DoD/IDA review of pit production options: transparency issues

April 17, 2019

Dear colleagues --

We are noticing an increasing number of transparency issues as regards NNSA (and in this case, DoD) planning and budgeting. A serious issue that arose today is what NNSA reports to us as the UCNI status of the DoD/IDA study of pit production options, which your committees required.

A closely-related study is that required by Senate Appropriations Committee, which is due later this week from NNSA.

These reports deal with complex issues that would benefit from timely, truly external, review. That is now unlikely to be timely because external parties have to submit FOIA requests for this material, which in the case of today's report we have already done, and DoD and then NNSA must then redact the materials.

Given the normal FOIA practice of these agencies, if we want a redacted version of these reports before 2021 or 2022 we must litigate. It is impossible for us to recover the full costs of doing so, and of course any review we might then make will not be timely as far as FY20 authorization and appropriations are concerned.

It is possible that if one or more of you request an expedited redaction of both of these documents, such redaction might be promptly done.

I think a major question facing Congress -- and the new Democratic majority in the House -- is the extent to which Congress will abet the opacity of this administration in nuclear matters, which in its FY20 budget request and specifically in the ~$900 million requested for pit production exceeds all others I have seen over the past 25 years or so. There is no foundation for accountability and therefore no foundation for sound management being laid.

Best wishes, and thank you for anything you can do,

Greg