DOE/NNSA Atomic Defense Authorization FY2027, Future Nuclear Security Program

come to order today we are joined by the secretary of energy mister chris wright the administrator for nuclear security mister brandon williams and the assistant secretary of energy for environmental management mister timothy walsh welcome to all three of you i wanna thank you for appearing today and for your willingness to serve your fellow americans the united states prevailed in the cold war because we maintained a credible nuclear deterrent a strong conventional military and the unmatched scientific and industrial strength of our economy over time the free world proved that economic vitality paired with commitment to peace through strength can outlast even the most dangerous authoritarian regimes. And today they're still out there. We face a far more complex and dangerous world. The United States and its allies now face multiple nuclear-armed adversaries, each seeking to reshape the international order and undermine our security and prosperity. War criminal Vladimir Putin continues to wield the world's largest and most diverse nuclear arsenal. Despite the strain of his unprovoked war in Ukraine, Russia continues to modernize its nuclear forces. Putin is fielding new, de-stabilizing weapons, and maintaining a production capacity that in key areas vastly exceeds our own and the United States. Moscow's reckless nuclear ambitions stretch from the sea floor all the way into orbit, and frankly it threatens our very existence. At the same time, Beijing is engaged in an unprecedented nuclear expansion. Under Xi Jinping, China is moving well beyond a minimum deterrent. Instead, China's building a far larger and more sophisticated nuclear force. It has rapidly constructed hundreds of new missile silos, expanded mobile missile and ballistic missile submarine forces and invested in long-range bombers. All of these measures flow from and to a strategy designed to surpass the United States in the coming decade. China is executing this nuclear build-up alongside a broader military um industrial surge. China's dominance in shipbuilding, critical minerals, and key dual-use technologies reflects a deliberate effort to translate economic strength into long-term military advantage. I will note that deterrence is expensive, but this is a competition we cannot afford to lose. The Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Sa- Security Administration sit at the center of these challenges, hence our hearing today. Much of the nuclear security enterprise still relies on infrastructure dating back to the Manhattan project. Efforts to recapitalize that infrastructure restore plutonium pit production and modernize the stockpile or behind schedule at a time when uh when demands on the enterprises are growing. At the same time, the department is executing several critical national security initiatives. These include advancing multiple warhead modernization programs, sustaining the naval reactors program that underpins our sea-based promoting artificial intelligence research and developing advanced nuclear energy technologies to enhance resilience at military installations and support future operational needs. But the central question remains, are we moving with sufficient urgency? Our adversaries are expanding and modernizing their forces at a pace that should trouble every member of this committee. I believe the gentlemen we hear from today are working to get us back on track. If we intend to preserve a credible deterrent, assure our allies, and prevent conflict, we must align our policies, budgets, and industrial capacity with today's realities. This does not come on the cheap. And we must do so quickly, because we're running out of time. Before I conclude, I'll say this, given the urgency of the moment, I confess that I'm troubled by the department's failure to request funding for the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile warhead program. Despite explicit statutory direction to accelerate that effort, direction which came from last year's National Defense Authorization Act, passed by both houses of the Congress, signed into law by President Donald J. Trump. This is not a policy disagreement. It is simply a matter of complying with the statutory law. The United States cannot afford to forgo credible, flexible response options while our adversaries, nuclear forces, grow day by day. I expect our witnesses to discuss this, to explain this decision, and outline how they will move quickly to correct it. Perhaps an early question there. Otherwise, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how this committee can help instill a greater sense of urgency across the department of energy in the broader national security enterprise, how we can rebuild the scientific and industrial foundation that underpins our deterrent, and what specific steps are needed now to ensure the United States remains capable of deterring our adversaries now and into the future. With that, I turn to my friend and colleague, Senator Jack Reed.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, and, uh,

uh thank you uh

uh secretary williams assistant secretary welsh welcome thank you for your service

thank you

thank you thank you uh thank you thank you thank you

thank you

thank you and please convey my thanks to the workforce at nnsa they've dedicated themselves to maintaining our nuclear security and they do a fabulous job mmm secretary right i i wanna briefly address the conflict in iran you have been directly involved in managing the fallout from the war including the closure of the strait of hormuz oil supply disruptions and the cascading effect on energy prices the United States and for American families. According to public reports, this war has cost the American public as much as thirty seven billion dollars in increased gas and diesel costs, or about two hundred and eighty nine dollars per household. The costs to this conflict are real, they are ongoing, and they will outlast the headlines. Mr. Secretary, I would appreciate an update on your efforts to mitigate this crisis. For decades, defense programs have represented a substantial portion of the energy department's budget. This year, defense activities account for more than seventy-five percent of the department's total requests, a significant increase from recent years. That growth, though, reflects a genuine increase, genuine increase in mission demands. This committee will wanna understand how the department is managing the growth. At the start of this administration, nnsa had approximately two thousand trained nuclear personnel supporting pentagon requirements these experts are exceedingly hard to recruit and retain however last year the trump administration dismissed hundreds of these experts in fact i was at t. f. green international airport in providence and a young lady came up to me and said walter i was working at nnsa a week ago and i was dismissed and i got a call last night to get back as quickly as possible cause they could not continue to secure the materials at the site it was working at so it was done hastily and and not done well and you this is in the face of where workload is growing i think it was uh not the right approach and at the wrong time and i wanna understand who made that decision um also what it cost in lost production time and what are you doing right now to rebuild for the future our federal workers are not just overhead costs they are the backbone of our nuclear deterrent now turning to the issue of plutonium pit production i'm encouraged by the progress at los alamos national laboratory which appears to be on track to reach its production goals of thirty plutonium pits per year however savannah river national laboratory remains an open question i understand the facility is preparing to submit a final course projection potentially in the range of twenty billion dollars and to begin production in the early twenty thirties uh that's an enormous investment with considerable schedule risk and if you could i would love an update on the production challenges and your efforts to reduce cost earlier this week the navy released a proposal to build fifteen so called trump class battleships to make these ships nuclear powered powering an entire fleet of large scale battleships with nuclear reactors will drain our highly enriched uranium reserves and force the department to accelerate the large scale up of a enriched uh a centrifuge enrichment facility further if these battleships are intended to carry nuclear armed cruise missiles as has been reported the nnsa would face increased warhead production demands which it is already struggling to meet these proposals deserve scrutiny and i would ask for a very thorough update today president trump will meet with president z uh in the next few hours i suspect the question of whether to resume nuclear testing may arise and i want to be clear that the nnsa administrator and the directors of our national laboratories have consistently certified for twenty five consecutive years that we do not need to resume nuclear testing on technical grounds indeed the national ignition facility that lawrence labor laboratories has now successfully demonstrated the capability it was built for simulating underground test conditions that no other country on earth can replicate this is a genuine achievement by n s s a and you should be very proud of it i would like to understand the full significance of those efforts and your views on nuclear testing in general finally mister wolf the issue of environmental cleanup remains a difficult challenge for example the hanford nucleus site has fifty five million gallons of radioactive waste in aging tanks and a legal obligation to begin high level vitrification converting this waste into glass for permanent disposal the state of washington is watching and so is this committee these clean up commitments were made to local communities that did not choose to host nuclear production sites more than eighty years ago but have paid the cost ever since And I would appreciate an update on your department's efforts. Thank you again to our witnesses and look forward to your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, sir. And uh Secretary Wright, are you ready for your opening statement?

Yes, sir.

And you are recognized, sir. Welcome.

Thank you. Chairman Wicker, Ranking Member Reid, and members of the committee, it is an honor to appear before you today as Secretary of Energy to discuss the President's fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget request. for the Department of Energy as it pertains to the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Office of Environmental Management. Under President Trump's leadership, we are securing peace through strength. I am proud to say NNSA is restoring its overriding mission, focused on deterrence, urgency, and production. While working hand-in-hand with the Office of Environmental Management, to make substantial progress in advancing the critical cleanup of nuclear waste. The surest way to prevent nuclear war is to ensure America's strength is never in doubt. Here is what that looks like in practice. At NS A, we are strengthening America's nuclear deterrent. Today, NS A is delivering more new nuclear weapons and plutonium pits that at any time since the Cold War, we are executing seven major warhead modernization programs concurrently, an unprecedented undertaking that ensures every leg of the triad reminds, remains safe, secure, and effective. Every NNSA uh, warhead modernization program is ahead of schedule. Last year, NNSA delivered the last unit of the b sixty one dash twelve nuclear gravity bomb extending service life by at least twenty years nsa produced the first b sixty one uh dash thirteen nearly a year ahead of schedule we finished the first production unit of a key w eighty four warhead component eighteen months early nsa completed the final unit of the w eighty eight Alt three seventy, in December, a multi-year effort to modernize the warhead carried aboard our ballistic missile submarine. We are rebuilding the industrial base that underpins our deterrent. Production of new plutonium pits at Los Alamos Natural Laboratory has surged, with a goal to produce one hundred pits by the end of the Trump administration. We're accelerating production of uranium components, high explosives, and other critical weapons materials. We're making breakthroughs in the science that underpins our stockpile. Last year, the National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition multiple times, including a record eight point six megajoules in one shot. No other country has achieved ignition even once. And NSA is reducing nuclear and radiological threats. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, NNSA removed cesium irradiators from five more U. S. States, reducing dirty bomb risk. The Nuclear Emergency Support Team, NEST, conducted three hundred and sixty operations, trainings and exercises at home and abroad to strengthen defenses against nuclear threats. We are advancing American energy dominance through nuclear leadership. n n s a produced three hundred and twenty-five kilograms of high assay low enriched uranium or halium and provided it to the office of nuclear energy for powering advanced reactor projects recently n n s a secured a record one point seven metric tons of halium from japan the largest single international uranium shipment in n n s a history Thanks to President Trump's leadership, America's nuclear renaissance is here. We're delivering real raw results in the Office of Environmental Management. We are cleaning up nuclear waste in communities that shouldered the weight of America's earliest nuclear programs, work that helped win World War Two and the Cold War. That mission continues today with a renewed focus on transforming these sites into engines for the energy and technologies of the future. In Ohio, we are transforming the historic Portsmouth gaseous diffusion site into a powerful hub that will create thousands of jobs and drive long-term innovation and investment in the community. In closing, NNSA and the Office of Environmental Management work every day to protect our nation and strengthen our security. I am honored to support these missions. and the extraordinary men and women behind them. Together, we will keep America safe. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Secretary Wright. And now I understand, um, the other two gentlemen will not make opening statements. Is that correct? All right. Um, well, let me begin by, um, uh, well, thank you very much for your statement and, and for all of your accomplishments. But I do wanna ask, uh, about the matter i referred to in in my opening statement um and and that is the specific language that we put in the last NDAIA and sent to the president um we provided funding through reconciliation to accelerate the development of nuclear sea launch cruise missile um but this funding was not applied as directed. Instead, um, the department proposed us to use these funds to avoid paying for the base program in its latest budget request. Um, that is contrary to statutory intent, secretary right. So, um, who made that decision? And, um, what specifically is being done to rectify that mistake?

Uh, let let's try to clarify it. I I'm not sure there is a a disagreement or a difference of opinion here, but I wanna make sure we get it correct, cuz the the appropriations and the and the uh directions come from you. We view that the sea launch cruise missile program as one of the top priorities in our, in our NNSA. We are hard busily at work at it. We intend to deliver it ahead of schedule and certainly well before uh the warhead it will attach to. uh activity is continued on that a pace we didn't request funding in fiscal year twenty twenty seven because we have carry over funding and funding from the working family's tax cut that looks able to fund our continued high paced efforts beyond fiscal year twenty twenty seven and i don't know if administrator uh williams wants to comment as well but we are fully aligned with you on the critical nature of program and wanna do everything we can to expedite progress.

Be happy for secretary williams. to address this.

uh thank you mr. chairman um the secretary has described this correctly so the w eighty dash five uh warhead for the silicon min platform is direct uh um evolved from the recently completed w eighty dash four so there is just significant learnings that we had in a previous weapon system that we have been able to apply to the silicon men warhead in partnership with our uh navy partners uh through the nuclear weapons council so uh we are really moving out at pace and um they will not uh be waiting on us for a warhead um and uh as the secretary described we have sufficient funds to carry out all of the critical missions uh eh with urgency on the silicon men project through twenty twenty seven uh and uh have uh resumed uh in the out years uh to complete that

alright well uh thank you and uh um people of good will can can disagree but at pace is not what the statute calls for it says accelerate quote accelerate the development procurement and integration of the warhead for the nuclear rmc launch cruise missile unquote in other words pick up the pace that you um had planned for and speed it up and use the money as um uh as um uh as appropriated for that purpose. Let's agree we'll visit about that and and Mister Secretary I appreciate the spirit in which you answered that question. But uh it does not seem to us that um that we're getting what we asked for. Um, I bet we can agree though, Mister Secretary, that NASA's Stennis Space Center hosts multiple federal agencies and would be a good place to look at for um uh the potential benefits of bringing reliable nuclear power to that federal city. What do you say to that?

Oh, ab- absolutely, any time you have a nuclear facility of such quality of that, you have the workforce you have nuclear authorizations, those are those are absolutely the kind of facilities that are critical to relaunching the renaissance of commercial nuclear power. Workers, technologies, facilities, um, in a community that's already accepted and permitting for nuclear activity. So I agree that's that can be a great, uh, launch pad and work area for the next generation of nuclear power. And I also wanna say, Mr. Chairman, I we we wanna work with you and engage immediately on this Slickerman issue. We wanna follow your, your uh, requests and your funding and the plan that's there. We we share your urgency on the Slickerman project, and let's meet and get together, and and figure out the way to deliver fully to your satisfaction.

Good. Well, I appreciate the spirit of that answer. With regard to the nuclear at Stennis, uh, there are going to be some regulatory barriers that have inhibited a uh, prompt development. And so I hope that you can work with us to eliminate some of these barriers.

Let's do that. We'll address that together.

Thank you, sir, and I now recognize my friend and colleague, Senator Reid.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. Uh, I mentioned in my opening remarks the great success you're seeing at uh Los Alamos in pit production. Congratulations on that effort, all of you. Uh, though the Savannah River is still not up to scale and completed, Uh, the estimate is twenty billion. Uh, we need to get a detailed estimate and detailed schedule. Uh, can you provide that, Secretary?

Ranking member, we we share your concern about the Savannah River pit production, the the slow progress and the and the rather high budget uh estimations we've seen so far. I'll I'll soon turn it to uh Administrator Williams, but we are passionate about better engineering, better designing, figuring out how to deliver that facility in a timely fashion, at a reasonable budget that's responsible use of the taxpayer funds, and to get up to pace on pit production at our second facility. We share your historical concerns with that. I think we have the team in place and the urgency and a place to address it.

Director Williams.

Uh, ranking members, uh, thank you for the question. Uh, just recently the savannah river site has been turned over to nnsa uh from em and that is more than symbolic sir that is a signal that it's gone from a uh shutdown agenda over many decades to a growth agenda and critical to the plutonium mission

hmm

uh we are moving out on the srppf uh we are rebidding the contract because we agree with you that the time-line and the budget is not acceptable twenty billion is not an acceptable uh number and uh we will be providing more information as those bids and conversations with contractors uh come together this summer um but we are reevaluating the requirements uh from a uh bottoms-up tops-down, top-down approach i know that sounds like a cliche but uh we have this urgency um to and we need that for the plutonium mission for the plutonium pit mission so uh believe me it is uh extremely high priority for us.

thank you very much and please keep as well informed on both schedule and course uh secretary walter welcome uh hanaford river uh you're in the process of cleaning up uh you've started to vitrify uh waste in into glass and thank you for that uh the other thing you're doing is essentially pouring grout into the uh waste and solidifying it uh one issue i think is much concern to many of us here is that are you committed to uh guarantee that this grout will be disposed outside of the state of washington before uh you go ahead and engage

yeah thank you for that question regular member absolutely last uh year as you know in october the df law vitrification plant finally came online twenty five years in the making almost seventeen billion dollars uh but unfortunately you know technology and science has progressed faster than the construction and we now know that grouting is much faster better safer

mmm

and less expensive one twentieth of the cost of vitrification of low activity waste uh savannah river we're treating about nine million gallons a year

mmm

of very similar tank waste uh from the extraction of plutonium from uranium so we have a a a great example there and the plan is a dual glass plus grout approach that's gonna shave decades off the clean up mission at hamford and save tens of billions of dollars and that grout will be uh safely uh grouted and shipped offsite and disposed in a near surface uh repository

oh thank you i think the word to describe your reference is essayons

essayons let us try

thank you Secretary Wright, a final question. Uh, we're in the midst of an explosion of energy costs. Uh, were you or your department called in to provide insights or advice on the effects of the operations in the Persian Gulf before they were undertaken?

Yeah, remember, yeah, I I am in close contact and consultation with the president since the day I was sworn in to this job. So we discussed iran the middle east energy quite regularly all the time

now uh it's really uh impolite to ask for your private discussion with the president but you were certainly aware of the potential for a um disruption of the oil trade is that fair

oh whole administration was well aware of that risk

thank you uh and uh now what do you think

Yeah, obviously ending a decades-long nuclear program in Iran is a prickly and tricky endeavor, as as we're all seeing right now.

Yes, sir.

Uh, one way or the other, the United States will re-establish the free flow of energy trade through the Straits of Hormuz. V- virtually every nation in the world is aligned to this endeavor. and most particularly all of the Gulf States, all of the neighbors are aligned with this and this endeavor as well. So it it it will get done, either in a in an agreement, in a deal with Iran, or without a deal with Iran.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator.

I now recognize the uh Chair of the Strategic Subcommittee, my friend, Senator Fischer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator, or Secretary Wright, welcome. Uh, looking at your total budget request for the department of energy it's at fifty four billion dollars is that correct

yes

and um i believe my numbers are correct that sixty five percent of that will go to nnsa and it would increase that total to seventy five percent of your budget if you include the clean up site is that correct

yes if you if you lumped in those are our two biggest categories certainly the nuclear stockpile and and environmental management

right right um as we're as we're looking at the uh budget increase can you explain uh why the additional funds are necessary for nnsa as it transitions from their stockpile stewardship mission to a production focused mission which i support

yeah yeah thank you since since the day we met Senator Fischer, we've talked about the security of this country and the and the critical nature of it. We can never be complacent or let our guard down in maintaining security of the United States of America. At the end of the Cold War, I think we're the only of the major power that really stopped building new weapons, designing and innovating. We maintained a safe stockpile all throughout it, but we we lost our mojo a bit in in designing new weapons and modernizing our weapons. And it is absolutely essential that every power in the world believes and understands that the United States has the top nuclear arsenal. We are prepared to respond to any threat in any fashion deemed appropriate by the Commander-in-Chief. And so, yeah, now is the time to step up our efforts, to modernize all of our existing stockpiles and build some new capabilities, as we've talked about. And I thank you for your support and your urging of us on in in this

Well, thank you.

all along the way.

Thank thank you, Mister Secretary, uh deterrence is is uh of prime importance to this country. Uh Administrator Williams, the FY twenty-six NDAA created a rapid capabilities program within the agency. In this setting, how is NNSA utilizing this program to address those emerging needs that we see?

Uh thank you for your question, Senator, uh and for your support of that. It is critical that we deter our adversaries, and we do that through production. Uh, and that is uh precisely uh how we are getting our mojo back uh in America's nuclear weapons enterprise and that is uh best uh seen in the rapid capabilities program. Uh, we have a a couple of uh very significant uh projects that we're working on and programs to deliver uh new capabilities to the warfighter in absolutely record time, and it is uh we're doing business completely differently uh these are cross functional teams we just say that we lock them in a room and they can come out when they deliver weapons uh it is not far from that

great thank you um as as we uh look at the successes that the agency had in twenty twenty five such as accelerating the delivery of the b sixty one dash thirteen um what lessons did you learn from that and what opportunities uh do you think we have in the future in order to

Uh, I think the secretary said it best in the, in his opening statement, uh, a focus on deterrence, urgency, and production. The stewardship mission was a tremendous success, uh, and from it we have this tremendous capability of compute resources that w- allow us to go faster into the future. Um, I would just say that, uh, that we are moving out at pace, um, changing the culture of NNSA. more than anything around this production mission, uh, is, uh, I always say that culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I think you'll find an NSA that is revitalized around that mission.

You know, when we look at the, um, pit production, which lapsed at the end of the Cold War, it's been a long, um, long, uh, standing concern of this committee, uh, that we how do we ramp that back up and i was encouraged when i visited los alamos a year ago but i would say to you um what what progress uh can we make there and and what's the nnsa s plan to reach that requirement of at least eighty pits per year

and i could provide more information in the closed portion of the hearing but uh since the

but do you feel positive about where we're headed

I'm very positive under President Trump and Secretary of Rights' leadership, uh, we are gonna achieve production numbers of plutonium pits that are multiples of anything that were expected or projected uh this year and in subsequent years. I I would just say that uh we are moving out in ways that really no one thought was possible, and we're executing on that mission. I'm look forward to telling you more about it in close session.

Thank you for your work. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Senator Fischer, Senator Blumenthal.

thank you mr. chairman thank you all for being here today and for your service um secretary wright uh i i noted on sunday that you said you were open to suspending the federal gas tax since then president trump has indicated he'll support the idea which senator kelly and i introduced in the gas price relief act some two months ago lowering prices by temporarily suspending the eighteen point four cent per gallon gas through October one. You support that idea?

Yeah, w- uh, I'm certainly supportive of all ideas that can lower price, energy prices for Americans. I've spent my whole life in that area.

Well, that this is one that the president supported. I assume you do.

E- everything has trade-offs. i think it's a good idea i think it's got some positive things but it it's got some tradeoffs as well

well i'm not gonna press you but i'm surprised that you are somewhat equivocal on the idea and let me ask you um because i believe strongly that suspending the gas tax ought to be combined with a big oil windfall profits tax which i've championed with senator whitehouse as you well know big oil is raking in bonanza profits. shill announced just friday that it has reported a seven billion dollar profit in the latest quarter which is double the previous quarter that is emblematic of what big oil companies are making as a result of the war don't you think it's time that companies like shell put some of that money back in consumer pockets.

Uh, the the oil and gas industry has had a rough couple decades. The shale revolution's been tremendous for American and American consumers and global consumers.

Well, should some of the windfall profits go back to consumers,

But

yes or no?

If you raise taxes when produc when we need production to rise, you'll get less production and ultimately higher

Well, they're not putting these profits,

incentives are what drive human error.

they're not putting any of these profits into more production, are they?

Oh, they are.

They've said they're not doing more

They

production because they don't know how long the war is gonna last.

They they they shell an example, invest tens of billions of dollars every year in drilling new oil and gas wells and exploring. So if if you tax something, you get less of it. And I think getting less of energy is not a good strategy. And and if you look at historical records.

So, so you would oppose a windfall profits tax.

Any short-term tax like that for a shortage of any product is a bad idea.

Is there a way, is there a way to assure that, for example, some of these profits go back to consumers, in particular, that the suspension of the gas tax goes back to consumers rather than to fatten the profits of big oil companies?

Suspension of the gas tax would likely flow almost entirely through to consumers, cuz the retailing of gasoline is a very competitive business. So if one business thought, I'm just gonna keep that eighteen cents themselves, they'd lose their gasoline sales.

But let me, let me switch topics, sir. Um. Iran's enriched Ura- uranium. They have about a ton of it. Which is one of the objectives of or was of Operation epic fury that is to secure that enriched uranium how close does that degree of enrichment enable Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon what amount of time would it take to do it

good fright frighteningly close yeah they they they are weeks a small number of weeks away to enrich that to weapons grade uranium there's still a weaponization process that happens after that but They're quite close to to to constructing nuclear weapons.

So your your testimony is that they are weeks away on that one ton of enriched uranium.

To get it, to enrich it to weapons grade uranium? Yes, they are only weeks away.

And what about the other eleven tons that apparently they have?

Well, they they have some twenty percent enriched uranium, and that's several more weeks behind sixty percent. And of course, unenriched uranium, it's a long process to get it to weapons grade. But when you're at sixty percent, you are, although the numbers don't sound that way, you're way more than ninety percent of the way there for the enrichment necessary for weapons grade uranium. Very close. Twenty percent uranium,

So

which they also have a lot of, is is far along as well. It's very concerning.

So, in order to, in effect, secure or stop their enrichment, President Trump would have to go after all of the twelve tons, not just one ton of uranium.

I I I think that's the wise strategy. Ultimately, the goal is to prevent future enrichment of uranium as well. Yes, to for to have a safe world, we need to end their nuclear program.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator.

Senator Rounds.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Um, first of all thank you gentlemen for your service to our country. Um, I also wanna thank Secretary Wright for your team's support of the Sanford Underground Research Lab. Uh, we enjoyed hosting Under Secretary Gill last week for a ceremony as the facility begins construction on a facility to house the deep underground neutrino experiments, particle accelerator. We look forward to welcoming you and Mister Williams whenever you can make it out. We appreciate that. Secretary Wright and Administrator Williams, can you speak to how your offices are leveraging artificial intelligence through the Genesis mission to solve national security problems and what additional resources or authorities would enable you to move more quickly?

Yes, go, our artificial intelligence is simply a massive expansion of human capabilities. so it's gonna allow think of a nuclear weapons design these are exquisite and bespoke systems they are designed for one use and one use only they are very technically sophisticated thank god the scientific uh prowess in our labs has allowed us to lead the world in this area but these are tools that are gonna allow us to make things better ultimately probably make more robust designs and ultimately probably easier to manufacture and cheaper to make weapons. So they they will add tremendously to our capabilities. That excites us. The flip side of that is we know our adversaries, who are behind us in artificial intelligence, but very active in artificial intelligence as well, they're gonna do the same thing. And complacency on our end, we could seed our lead, not just in industrial space, but also in the military space and and uh uh Secretary Williams, our whole department in this administration are are resolved to not let that happen.

Mister Williams?

Thank you for the question, Senator. Uh, the nuclear weapons enterprise has been using artificial intelligence directly in our program since two thousand seventeen. Uh, this year, NNSA will, um, spend approximately six hundred million dollars on, uh, artificial intelligence initiatives throughout our enterprise. Um, it is a terrific complement to our high performance computing capability, which is unique in the world, uh, along with our physics codes and physics models, uh, we're able to do extraordinary things, uh, for national secure security, for nuclear security. This is both in the weapons design, but also in the, uh, nuclear materials detection capabilities and other, uh, non-proliferation capabilities. So, um, we are very focused. We have extraordinary capability in our labs at Sandia, Los Alamos and Livermore. Some of the best scientists in the world are dedicating themselves to this national security mission at this hour while we sit here, instead of going out into industry and certainly making more money. So it is a uh extraordinary effort uh in the Department of Energy for national security.

I I think, you know, a lot of discussion since chat GPT uh came about, in terms of as if it's a a brand new item that is just upon us now. The reality is that uh a lot of our national laboratories have been moving in this direction for a number of years and you have been integrating this over a period of time. There is stability in that in in that process, but it is accelerating. Can you talk a little bit about the labs and their ability to accelerate and to keep up with the hyper-scalers? Or are you working in conjunction with the hyper-scalers today?

Uh, that's an excellent question. So, for many decades, Um, NSA has led literally the world in high-performance computing. We've been the best customer, the leading customer. But the scale of AI is so enormous that, uh, industry is simply gonna outpace all combined US government spending together. And so the challenge is then reversed. We must keep pace with industry instead of setting the pace for industry. And that is a profound challenge that will require the, uh, attention of your committee. and uh the leadership that uh secretary right uh provides so um i'd say we're very focused on that uh we work closely with uh all of the um uh technology companies and leading tech technology companies around the infrastructure uh i would just say that we have very very good and deep cooperation uh with our scientists at the labs and again our scientists at the labs are the best in the world we are solving problems one of which i'll mention in the closed session um of problems that uh that our war fighters need right now and uh i'll tell you more about in the closed session.

very good thank you and thank you mister chairman i'll yield back my five seconds

that's very generous of you thank thank you and uh senator rosen

uh well uh thank you stand around for five seconds do i get to keep those uh senator baker

no no ma'am you have uh

uh thank you mister chairman and uh thank you to the witnesses for being here today i wanna I'll get right into it, Mister Secretary, because the Nevada National Security site, as we call it in Nevada, the still the Nevada test site, was ground zero for the majority of the United States explosive nuclear testing from nineteen fifty-one to nineteen ninety-two when one hundred atmospheric tests and eight hundred and twenty-eight underground tests were con conducted. All of us who lived in Nevada back then remember the days when the ground shook beneath us the first Saturdays of every month you'd look over and say, Just a nuclear bomb going off. You know, many have lost their lives because of the testing. Others bear the scars of radiation exposure to this day, radiation exposure, the invisible enemy. And so since that time, the site has done critical work to certify the reliability, safety and effectiveness of our nuclear stockpile, but without the need for explosive testing, either above or below ground. There's new projects under construction that's gonna help the site provide even greater certainty and data about the performance of the US n- nuclear stockpile, far better data, experts say, than the information that could be gleaned if the US were to, unfortunately, and I say this, to our peril, conduct an explosive nuclear test as President Trump and some in his orbit have advocated. In fact, every secretary of energy since the Clinton administration has certified the s- integrity of our nuclear stockpile and certified that we do not need to resume testing. The same has been repeatedly certified by the directors of our national labs, multiple secretaries of defense under both Democrat and Republican presidents, and all commanders of strategic command. So indeed, Mister Secretary Administrator Williams himself told me during his confirmation hearing and I'll quote " I would not advise testing and I think we should rely on scientific information." So Secretary Wright, I'm gonna cite your very impressive educational resume. with engineering degrees from MIT and Berkeley, um, and so many experts in agreement that there is no technical or strategic need to resume explosive nuclear testing, can you commit today that this administration will not conduct an explosive nuclear test, yes or no?

Well, Senator Rosen, ultimately that decision comes down to the Commander-in-Chief.

If you were asked,

I

if you were asked what would your advice be then, let me phrase it another way. you advise the president of course any president has that right but what would your advice be as an engineer as a scientist as a secretary

this year again uh the leaders of the of the weapons laboratories and the uh

stratcom

are you gonna

stratcom commander again certified our weapons stockpile as reliable from the from the non uh explosive testing we do I think our in our arsenal is ready to go, but there may be other reasons for which the Commander-in-Chief may want to engage in a nuclear test.

But So you will disagree then with your, again, extensive educational uh achievements and studies and as a scientist, disagree with scientists and administrations going back to the nineteen nineties and the data that shows that renewed explosive testing is unnecessary? You are going to disagree with that. You think there's still a need for it. You're gonna disagree with all the experts.