Mr. MORGAN. Briefly, on the defense waste and byproducts, this is the amount of waste that we have in the defense inventory. We're dealing withthat adequately at this point in time. SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY Our major concern is public health and safety, and disruption of our stockpile capability. SECURITY AFFAIRS SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY MAJOR CONCERNS • ENDANGERING PUBLIC HEALTH & SAFETY -NEW PRODUCTION SECURITY AFFAIRS SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY DOE SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY PLANNING AND PROGRAMMING • THREAT • SITE VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENTS • SITE SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY PLANS • SENIOR MANAGEMENT REVIEW • PROGRAM FORMULATION • BUDGET FORMULATION • INSPECTION AND EVALUATION Mr. MORGAN. [Deleted] our inspection and evaluation team—we're doubling that capacity-so from headquarters we will evaluate our critical facilities every 18 months to ensure that our security is adequate. LESSONS LEARNED We needed corporate commitment, education and awareness, and reduction and consolidation of inventory. SECURITY AFFAIRS SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY MAJOR LESSONS LEARNED IN PAST YEAR • CORPORATE COMMITMENT • SECURITY EDUCATION AND AWARENESS • REDUCTION/CONSOLIDATION OF SNM INVENTORY • DEFENSE IN-DEPTH • CROSS FERTILIZATION AMONG FIELD OFFICES • COST EFFECTIVENESS Mr. MORGAN. We are moving strategic materials away from potential vulnerabilities. We now have defense in depth at all DOE critical facilities; cross-fertilization in communication between field facilities; and we believe that we are cost effective. MAJOR CONTINUING ACTIONS We have major continuing actions, such as implementation of the NSC directive. As you know, we just had hearings on air-space restrictions to restore restrictions at all our primary facilities. We were taken to court on the physical fitness standards. We lost that case on a pro cedural process. We're going back and correcting that, and we should have that in place soon. And, as I mentioned, we're expanding our inspection and evaluation activities. SUMMARY OF SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY ACTIVITIES In summary, [deleted] until we can get all the essential projects properly funded and completed, we have increased manpower at the various locations to ensure security. We do have an aggressive oversight program. And that is what I tried to summarize because of the time commitment, sir, and I appreciate your hearing it. [Deleted.] Senator DOMENICI. Let me suggest that Senator Abdnor, who was a member of the subcommittee, as I am, is here, and will complete the hearing. I regret that I have to go. I want to say to all of you that I hope you don't think that this Senator thinks what you're doing deserves only 45 minutes to an hour of time. I'm sorry that we just get caught in this particular bind. It's tremendously important and some of you know that I'm personally very interested in this particular aspect of the DOE and the defense budget. But, I'm going to have to submit questions that I have in writing and I thank you all very much for accommodating me today and we'll do our best. If the subcommittee, after the staff has reviewed and summarized for the members and the chairman-if we have any need for additional information, we'll obviously get hold of you and we appreciate your cooperation. Senator, will you take over? Senator ABDNOR [presiding]. Yes, sir, thank you. It's been pointed out to me that General Hoover and Dr. Gilbert really haven't had much of an opportunity to cover their areas. Would you care for a little additional time to give us a little more background? Mr. MORGAN. Sir, we did submit their testimony for the record, and I tried to summarize that, but I did eliminate a number of the graphs that we were going to cover, and if you would like, we can spend some more time going through the specifics we'd like to cover, and General Hoover can talk in more detail about his program. Senator ABDNOR. Why don't we do that. WEAPONS PROGRAM General HOOVER. I'm Major General Hoover, sir. Mr. Morgan did summarize the key points that we wanted to make; however, I would like to emphasize several of them. If you compared the weapons complex to a high-technology corporation, it would rank in the top quarter of the Fortune 500. But more importantly, it is [deleted]. And as such, I would certainly caution against cutting the [deleted] capability and capacity very close to the point of being able to produce or not. It's important to have some hedge against uncertainty. I also believe that, although there are disparate views with regard to nuclear weapons, as long as we have them in the stockpile, as long as they are the underpinning of our deterrent strategy, the American public has the right to be assured that the weapons, and the facilities required for their design and production are safe and secure, and environmentally acceptable. Our budget shows increases and in many instances these increases are to address those very concerns to improve our security and our environmental compliance. Although we are not presently endangering the health or the safety of the American public, there are a number of areas where we must comply with environmental regulations to redress problems resulting from practices that were acceptable in the past. A large portion of the increase in our budget is devoted to thosewhat I would call cross-cutting-functions that may not of themselves necessarily turn weapons out the door, but are crucially important to keep the confidence of the American public and to maintain our ability to do our job. We have talked in terms of providing the kind of weapons complex that can meet the security requirements of this decade and of the future as we presently foresee them. Just like any good corporation, we have what we would call an investment strategy. It is not dependent on an ad-hoc or short-term view of what we might do in any 1 year, but rather lays out a program which we will work toward in the longer term. WEAPONS COMPLEX CAPABILITIES We believe we should have a weapons production complex that is capable of producing [delete] of the modern new weapons such as we produce today, with a capability to surge by [deleted]. We should increase our research and development manpower by about 15 percent from where we entered this decade-up from an employment level of about 7,400, to a level of about 8,500. The current budget request will support a level in our laboratories of about 8,250, so, we are working toward our goal. TESTING We should be increasing the number of underground tests, recognizing also that those tests are becoming more expensive because they are more complex. We are working very, very diligently at getting more data out of each individual test. Therefore, although you can view the viability of our test program by the discrete numbers of tests we do, it's important to look at its quality as well. Quality relates to how much information we are, in fact, receiving from each and every test. Our test program has shown increases in funding support with the help of this committee, support which is reflected in a program that has a great deal more quality than it had a decade ago. RESTORATION Mr. Morgan also referred to our effort to restore the aging plant that was allowed to deteriorate during the decade of the 1970's. We've had a very aggressive program which, again, has been supported by this committee. We need to continue that program to completion. In addition to restoring our degraded utilities and equipment, we are also embarking on a program this year to revitalize our research and development facilities to support the manpower base which I have discussed. STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE Perhaps one other area I should mention because of the importance and interest this year is our effort to support the President's strategic defense initiative to provide a defense against ballistic missiles for this country. We view the President's challenge as visionary, but certainly not impossible. Much of what DOE is doing in strategic defense is, in fact, exploring new concepts that have been emerging from our technology base. We are now giving that added emphasis. Our primary area of endeavor is in the so-called nuclear-directed energy weapon category, where we are pursuing efforts to take a portion of the energy from a nuclear weapon, focus it, and deliver it over several thousand kilometers in a destructive mode. That is, in essence, a new generation of uses for nuclear weapons. We are pursuing concepts such as the nuclear-driven x-ray laser, [deleted]. [Deleted] I think that about fills in what Mr. Morgan had not had a chance to cover. IMPACT OF BUDGET REDUCTIONS Senator ABDNOR. You have an ambitious program, and maybe this has been asked, but what do the proposed budget cuts do to all these programs? Does anyone know where the cuts are going to come? Mr. MORGAN. We have not had any cuts specifically identified to the DOE portion of the budget. We are aware that there are some concerns about the budget. What would drive our budget is if there are reductions in the DOD requirements for the weapons, and we don't knowin other words we have seen no change in the DOD budget and the delivery of weapons required, so that we do not believe that we could sustain a cut and still be responsive to the Presidential nuclear weapons stockpile memorandum. Senator ABDNOR. That's fine, but all this apparently has developed over a very short time. I was as surprised as anyone. I'm not a member of the Budget Committee, but I can read, and it sounds like they are getting together on a pretty sizable cut, and that doesn't seem to be enough for the other groups that are around here. Do you really think you could survive without being affected by all this or is it all going to come out of other areas of the defense budget? Mr. MORGAN. No, it would come from some other area of the defense budget. We've done some preliminary reviews of other production alternatives such as the Mark 15 high productivity reactor cores, and the materials production budget has something like $90 million for enrichment requirements in the DOE budget to support Mark 15. By looking at other alternatives to use the reactors in Savannah River, for example using a different core loading than Mark 15-we could reduce our budget by about $100 million-and not affect production. We're looking at areas we could possibly cut, but in the areas of environmental, safeguards and security, and the safety items, we just believe it is inappropriate to offer any of these up for reduction. |