Global Security Newswire

In a seeming effort to disguise the real cost of its National Ignition Facility, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California used inappropriate accounting methods to understate expenses at the nuclear fusion program by $80 million in this fiscal year, according to a recently divulged federal report (see GSN, Aug. 21).

The October report by the National Nuclear Security Administration's Field Financial Management Office found that managers at the laboratory shifted expenses associated with the program to other projects at Livermore to hide the true cost of the nuclear fusion facility, the Oakland Tribune reported Wednesday. The NIF program is now expected to cost up to $4 billion, 300 percent more than originally estimated.

By firing 192 lasers at minuscule targets, the facility seeks to create the conditions necessary for nuclear fusion. Advocates say that the technology could be used to monitor the safety and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons and to create an additional energy source. The giant laser system is expected to be fired in a test next year.

"[The laboratory's] other programs continue to subsidize the NIC [National Ignition Campaign] through higher indirect cost allocations," the report states, adding that the employment of understated rates "materially misstates the actual costs reported by [the laboratory] for the NIF/NIC and other impacted laboratory programs."

"The laboratory's accounting practices are in accordance with accepted cost accounting standards and are disclosed yearly," Livermore spokeswoman Linda Seaver said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, which received the leaked report, has called for the U.S. Government Accountability Office and Congress to launch an investigation into the matter and to hold the laboratory's management responsible for any illegal acts.

"This illegal scheme circumvents the United States Congress, which sets NIF's budget each year, and violates our nation's most basic federal contracting laws," Marylia Kelley, executive director of the watchdog organization, said in a press release (Josh Richman, Oakland Tribune/Contra Costa Times, Dec. 9).

"Livermore Lab is systematically disguising the true costs of the NIF," she added. "When calculated over the life of the project, these hidden costs total more than $2 billion" (Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment release, Dec. 10).