Jun 10, 2009

Congress Wants To Give Nuclear Agencies a Nudge

By Kerry Young and Caitlin Webber, CQ Staff
June 6, 2009

No matter how you pronounce it — noo-kleer or noo-kew-leer — two debatable points emerge:

• The government needs more nuclear scientists — or maybe not, and;

• Government agencies that oversee nuclear operations need more money — or maybe not.

And therein lies the problem for Congress as lawmakers decide how much money to give those agencies in the next year.

Senate appropriators who oversee funding of the Energy Department said that the White House hasn’t allowed enough money for fiscal 2010 for certain nuclear programs, but one nuclear agency official told them they could hold off on increases for a year.

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan , D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee, said at a panel hearing that the administration stinted in its fiscal 2010 request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency that oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal and also helps prevent terrorists around the world from getting atomic weapons.

Senate appropriators questioned the fiscal 2010 request of $9.9 billion for the NNSA, which has duties ranging from dismantling U.S. nuclear weapons and maintaining the remaining stockpile, to aiding in top scientific research and securing uranium supplies in countries such as Kazakhstan, Libya, Serbia and Vietnam,

“The fact is that NNSA is going to have a very active future,” Dorgan said at hearing, and ticked off some of the challenges facing NNSA, including President Obama’s goals for securing vulnerable nuclear materials around the world and North Korea. At the same time, the United States is working toward further reducing the size of its nuclear arsenal.

“This will require more dismantlements, and that will require more funding,” he said. The United States is engaged in a review of its policy on atomic weapons, with a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) report due out in early 2010 — but the NNSA cannot keep its activities in a holding pattern, especially when doing so could cause it to lose highly trained scientists, the appropriators said.

However, NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said the agency wants to keep its programs near current levels in anticipation of the Defense Department’s release of the NPR, which will set the course for the nation’s nuclear stockpile.

Meanwhile, at the NTNF...

The appropriations hearing came on the heels of a Government Accountability Office report stating that nuclear scientists are in short supply, and the government agencies responsible for investigating a nuclear attack are uncoordinated and unprepared.

In portions of a declassified report released June 1, the GAO said the National Technical Nuclear Forensics (NTNF) program, comprised of several agencies and coordinated by the Homeland Security Department, needs a better plan to recruit and train nuclear forensics experts.

If a nuclear attack were to take place, these experts would be responsible for identifying the type, material and origins of the device used.

The GAO also cautioned against proposed budget cuts that would affect nuclear forensic programs within the NTNF agencies.

“A comprehensive and responsive nuclear forensics capability is critical to the national security of the United States because it provides a deterrent to other countries that may provide nuclear materials to terrorists and can help attribute a nuclear or radiological event to specific perpetrators,” Gene Aloise, the director of natural resources and environment for the GAO, wrote in the April 30 report.

Tension and ‘Bad Ideas’

At the hearing, Dorgan and Robert F. Bennett of Utah, the ranking Republican on Senate Energy-Water Appropriations, referred to tensions that they detected between the NNSA and the Office of Management and Budget. “You are not ultimately responsible for this budget request, but you have nonetheless come here to answer questions about it,” Dorgan told D’Agostino, and referred to official internal communications between NNSA and the OMB.

Bennett told D’Agostino he understood the “frustration” that agency officials sometimes face in working with OMB and then having to defend the resulting budget plans. Still, Bennett criticized the fiscal 2010 request that D’Agostino, who was appointed to his job in 2007, was there to defend.

“I don’t think the budget provides adequate funding to the scientific community,” Bennett said. “I think it falls flat.”

Dorgan also asked NNSA to persuade OMB to drop its current consideration of moving responsibility for the U.S nuclear stockpile to the Pentagon, a proposal that’s been considered and rejected in the past.

“It reminds me that bad ideas have unlimited shelf life here in the nation’s capital,” Dorgan said. “This is a bad idea that has been debated and long ago discarded.

“Also, bad ideas are bipartisan. If you get a chance to talk to OMB, would you suggest that they close the cover of that book and move on?”

“Yes, sir, I’d be glad to,” replied D’Agostino.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

“The fact is that NNSA is going to have a very active future,”
• Securing vulnerable nuclear materials around the world and North Korea?
• Doing more dismantlement work at PX?

“Securing North Korea? NNSA? Must be some kind of Black Program.

Doing more dismantlement work at PX? 300+ dismantlements/yr is hardly a significant workload for NNSA let alone PX.

“nuclear scientists are in short supply” – for doing what? There’s no new weapons being designed or produced. The quantity of weapons programs is being cut in half.

Does anyone really think that under the current Administration and lock-step Congress the NPR will generate the need for more nuclear scientists & engineers?

“A comprehensive and responsive nuclear forensics capability is critical to the national security of the United States because it provides a deterrent to other countries that may provide nuclear materials to terrorists and can help attribute a nuclear or radiological event to specific perpetrators,”

Just exactly which countries are we deterring today? Do forensics really deter crime?

With this Administration watch what they do, not what they say.

BTW, how’s our nuclear energy program coming along?

Anonymous said...

“nuclear scientists are in short supply” – for doing what? There’s no new weapons being designed or produced. The quantity of weapons programs is being cut in half."

I think that is in reference to nuclear forensics not production of nuclear weapons. That was my read of the article but maybe you read something else.

Anonymous said...

“Also, bad ideas are bipartisan. If you get a chance to talk to OMB, would you suggest that they close the cover of that book and move on?”

I like Congress to close the book on NNSA and move the lab back to DOE!

Anonymous said...

"With this Administration watch what they do, not what they say." - 6:51 AM

Dr. Chu recent ultra-quick visit to LANL and refusal to address the LANL employees even after Mikey's pleading for him to do so was very telling, no?

Anonymous said...

“nuclear scientists are in short supply”

So are engineers for building steam locomotive engines, but who really needs them any more?

The future seems to be leaving LANL behind. Energy research is the direction in which Congress wants to throw large amounts of funding. The path forward for LANL doesn't look too bright.

Anonymous said...

"Sen. Byron L. Dorgan , D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Energy-Water Appropriations Subcommittee, said at a panel hearing that the administration stinted [scrimped] in its fiscal 2010 request for the National Nuclear Security Administration" (News Article)

Sen. Dorgan is beginning to sound like he might be the next St. Pete, even though he's from the state of North Dakota.

At least he's doing a much better job in supporting the NNSA labs than either of our two completely useless NM Senators, Bingamin and Udall.

Anonymous said...

“nuclear scientists are in short supply”

If a backwards country like North Korea can build a nuclear weapon one might conclude that building one is particularly difficult. That being said I would argue that keeping a stable of "nuclear scientists" warming up in the bullpen might not be a good use of their talent. Probably would be better for those "nuclear scientists" to invest their skills in developing ways to stop backward countries like North Korea from smuggling a nuke into this country and detonating it. Building more and better nuclear weapons does nothing to thwart this threat.

Anonymous said...

Hi Frank,

I realize that this is not the proper place to post this and I do beg your readers' indulgence. But one requirement for an organization to be awarded a fee waiver for a FOIA request is the ability to disseminate the information to a wide audience. Your blog definately fits that requirement! And this information just might interest those readers who are involved or who know someone who has a claim under EEOICPA.

In January of this year, I filed a FOIA request with NIOSH to obtain internal emails regarding any discussions on the Ruttenber data base for Rocky Flats. You may remember that Margaret Ruttenber stated that they may be some RF employees who were working during the SEC period that is on her database and not in NIOSH's. Laura Frank did a couple of articles on this issue.

NIOSH complied with the request, for the most part. There are six emails related to the number of workers who are not on NIOSH's list that are in the Ruttenber database. Margaret Ruttenber released the database to NIOSH this past February but to date, no Board Working Group meeting has been scheduled to compare the two databases.

Cold War Patriots happily agreed to post these emails to their website.

To read the emails visit http://www.coldwarpatriots.org/legislative/govermental-correspondance/

Thanks, Frank! You're doing a tremendous service

Terrie Barrie
ANWAG/CWP
970-824-2260
tbarrie@yahoo.com

Anonymous said...

“I think that is in reference to nuclear forensics not production of nuclear weapons. That was my read of the article but maybe you read something else “6/10/09 7:36 AM

I don’t think we disagree in the “read” but rather that my point is I maintain that we currently (counting recently retired) have an oversupply of nuclear weapons scientist/engineers because we aren’t designing/building new weapons which will more than fill the need for nuclear forensics.

Maintaining our national capabilities for nuclear weapons design requires much more talent & money than maintaining nuclear forensics.

Your mileage may vary.

Anonymous said...

"The future seems to be leaving LANL behind. Energy research is the direction in which Congress wants to throw large amounts of funding. The path forward for LANL doesn't look too bright."
6/10/09 12:43 PM

The direction Congress throws $$$ has nothing to do with energy, science or engineering.IMO, there's a 99.999% chance they're direction is based on politics.

Anonymous said...

6:45 pm: "Maintaining our national capabilities for nuclear weapons design requires much more talent & money than maintaining nuclear forensics."

There is no way to separate the two. Having attended several high-level classified briefings on nuclear forensics, I can say that accurate and rapid nuclear forensics requires people with detailed nuclear weapon design expertise. It's more than just decay products. Many folks on the forensics teams are experienced designers. Their expertise is crucial.

Frank Young said...

Terrie, you're too kind. And thank you.

For those who don't know, Terrie Barrie is an advocate for sick nuclear workers. She may not be on your radar screen now, but she's only a CAM alarm away from being your new best friend.

Anonymous said...

6:45 pm: "Your mileage may vary."

Yep, you've really tagged yourself with that line. I bet you think your coworkers don't notice that it is one of your pet phrases. "Anonymous"? I think not. I won't use your name but I'll be looking at you.

Anonymous said...

"6:45 pm: "Your mileage may vary."

Yep, you've really tagged yourself with that line. I bet you think your coworkers don't notice that it is one of your pet phrases. "Anonymous"? I think not. I won't use your name but I'll be looking at you.
6/10/09 11:19 PM"

Sorry to disappoint you 6/10/09 11:19 PM. I’m not, nor have I ever been, an employee of LANL.

Oh, & drop me a line when you find me :)

An overdose of Bud is my guess. But, YMMV.

Anonymous said...

"Many folks on the forensics teams are experienced designers. Their expertise is crucial."

Where do you get the "experienced designers" when there's no nuclear weapons to design?

Anonymous said...

You just have to wonder if people like 11:19pm ever feel as stupid as they appear. My guess is not, otherwise they wouldn't act that way.

Anonymous said...

wow! scott adams reads this blog!

daily dilbert.

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-06-11

Anonymous said...

HEADLINE:

"Congress Wants To Give Nuclear Agencies a Nudge" ....

...right over a cliff!

Anonymous said...

Geeze, LANL gets a measly $200 million in stimulus money for some cleanup work while Savannah River is getting $1.6 BILLION!!! That's almost as big as LANL's annual budget.

They're going to be hiring thousands of new employees at SRS with this additional stimulus funding:

.........................
SRS projects will put safety first, official says

Energy official vows quality control

June 12, 2009

A push to spend $1.6 billion and create thousands of jobs at Savannah River Site in just two years will be accomplished without compromising safety or quality, the U.S. Energy Department's top environmental official pledged Thursday.

"If it can't be done safely, it won't be done," said Dr. Ines Triay, the department's newly confirmed assistant secretary for environmental management, who spoke to local leaders during a visit to North Augusta on Thursday.

The department's $6 billion share of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act includes $1.6 billion that will accelerate critical cleanup projects at SRS, including decommissioning two of the site's nuclear material production reactors.

About 3,000 new jobs are expected to materialize as projects that previously were scheduled to commence years down the road are jump-started and undertaken immediately.

chronicle.augusta.com/
stories/2009/06/12/
met_527386.shtml

Anonymous said...

"They're going to be hiring thousands of new employees at SRS with this additional stimulus funding" (12:38 AM)

See what a huge difference it makes without having St. Pete on LANL's side?

LANL and LLNL appear to currently be scientific oddities -- the only national labs in America that are *SHRINKING* as massive amounts of stimulus funding and federal research money comes pouring into the other national labs and universities.

Anonymous said...

But I thought you all didn't like environmental cleanup work?

Anonymous said...

From the LLNL Blog....

Both LLNL and LANL are going to slowly die, especial in terms of the science. There is very little you can do about it. The message that you have been hearing about this situation is abundantly clear.

However, all the DOE energy labs are thriving and will have lots of extra funding thrown at them over the next decade. For example, ORNL is looking to hire over 1000 new staffers and got hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus money to help them build what will soon be the world's faster super computer.

The future is bleak for the NNSA labs. SNL has diversified over the last 15 years, so they'll make out much better than either LLNL or LANL.

If you're still years away from retirement then there is really only one one good solution -- get out and find a lab that will be thriving and awash in new federal science funding. Whether you like it or not, this nation is changing course and entering a bright new era of federally funded science for all but the nuclear weapon labs. The fact that the NNSA labs got nothing in terms of science funding from the recent stimulus bill is telling you something important. Don't fight the trend. The trend can be your friend.

Anonymous said...

"From the LLNL Blog...."

Was this cross posting necessary? The LLNL Blog is easy enough to reach for any web readers. Aren't there enough whiners at this blog without adding in even more whining from the LLNL site?

Anonymous said...

Does Oak Ridge have fewer whiners than LANL? If so, then you can count me in. I don't see any ORNL blogs that exist to constantly bad mouth their lab and their management.

Anonymous said...

6/13/09 4:23 PM

Maybe ORNL staff members don't whine because they are not under NNSA.

Anonymous said...

Maybe ORNL staff members don't whine because they are not under NNSA.

6/14/09 8:52 AM

Or perhaps Nanos was right. It's the butt heads and cowboys at Los Alamos who created this mess. The SSP, recent attrition and firings haven't yet rid the lab of all the riff raff. More work needs to be done to bring in a new workforce that doesn't suffer from the Los Alamos syndrome.

Anonymous said...

12:05 Are you a six-sigma blackbelt or just a moron who benefits from overly bureaucratic prison-like conditions at National Labs? Either way, you don't know much about the so-called cowboys who for decades did what was necessary to keep this country safe. Nanos was an opportunist, not a prophet. You and he both apparently confuse the two types of people.

Anonymous said...

"12:05 Are you a six-sigma blackbelt"

What do you have against the Six Sigma program, 6:18 PM? It is helping LANL achieve a fantastic record in terms of safety and security, which is what LANL needs to be focused on as Job #1.

If you dislike this program so much, then I suggest you discuss your concerns with your AD. I'm sure he would be very interested to hear about your poor attitude on safety and security, especially given the fact that performance reviews are being done this month.

Anonymous said...

10:48 PM, please name some Six Sigma projects related to safety and explain how they have improved our statistics! I attended All Manager Meetings for three years and not once did Tim McEvoy (or anyone else) present such a project during his discussions of the safety/security numbers. All he ever said was "keep doing what you're doing" or "we need to stay vigilant." The Six Sigma program has also not taken any public credit.

Anonymous said...

The problem is that the NNSA doesn't spend its money on what it needs to support the mission that it has been assigned. It labors under a bureaucracy that is subordinate to the Congressional Representatives in the states where it has facilities. Ever wonder (a) why we have so many National Labs, and (b) why old places like Savannah River now have a separate National Laboratory. Look at PNNL versus Hanford...

The NNSA could kill the PDCF, which will cost the taxpayer $6B. Send the work to LANL for $2B and actually get the job done. Why aren't they looking at that as an option? Why it is because everytime somebody proposes an alternative to PDCF that does not place it in South Carolina, they get summoned to the Hill to beg forgiveness to the Congressional staffs of South Carolina and Georgia. Add UPF and the Congressional forces of Tennessee and you have a recipe for killing CMRR, even though everybody will tell you that it is as important (or more) to the NNSA than PDCF.

What is equally sad is that our LANS management could care less about important non-pit building missions. Wouldn't it be ironic that the place that built the bomb was now being utilized to forever rid our country of our huge numbers of useless weapons? Something to be pround of and to tell your children.

Anonymous said...

South Carolina has a very powerful Congressional delegation helping to protect Savannah River. SRS just got over $1.6 billion in stimulus money to help SRS grow jobs over the next two years.

Likewise, Tennessee also has lots of powerful Congressional support for both ORNL and Y-12. Oak Ridge just got millions in new stimulus funding to help further their growing supercomputer efforts (Jaguar) and hire more bright computer scientists.

Meanwhile, back here in New Mexico, we lost the strongest supporter that LANL ever had, Sen. Pete Domenici. LANL can't even seem to manage to keep the funding coming to keep the lights on at LANSCE.

Think about where we are in this process. Congress recently told LANL and LLNL that they would be forbidden to receive any stimulus money to use for the purposes of science. This, during a time when Obama plans to raise government funding of science in this nation by 300%!

It's becoming very clear that Sen. Bingamin and Sen. Udall are light weights at this brutal game. Rep. Lujan is too young and wet behind the ears to be of much help. It's become a nasty political game and LANL is about to become the big loser in this process. As many have noted, LANS could care less what happens. As long as LANS meets the annuual PBIs, the top executives will be well taken care of by the LLC.

Anonymous said...

"The NNSA could kill the PDCF, which will cost the taxpayer $6B. Send the work to LANL for $2B and actually get the job done. Why aren't they looking at that as an option? Why it is because everytime somebody proposes an alternative to PDCF that does not place it in South Carolina, they get summoned to the Hill to beg forgiveness to the Congressional staffs of South Carolina and Georgia.

Oh believe me, these options are currently being explored! With PDCF's costs escalating and their schedule now slipping out too many years from the start-up of the MOX plant, DOE, NNSA (and others)are asking serious questions if the work can be done at LANL (for much cheaper than $2bill mind you) or split the mission between LANL and SRS (which appears to be more palatable for the SC/Georgia delegation). Anyway, what you suggest is currently under negotiation but I suspect DOE and NNSA will probably make their decisions based on political pressure rather than what is correct fiscally and scientifically.


It also begs the question, where are the NM legislators in the negotiation and lobbying for these large programs? I'll give Carl Beard (ADSMS AD) credit. He's back in Washington quite often beating the trees for money in order to grow his program portfolio especially in the non-proliferation arena.

Anonymous said...

Separating LANL into two distinct entities - a NNSA production/weapons research site and a DOE national science lab - might be the only way to significantly improve things. Remember that SNL started out as a division at LANL.

Anonymous said...

"Separating LANL into two distinct entities - a NNSA production/weapons research site and a DOE national science lab - might be the only way to significantly improve things." (8:00 AM)

That plan seems to have worked out very well at Oak Ridge with ORNL under DOE doing research and Y-12 under NNSA doing production flavored work.

I see no reason why the same plan can't be done at Los Alamos. The production side could be given to for-profit Bechtel/BWXT while the research side would be run by a non-profit LLC that is serious about science, just like it is done out at Oak Ridge.

ORNL is run by their non-profit LLC for about $10 million, close to what LANL once cost when it was run by UC. Y-12, on the other hand, is run by for-profit BWXT and they earn around $48 million per year to manage the facility.

Anonymous said...

Ok, 11:03, so you think it would work very well at Los Alamos to split the lab into two.

Why do you think this? What non-profit LLC in their right mind would want to run the non-NNSA part? How would FTE rates be lowered? What motivation is there to do this besides keeping people at LANL employed? What expertise exists only at LANL that does not already exist an some other DOE lab?

I'll give you a hint for the answer to that last question.

None.

Anonymous said...

6/17/09 11:20 AM

Ho about

- Univ of Texas (wanted to run LANL)
- Univ of New Mexico (dreams of running LANL)
- MIT (runs DOD's Lincoln Lab)
- Caltech (runs NASA's JPL)
- Battelle (runs PNNL and helps run LLNL)
- Uni of Chicago (runs ANL)

Heck, you put all these together into one LLC and you might have a shot at improving life at this lab.

Anonymous said...

Ok, 4:57.

Now how about coming up with answers that address why anybody would want to take over a non-NNSA LANL. Want to take a crack at the other questions that 11:20 asked?

While you're at it, how about explaining why DOE would want to fund a non-NNSA LANL to replicate funding for areas of expertise that already exist at other DOE science labs, like Oak Ridge, NREL, Lawrence Berkeley, SRP, Argonne, Brookhaven, PNNL, SLAC, INNEL, and Fermi, to name a few.

And please: try not to use the phrase "The Best and Brightest" in your answer.

Anonymous said...

Geeze Louise, people.

LANL's days are numbered. Thanks to the corrupt agreement between our big Government, and Corporate America, LANS, LLC is going to ride this horse into the ground, collecting their $89 Mil every year until Congress finally pulls the plug.

There will be no "splitting off" of a non-NNSA LANL lab. Just not going to happen. Wishful thinking.

Sad, but inevitable. Get your resumes up to date and find a job somewhere healthy.