Ellen Tauscher: “We can have our own opinion, but we cannot have our own separate set of facts; and the facts about the NIF are very…”

“We can have our own opinion, but we cannot have our own separate set of facts; and the facts about the NIF are very clear. While there were significant production failures and management problems in the NIF in 1999, even into early 2000, that has been dramatically fixed by new management. And, frankly, we have not had any GAO reports saying anything other than that. These investments are critical to our stockpile stewardship program. They are critical to having an ability to certify the sustainability and the safety of these weapons. The NIF is a project that was plagued with problems; but even today, in the Subcommittee on Military Procurement, General Gordon, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, testified that the NIF is now problem free, it is a program that is going forward, that we have significant investment in, and it is critical to our ability to have a stockpile stewardship program that enables us to certify weapons without testing. So I think that while there are rumors out there that the NIF is still plagued with problems, I want to assure my colleagues that they need to vote down this amendment. I urge them to strongly oppose it. We need the NIF for stockpile stewardship, and we need it for nuclear security.”