Political change isn’t the only challenge New Mexico’s national labs are facing. Federal investigators released a report Monday underscoring the uncertain future of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons mission.



The General Accountability Office concluded that that the National Nuclear Security Administration has significantly underestimated the cost of producing plutonium bomb cores at the lab and that NNSA’s long-term strategy for pit production is in "a state of flux." GAO investigators also found that LANL lacks adequate lab, storage and waste handling facilities to expand its pit production capability "for the foreseeable future."



During the Cold War, pits were manufactured at the now defunct Rocky Flats Plant near Denver. That facility closed in 1989 amid environmental concerns, and NNSA has been working to re-establish the country’s ability to make plutonium pits at LANL. The agency had estimated that between 2001 and 2007 it would cost about $1.5 billion to get pit production rolling at LANL, and NNSA said it achieved that goal — producing 11 pits last year –  for $260 million less than its $1.5 billion estimate. But GAO investigators found that NNSA’s estimate did not include more than $1 billion in costs for a number of pit manufacturing-related activities.



NNSA, which has been pushing a new plan to increase LANL’s now modest manufacturing capability, disputes the suggestion that it low-balled its pit production estimate and issued a statement Monday saying "we are very proud of meeting the significant challenge of manufacturing these replacement pits, which we did within budget and ahead of schedule." NNSA says that the additional costs GAO investigators cite would be incurred with or without pit production, because they’re required for lab work unrelated to pit production.



The agency’s formal response is included in Monday’s report, which comes as Congress mulls the Bush administration’s 2009 funding requests for LANL and the country’s nuclear weapons program. The GAO’s findings  probably won’t help NNSA’s cause. GAO investigators concluded that while NNSA achieved its major goals for reestablishing pit production at LANL, the agency’s long-term goals for the key weapon component keep changing and remain unclear.