Hearing of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee - Opening Statement of Rep. Rogers, Hearing on "National Academies Study on Peer Review and Design Competition in the NNSA National Security Laboratories"

Hearing

"Welcome to our hearing on Peer Review and Design Competition in the NNSA National Security Laboratories.

I welcome our witnesses, who are the co-chairs of a National Academies of Science panel that conducted a study of these issues.

This committee launched this study a few years ago because it wanted an objective, non-partisan review of these two foundational aspects of our nuclear deterrent. Quoting from the committee report in 2013:

'The committee believes that peer review and design competition are critical components of nuclear stockpile stewardship…Because of [their] importance, the committee believes an independent assessment is needed to understand the effectiveness of current practices.'

It is clear that without effective peer review and design competition within our nuclear weapons labs, the long-term health and viability of our deterrent is in danger.

So we asked the National Academies to review these two issues and give us their assessment. And at the risk of stealing their thunder, our witnesses are reporting that while:

'the state of peer review at the weapons labs is healthy and robust, the state of design competition is not. The NNSA complex must engage in robust design competitions in order to exercise the design and production skills that underpin stockpile stewardship and are necessary to meet evolving threats.'

So the report card is mixed, and we need to understand why. More importantly, we need to hear the witnesses' recommendations on what we and the Administration should be doing about it.

Because at its core, the credibility of our nuclear deterrent rests on the ability of our scientists and engineers to design, build, and field weapons in a timely way.

The witnesses state that the nuclear enterprise needs to exercise--on a regular and ongoing basis--the full suite of nuclear weapons design, development, engineering, and production capabilities needed to respond to evolving threats.

This committee has recently taken some steps in this direction by creating the Stockpile Responsiveness Program and the Foreign Nuclear Weapon Prototyping Program. I'll be curious to hear what the witnesses think of these efforts and what more should be done.

Coupled with our Project Atom hearing in November, today's hearing should focus our efforts on preparing for the dynamic and highly uncertain nuclear future.

We must ensure our nuclear enterprise is ready to meet this future.

With the guidance of our witnesses I'm confident we can do just that. Thank you for testifying today and for leading this study. We know it takes time to do these things, and we appreciate it.

* Dr. Paul Peercy
Co-Chair
Committee on Peer Review and Design Competition Related to Nuclear Weapons
National Academies of Sciences

* Dr. Jill Dahlburg
Co-Chair
Committee on Peer Review and Design Competition Related to Nuclear Weapons
National Academies of Sciences"

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