July 9, 2001

Research and Development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore), a major component of the Department of Energy's national laboratory system, has an annual Research and Development (R&D) budget of about $1 billion. The Department established a set of processes and procedures to ensure that Livermore's R&D efforts are authorized by responsible Federal Officers and are consistent with the Department's mission. The objective of our audit was to determine whether Livermore was performing R&D that was not authorized by the Department.