Despite the aspiration of a world without nuclear weapons, we must take the world as it is, not as we wish it were. Potential peer competitors such as Russia and China are investing massive resources into upgrading and expanding their nuclear arsenals, while regional adversaries such as North Korea and Iran defy the international community’s decrees regarding their nuclear and missile programs. Worse, these states have made clear that nuclear weapons will be a vital element of their statecraft as they threaten U.S. interests around the world.
Despite the aspiration of a world without nuclear weapons, we must take the world as it is, not as we wish it were. Potential peer competitors such as Russia and China are investing massive resources into upgrading and expanding their nuclear arsenals, while regional adversaries such as North Korea and Iran defy the international community’s decrees regarding their nuclear and missile programs. Worse, these states have made clear that nuclear weapons will be a vital element of their statecraft as they threaten U.S. interests around the world.
While I understand that people can reasonably disagree about how best to conduct U.S. foreign and defense policy in the face of these challenges, one truth remains: As long as there is a single nuclear weapon in our arsenal, we will need the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to ensure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.
Although the NNSA itself was established by an act of Congress as a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2000, our heritage goes back to the Manhattan Project. For more than 75 years, the effectiveness and credibility of America’s nuclear weapons capability has reassured friends and allies, contributed to international stability during the Cold War, and kept Americans safe from nuclear attack.
While this history is a source of pride for those of us serving in the Nuclear Security Enterprise, at least one aspect of this heritage is problematic for U.S. national security: Roughly 30% of NNSA’s facilities date back to World War II, and more than half are over 40 years old. As determined in our 2019 Master Asset Plan, almost a third of our total NNSA infrastructure assets are in poor condition and are insufficient to meet mission needs. These assets include strategic materials facilities critical to our nuclear deterrent.
It is therefore crucial for U.S. national security that we ramp up investments in modernizing and developing the Nuclear Security Enterprise’s infrastructure. This infrastructure includes laboratories, manufacturing plants and material production sites in South Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, and California spanning 2,000 miles of roads, 2,100 square miles of land, and 36 million square feet of facility space that our 50,000-plus workforce needs to fulfill its national security mission.
During my confirmation process, I was reminded of DOE’s past inability to deliver major construction projects on budget and on schedule, and various Government Accountability Office (GAO) and congressional reports identified the root causes behind a series of poor project performances.
NNSA took these challenges seriously, and across three administrations committed to implementing solutions to addressing these root causes. NNSA recognized it required a strong, integrated management team comprised of experienced professionals and experts in acquisition, design and construction contract management to implement best practices and improve overall performance in this critical area. Thus the Office of Acquisition and Project Management (APM) was established in 2011 to improve NNSA’s contract and project management performance and capital project delivery.
I am proud to say that we have come a long way since.
APM has restored NNSA’s credibility through improved project management practices and tangible results. In the past seven years, NNSA has completed 23 construction projects in seven states with an overall value of $2 billion under budget. This includes six major projects valued at over $332 million at the Y-12 National Security Complex here in Tennessee. Most notably, work on the $6.5 billion Uranium Processing Facility remains on schedule and on budget, and has been so for the past six years.
Recognizing this progress, in a March 2019 report to Congress, the GAO stated that: “NNSA has enhanced its capability to estimate costs and schedules, and to assess alternatives for programs and projects” and has “made progress by implementing best practices in several areas, such as those for estimating costs and schedules in nuclear weapons refurbishment activities and capital asset acquisitions.”
While there is more to be done, this is an extraordinary accomplishment given the size and unique challenges associated with NNSA infrastructure projects. The stringent regulatory requirements necessary for nuclear safety make the construction overseen by APM the most complex work of any entity in either the private or public sectors. Additionally, because it would be a significant security risk to have multiple entities capable of making nuclear weapons, the Nuclear Security Enterprise cannot advertise and compete to drive down the cost of infrastructure projects like other sectors. Indeed, we often must serve as our own industrial base for nuclear-related facilities and products.
Finally, when the Cold War ended, few anticipated that the threat posed by other states’ nuclear arsenals would reach its current level three decades later. Sadly, America has not made the investments necessary to prolong the life of our nuclear enterprise infrastructure. Again, despite our pride in the NNSA’s past, given the increasing number of nuclear threats and the uncertainty of the future, we must not repeat this aspect of our history.
The good news is that we are not. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review commits the United States to maintaining a nuclear posture that is “second-to-none” by modernizing and recapitalizing all three legs of the nuclear triad, to include the infrastructure that makes this possible. NNSA is working diligently to anticipate and plan for the next 50 years to ensure the United States delivers on our national security responsibilities to our citizens, allies, and partners. This includes continuing to modernize our Nuclear Security Enterprise infrastructure to ensure the effectiveness and credibility of our nuclear deterrent for generations to come. Americans are depending on it.
Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty is Under Secretary for Nuclear Security of the U.S. Department of Energy and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
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