Nuclear Nonproliferation: Action Needed to Address NNSA's Program Management and Coordination Challenges
GAO-12-71
Published: Dec 14, 2011. Publicly Released: Dec 14, 2011.
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Highlights
What GAO Found:
From fiscal years 2006 through 2010, only about half of the total annual funds available to the DNN programs were costed, or expended, each year. This resulted in uncosted carryover balances of more than $1.5 billion on average from one fiscal year to the next. During this time, the total uncosted DNN operating program balances exceeded thresholds established by the Department of Energy by hundreds of millions of dollars every year. However, much of the annual uncosted DNN-wide funding balances were committed for future expenditure, and total uncommitted uncosted DNN operating program balances were under the thresholds. Nevertheless, three DNN programs had uncommitted balances that frequently exceeded thresholds during this time. NNSA provides semiannual reports to Congress on DNN uncommitted balances. However, these reports do not specify the amounts by which program balances exceeded the thresholds or explain why the excess balances should not be rescinded, redirected, or used to offset future budget requests.
GAO identified four DNN programs authorized by Congress to receive and use contributions from foreign donors, and these authorities expire from 2011 through 2015. Three of these programs received approximately $47.1 million from fiscal years 2006 through 2010 from seven countries. This amount represents about 1 percent of the total funding from annual appropriations acts directed to the four programs over the same period. Extending these authorities would give NNSA more time to obtain foreign contributions. In addition, NNSA has pursued greater cost sharing with foreign countries where DNN programs are implemented, but the extent of cost sharing is unclear because NNSA does not systematically track or maintain such data.
Some DNN program performance measures do not satisfy key attributes that GAO has identified in previous work, namely measures that are clear, reliable, and balanced. For example, one program measure—securing nuclear material facilities in Russia and the former Soviet Union—is unclear, because NNSA counts buildings with security upgrades as completed although NNSA may undertake additional upgrades at some of these sites. In addition, the results of some DNN programs in fiscal year 2010 appear overstated because DNN measured performance against different targets in the end of fiscal year performance report than the ones presented in the budget request to Congress. Moreover, NNSA has dropped one long-standing measure used by the Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program to track reemployment of former Soviet weapons scientists rather than improve the measure as GAO previously recommended and NNSA agreed to revise.
Existing strategies and plans for coordinating federal efforts to combat nuclear smuggling overseas do not incorporate all of the key characteristics of effective national strategies that GAO has identified in previous studies. In addition, there are concerns of potential fragmentation and overlap among some programs working to counter nuclear smuggling overseas, especially those providing equipment and training. Furthermore, there is no single recognized federal agency responsible for leading and directing efforts to combat nuclear smuggling overseas. However, the NSC oversees interagency coordination of these efforts.
Why GAO Did This Study:
GAO has issued numerous reports on the effectiveness of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) programs. For this report GAO was asked to assess (1) the extent of annual DNN uncosted, or unexpended, balances; (2) the level of financial support from foreign donor and recipient governments to the DNN programs; (3) the effectiveness of DNN program performance measures; and (4) the coordination of DNN and other agency nonproliferation programs. GAO analyzed NNSA financial data and other pertinent documents, and interviewed officials from multiple agencies.
Recommendations
Matter for Congressional Consideration
| Matter | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| To allow DNN programs to receive and use additional foreign contributions in the future, thereby offsetting some future DNN appropriations requests, Congress may wish to consider extending the time frames under which current DNN programs are authorized in current law to receive and use such contributions. | In the fiscal year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law in January 2013, Congress extended the authority of the DNN programs to receive and use foreign contributions to the programs until December 31, 2018. |
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| National Nuclear Security Administration | To provide further information to Congress on DNN program budget execution, in the end of fiscal year semiannual reports on DNN uncommitted program funding balances, the Administrator of NNSA should (1) identify uncommitted balances over acceptable carryover thresholds on a program-by-program basis, and (2) justify why such balances should not be considered for rescission, redirection to other NNSA programs, or to offset future DNN budget requests. |
NNSA officials stated and provided documentation showing that the recommendation had been implemented through several reporting vehicles to Congress on DNN uncommitted uncosted balances, including monthly CFO reports on financial performance of NNSA programs, an annual DOE report on uncosted balances, and an annually updated strategic plan for DNN programs that includes an appendix on DNN uncommitted uncosted balances.
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| National Nuclear Security Administration | To clarify how other countries are sharing in the burden of implementing DNN programs, the Administrator of NNSA should develop ways to better track and maintain information on foreign cost sharing for DNN projects overseas. To allow Congress to understand the scope of foreign country cost sharing, NNSA should include in the annual DNN budget requests to Congress information explaining actual or estimated amounts of cost sharing during the prior fiscal year by foreign governments in countries where DNN program activities have been implemented. |
According to NNSA officials, some DNN programs do informally estimate the contributions to nuclear security projects by host country governments, but such estimates are not very reliable. NNSA officials said that they did not believe it would be worth the effort to create a system to formally track that information and formally report such data to Congress, especially given the uncertainty associated with the internal estimates. In an appendix in NNSA's first annual strategic plan to define and describe the agency's missions to prevent, counter, and respond to the threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism, released in March 2015, NNSA did describe its efforts to track such cost sharing and provided examples and anecdotes by program of such cost sharing. However, the March 2016 version of this strategic plan did not include this information.
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| National Nuclear Security Administration | To provide Congress with consistent information on DNN program results over time, the Administrator of NNSA should develop and maintain to the extent practicable a consistent set of DNN program performance measures and ensure that, for each fiscal year, the targets for measuring annual program performance as proposed in the budget requests to Congress are the same as those used to assess progress in the end of fiscal year performance reports. In those cases where circumstances warrant a change in performance measures or targets--especially during the course of a fiscal year--the end of fiscal year performance reports should explain why the measures or targets were changed. |
According to NNSA officials and documentation, the agency's performance reporting now includes notations in the end of fiscal year performance reports explaining those cases where a change in program performance goals and targets is made during the fiscal year, and where the goal or target changes from what was presented in the budget request for that fiscal year.
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| National Nuclear Security Administration | To provide Congress with better information on the status and progress of DNN program performance and to address clarity, reliability, and balance issues in the performance measures for specific programs, the Administrator of NNSA should develop clearer measures, especially for the Nonproliferation and Verification Research and Development (R&D) program and Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) programs, so the requirements and scope of program efforts can be more easily understood. For the MPC&A program in particular, reconsider the practice under its performance measure of counting buildings and facilities as having "completed" MPC&A upgrades, where there is additional or ongoing security work under way or planned. |
In a 2011 report (GAO-12-71), we identified clarity concerns in the performance measures for two of the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) programs. First, we found that several of the Nonproliferation and Verification R&D program's performance measures assessed progress using unspecified criteria and milestones from a classified R&D requirements document. Because these performance measures were linked to an unstated secondary set of criteria, it would be difficult for a third party, unfamiliar with the classified requirements, to interpret the measure and discern whether the criteria are appropriate, sufficient, and up-to-date for tracking progress. In addition, for the nuclear Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) program, we found that NNSA measured progress by the cumulative number of buildings with weapon-usable nuclear materials in Russia and the former Soviet states with completed MPC&A upgrades. We found this measure to be unclear and potentially misleading because, among other reasons, it did not provide information about the quantities of materials being secured by the program and the total number of buildings completed was not adjusted to account for any new upgrade work that may be pursued at those locations. According to NNSA officials, neither the Nonproliferation and Verification R&D performance measure nor the MPC&A program performance measure were changed in response to our recommendation to provide further clarity in NNSA's performance reporting. Regarding the MPC&A program performance measure, NNSA officials said that the measure, while unchanged, was being phased out as a performance measure due to the discontinuation of program work in Russia. The MPC&A program was restructured in 2015 into a broader Global Material Security program, following the termination of U.S.-Russian cooperation on nuclear material security in 2014. Regarding the Nonproliferation and Verification R&D program performance measures, NNSA officials stated that the measures as written provided sufficient information to program management to assess progress. We raised similar concerns regarding the clarity of the performance measures for the DNN R&D program -- the successor program to the Nonproliferation and Verification R&D program -- in a February 2017 report (GAO-17-210). However, during that review, NNSA officials indicated that they did not plan on making changes to the program performance measures consistent with our prior recommendation. The DNN R&D program performance measures contained in the Department of Energy's fiscal year 2019 annual performance plan continue to link measurement to unclear criteria and milestones contained in classified program life cycle plans and roadmaps. Due to the passage of time and the low likelihood of NNSA taking further action to implement this recommendation, we are closing it as not implemented.
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| National Nuclear Security Administration | To provide Congress with better information on the status and progress of DNN program performance and to address clarity, reliability, and balance issues in the performance measures for specific programs, the Administrator of NNSA should clarify the long-term goal under the performance measure for the U.S. highly enriched uranium (HEU) disposition program to reflect that the overall amount of material for dispositioning and the rate at which it will be downblended is conditional upon decisions regarding the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and the pace of warhead dismantlement. |
NNSA officials stated that the recommendation had been implemented and a revised performance measure was developed for the program, beginning with the fiscal year 2014 NNSA budget request to Congress, clarifying that the amount of HEU to be downblended and the disposition rate is contingent on decisions regarding the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and the rate of weapon dismantlement.
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| National Nuclear Security Administration | To provide Congress with better information on the status and progress of DNN program performance and to address clarity, reliability, and balance issues in the performance measures for specific programs, the Administrator of NNSA should develop broader, more encompassing, or a more balanced set of public measures to gauge progress by the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative and in the sustainability of MPC&A upgrades provided to foreign countries. |
NNSA has developed a new, different performance measure -- the cumulative number of sites with radiation detection systems being indigenously sustained -- that provides a broader assessment of MPC&A upgrade sustainability than the older measure, which used numbers of MPC&A regulations as a proxy for sustainability progress. However, NNSA has not developed a broader, more balanced, or more encompassing measure to track progress under the multi-dimensional, multi-year Next Generation Safeguards Initiative, but continues to use a single performance measure for its safeguards-related work that is geared around the number of safeguards technology systems deployed or transferred to international partners.
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| National Nuclear Security Administration | To provide Congress with better information on the status and progress of DNN program performance and to address clarity, reliability, and balance issues in the performance measures for specific programs, the Administrator of NNSA should provide an updated and more reliable measure to assess the nonproliferation impact of the Nonproliferation and International Security program's Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (GIPP) program, as NNSA previously stated it would. |
The GIPP program was terminated subsequent to this report before any change to the performance measure was made, and a successor NNSA program on scientific engagement was not funded by Congress and subsequently terminated. Consequently, the recommendation was not implemented.
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| Office of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs | To streamline and eliminate potential for fragmentation and overlap among U.S. government programs involved in preventing and detecting smuggling of nuclear materials, equipment, and technologies overseas, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs should undertake--or direct and delegate an appropriate agency or agencies to undertake--a comprehensive review of the structure, scope, and composition of agencies and programs across the federal government involved in such efforts. Such a review should assess several issues, including: (1) the level of overlap and duplication among agencies and programs, especially in the provision of nuclear detection equipment and in training provided to foreign border security, customs, and law enforcement officials; (2) potential for consolidation of these functions to fewer programs and agencies; (3) the feasibility, costs, and benefits of establishing a special coordinator to preside over the allocation of U.S. counter-nuclear-smuggling assistance to foreign nations and be responsible for directing the interagency process of development, funding, and implementation of all U.S. government programs related to combating nuclear smuggling overseas; and (4) any U.S. laws that would need to be amended by Congress in order to facilitate consolidation, elimination, or other changes to existing programs. |
As of March 2018, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs had not demonstrated progress on comprehensively reviewing the structure, scope, and composition of agencies and programs across the federal government involved in efforts to combat nuclear smuggling overseas, as GAO recommended in December 2011. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs at that time did not comment on the December 2011 recommendation. The National Security Council Staff (NSCS), who assist the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, informed GAO in November 2012 that the recommendation had been provided to the appropriate NSCS directorate for consideration in the NSCS-led interagency policy committee process. However, NSCS did not provide further information, except for stating that the issue was being addressed within the interagency process. In subsequent annual follow-up on this action, NSCS stated to GAO that they would have no further comment on this recommendation. Accordingly, GAO has not been able to verify that this recommendation has been addressed, and GAO does not believe it is likely to obtain additional information to substantiate what actions, if any, NSCS took to address this recommendation. GAO maintains that streamlining and eliminating potential fragmentation and overlap among these programs could produce benefits. GAO has closed this action as not addressed and will no longer track implementation.
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| Office of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs | Following this review, to ensure remaining programs are being coordinated and implemented effectively, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs should issue new guidance that incorporates the elements of effective strategic plans, including clearly delineating the roles and missions of relevant programs, specific priorities and objectives, performance measures and targets, overall program cost estimates, and projected time frames for program completion. |
As of March 2018, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs had not demonstrated progress on issuing new guidance for federal programs combating nuclear smuggling overseas that includes the elements of effective strategic plans, as GAO recommended in December 2011. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs at that time did not comment on the December 2011 recommendation. The National Security Council Staff (NSCS), who assist the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, informed GAO in November 2012 that the recommendation had been provided to the appropriate NSCS directorate for consideration in the NSCS-led interagency policy committee process. However, NSCS did not provide further information, except for stating that the issue was being addressed within the interagency process. In subsequent annual follow-up on this recommendation, NSCS stated to GAO that they would have no further comment on this recommendation. Accordingly, GAO has not been able to verify that this recommendation has been addressed and does not believe it is likely to obtain additional information to substantiate what actions, if any, NSCS took to address this recommendation. GAO maintains that streamlining and eliminating potential fragmentation and overlap among these programs could produce benefits. GAO has closed this action as not addressed and will no longer track implementation.
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Nuclear nonproliferationBudget requestsPerformance measurementNuclear proliferationNuclear materialsNuclear weaponsNuclear smugglingPlutoniumThreat reductionInternational security