. Portions of the cleanup work are also subject to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), which generally prohibits the treatment, storage, or disposal of hazardous waste without a permit. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may authorize states to adopt and enforce their own hazardous waste management programs (including issuing permits) as long as the state programs are at least equivalent to and consistent with RCRA. In addition, the Federal Facilities Compliance Act of 1992 made federal facilities subject to state hazardous waste permitting and enforcement authorities. Under these authorities, EM has entered into Federal Facility Agreements with EPA and state regulatory agencies that establish cleanup deadlines and milestones, as well as reporting and other requirements. NNSA has identified 83 contaminated facilities for potential transfer to EM for disposition over a 25-year period, 56 of which are currently nonoperational. NNSA is maintaining these facilities for future transfer to EM, but the condition of nonoperational facilities continues to degrade, resulting in increasing costs to NNSA to maintain them to prevent the spread of contamination. According to NNSA facility data, NNSA has identified 83 contaminated facilities at six of its eight sites for potential transfer to EM for disposition over 25 years, 27 of which are operational, and 56 are nonoperational (see fig. 2). NNSA identified these facilities as part of each site’s process for planning for the disposition of contaminated facilities it manages over a 25-year period; most sites completed their planning process in 2013. Of the 27 contaminated facilities currently in operation, NNSA expects 9 (33 percent) will be ready for disposition within the next 10 years. Most of the 27 operational facilities have been in operation for decades—19 of them (70 percent) were constructed more than 50 years ago.