Thank you, Senator Inhofe.  Secretary Perry, let me welcome you to this committee.  The last Secretary of Energy to testify before this Committee was Secretary Chu in 2010. 

The Augustine – Mies Commission which evaluated the effectiveness of the NNSA recommended in 2015 that the Secretary of Energy appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee on an annual basis.  This appearance I hope fulfills that recommendation and becomes a recurring part of the Committee’s posture hearings, given that the Atomic Energy Defense funding of the Department of Energy totals approximately $19 billion, which is more than two-thirds of the Energy Department’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget.

Secretary Perry, there are a number of issues I am hoping you will address today. 

First and foremost is the ability of the Department and the NNSA to build 80 pits a year by 2030 as mandated by 2014 National Defense Authorization Act.  This requirement was ratified by the Department of Defense based on a series of modules to be built at Los Alamos after spending about $600 million to design a prior building there whose cost became out of control and was cancelled.  The modular approach was also approved by the DOD and the NNSA and was authorized in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act.  I understand that you may again be considering a large building design rather than the modules.  Since a single building approach failed in 2013, I am interested in your thinking on this issue. 

Second, the Department is modernizing six weapons systems (B61-12, W76-1 SLBM warhead, W80-4 LRSO warhead, W88 SLBM Fuse, W87 ICBM Fuse, W78 ICBM warhead) while at the same time is modernizing an infrastructure that in some cases dates back to the Manhattan project, which includes the NNSA uranium and the plutonium infrastructures.  For Fiscal Year 2019, $3 billion or about 20 percent of NNSA’s overall budget is dedicated to this effort.  Maintaining momentum on modernization will be a daunting challenge and I am interested in your views on sustaining this effort.

Third, I would like to know about the Department’s plans to clean up the Hanford nuclear site.  In 2014, after spending close to $8.3 billion at the Hanford site to treat approximately 55 million gallons of radioactive waste in 177 underground tanks, the Department paused its efforts to treat and turn into glass the waste in those tanks.  In addition, the Department now only intends to turn the low activity waste into glass, while leaving the high-level waste treatment, which is about 10% of the site, to a later date.  I would like to know the status of the low activity waste effort, when will you return to treating the high level waste, and what is the estimated total cost?

Finally, I would like to know how the Department is addressing the flow of loose nuclear material, particularly from Russia.  In just one example, a British newspaper has reported on four thwarted attempts in Moldova to stop the sale of nuclear material in black markets, in some cases with sellers linked to Russia and buyers with links to extremists in the Levant region.  Proliferation of nuclear materials is one of the greatest threats facing our nation and I hope is the top focus of the Department of Energy. 

Again, I look forward to your testimony today and hope this becomes an annual event for this committee.