GAO: NNSA needs to improve its waste management strategy
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s strategy for managing nuclear waste from nuclear weapons maintenance and modernization activities is not comprehensive and does not fully address all statutory requirements, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.
As required by the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2022, the NNSA developed a strategy for the treatment, storage, and disposition of defense nuclear waste generated from its efforts to maintain and modernize the U.S. nuclear stockpile. The NNSA released its strategy in February 2024.
A separately organized agency within the Department of Energy, the NNSA is currently undertaking an effort to produce 80 plutonium pits—used to arm nuclear warheads—a year by 2030. This effort is expected to produce a considerable volume of additional waste, which will cost billions of dollars and take decades to treat, store, and dispose of, according to the GAO.
The contentions: The GAO contends that NNSA’s 2024 strategy was not comprehensive, because it followed only one of seven key components for comprehensive strategic plans. While the GAO found that the NNSA’s strategy includes a mission statement, it only partially or minimally meets six other components (see table below).
Key Component | GAO Assessment |
|---|---|
| Mission statement | Substantially meets |
| Problem definition, scope, and methodology | Minimally meets |
| Goals and objectives | Minimally meets |
| Activities, milestones, and performance measures | Minimally meets |
| Resources and investments | Partially meets |
| Organizational roles, responsibilities, and coordination | Partially meets |
| Key external factors | Partially meets |
In addition, the NNSA’s strategy only partially addresses the requirements imposed on it by Congress, according to the GAO. The office provides the following examples:
Generated waste amounts. Though the strategy’s scope is a 25-year period, the 25-year outlook does not include anticipated waste from important upcoming activities, such as reestablishing plutonium pit production capability or surplus plutonium disposition.
Coordination with the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management. The strategy recommends establishing formal coordination mechanisms with DOE-EM, which has responsibilities for waste disposal, but it does not define formal coordination or describe NNSA’s plans to create this mechanism.
Cost estimates. NNSA estimated costs of about $2.5 billion over the next 5 years, but the estimate may not be reasonable, in part because NNSA used inconsistent and unclear information and did not perform risk and uncertainty analyses.
Disposal options. The strategy does not identify disposal facilities, including any needed modifications. It states that other locations that could be used to dispose of high-risk waste should be identified or developed.
The recommendation: In its report, Nuclear Waste Cleanup: NNSA Should Improve Its Strategy for Managing Anticipated Waste from Defense Activities, the GAO is recommending that NNSA include the key components of a comprehensive strategic plan and fully address statutory requirements in its required update to congressional committees.
In response, the NNSA concurred with the GAO’s recommendation, saying that the 2024 strategy “represents a snapshot in time, early in the program’s development.” The NNSA is to issue an updated plan in 2026, which the administration said will provide a comprehensive strategy that meets statutory requirements.
