Disbanding of NNSA Advisory Panel Raises Concerns

An independent advisory committee created in June 2001 to review science and technology programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration and make recommendations for strengthening them was disbanded in June. Committee members were notified of the dissolution in a brief e-mail message. The abrupt end of the committee brought a strong reaction from Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, who charged that the Department of Energy, of which the NNSA is a part, terminated “the one forum for honest, unbiased external review of its nuclear weapons policies.”

The advisory committee was established by the NNSA’s first administrator, John Gordon, to assess a host of scientific issues, including US programs in nuclear weapons proliferation detection, nuclear weapons stockpile certification, and recruitment of the next generation of nuclear weapons experts. The 15-member committee was chaired by retired Admiral Henry G. Chiles Jr and consisted mainly of physicists and arms control experts.

“It was a two-year appointment, and its term expired and it wasn’t renewed,” NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said of the committee’s termination. “It was something that Gordon set up for himself to assist him and give advice in creating and launching the NNSA. There weren’t a lot of places we could go for advice then.”

Wilkes said NNSA administrator Linton Brooks, who took over in July 2002 after Gordon was appointed to the National Security Council, hasn’t used the committee, in part because the NNSA has “no shortage of advice.” Wilkes said the national weapons laboratory directors and staffs, as well as the scientists within the NNSA, can provide the same information the committee was charged with providing. “There are a lot of physicists who work here,” Wilkes said.

But two of the physicists on the committee—Sidney Drell of SLAC and Raymond Jeanloz of the University of California, Berkeley—are concerned about the loss of the independent voice the committee represented. Drell, who was involved in the report that recommended the creation of the NNSA in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratory, said the advisory committee was considered an important part of the NNSA.

“We met and we worked,” Drell said. The committee prepared reports on the stockpile stewardship program, weapons certification, and manufacturing issues. But when Brooks became the interim administrator of the NNSA, the committee stopped meeting, Drell said. “It was clear to me after Gordon left that we were no longer valued. That shows that they don’t think they need any outside advice, that they have the answers.”

Jeanloz said he found the NNSA’s handling of the committee strange, because when Brooks took over the NNSA, “he said he especially needed our input. Then he never called a meeting.” Jeanloz said he suspects that problems may have developed earlier this year when he and Drell wrote articles for the Los Angeles Times and Arms Control Today, in which they questioned the administration’s interest in developing a bunker buster nuclear weapon.

“There were complaints from senior staff [at the NNSA] about committee members writing op-ed pieces,” Jeanloz said. “Some felt that if you serve on an administration advisory committee then you should have no opinion, or have an opinion that was consistent with your agency.”

Jeanloz said he wasn’t certain whether that dispute played a part in the committee’s demise. “I really see no conspiracies here, but there is a subconscious and pervasive attitude [in the NNSA] that they really don’t want to be bothered with the facts.”

Drell said independent advisory committees are important, but noted that “they sometimes cause problems because they don’t come in with the answers the government wants. This administration seems to be less interested than previous ones in an independent outside assessment of the facts.”

Wilkes said it was important to remember that the committee was advisory and not an oversight or policy-setting group. It was simply no longer needed, he said.