$50 Billion Well Spent? Cleanup of the Nation's Nuclear Weapons Facilities

Cleaning up the nation's former nuclear weapons sites is the largest environmental undertaking the United States has ever faced. Fifty billion dollars has already been spent on this effort. The Department of Energy (DOE), which leads the cleanup through its Office of Environmental Management (EM), estimates that addressing the contamination resulting from five decades of nuclear weapons production will cost the nation at least another $150 to $200 billion—and will take seventy more years to complete.

And, even after all this money is spent, long-term stewardship will be required at most of the 100 sites affected, to assure that people do not come into contact with the hazards that will remain.

Given the threat posed by this Cold War legacy—and the huge sums of money and time required to address it—one might expect that cleanup of the weapons sites would be near the top of the nation's environmental agenda. So why don't presidential candidates debate it on the stump? Why doesn't Congress probe this issue in the same detail as Superfund, which costs taxpayers far less? The fact is that except in those communities close to contaminated sites, cleanup of the nation's nuclear weapons sites registers barely a blip on the nation's environmental radar.

A new paper we released in late January, Cleaning Up the Nuclear Weapons Complex: Does Anybody Care?, concludes that it is time for senior leaders in the executive branch and Congress to fully scrutinize the costs and effectiveness of DOE'S Environmental Management program. Given that most of the task of cleaning up these sites still lies before us, embarking on meaningful change today could bring benefits for many decades to come.

Although there have been sporadic attempts by Congress and others to hold DOE'S feet to the fire, there has been little sustained effort to address fundamental questions, such as whether the EM program is focused on appropriate goals, whether it is effective in meeting them, or whether the $50 billion expended on the EM program since 1989 has been wisely spent. In fact, the program has largely escaped the kind of sustained scrutiny paid to other environmental issues by advocates, the media, Congress, or administrations of both parties.

There are many reasons for this lack of attention. First, it is difficult to focus on an environmental problem that is so large in scope and so technically complex that it almost defies comprehension. Adding to the inattention is the fact that most of the former nuclear weapons production facilities are in remote areas, far from major population centers. Funding and much of the oversight of DOE'S environmental program fall under the defense committees in Congress, where even huge environmental outlays pale in comparison with other defense programs. And DOE'S environmental management program has become an important job-creation engine in the communities that once employed many in the nuclear weapons enterprise, making it a politically popular program, and reducing the incentives to ask tough questions.

Increased scrutiny is long overdue, however. The 100-plus sites in EM'S portfolio harbor contamination that will remain hazardous for thousands of years, and billions of dollars will be spent to reduce these risks in the coming decades. Already, mismanaged or misguided projects have cost taxpayers millions of dollars in the past ten years, as documented by many investigations by the General Accounting Office and others. Unless the environmental management program is held accountable, we as a nation may never know what we are buying for $6 billion per year—a budget nearly as high as that of the entire U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Action should come at several levels. First, the DOE must clarify the mission of the EM and separate DOE'S "job creation" and economic transition functions from EM'S environmental management activities. Since the winding down of the Cold War, EM'S mission has evolved not only to include environmental restoration and waste management, but also, indirectly, to create jobs and ease economic transition at former nuclear weapons production sites. All of EM'S current individual missions should be evaluated, and core missions clearly stated. Changes are also needed in internal accounting and budgeting processes to clarify how money is spent and to improve the accountability of the program's federal employees as well as its 36,000 prime contractor employees.

One of the most important actions Congress and the Administration should take is to begin to decide which EM sites will, and which will not, have a future DOE mission. The United States stopped producing nuclear weapons ten years ago, yet we have not decided which former weapons sites and facilities will have a future use and remain in operation. This uncertainty hampers cleanup efforts. Congress should enact legislation, modeled on the Bace Closure Realignment Act, that defines a process for deciding which sites will have future missions, and which will be closed, a step that ultimately could speed cleanup and help crystallize appropriate environmental goals at each site.