The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to invest over $30 billion in its major projects to modernize the research and production infrastructure supporting the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Major projects are those with an estimated cost of $100 million or more.
In its first biennial assessment, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that as of March 2023, NNSA’s major projects collectively exceeded their cost estimates by over $2 billion. They also surpassed their collective schedules by almost 10 years.
NNSA is reviewing cost and schedule estimates for four of the projects that have already experienced cost overruns or schedule delays and that could result in additional overruns or delays. For example, two of the four projects are part of the Uranium Processing Facility family of projects (in Tennessee). They are a combined $2 billion over their cost baselines and 6.5 years behind their schedule baselines. NNSA and the Department of Energy expect to complete reviews of both projects in summer 2023.
GAO notes that cost increases and schedule delays are due to multiple factors, such as poor management practices by the contractor, lower levels of worker productivity than planned, and impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., employee absenteeism due to illness).
Of the 10 NNSA major projects in the earlier definition phase, GAO found that six projects are implementing significant design changes, and NNSA plans to put two projects on hold for multiple years.
In January 2022, NNSA revised the top-level requirements for the multibillion-dollar Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility project (in South Carolina). This revision increased its scope in part by adding more processing space and support utilities in the main process building to enable future modifications. Further, NNSA plans to place the High Explosives Synthesis Formulation and Production Facility (in Texas) on hold once the site contractor has completed all design work by September 2023. According to NNSA’s fiscal year 2024 budget justification, this hold is a result of cost increases and schedule delays being experienced by many of the agency’s construction projects, as well as a decision to focus resources on a reduced number of high-priority projects. In addition, five of the 10 major projects in the definition phase have identified critical technologies, and these projects have generally met milestones for maturing these technologies.
In its prior work, GAO has made multiple recommendations to improve NNSA’s management of its major projects. NNSA agreed with a majority of those recommendations and implemented many changes. However, as of July 2023, GAO said NNSA had not fully addressed seven of those recommendations.
Read the full assessment at GAO
