Congressman Mike Turner and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, commended the White House today for commissioning a study on governance of the national laboratories. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has tasked the Institute for Defense Analyses’ Science and Technology Policy Institute to study various governance structures for the labs and provide recommendations for ensuring the labs are prepared to address future national security challenges.
“We are heartened to see the White House engaged on this important issue,” said Turner and Sanchez in a joint statement. “In our oversight of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s national labs, we’ve become concerned about a governance structure that the National Academies of Science recently called ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘broken.’ We must ensure these national labs are setup to face the many nuclear security challenges facing the nation, and we look forward to taking some concrete first steps at reform in the upcoming fiscal year 2013 defense authorization bill to improve oversight that will enable a safe, cost-effective work environment and preserve scientific and engineering excellence at the laboratories.”
###