View source for Los Alamos Field Office (2020 Presidential transition)

The [[Los Alamos Field Office]] (NA-LA) oversees operations at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] and manages the contract with [[Triad National Security, LLC]] (Triad). Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a [[National Nuclear Security Administration]] (NNSA) laboratory within the Department of Energy (DOE), supporting each element of DOE’s missions in nuclear, energy, and environmental challenges through transformative science and technology.

==Mission Statement==

LANL is a government-owned, contractor-operated federally funded research and development center. LANL solves national security challenges through simultaneous excellence in nuclear security; mission-focused science, technology, and engineering; operations and community relations.

==Budget==

{| class="wikitable"

!Fiscal Year

!Budget

|-

|FY 2019 enacted

|$2,752M

|-

|FY 2020 enacted

|$3,003M

|-

|FY 2021 requested

|$3,400M

|}

==Human Resources==

FY 2020 authorized full-time equivalents (FTEs): 9,600 FTEs

==Overview==

[[Los Alamos National Laboratory]] (LANL) is a premier national security science laboratory whose primary mission is supporting the strategic nuclear deterrent. This mission includes ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. deterrent, and providing nonproliferation and counterproliferation solutions.

LANL supports national priorities for ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of the stockpile, and relies on the unique science capabilities developed through the [[Stockpile Stewardship Program]]. LANL is the designer of and is responsible for the majority of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. It also serves as NNSA’s Center of Excellence for plutonium, and provides essential uranium research and development, while providing NNSA’s plutonium and detonator manufacturing capability.

LANL also supports NNSA’s nonproliferation and counterproliferation missions and emerging threats to national security. LANL is a primary source of technical intelligence on foreign nuclear programs, supports reducing the threat from weapons of mass destruction (including unconventional weapons and Emergency Response), and supports international efforts in nonproliferation. LANL provides space surveillance capabilities; operates the nation’s only criticality experimental facility; works on emerging threats, including the strengthening of the national infrastructure against attack via cyber, surveillance, and security countermeasures; and supports war fighter needs.

LANL serves the nation, conducting long-term, national security-inspired innovation, enabling transformational mission impacts and breakthrough scientific discoveries. LANL contributes to DOE’s energy security mission, with particular strength in sustainable nuclear energy, efforts to mitigate impacts of energy demand growth, and materials and concepts for clean energy.

==Functions==

NA-LA is responsible for:

*Program Direction & Contract Management
*Oversight
*Assessment and Approvals
*Project Management
*Integrated Safety Management
*Employee Concerns
*Fire Protection
*Criticality Safety
*Nuclear Safety
*Worker Safety & Health

This enables LANL to excel in the following areas: 

*National Security Science
*Weapons Design and Engineering
*Plutonium Research, Development and Manufacturing
*Research-Driven Supercomputing
*Broader National Security Missions

==Recent Organization Accomplishments==

A new contractor, Triad National Security, LLC, was awarded the contract to run LANL in November 2018. Triad is less than two years into the contract and consists of a partnership between three main non-profit institutions: Battelle Memorial Institute, the University of California, and the Texas A&M University System. In this time, accomplishments include:

*Through the contract transition, Triad maintained the ongoing modernization of the stockpile and continuous support to the active stockpile with no interruption and no loss of capability or expertise.
*Delivering a comprehensive, executable plan to the NNSA to establish the capability to build 30 plutonium pits per year at LANL.
*Beginning to execute the above plan, to include nuclear operations infrastructure, human capital, technology, and procurement & installation of equipment.
*Establishing a regular cadence of safe shipment of nuclear waste to WIPP.
*Beginning to reverse the organization’s imperfect record on safety, and evolving the organization’s safety culture into one of continuous learning and improvement.
*Beginning to modernize the site’s aging infrastructure through use of modular building, repurposing of space, new construction, and working with NNSA and local entities to propose new solutions, including teleworking and offsite leases.
*Triad has leveraged its parent companies, which includes two top university systems: the University of California and the Texas A&M University System to maintain and strengthen its expertise in all aspects of science and engineering which underpin its role as a national security laboratory. Notable scientific contributions outside the weapons program range from powering the new Mars Perseverance rover for NASA to developing a potential HIV vaccine.
*Establishing close working relationships to align with federal customers, and developing trust with the local entities to build support for hiring pipelines, partnering on environmental challenges, and infrastructure needs.
*Restoring national capability to produce plutonium pits for the nuclear deterrent. This capability was originally met by the Rocky Flats facility in Colorado, which closed in the early 1990’s. Subsequently, a limited production of pits was executed at LANL in the 2000’s. In 2018, the NNSA made a decision to enable the manufacturing of at least 30 pits per year at LANL’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility and another 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) using the partially constructed MOX Facility. LANL is in the process of re-establishing a reliable production capability for the desired weapons system in repurposed space in PF-4. This is a multi-year effort, relying on a highly-trained workforce, dedicated facilities as well as technical expertise. In parallel with this effort, LANL is also responsible for assisting SRS in standing up its own capability. An associated challenge is the disposal of the nuclear waste that is generated by this mission. Currently, the waste is shipped to the [[Waste Isolation Pilot Plant]] (WIPP) in Carlsbad, NM. Nuclear waste disposal continues to be a fragile system, reliant on regulatory and environmental permitting frameworks across both federal and state agencies.
*Ensuring the United States’ nuclear stockpile continues to be safe, secure, and reliable without nuclear testing. This is LANL’s solemn responsibility to the nation: to assess, using the most advanced scientific expertise, the safety, security and reliability of our stockpile. This is a continuing challenge, and one that LANL has met every year, but one that cannot rely on complacency or outdated scientific tools. This expertise in turn also allows the USA to combat the global threat to our security and works closely with other agencies to leverage our nuclear weapons expertise in assessing the threat from other entities.
*Maintaining the deep, foundational scientific and engineering base on which national security depends: LANL must ensure it can attract and retain the best and brightest minds to dedicate their careers to world-class science in support of national security. This includes maintaining our competitiveness in fields such as high-performance computing and computational science, accelerator science and technology, nuclear physics and radiochemistry, materials science, and high explosives. Without continued planning and investment in world-class scientific tools, often requiring multi-decadal strategies, the USA cannot maintain its pre-eminence.
*Revitalizing the aging nuclear enterprise infrastructure: LANL has begun this effort, but this will take many years to complete. In previous decades, there has been very little in the way of resources to fund the Decontamination and Decommissioning (D&D) of aging, often contaminated buildings. As an example, at the heart of LANL’s campus is the 1950’s era Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility, largely vacated because of the discovery of a seismic fault line under its foundation, and contaminated from many years of nuclear research during the cold war years. At half a million square feet, safely demolishing this building, along with others, will be a challenge. LANL is encouraged by efforts in recent years to address this aging infrastructure problem, but it will take a serious investment to reverse course.

==Critical Events and Action Items==

LANL needs full support in the FY21 President’s Budget Request to stay on schedule for the activities and projects associated with re-establishing the capability to produce plutonium pits.

==Organization Chart==

[[File:Transitions 2020 - Los Alamos Field Office org chart.pdf|800px|left]]