Fiscal Year 2013 Defense Authorization Act

Weapons Complex Monitor
December 18, 2012

The House is expected to unveil the conference version of the Fiscal Year 2013 Defense Authorization Act this evening, and it is likely to include language creating an advisory panel to review governance options for the National Nuclear Security Administration, NW&M Monitor has learned. During Senate consideration of the bill, Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Tom Udall introduced an amendment to create the 12-member panel, largely to provide a compromise between Senate Democrats and House Republicans at odds over language targeted at reforming the NNSA in the House version of the bill. While it’s unclear how much of the House reform language survived conference negotiations, the panel would provide a means of pushing the debate into work on the Fiscal Year 2014 Defense Authorization Act.

The House language would increase the autonomy of the NNSA in an effort to improve efficiency and productivity while also streamlining directives and regulations, moving the agency toward performance-based oversight and eliminating oversight of the agency by the Department of Energy’s Office of Health, Safety and Security. The language was opposed by the Administration and unions, as well as by some House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans in the wake of the July 28 security breach at the Y-12 National Security Complex, which is believed to have eroded some negotiating leverage for proponents of the reform language. That likely made the Kyl-Udall amendment an appealing compromise, especially because the panel will only review and lay out options for NNSA governance, including whether or not the agency should remain in DOE, leaving hard decisions to lawmakers.