WASHINGTON − The agency responsible for building, maintaining, and storing America’s nuclear weapons faces an internal review of its costly effort to reestablish mass production of nuclear warhead cores.
The Department of Energy’s number two official, James Danly, ordered a “special study” of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s “leadership and management” amid its push to produce plutonium pits − the explosive cores of modern nuclear warheads. Danly directed the investigation via an Aug. 11 memo that was posted online by a nuclear disarmament advocacy outfit, the Los Alamos Study Group, and independently obtained by USA TODAY.
“I have become increasingly concerned about the (NNSA)’s ability to consistently deliver on nuclear weapons production capabilities needed to support the national defense of the United States,” Danly said in the memo. “For nearly three decades, the United States has not had the ability to produce plutonium pits in the quantities required for the nuclear weapons stockpile and to maintain nuclear deterrence.”
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The department and NNSA did not respond to an inquiry from USA TODAY.
The semi-autonomous NNSA is more than a decade into its attempt to restart core production; in 2014, Congress directed the agency to establish capacity to build at least 80 pits per year by 2030.
The agency decided in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first administration, to build two production lines: one in the aging plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, and a larger one in a repurposed building (from an earlier failed multibillion-dollar project) at South Carolina’s Savannah River Site.
The agency’s former head, Jill Hruby, said in 2024 that “the reestablishment of pit production capabilities is the largest and most complex infrastructure undertaking at NNSA since shortly after the Manhattan Project.” She estimated the project’s price tag would fall between $28 billion and $37 billion.
But the 2030 timeline has slipped and costs have increased over time. The Savannah River Site is unlikely to produce any pits before the early-to-mid 2030s, and the Los Alamos plutonium facility is not projected to reach its projected 30 pit-per-year capacity until 2028.
Government watchdogs and the arms control community have criticized the NNSA’s plans over squishy cost estimates and repeatedly sliding timelines. The Government Accountability Office blasted the agency in 2023, saying it lacked “a comprehensive schedule or cost estimate for pit production capability.”
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Dylan Spaulding, a nuclear security expert for the Union of Concerned Scientists, argued in a May report that NNSA’s two-site approach for pit production is “questionable” and has unnecessarily driven up costs for reasons that are “likely more political than technical.” The Department of Energy and NNSA, however, contend the two-site strategy “supports resilience from external threats and hazards, and provides NNSA with … flexibility.”
Arms control advocates question the need for new plutonium pits, but nuclear deterrence experts warn the U.S. faces a potential three-way arms race with Russia and China and needs to produce new warheads to replace aging ones currently in the stockpile.
The Danly-directed study, led by the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments, will probe agency leadership, contractor performance, and other aspects of NNSA’s oversight of the projects.
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One area of focus, per the memo: human capital. A USA TODAY investigation published in May detailed the NNSA’s long-running staffing and talent pipeline issues, which the Trump administration exacerbated earlier this year via chaotic workforce cuts that were later largely reversed.
Agency officials acknowledged the workforce woes in May 20 testimony to Congress, and pending legislation would shield NNSA employees from future layoffs.
Davis Winkie’s role covering nuclear threats and national security at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Outrider Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nuclear weapons plan faces sweeping Energy Department probe
