By George Lobsenz
In a change that has been considered and discarded by previous administrations, the Obama administration plans to conduct a study of the costs and benefits of moving the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons complex to the Defense Department, according to an internal administration document.
The document, which was disclosed by The Albuquerque Journal Wednesday and then obtained by sister publication The Energy Daily, is an undated memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ordering DoD and DoE to evaluate moving the weapons complex into the Pentagon beginning in October 2010.
DoE and DoD are directed to consult with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Homeland Security, State Department and other affected agencies as needed, and to deliver recommendations to OMB by Sept. 30 on whether to move the weapons complex to the Pentagon.
The memo said the DoE-DoD report to OMB should include “discussion of significant issues, alternatives considered, an assessment of their advantages and disadvantages including budget implications, and recommendations for a path forward.”
Officials at the White House and DoE had no immediate comment Wednesday on whether the administration is considering moving the weapons complex.
However, a spokeswoman for Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), whose home state includes DoE’s Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, said he had told the White House that he deeply opposed moving the weapons complex to the Pentagon.
The spokeswoman, Jude McCartin, said Bingaman felt strongly that nuclear weapons should remain under civilian control and that shifting the labs to military control would stifle their growing civilian research portfolios, which include a wealth of innovative clean energy projects and other advanced technology.
McCartin also said Bingaman had spoken to OMB Director Peter Orszag to express his view that any restructuring of the weapons complex should leave it within DoE.
She said Bingaman believed there had been problems with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous DoE agency created in 2000 to run the weapons complex.
“If we want to get rid of the NNSA, let’s think about that, but the weapons complex should remain in DoE,” she said.
The idea of shifting the weapons complex to the Pentagon has been repeatedly considered in the past, but never carried out due to policy, cost and other concerns.
The complex was initially placed in DoE to maintain civilian control over nuclear weapons–a reason that still resonates with arms control experts and scientists within the weapons complex as a key check on the Pentagon’s power. The nation’s nuclear arsenal was first managed by the Atomic Energy Commission and then by the Energy Research and Development Administration, which was merged into DoE in 1977.
The complex remained shrouded in official secrecy until the late 1980s, when DoE began revealing and grappling with major contamination and safety problems that had been neglected at the weapons facilities for decades, largely because they were out of public view.
DoE’s management of the complex has been increasingly criticized in recent years due to security and safety lapses and major cost overruns and schedule delays with major cleanup, production and nonproliferation initiatives.
DoE also has been viewed as lacking operational focus because of its far-flung responsibilities. While nuclear weapons and cleanup operations constitute nearly two-thirds of its budget, the department also runs numerous civilian laboratories conducting a wide range of energy and scientific research.
Congress created NNSA with the aim of improving management of the weapons complex. Lawmakers sought to give NNSA substantial autonomy from DoE so NNSA could focus on upgrading operational efficiency and security at DoE’s three nuclear weapons laboratories and four weapons production facilities.
However, NNSA has been plagued by continuing management difficulties. Further, the last energy secretary in the Bush administration, Samuel Bodman, complained to Congress two years ago that the statute creating NNSA had made it inordinately difficult for him to fix problems within the semi-autonomous agency because his authority to exert control over NNSA had been significantly circumscribed.
Moving NNSA to the Pentagon might make sense to President Obama in light of his appointment of Steven Chu, director of DoE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his DoE secretary. Obama touted Chu’s lead role in developing cutting-edge green energy research programs at Berkeley and has suggested Chu bring new focus and expertise to DoE’s clean energy efforts.
However, DoE’s weapons laboratories likely would resist any move to the Pentagon because it could interfere with their substantial civilian research operations, which the labs see as their key growth engine given the continuing reduction of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal.