The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) defined requirements for the revised Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) project to provide plutonium analysis equipment at its Los Alamos site but did not specify the capacity for analyzing plutonium that the project should provide, making it possible that the project would not meet plutonium analysi...

The Department of Energy (DOE) did not meet its initial cost and schedule estimates for restarting nuclear waste disposal operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), resulting in a cost increase of about $64 million and a delay of nearly 9 months. DOE incurred this cost increase and delay partly because it did not follow all best practices in developing the cost and schedule estimates. I...

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the 37 states it permits to grant licenses for radioactive materials—called agreement states—have taken several steps since 2007 to help ensure that licenses are granted only to legitimate organizations and that licensees can only obtain such materials in quantities allowed by their licenses. However, NRC and agreement states have not taken some meas...

As outlined in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was asked to verify and monitor Iran's implementation of a range of nuclear-related commitments. IAEA is using its safeguards authorities and conducting additional activities agreed to by Iran under the JCPOA to do so. Iran's commitments include limits on uranium enrichment levels and on en...

In the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) fiscal year 2016 budget materials, the estimates for efforts related to modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile total $297.6 billion for the next 25 years—an increase of $4.2 billion (1.4 percent) in nominal dollar values (as opposed to constant dollar values) compared with the prior year's budget materials. However, for certain program...

The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—a separately organized agency within DOE—continues to face several ongoing challenges in modernizing the nuclear security enterprise, including challenges in managing life extension programs (LEP), contracts and major projects, and the alignment of plans with future budgets. As GAO reported in August 2015, NNSA es...

As outlined in the JCPOA, IAEA was asked to verify Iran's implementation of a range of nuclear-related commitments, and IAEA uses its authorities and conducts additional verification activities to do so, according to IAEA. Iran's commitments include limits on uranium enrichment levels and enriched uranium inventories. GAO's preliminary observations indicate that IAEA plans to verify Iran's impleme...

The B61-12 life extension program's (LEP) managers have developed a management approach that officials from the Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) regard as improved over the management approach used for past LEPs, which experienced schedule delays and cost overruns. Among other things, the B61-12 LEP is the first LEP to...

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy (DOE)—has used a variety of established methods in its “Over the Horizon” (OTH) initiative to assess potential proliferation threats, but the implementation of these methods had several limitations. NNSA used established methods in its OTH initiative, including: (1) a literature revi...

The National Nuclear Security Administration manages U.S.-origin enriched uranium for certain needs such as for the production of tritium, which is used in nuclear weapons. After losing its last source of U.S.-origin enriched uranium in 2013, NNSA projected that its supply would run out in 2027. We found that NNSA has extended its supply through 2038 but it has not clearly defined longer term enr...

The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) manages the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and supports nonproliferation efforts. DOE's Office of Environmental Management addresses contamination at nuclear weapons production sites. We testified that NNSA’s plans to modernize its nuclear weapons do not align with its budget, raising affordability concerns DOE's...

The National Nuclear Security Administration manages programs that refurbish or replace nuclear weapons' aging components to ensure each weapon is safe, secure, and effective. Prior life extension programs have cost far more and taken years longer than expected. We issued a series of recommendations over several years designed to improve management of these programs. Recently, NNSA adopted a new...

GAO found that challenges exist in reducing the security risks faced by licensees using high-risk industrial radiological sources. Specifically, licensees face challenges in (1) securing mobile and stationary sources and (2) protecting against an insider threat. Regarding mobile sources, their portability makes them susceptible to theft or loss, as the size of some of these sources is small enough...

The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within DOE, continue to face challenges in ensuring that oversight of security activities is effective. For example, in July 2012, after three trespassers gained access to the protected security area directly adjacent to one of the nation's most critically important nuclear weapon-...

As of August 2012, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had completed 42 of 100 planned Megaports projects in 31 countries and, as of December 2011, NNSA had spent about $850 million on the Megaports Initiative (Initiative). NNSA’s Initiative has equipped these seaports with radiation detection equipment, established training programs for foreign personnel, and created a sustainab...

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), has successfully ensured that the nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable by using state-of-the-art facilities as well as the skills of top scientists. Nevertheless, DOE’s and NNSA’s ineffective oversight of its contractors has contributed to many safety a...

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) requirements do not consistently ensure the security of high-risk radiological sources at the 26 selected hospitals and medical facilities GAO visited. One reason for this is that the requirements are broadly written and do not prescribe specific measures that hospitals and medical facilities must take to secure medical equipment containing sealed sources,...

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) planning, programming, budgeting, and evaluation (PPBE) process provides a framework for the agency to plan, prioritize, fund, and evaluate its program activities. Formal policies guide NNSA and management and operating (M&O) contractors through each of four phases of the agency’s PPBE cycle—planning, programming, budgeting, and...

After the enactment of Title 32 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 (NNSA Act), the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) struggled to determine how NNSA should operate as a separately organized agency within the department. A number of factors contributed to this. First, DOE and NNSA did not have a useful model to follow for...