The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) weapon modernization programs, which stated that the agency needed to address affordability concerns in future budget estimates.
GAO was tasked with publishing annual updates on the NNSA under provisions of the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act to assess whether the agency’s budget materials differed from its estimates, while providing plans for modernization activities of its aging nuclear weapons stockpile so that they remain reliable and safe if needed.
The report found that NNSA’s overall nuclear modernization budget plans for the next 25 years, as presented in its FY2017 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, differed from those presented in its plans from the previous fiscal year. Specifically, budget estimates in the FY2017 plan increased by approximately one percent over the previous year and two percent compared to FY2015.
GAO also found that changes in NNSA’s modernization estimates varied across its four weapons activities program areas including stockpile; infrastructure; research, development, and testing; evaluation; and other.
In certain cases, GAO found that NNSA’s FY2017 nuclear security budget materials did not align with its modernization plans, both within its five-year Future Years Nuclear Security Program and beyond, which raised serious concerns about the affordability of the agency’s planned modernization programs.
To address its numerous affordability issues, GAO recommended that NNSA include an assessment of the affordability of its portfolio of modernization programs in future versions of its Stockpile and Stewardship Management Plan.
NNSA did not explicitly agree or disagree with the recommendations.