As DOE prepares to grout ~24 million gallons of low-activity waste from 22 tanks at its Hanford site, it must decide whether to grout (1) at Hanford and transport the grout or (2) offsite, which could mean transporting liquid waste. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

DOE’s nuclear cleanup office (EM) lost staff in every location in FY25 (overall attrition 38%), raising concerns about the safety of operations now and in the future, especially as more staff become eligible for retirement. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Some good news: the Office of Naval Reactors is on track to save billions on decontamination & decommissioning (D&D) of excess facilities by partnering with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) & leveraging its network of experienced contractors. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

DOE spends nearly $1 billion annually to maintain the facilities it needs for its nuclear cleanup efforts—an increase of 80% since FY2020. Improving how it manages and communicates data on this spending could save money and better address maintenance needs. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Clarifying the statutory definition of “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW) could help DOE save tens of billions of dollars in nuclear cleanup costs, including for treatment and disposal of ~90 million gallons of waste stored in underground tanks. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

According to DOE data, costs are up and schedules are delayed for many major nuclear cleanup projects and activities since our last report in 2022. Reasons include contractor performance issues, unanticipated site conditions, and technical challenges. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

The @nytimes.com discusses the competing priorities of states still dealing with cleanup of legacy nuclear waste. In our 2025 report on DOE’s waste disposal planning we recommended that DOE convene a forum of regulators to negotiate changes to its disposal plans. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Los Alamos looks forward to additional park-and-ride shuttle routes to the lab. NNSA has some concerns about potential challenges with having sufficient federal staff to oversee the program and assess whether it’s providing the intended benefits.

Under a new authority in the FY25 NDAA, NNSA sites can reimburse some contractor commuting costs. This could improve safety and congestion. To date, Los Alamos is the only site to have made a proposal; they estimated it would cost $74 million to implement from FY25–30.

Commuting can be a slog. One way NNSA can address recruitment & retention challenges at its labs is by making it easier to get to work, including by offering park-and-ride shuttles and public transit subsidies. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

NNSA said it plans to implement new processes, including the use of templates and root cause guidance, to help project managers better meet reporting requirements. We recommend they complete the guidance and implement the process.

NNSA saw costs grow >25% on 7 out of 14 construction projects, but didn’t notify Congress about 5 of them for months, let alone within the 30 days required by law. Nor did NNSA assess the root causes of cost overruns for those 5 within 90 days or inform Congress, as required. #nukesky

NNSA spends a lot of money on nuclear weapons & infrastructure. NNSA has requirements (similar to those of the Nunn-McCurdy Act) to formally notify Congress about cost overruns and assess the reasons for the overruns, but it hasn’t consistently done so. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

The cleanup of soil and landfills contaminated with nuclear waste, which DOE is on the hook for, could cost tens of billions of dollars and take decades. But the agency is unable to readily identify the scope, schedule, and cost of this cleanup. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Most Department of Energy sites haven’t completed reviews of their use of “forever chemicals” known as #PFAS, which have been linked to harmful health effects. We recommend that DOE finish these reviews so it can fully address PFAS contamination. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Until the UPF is ready, NNSA will have to keep using an 80-year old facility that could cost up to a half billion dollars to maintain in the meantime. We recommended that NNSA develop a comprehensive plan for this maintenance.

The UPF is also delayed. The agency is monitoring the project, but there are already doubts that the contractor will meet its project milestone for 2029. There are concerns about the ability to track project progress because of the way the contractor categorizes project tasks.

The estimated cost to complete the UPF has increased nearly $4 billion just since construction started in 2018. Poor management accounts for $770 million of that. NNSA has conducted reviews to get to the root of the cost increases and implemented 19 out of 20 corrective actions.

In 2004 NNSA began planning the Uranium Processing Facility to replace Manhattan Project-era facilities at Y-12 in TN. Fast forward 21 years: UPF’s est. cost is up to nearly $10 billion and it’ll cost NNSA to keep using old facilities until UPF is complete. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

This morning @nytimes reported on radiological risks in Ukraine. We have a recent report on the range of nuclear security and safety risks related to the war in Ukraine. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

You wouldn’t think the cost of a fixed-price construction contract could increase—but hundreds of NNSA’s run over, to the tune of $37.5 million just in FY23. NNSA’s construction budget is always tight so unexpected increases mean delays for other projects. www.gao.gov/products/gao... #nukesky

Fusion is essential for powering the USS Enterprise—and, here on earth, for maintaining and modernizing the U.S. nuclear stockpile without explosive nuclear testing. NNSA operates 3 fusion facilities for these purposes. www.gao.gov/products/gao... #nukesky

Even so, there are signs that DNFSB is on the right track: DNFSB’s score on a measure of employee engagement & satisfaction jumped to 70 (out of 100) in 2024, from 39 in 2017. DNFSB’s primary resource is its people so better human capital planning means better outcomes.

But! DNFSB is supposed to have 5 presidentially nominated & Senate-confirmed Board members. Filling seats has been challenging; as of August 2025, the Board had 2 seats filled, with 1 member’s term expiring in Oct 2025. With 1 seated member, the Board’s authority will be limited.

DNFSB enhanced collaboration with stakeholders, improved internal processes, and boosted employee morale. One among many examples: DNFSB hired & delegated authority to an Executive Director of Operations to supervise staff and manage the day-to-day.

DNFSB has been busy—in addition to independently overseeing health & safety protections at U.S. defense nuclear facilities, it has been improving its management and planning based on recommendations from GAO and others.

Cesium is so old school. There are much more cutting-edge ways to irradiate your shrimp. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

#nukesky When DOE’s Office of the Inspector General set up a division for auditing DOE’s largest contractors in 2021, it estimated it would cost ~$19 million/year to operate… but, as of 2025, the cost turns out to be more like $43.7 million.

NNSA struggles to identify the total costs of its nuclear weapons programs and compare costs across contractors, making it hard for Congress and the agency to oversee these costs. We’ve made numerous recommendations over the years to address this. #nukesky

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the nation’s only disposal site for defense-related transuranic nuclear waste. It’s projected to accept waste until the 2080s but much of its key infrastructure is decades old and needs repair/replacement. #nukesky www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Tune in to our podcast for a deeper discussion of our report!

We recommend that DOE (1) require timely fraud risk assessments for programs that experience a changed operating environment and (2) formalize transition plans to better ensure Ukrainian partners can sustain nuclear security/safety efforts. DOE agreed with the recommendations.

In terms of ensuring the sustainability of its work, NNSA has transferred responsibility for some efforts to Ukrainian partners and is assessing the readiness of its Ukrainian partners to take responsibility for others. NNSA hasn’t yet formalized its plans to transition the efforts.

NNSA took steps to mitigate fraud risk for individual contracts but didn’t conduct an overarching fraud risk assessment, which would’ve helped it design fraud mitigation controls tailored to the changed environment it was operating in.

NNSA intensified existing efforts, including to prevent nuclear smuggling, and initiated new ones, such as supporting nuclear/radiological emergency preparedness. The State Dept, NRC, and DOD also supported a range of nuclear security/safety efforts in Ukraine.

#nukesky Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine amplified nuclear security and safety risks. In response, US agencies built on their decades-long nuclear security & safety efforts in the region, largely with supplemental appropriations.

To clean up its 15 legacy research and production sites, the Department of Energy expects to generate more than 11 million cubic meters of radioactive waste, enough to fill 4,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools. We don’t recommend taking a swim. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

The letter includes new priority recs on NNSA’s recruitment and retention of federal staff as well as management of its nuclear modernization programs. Implementing these recs could help meet deadlines for producing essential nuclear materials and components.

Each year we send a letter to DOE reiterating our highest-priority recommendations. This year’s letter discusses 30 recs for addressing key challenges related to DOE’s contract management and environmental liability, among others. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

Nuclear weapons need chemical explosives, but NNSA’s supply chain for explosives is vulnerable to risks, like aging facilities, a changing regulatory environment, and budgetary constraints.

Small business can involve big numbers. To comply with government contracting goals, NNSA reported awarding $16.8 billion in small business contracts from 2018-2022. But of that amount, more than $1 billion went to businesses that were not actually small. #nukesky

Congress requires NNSA to report on risks facing its industrial base—its supply chain, ops & facilities, logistics & transport, & workforce. While NNSA has processes to manage these risks, it hasn’t communicated priorities or resource needs for doing so. #nukesky

On the radio! #nukesky

The Comptroller General is testifying on this now – you can watch his testimony on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee website.

One of our high-risk areas is the US government’s environmental liability, which is how much it will cost various US government agencies to clean up environmental contaminants. DOE and DOD make up the vast majority of the total liability.

New today @GAO: To meet the challenges of its $200 billion nuclear modernization, NNSA conducted a study that identified areas for reform, such as project management & employee retention. NNSA took steps to implement these reforms, but cannot say whether they’re working. www.gao.gov/products/gao...

You’re busy people, #nukesky. We get that. To keep you up to date on all NNSA’s ongoing weapons work, we present our first “nuclear weapons quick look”—2-page overviews of all 6 of NNSA’s ongoing weapons modernization programs (and one that’s planned). www.gao.gov/products/gao...

The Office of Naval Reactors is building a new facility to manage spent fuel from warships at its facility in Idaho, but it’s already facing delays and over $2 billion in cost increases. #nukesky www.gao.gov/products/gao...

NNSA used inconsistent and unclear information to develop its estimate of $2.5 billion to manage waste over 5 years, and its strategy doesn’t identify disposal facilities or any necessary upgrades. We made a recommendation to address these shortcomings.

NNSA’s strategy hasn’t identified all sources and amounts of waste that may be generated in the next 25 years or coordinated plans for waste disposal. It also doesn’t factor in anticipated waste from plutonium pit production and surplus plutonium disposition.