National Ignition Facility: Management and Oversight Failures Caused Major Cost Overruns and Schedule Delays
RCED-00-141
Published: Aug 08, 2000. Publicly Released: Aug 16, 2000.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Department of Energy's (DOE) National Ignition Facility (NIF), focusing on the: (1) magnitude of NIF's cost and schedule overruns; (2) reasons for these cost and schedule problems; (3) effects of NIF's cost and schedule on other weapons and science programs; and (4) DOE's and Lawrence Livermore's actions to correct these problems.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Energy | To ensure that DOE has an effective independent review of NIF, the Secretary of Energy should arrange for an outside scientific and technical review of NIF's remaining technical challenges as they relate to the project's cost and schedule risks. |
Closed – Implemented
In 2003 and 2004, two independent committees assessed NIF's technical performance and project performance against established cost and schedule baselines. Each review committee was comprised of experts from government, industry, and universities who had no responsibility for NIF. According to the NIF project director, these technical reviews met the general criteria of independence. Prior to these outside reviews, NIF's Program Review Committee conducted several reviews that, according to NIF's project director, resulted in intense discussions of technical issues even though several committee members had connections with the NIF project.
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| Department of Energy | To ensure an appropriate balance between NIF and the rest of the nuclear weapons program, the Secretary of Energy should not reallocate funds from the nuclear weapons program to NIF until DOE: (1) evaluates the impact of its cost and schedule plan, as well as any other options for NIF, on the overall nuclear weapons program; and (2) certifies that the selected NIF cost and schedule plan will not negatively affect the balance of the Stockpile Stewardship Program. |
Closed – Implemented
DOE's Fiscal Year (FY) 2005 Budget Justification, released in February 2004, showed that NNSA has extended the National Ignition Facility's (NIF) target date for demonstrating ignition from FY 2010 to FY 2014. Despite this 4-year delay, NNSA will be able to use NIF's capabilities during the interim to conduct critical Stockpile Stewardship research. However, the extension will effectively reduce adverse budgetary impacts on other Stockpile Stewardship programs because NIF's program costs have substantially exceeded NNSA's estimate in 2000.
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Topics
Contract oversightCost overrunsFinancial managementFuture budget projectionsLaboratoriesNuclear weapons testingSchedule slippagesTest facilitiesCost and scheduleNuclear weapons