Has the white house engaged with your Advisory Panel and do you think, i shouldnt say that does it understand the major problems that exist in the Nuclear Security enterprise . And do you think the president understands it, the gravity of it . Gravity of it. That is difficult question, mr. Franks for us to answer. It is. Clearly the nation, not just this administration but over a period of years we gradually let our nuclear capability, degrade. The, i would come back to your initial remarks deterrence is in the eye of the beholder as you know. I do. When other nations come to the conclusion that our deterrent is not what we say it is then were in great danger and one of the worst things we could do of course is state we have plans that we dont provide the resources, the management capability to carry them out. If that, if we cant afford more, we need to change the plan but to have plans that dont much the resours is probably the worst of all worlds. Once again as we, weve visited in great detail the programs that you cited. There are a lot of examples of poor management. It has less to do with this case, the capability of the people in the system. Most of the people we talk to are very capable and dedicated and i might add very frustrated. They know the problems better than we do. It comes down to leadership at all levels. Im trying to be as candid. I couldnt agree with you, mr. Augustine, but i dont want to cut you off but im out of time and i certainly appreciate your candor and your response. Separate from the white house and congress and National Level leadership i think there is a lot the department of energy can do within itself. You spoke about several projects that have, weve already expend ad significant amount of National Treasure on and we have yet to see a facility. A lot of that stems from a number of cultural issues around technical competence within the department of energy itself. Theres a need for stronger cost estimating capability, a much more rigorous analysis of alternatives up front before you commit to a Certain Program and also real strong, Robust Program management expertise and i think those three elements to a certain degree are lacking within nnsa and historically lacking within nnsa. You dont knee white house or congress to fix those things. The president has ability to take on cultural reforms to really make the organization more efficient, to better utilize the resources that have already been given for the organization. The gentlemans time expired. I want to thank the admiral for his comments. I want to say he is has his hands tied to that respect going back to thornberrys questions we would legislate loosening up his and a little. As i got my thought process going over. There lane is recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would thank our conditions witnesses being here today. I have a couple specific questions but let me start off more broadly. Is the nesa and Nuclear Security enterprise under the construct fixable or do we need to move in totally new direction . If it is fixable, where would you start and if it is not, what would you do . Well, under the current structure, at least as its being carried out it is clear that it doesnt work and probably going to be very difficult to fix. What new structure one needs as a starting point is something that the committees very much involved in trying to decide. The list of options is not is not great. Admiral . Again i think organizational changes is needed but the lesser fix in the sense that cultural reform is far, far the greater priority and you can move the organizational boxes around all you want but if you dont fix the cultural problem, those organizational shifts will be meaningless. So you have to really address some of these cultural issues and thats the secretarys challenge. Well i concure the changing an Organizational Culture is very difficult to do and many ways is really, two specific things, a, you either have to incentivize and get buyfrom the people there to change the culture and have them be a part of the solution, or, youre just going to start over and thats a very daunting prospect if thats what it comes to. Let me, let me just turn to a couple of specific questions. President obama made clear in his prague 2009 speech and the Nuclear Posture review identified the priority of strengthening nonproliferation, making progress on Nuclear Arms Control and sustaining a strong deterrent s there adequate National Leadership below the president and above the nnsa level to Prioritize Nuclear support on these priorities . In my mind, the part of the government you pound the out i think is, is head of the department of energy and i think today thats true, there is that capability. But the capability will need strong backing because there is always resistance to change. If one get as into various Management Levels within the department of energy i think there are some case that is one would question whether weve got people in the job that are up to it. On the other hand there are a lot of people there that are very good. This is a casebycase issue. I would only add that you cant really separate the nonproliferation mission entirely from the Nuclear Weapons stockpile surveillance and maintenance mission. The two are inextricably linked in that a large volume of our expertise in our Weapons Program is what contributes to our understanding and knowledge of what other countries are doing and how theyre developing and all that plays into our nonproliferation initiatives. So i think that theyre inextricably tied together and both very critical. Thank you, admiral. Let me move to this, after the disasterous y12 security incident, the department of energy, Inspector General and Government Accountability office stated that nnsa had a eyes on, hand off approach to oversight. It appears nnsa officials did not have or use the authority to second guest the contractor practices on security. Has this major deficiency addressed within nnsa and more generally, does nnsa have the necessary expertise to evaluate and performance proposals from the m and o contractors . I think with regard to the first part of your question the answer is no, the capability doesnt exist today. The, one of the things thats happened is that the responsibility for carrying out a mission, the mission within nnsa has been separated from many other important supportive functions. The important in charge of producing a weapon should also have as part of their job produce the weapon but do it safely, do it environmentally responsibly and so on, securely. But today the staff functions have taken over those latter issues and that should be embraced by the person who has the Line Management responsibility and the authority. So today you have a separately, separation of responsibilities and that leads to great bureaucracy, delay, and, in effectiveness. I would only add that although we havent seen significant changes in the way oversight is done and that its still pretty much a transactional compliance space there is a Major Initiative underway to, to reduce and to reduce the number of performance element factors that the fees sore are awarded on and focus on Mission Elements rather than nonmission related elements. I think it is to early to say how successful that initiative will be but clearly there is initiative to change the performance element standards. Great. Gentlemans time expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank our witnesses for testifying. We obviously have a daunting task ahead of us and i look forward to continue working with you. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank the gentleman. Recognize now mr. Wilson from South Carolina for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for having this hearing and thank tk you for your commitment to this country and i look forward to reading the report in any way we can be helpful. In fact the issues that were dealing with, even going back 14 years ago, there was a report about it House Armed Services committee special Oversight Panel on, in regard to the department of Energy Reorganization and it was ably chaired by soon to be chairman mac thornberry. And in this report he said that the central purpose of the new organization, the national Nuclear Security administration, and nnsa, is to correct the confused lines of authority and responsibility within the doe Nuclear Weapons complex that contributed to the mismanagement and Security Problems at the department and to provide a Clear Mission focus and accountability for d. O. E. Personnel involved in the Nuclear Weapons program. It also said that there was an intended effect to provide substantial degree of independence but not total independence from the department of energy and admiral, youve already touched on this but with the 2012 breakin the y12 facility, do we still have confused levels of authority . And additionally for each of with you, that would be one question. The other, do you think that your recommendations would resolve the confused lines of authority . Well, separate from the y12 incident, just the fact that you have a semiautonomous nnsa has created the growth of a number of redundant organizations within d. O. E. And nnsa which have duplicative functions and hence, there are conflicting and confused lines of authority. I think in many ways its, the creation of a semiautonomous organization may have worsened the problem, not helped it. So, thats why i think we think its a, we consider at this point a failed experiment. Do you want to i would just add, as implemented the semiautonomous approach clearly has not worked. The one, one of the things that leads to that, you touched on it, is that the Line Management has been balkanized such that responsibility for many important functions such as safety, security, health, environmental responsibility and so on is separate. It has major power in the organization such that at the lower levels of management decisions take forever to get up to the top between the staff and the Line Management. Somebody has to be put in charge and held responsible and that just hasnt happened. I would only add that this goes back to what we said earlier about basic successful management organizations that clearly define roles, responsibilities, authority, and accountability in many cases are lacking. And because of that, you find instances where too many people appear to be, believed theyre authorized to say no and prevent actions from Going Forward and to some degree a lot of that, that decisionmake something not embedded in Line Management who should be in the best position to make a riskinformed decision. Again, to accomplish the mission safely, securely and environmentally safe. Well, on both of you have such experience so i appreciate your insight. The mixed oxide fuel fabrication facility, the mox facility in South Carolina, this is in accordance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation agreement we have with the Russian Federation to process high level of, weaponsgrade plutonium, convert it to be used in Nuclear Reactors but, and the cost overruns, or cost growth has been gruesome but it is 61 completed and, mr. Augustine, as you were talking about capable and dedicated personnel, theyre right there. And making every effort to complete this facility but it is being put on cold standby. It concerns me obviously, having weaponsgrade plutonium in our state, is there any alternative to the existing to this . I think theres no alternative to producing a facility that can do what weve committed to do. Whether there is this alternative to the specific design or not, im not in a position to say. Thank you very much. Thank both of you. Thank the gentleman. Mr. Augustine, earlier you made the reference to the fact that you were in an organization where you took 17 smaller organizations and had to put them together to and get them to act like one. One of the reasons you were successful you were very intolerant of folks who werent on the team. And obviously in the private sector you had the ability to help somebody get on the road to finding Something Else to do if they didnt want to be on the team. I know admiral mies, when he was in service, with senior officer or junior officer who wasnt on the team he could find them Something Else to do. Im not sure the secretary has that. My question, if we were, go back to mr. Horn berry as comment thornberry that we could legislate. I think the only thing that would help the secretary give him Termination Authority at least within the nnsa. Maybe not through the department of energy but at least within nnsa, if he does have people in his organizational effort, or the new administrator that need to either get on the team and move on, do you think that would be a significant piece of legislative authority we could implement or would it really not be critical . As a preface i should say what you alluded to in industry, i didnt do alone. I had a terrific Leadership Team and thats essential. I think what you suggested to give the secretary Termination Authority would be a very useful step. I think it would also be, very useful to give him Greater Authority to, in terms of hiring. It would be useful to give him the opportunity to have people who stayed for a specific number of years, to put people in a job long enough to be responsible. I can remember years ago, testifying beside dave packard at the Defense Department about this very department and people come and go so fast, really nobody is accountable. So i think those would be very useful steps. Obviously they would be very difficult steps. Let me ask, it has been 16 months. Weve had a series of acting administrators. As you know general kloch has been waiting for months nowing by action by the senate. How important in your review so far that we get somebody confirmed by the senate in the position as a permanent administrator . In my opinion, very important. Mine as well. One of the concerns weve seen and it is not just with the director but lack of leadership stability and continuity at the Senior Leadership levels within nnsa. That is vitally important. If you want to make cultural changes and move on. I would just like to go back to your question. I think it is, its important as norm i think said, that you cant legislate cultural reform which i think is the biggest issue. Around if you are going to legislate certain initiatives, i would just encourage you work very, very closely with the secretary to insure there is close alignment there. One of the issues that were looking at and we havent reached any conclusion on it, is the issue of exempted Service Positions within nnsa. Whether there might be value in that or not. And we havent come to any conclusion. But again, how do you develop that technical competence, people with professional qualifications, and certifications to really effectively manage the enterprise . Well, to that point, mr. Cooper and i have been meeting with secretary monese asking him specifically what we could do would be helpful. We have to get our colleagues to help us outside of me and mr. Cooper. Lastly, yall made various thoughtprovoking comments. Another one you made a little while ago, talking about how secretary moan niece is the right guy right now, because he has experience in the subject matter and historically a lot of people in that position who didnt. What do we do, the secretary is a good guy and he has got the right background, but nothing to say that the person who follows him will have competence in the subject matter area. What would you all recommend, you may want to put it in your report, i dont know, congress do to try to make sure we at least urge a certain a certain type of person be viewed for that position or do you think it is necessary for congress to address . Were keenly aware of that issue and spent a lengthy amount of time discussing that and dont really have a decision but have a few thoughts. One thing, Congress Appoints people to secretarial positions and congress has a great deal of authority seeing what kind of qualifications an individual has. This is particularly difficult job because it goes all the way from windmills to photo cells on one hand to, the Nuclear Deterrent on the other. There are people who have that band wit. The secretary happens to be the one. The one of the most important Things Congress could do is make sure successive leaders, whatever organization one happens to choose are qualified to dial with this issue. Yeah. Thank you very much. Chair recognizes mr. Cooper for any comments he wants to make. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank the witnesses again for an excellent hearing anybody in congress should no, sir give management advice since this institution is run horribly. The anything about the congress to blame the administration, and congress has been blaming the Administration SinceGeorge Washington was president. Last time i checked