Senate appropriators warned the National Nuclear Security Administration yesterday that it must curb cost overruns, but they also suggested the agency would likely get its largest budget increase in 11 years in fiscal 2012.

NNSA is asking for $11.8 billion for fiscal 2012, a 10.2 percent increase from 2011 levels. The agency received an 8.2 percent budget increase in fiscal 2011, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee.

Calling NNSA an "endangered species" given it may be the only agency to receive such a big budget boost in the coming year, Feinstein told agency leaders they will be held responsible for projects' cost overruns and blown deadlines.

"I'm concerned about your ability to develop reliable costs and schedule estimates for complex nuclear infrastructure projects," she said.

Of particular concern, Feinstein said, are NNSA's plans to spend $682 million on just three projects in 2012, with costs growing to $1.1 billion by fiscal 2014.

At issue are NNSA plans to build a chemistry and metallurgy replacement lab at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a uranium processing facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, and a pit disassembly and conversion facility at the Savannah River site in South Carolina.

"You plan to build three new facilities that will each exceed $3 billion in costs, and in some cases may each exceed $6 billion," she said.

"New cost estimates for these facilities are three times more than the original estimates," she said. "NNSA has a long history of underestimating budget needs and increasing cost projections because of design schedules, design changes and schedule delays."

If the budgets balloon further, NNSA's efforts to extend the lifespan of existing nuclear weapons and to oversee the country's nuclear weapons stockpile could be affected, she said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) agreed the agency needs to do a better job of ensuring it spends within its means, but he also acknowledged the importance of security for the country's nuclear weapons.

Going forward, NNSA funding should not be lumped together with the budget of its parent, the Energy Department, Alexander said, because money for nuclear security is increasingly forced to compete with money for environmental cleanup.

"We don't want our nuclear weapons to resemble a collection of wet matches," Alexander said.