Groups call for nuke manager Tom D’Agostino’s resignation

In the wake of last week’s news that Los Alamos National Laboratory’s $213 million (or $245 million, depending on how you look at the budget documents) nuclear security system does not work, two longtime critics of the lab and the National Nuclear Security Administration – the Project on Government Oversight and Nuclear Watch New Mexico – have called for the resignation of Tom D’Agostino, the agency’s long time administrator:

Nuclear Watch New Mexico and the Project on Government Oversight are calling upon the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to resign. The final straw is today’s news that a seven year $213 million project to upgrade the security perimeter at nuclear weapons plutonium facilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is facing substantial delays and up to $25 million in cost overruns.

This follows a long litany of NNSA failures and cost overruns under Administrator Tom D’Agostino’s leadership.

Among the problems they cite are cost overruns on the CMRR-NF plutonium lab at Los Alamos and the B61 nuclear bomb. But the list is long. Click through to their press release for the litany.

At the risk of engaging in the cheap journalistic exercise of Twitter-mining, the POGO/Nukewatch news release triggered an interesting discussion among some of the nuclear policy analysts I follow about whether D’Agostino can be held responsible for what some think are deep, systemic problems in the weapons program.

More on the issues:

• Los Alamos Study Group on the problems
• The AP’s Jeri Clausing adds some context
• Frank Munger at Knoxnews with the view from Tennessee

I’ve reached out to D’Agostino’s office for a comment, and will share what they have to say.