Nuclear Weapons Complex: GAO's Views on DOE's Reconfiguration Study

GAO discussed the Department of Energy's (DOE) January 1991 Nuclear Weapons Complex Reconfiguration Study. GAO noted that the study: (1) was only the first step in developing a more detailed plan, which would include an environmental impact statement on reconfiguring the complex; (2) recommended a smaller complex in the future, but did not clearly specify what the complex would look like in 2015; (3) provided only a limited discussion of how the nation would meet its future tritium requirements and manage its plutonium inventory; (4) substantially underestimated the costs for reconfiguring and modernizing the complex by not including such projects as new tritium production capability, upgrade of production reactors, correction of safety, health, and environmental deficiencies, and facilities relocation; and (5) failed to address such long-standing management issues as overreliance on contractors and lack of technical expertise.