Billion Dollar Boondoggles

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Billion Dollar Boondoggles Billion Dollar Boondoggles Challenging the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Plan to Spend More Money for Less Security A Report by The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability May 2014 Billion Dollar Boondoggles The Failure of Modernization 1 The Failure of Modernization 1 Modernizing the Stockpile: Life Extension Programs 3 Curatorship: A Superior Approach 6 Modernizing the Infrastructure: UPF and CMRR 7 The National Ignition Facility 9 The Mixed Oxide Fuel Facility (MOX) 11 The Next Mission: Dismantlement 13 The First Step: Accountability 14 Acronyms and Map 15 Modernization in Charts and Figures 16 Authors, Readers, and Production Jay Coghlan Ralph Hutchison Marylia Kelley funding for Billion Dollar Boondoggles Ashish Sinha provided by Rick Wayman The Colombe Foundation Bob Schaeffer The Ploughshares Fund Beatrice Brailsford Arielle Moncure Additional funding for ANA’s work provided by Tom Clements Rockefeller Family Associates The Failure of Modernization T he National Nuclear Security Administration’s program to “modernize” the US nuclear weapons is a dramatic failure. The Department of Energy (DOE) has conceded the collapse of plans to build major new production facilities at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, along with the MOX program at Savannah River. In Congress, there is substantial pushback against the exorbitant cost of weapons modifications that could compromise the reliability of the US stockpile. Yet the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) continues to mislead Congress by obscuring the true cost of modernization and ignoring the grave risks inherent in the program. Billion Dollar Boondoggles documents Among NNSA’s budget gimmicks: the commitment of billions of dollars to • delaying projects and deferring produce ever more nuclear weapons even accounting for costs which will ultimately though most programs are far over budget, result in higher costs; way behind schedule, and poorly managed. • lowering budget estimates through claims The modernization plan robs money of improved cost modeling in defiance of its from nonproliferation efforts abroad and track record; dismantlement efforts at home. • falsely claiming savings of $7.5 to $9.5 Modernization also increases risk and billion for not doing a Life Extension program decreases security. It hopes to make major that was never planned; changes to a stockpile that has been extensively • omitting costs of directly related tested and shown by repeated studies to be programs from Life Extension Program reliable. The nonpartisan Congressional budgets; Budget Office estimates US taxpayers will • depicting tapering costs while failing to spend $355 billion on modernization over the disclose follow-on programs that will increase next 10 years. The following two decades will costs; We analyze NNSA priorities be even more expensive. More than one trillion • assuming the Department of Defense will and follow the money. The dollars will be spent on nuclear weapons and help pay for heavily modified nuclear weapons their missiles, subs, and bombers over the next when, in fact, the Pentagon expresses deep Obama Administration’s 30 years. skepticism about the program. FY2015 budget request This report is not a summary of the plans cuts NNSA funding for non- of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning President The Weapons who “seeks the peace and security of a world In a world with thousands fewer nuclear proliferation programs by free of nuclear weapons.” Instead, it highlights weapons than at the Cold War peak, why is 21% and dismantlement the ineptitude of the NNSA, the greed of the nuclear weapons budget higher than at any contractors, and the misguided priorities of a point in history? The answer is Life Extension of retired nuclear weapons system stuck in a Cold War mentality. Programs (LEPs) which introduce changes to by 45%. At the same time, We analyze NNSA priorities and follow the U.S. arsenal that are overkill – figuratively the money. The Obama Administration’s and literally. budgets for nuclear weapons FY2015 budget request cuts NNSA funding The B61 LEP will combine one strategic research and production for nonproliferation programs by 21% and and three tactical versions of the B61 into increase significantly, dismantlement of retired nuclear weapons by one all-purpose nuclear bomb, the B61-12. A 45%. At the same time, budgets for nuclear coordinated Defense Department program for exceeding the all-time record weapons research and production increase a new B61 tail fin guidance kit will create the set by Ronald Reagan at the significantly, exceeding the all-time record set world’s first nuclear smart bomb, endowing it by Ronald Reagan at the height of the Cold with new military capabilities. The price tag for height of the Cold War. War. this LEP has leaped from $4 billion to nearly billion dollar boondoggles • 1 $12 billion. The future of the B61 is in doubt in plutonium than other alternatives. Europe, where it is currently deployed. Despite chronic cost overruns and The Air Force plans to begin production of repeated security breaches, federal oversight a new Long-Range Standoff cruise missile in of contractors has been diminished instead 2018, but NNSA wants to begin a LEP study of strengthened. Concrete performance for its new nuclear warhead now. This LEP benchmarks have been stripped from annual would create a new first-strike nuclear weapon, contractor work plans. One congressional contradicting the Administration’s stated panel has called NNSA a “failed experiment.” policy of deterrence. Details of this LEP are not yet available, but the FY 2015 budget request Solutions calls for $9.4 million to begin the study. Solutions start with accountability—no The NNSA’s newest life extension plan public or private corporation could survive if is for what some call the Frankenbomb, an it underperformed as NNSA consistently does. “Interoperable” Warhead (IW) to replace Congress should insist on real and accurate the W78, now deployed on land-based numbers as it makes billion-dollar decisions. intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the A major shift in priorities is necessary. W88, which is on submarine-launched US policy-makers and weapons designers ballistic msissiles. This plan has proven to do not feel constrained to pursue nuclear be prohibitively expensive, dangerous and disarmament or to balance the budget. They unnecessary. The FY 2015 budget request want to modify, upgrade, and life-extend defers funding for the LEP for five years, but nuclear warheads indefinitely. This compulsion DOE insists it is still a viable project. drives multi-billion dollar investments in poorly managed projects for new research and Nuclear Weapon Facilities production facilities. That does not reflect the The Chemistry nda Metallurgy Research world we live in. Since 1970, the US has been Replacement Nuclear Facility, intended to obligated by the NonProliferation Treaty to support expanded production of up to 80 pursue complete disarmament “at an early plutonium pit cores annually at the Los date.” Arms control agreements continue to Alamos Lab, was put on hold for five years in reduce the size of the US stockpile. 2012 when the NNSA decided to prioritize Aligning federal budgets with the nation’s construction of the Uranium Processing stated nuclear policy will enhance security by Facility (UPF) in Oak Ridge, TN. supporting nonproliferation efforts around After dramatic price inflation, the globe and have the added virtue of saving mismanagement, and schedule delays taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. threatened to scuttle the UPF altogether, What would that look like? NNSA would NNSA appointed a “Red Team” which, on embrace a mission of Curatorship of the NNSA should embrace a May 1, recommended scuttling the “Big Box” nuclear stockpile. NNSA would maintain UPF in favor of relocating some operations the currently reliable US weapons stockpile mission of Curatorship to existing buildings and a modular approach in a safe and secure status until weapons of the nuclear stockpile. to new construction. The proposal does not are retired. NNSA would also conduct have a price tag. More significantly, it does not dismantlement operations in a timely manner Rather than introduce realistically address management challenges and assure the safe disposition of weapons uncertainty into the the plan will pose to a team that has already components and materials. demonstrated remarkable ineptitude. Increased funding for dismantlement stockpile through Other failed NNSA projects continue to would address both the lack of storage space unnecessary Life Extension drain the budget. The National Ignition Facility for retired bomb cores and the larger capacity Programs, NNSA should (NIF) is one of the world’s most expensive problem of a fifteen-year backlog of weapons science experiments. Its goal of nuclear fusion, to be disassembled. maintain the currently promised year after year, remains stubbornly The budget of the NNSA raises many reliable US weapons elusive. At $8 billion and counting, the questions about our priorities as a nation. Will government continues to throw good money the US continue to defy international norms stockpile in a safe and after bad, to the tune of $500 million per year. and maintain nuclear weapon capabilities into secure status until weapons Cost estimates for the Mixed Oxide (MOX) the 22nd century? Or will political leaders Fuel Fabrication Facility have skyrocketed responsibly manage the existing nuclear are retired. from $1.6 billion in 2004 to $30 billion in 2014. weapons stockpile as the US—in conjunction MOX fuel has no customers in the United with nuclear-armed nations around the States and is a riskier method of dealing with world—moves toward nuclear disarmament? 2 • billion dollar boondoggles “Modernizing” the Stockpile Through Life Extension Programs THE B61-12 RECOMMENDATIONS • Congress should halt FY 2015 funding for the B61 Life T he B61 Life Extension Program introduces significant modifications to the Extension Program. design of an already tested weapon. The current proposed LEP’s price tag has made each bomb worth its weight in gold, literally, two times over.
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