[Senate Hearing 112-549]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-549
MANAGING INTERAGENCY NUCLEAR
NONPROLIFERATION EFFORTS: ARE WE
EFFECTIVELY SECURING NUCLEAR MATERIALS AROUND THE WORLD?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,
THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
of the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 14, 2012
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts
MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
JON TESTER, Montana RAND PAUL, Kentucky
MARK BEGICH, Alaska JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director
Nicholas A. Rossi, Minority Staff Director
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
Joyce Ward, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee
OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE, AND THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
MARK BEGICH, Alaska JERRY MORAN, Kansas
Lisa M. Powell, Majority Staff Director
Eric M. Tamarkin, Counsel
Rachel R. Weaver, Minority Staff Director
Sean Kennedy, Professional Staff Member
Aaron H. Woolf, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statement:
Page
Senator Akaka................................................ 1
Prepared statement:
Senator Akaka................................................ 31
WITNESSES
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Hon. Thomas M. Countryman, Assistant Secretary for International
Security and Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of State........ 3
Hon. Anne Harrington, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration,
U.S. Department of Energy...................................... 5
Hon. Kenneth Handelman, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for
Global Strategic Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense........... 7
Gene Aloise, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S.
Government Accountability Office............................... 8
Kenneth N. Luongo, President, Partnership for Global Security.... 21
Page O. Stoutland, Ph.D., Vice President, Nuclear Materials
Security Program, Nuclear Threat Initiative.................... 23
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Aloise, Gene:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 58
Countryman, Hon. Thomas M.:
Testimony.................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Handelman, Hon. Kenneth:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Harrington, Hon. Anne:
Testimony.................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 42
Luongo, Kenneth N.:
Testimony.................................................... 21
Prepared statement........................................... 84
Stoutland, Page O.:
Testimony.................................................... 23
Prepared statement........................................... 96
APPENDIX
Questions and responses for the Record from:
Mr. Countryman............................................... 104
Ms. Harrington............................................... 112
Mr. Handelman................................................ 119
Mr. Luongo................................................... 124
Mr. Stoutland................................................ 128
Background....................................................... 130
Chart referenced by Ms. Harrington............................... 138
MANAGING INTERAGENCY NUCLEAR
NONPROLIFERATION EFFORTS: ARE WE
EFFECTIVELY SECURING NUCLEAR MATERIALS AROUND THE WORLD?
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 2012
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government
Management, the Federal Workforce,
and the District of Columbia,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:34 p.m., in
Room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K.
Akaka, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Akaka.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. Before I call this hearing to order, I just
want to say it is so good to have all of you here. And as
usual, we run from one event to the other, so it is good to be
here almost on time. But thanks for being here.
I call this hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight of
Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District
of Columbia to order. I want to say aloha and welcome to our
guest witnesses, and thank you so much for taking the time to
be here with us, and together we will work on trying to take
care of this challenge that is facing and growing in our
country.
Today the Subcommittee will examine interagency efforts to
prevent nuclear and radiological materials from falling into
the wrong hands. Since 1999, I have chaired 10 related hearings
on this subject and requested 10 Government Accountability
Office (GAO) investigations, and they have been good in meeting
those requests.
The terrorist threat remains serious and the consequences
of a nuclear or radiological terrorist attack would be
catastrophic. In 2010, President Obama stated that nuclear
terrorism is the single biggest threat to U.S. security, short-
term, medium-term, and long-term. The International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) reported more than 2,000 unauthorized
incidents, such as illegal trade or movement of nuclear or
radioactive material, from 1993 through 2011.
On Sunday, we commemorated the 1-year anniversary of
Japan's Fukushima nuclear tragedy. That incident highlighted
the potentially dire implications of failing to adequately
prepare for and defend against unexpected events.
I want to commend President Obama, the agencies represented
here today, and the many Federal employees in those agencies
for their commitment and hard work to bolster nuclear and
radiological security. I also want to thank GAO for its
diligent work, which has strengthened those efforts.
In a landmark 2009 speech in Prague, the President
announced a new international effort to secure all vulnerable
nuclear material within 4 years. The successful 2010 Nuclear
Security Summit (NSS) in Washington, DC, spurred progress on
this aggressive timetable. Since the President's speech, more
than 31 nuclear bombs worth of material have been removed from
countries around the world.
Most notably, Libya's nuclear weapons program was
dismantled before the recent uprising began, and all highly-
enriched uranium (HEU) has been removed from Chile, Romania,
Serbia, Taiwan, and Turkey. I hope this progress will be
accelerated when the President joins leaders of 52 other
nations and four international organizations at the second
Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Korea, in less than 2 weeks.
The scope of the upcoming Seoul Summit has been broadened
to include radiological material security. I have pressed for
more focus on radiological material security for more than a
decade, and GAO has investigated various aspects of this issue
at my request.
In 2007, GAO reported troubling shortfalls in the security
of high-risk radiological materials internationally, including
in Russia and the Ukraine. Today GAO will testify to
preliminary findings that highlight a number of egregious
security weaknesses at domestic hospital and medical facilities
where radiological materials are used and stored. These
disturbing findings demonstrate the need to strengthen the
security requirements for domestic radiological sources.
There is a model that could be used to enhance domestic
radiological security nationwide. The Department of Energy's
(DOEs) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has
worked with partners in my home State of Hawaii to complete
security enhancements on all high priority radiological
materials within the State. Hawaii is now safer, and I urge the
Department to accelerate the implementation of this important
program and to better coordinate with the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) to secure all high-risk sites across the
country. The United States should serve as a model worldwide on
domestic radiological security. The upcoming summit in Seoul
provides an opportunity to focus the world's attention on this
issue.
The Administration's bold commitment to secure all nuclear
material worldwide could be paired with a new international
initiative to secure all high-risk radiological materials in 4
years. When the United States leads by example, we can make
great strides to improve international safety and security.
In addition to radiological sources, I remain concerned
that Federal agencies face challenges defining and implementing
a strategic plan for nuclear security. Agencies must prioritize
the highest-risk materials, ensure that nuclear and
radiological materials the United States supplies to allies do
not become a threat, and coordinate with the IAEA. So I look
forward to these discussions that we will be having in today's
hearing. I also hope the Administration witnesses identify how
Congress can best support their efforts--through adequate
funding, ratification of relevant treaties, legislation, or
otherwise.
The security of nuclear and radiological materials has been
a priority during my tenure in the U.S. Senate, and I will
continue focusing on this issue during my last year.
This is a bipartisan issue that I hope all of my colleagues
will actively pursue in the future. This is not and should not
be a political issue. It is about safeguarding human life, the
environment, and the economy. The stakes are too high for
partisanship or for Congress and the American people to ignore
it. And I look forward to continuing to work with you on these
issues. And so I want to welcome our witnesses for the first
panel:
The Hon. Thomas M. Countryman, Assistant Secretary for
International Security and Nonproliferation (ISN) at the U.S.
Department of State;
The Hon. Anne Harrington, Deputy Administrator for Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of Energy's
National Nuclear Security Administration;
The Hon. Kenneth B. Handelman, Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Global Strategic Affairs at the U.S. Department
of Defense (DOD);
And Mr. Gene Aloise, Director, Natural Resources and
Environment, at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Mr.
Aloise, it is good to see you testify before this Subcommittee
again.
As you know, it is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear
in all witnesses, and I would ask you to please stand and raise
your right hand and take this oath with me. Do you swear that
the testimony you are about to give before this Subcommittee is
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you, God?
Mr. Countryman. I do.
Ms. Harrington. I do.
Mr. Handelman. I do.
Mr. Aloise. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Let it be noted for the
record that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Before we start, I want you to know that your full written
statements will be made part of the record, and I would also
like to remind you to please limit your oral remarks to 5
minutes.
Assistant Secretary Countryman, will you please proceed
with your statement?
TESTIMONY OF HON. THOMAS M. COUNTRYMAN,\1\ ASSISTANT SECRETARY
FOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY AND NONPROLIFERATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Countryman. Chairman Akaka, thank you for inviting us
here to discuss United States efforts to secure vulnerable
nuclear materials around the globe. This mission is vital to
the national security of the United States. Congressional
support remains critical, and we deeply appreciate your
personal engagement in the issue.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Countryman appears in the
appendix on page 33.
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In his Prague speech, President Obama laid out his vision
for a world without nuclear weapons and free from the threat of
nuclear terrorism. A year later, at the Nuclear Security Summit
in Washington, participants emphasized the need for each State
to take responsibility for the security of nuclear materials
under its control, and each State made specific commitments to
advance nuclear security.
Now, to follow through, the United States has a three-
tiered strategy to lock down or remove vulnerable nuclear
materials: First, at the site level; second, at the country
level; and, third, at the global level.
At the site level, we work with other countries to minimize
the civilian use of highly enriched uranium, to eliminate
unneeded weapons-usable material, and to improve security at
specific sites. Where site-level assistance is not appropriate,
we cooperate at the country level with foreign governments to
exchange best practices and to demonstrate the safe use of
equipment. At the global level, we develop global initiatives
through the Nuclear Security Summit process, the United Nations
(UN), and other fora to improve nuclear security around the
world.
As we do this important work to keep Americans safe, we use
tax dollars wisely. Through the Global Partnership (GP) against
the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction and through the
United Nations 1540 Committee, we encourage international
partners to share the costs of improving security. Building
this safer world and protecting the American people also
requires that the International Atomic Energy Agency has the
resources and authority to carry out its vital mission as the
global focal point for nuclear cooperation. We are confident
that every effort is made to advance our shared interests in
peaceful nuclear uses and security.
With this three-tiered strategy, we have made significant
progress in the 4-year effort to secure vulnerable nuclear
materials. Still, the persistence of illicit trafficking, as
you referred to, of weapons-usable nuclear materials
demonstrates that efforts to consolidate materials and secure
facilities are not enough. My bureau, ISN at the State
Department, has several programs to promote this international
capacity to detect and investigate cases of nuclear material
outside proper control.
First, the Nuclear Smuggling Outreach Initiative (NSOI) is
a State Department-led interagency effort to develop
partnerships with key countries to combat nuclear smuggling.
Second, our Preventing Nuclear Smuggling Program (PNSP)
works to leverage international funding to promote law
enforcement cooperation and nuclear forensics cooperation.
Third, our bureau's Export Control and Border Security
(EXBS) Program leads interagency efforts to build comprehensive
export and border control systems in more than 50 partner
countries.
And, fourth, we lead the United States engagement with the
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), a
partnership of 82 nations that conduct activities to strengthen
plans, policies, and interoperability on the issue of nuclear
terrorism.
In terms of congressional support for the fight against
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), in addition
to providing us the resources we need to do this important
national security job and to keep Americans safe, we also need
your help to fill critical gaps in the international legal
framework of nuclear security. In 2008, the Senate provided
advice and consent unanimously to ratification of four nuclear
security-related treaties, including the Nuclear Terrorism
Convention. I strongly urge Congress to expeditiously enact the
implementing legislation for these treaties in the national
security interests of the American people.
Finally, let me stress that reducing the risk of nuclear
terrorism is a complicated task, but the interagency is working
well to meet this challenge. My colleagues not only from Energy
and Defense but also Justice, Homeland Security, and others,
work together well. With your support we will continue to do
all we can to protect the American people. Thank you, sir.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Countryman.
And now let me call on the Hon. Anne Harrington, Deputy
Administrator from the Department of Energy. Please proceed
with your statement.
TESTIMONY OF HON. ANNE HARRINGTON,\1\ DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR
DEFENSE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Ms. Harrington. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you for this opportunity to brief the Subcommittee on the
Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security
Administration's contribution to the international effort to
secure the world's most vulnerable nuclear material.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Harrington appears in the
appendix on page 42.
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Before I continue, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman,
for your leadership in drawing attention to the issue of
nuclear and radiological security. As you have already noted,
the State of Hawaii serves as a model for the rest of the
country for how to implement a comprehensive radiological
security program. It has been a pleasure for my staff and
experts to work with the committed State, city, and local
officials who have supported this work, and we look forward to
continuing our partnership.
The President's 4-year effort is indeed unprecedented. It
is led by the United States but with significant contributions
from dozens of countries around the world. The White House, in
close coordination with our interagency and international
colleagues, is leading and implementing an impressive three-
tiered strategy which Assistant Secretary Countryman just
described. I am pleased to report that NNSA has made
significant contributions to the U.S. Government's efforts in
each of these three strategic areas.
Most of our important contributions to the 4-year effort
have taken place at the site level. These include securing,
removing, and disposing of high-priority nuclear materials
worldwide; converting highly enriched uranium-fueled research
reactors to low enriched uranium (LEU); assessing the physical
security of U.S.-obligated material and providing security
upgrades at nuclear sites; consolidating materials to fewer,
more secure sites; improving international capabilities to
detect and interdict illicit nuclear and radiological materials
trafficking; and promoting a culture of awareness,
responsibility, and security in the countries and sites in
which we work.
We have made important contributions also to the national-
level efforts, including working with partner countries on
their nuclear security Centers of Excellence. These centers
form an important network that will allow countries and regions
to strengthen capabilities to secure facilities and to deter,
detect, and interdict illicit trafficking of nuclear and
radiological material.
On the global level, NNSA has always been a strong
supporter of the International Atomic Energy Agency as an
important means of advancing our nuclear security objectives.
NNSA led the 5-year international effort to develop and
finalize the fifth revision of the IAEA's nuclear security
recommendations on physical protection of nuclear material and
nuclear security.
We also partner closely with the IAEA on training and
education activities. We provide subject matter experts to
assist the IAEA's Office of Nuclear Security (ONS), and
contribute to the development of the documents in IAEA's
Nuclear Security Series.
Our interagency cooperation is also strong and very
institutionalized. We participate actively in the National
Security staff-led interagency policy committees and
subcommittee meetings.
We also have strong coordination mechanisms on an agency-
to-agency basis. For example, NNSA holds quarterly coordination
meetings with our colleagues at the Department of Defense at
the Assistant Secretary level to discuss areas of common
interest, coordinate on program ideas, and do forward planning.
Similarly, we have a trilateral coordination group on
radiological security that includes senior-level
representatives from NNSA, the NRC, Department of Homeland
Security, and the FBI, also meeting on a quarterly basis to
review activities.
We share your excitement about the 2012 Nuclear Security
Summit. We fully expect that the leaders who participate there
will renew their commitments to ensure that nuclear and
radiological materials under their control are not stolen or
acquired by terrorists. This means renewing their respective
pledges to continue to evaluate the threat and improve the
security as changing situations may require, and to exchange
best practices and practical solutions for doing so. We would
be happy to brief you after the summit has concluded on the
achievements and pledges announced there.
For our part, NNSA will complete a number of activities
under the 4-year effort by the end of 2013, but our mission to
secure nuclear material will extend well beyond then.
I apologize if I have run over my time, but I want to thank
you again for the opportunity to brief you on DOE-NNSA's
contribution to this international effort, and I look forward
to your questions. Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for your testimony.
And now I would like to call on Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary Handelman. Please proceed with your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF HON. KENNETH HANDELMAN,\1\ PRINCIPAL DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR GLOBAL STRATEGIC AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Handelman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an honor to
appear today with two close colleagues to my right and a
distinguished public servant to my left to discuss the
Department of Defense's contributions to U.S. Government's
nuclear security campaign. My colleagues have given the
Subcommittee a good overview of the administration's strategy
and diplomatic efforts related to the 4-year lockdown
specifically and nuclear security in general. I would like to
focus my remarks on DOD's contribution to what is truly a
governmentwide team effort, as well as offer a few observations
about the evolution of nuclear security as a military mission.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Handelman appears in the appendix
on page 50.
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DOD's contribution to the nuclear security effort being
discussed at this hearing comes primarily through the Nunn-
Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR). In my
statement for the record, I have provided details on CTR's
activities in the former Soviet States, as well as plans to
expand CTR's nuclear security work to other parts of the world
in coordination with the Departments of Energy and State.
CTR has a long history, and your colleagues Senators Lugar
and Nunn continue to play true leadership roles in the
program's activities. I would be remiss if I did not thank you
and your House colleagues for the ongoing strong congressional
support for the CTR program and, indeed, for all of our
programs, writ large, on nuclear security.
For fiscal year 2013, the President has requested $519
million for CTR, roughly $130 million of which would be devoted
towards nuclear security-related activities. And I urge
congressional support for this request and the entire range of
nuclear security-related programs.
Mr. Chairman, let me turn to the big-picture view of DOD's
nuclear security mission. Nearly everything this panel will
discuss with you today deals with the thorny problem of how to
prevent the bad guys from getting their hands on really bad
things. As I have said, DOD's principal contribution in this
regard is through the CTR program. However, given DOD's overall
mission to defend the Nation, there is a whole world of
separate nuclear security activities for which my agency plans,
equips, and trains. These activities center on a scenario none
of us want to confront, namely, what to do when we think the
bad guys actually have their hands on really bad things.
Our planning for this type of loose-nuke situation is
evolving substantially, and I think it is an important backdrop
to the Subcommittee's discussions today. And I want to
emphasize that the watch word for our new thinking for this
type of loose-nuke scenario centers on integration--integration
across DOD's many components and integration across our
government.
For instance, the instability or collapse of a nuclear-
armed State could quickly lead to the proliferation of nuclear
weapons or materials well beyond the country of origin and
involve multiple State and non-state actors as it moves across
the globe. The U.S. military seeks to improve our defensive
posture against this type of threat, a process which will bear
fruit regardless of how a terrorist obtains nuclear material.
This includes enhancing the protective posture of the homeland;
working with the intelligence community to better analyze and
track terrorist networks and identify likely paths to
proliferation; and improving our ability to characterize the
source and nature of a loose-nuke threat. We can be certain
that in a nuclear or other type of WMD crisis, all of these
activities would be occurring simultaneously. Our work at DOD
has focused on how U.S. military units would coordinate with
other U.S. agencies and with allies and partners in the face of
such a loose-nuke threat scenario.
Of course, as with most DOD missions, we hope we never need
to execute this one. The key is to have a layered defense
against the loose-nuke threat. The first layer or the first
line of defense is the group of activities that Secretaries
Countryman, Harrington, and I are here to discuss with you
today.
Mr. Chairman, the nuclear security mission area has enjoyed
the broad bipartisan support that it deserves, as you observed
in your opening remarks. We all thank Congress for that
confidence and look forward to your questions today.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Handelman.
And now I would like to call on Mr. Aloise. Would you
please proceed with your statement?
TESTIMONY OF GENE ALOISE,\1\ DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Aloise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be
here today to discuss our work that directly relates to the
goals of the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit. Specifically, my
testimony will focus on two of our recently issued reports. The
first is on the strategy for supporting the President's goal of
securing all vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide within 4
years. The second is on U.S. agencies' ability to track and
evaluate the security of U.S. nuclear material transferred to
foreign countries. And I will also discuss our ongoing work on
Federal efforts to secure radiological sources in U.S.
hospitals and medical facilities.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Aloise appears in the appendix on
page 58.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the President's 4-year initiative, a little more
than a year ago we reported that the strategy approved by the
National Security Council (NSC) for the initiative was vague
and lacked details regarding how the initiative would be
implemented. Specifically, the administration's strategy did
not identify vulnerable nuclear material sites, which agencies
and programs would be responsible for each site, and the
potential challenges in securing nuclear material around the
world. The strategy also lacked details on cost and time frames
to accomplish this difficult but worthwhile work.
We recommended that NSC lead and coordinate a plan for
implementing the initiative with details in several areas,
including identifying those countries where nuclear materials
are thought to be poorly secured.
In September of last year, we reported on an issue that
could impact the 4-year goal of securing nuclear materials. We
reported that United States efforts to secure nuclear materials
worldwide would be difficult because U.S. agencies do not
systematically track the location of nuclear material that the
United States has transferred to other countries under nuclear
cooperation agreements.
Specifically, DOE and NRC do not have a comprehensive
current inventory of U.S. nuclear material, including weapon-
usable material, located overseas. In 1993, NRC and other
agencies, at the direction of Congress, tried to develop an
inventory, but were only able to verify the location of 1,160
kilograms out of 17,500 kilograms of HEU remaining overseas,
and no estimates have been developed since.
In addition, even though partner countries are required to
guarantee the physical protection of U.S. nuclear material,
U.S. agencies do not have access rights allowing them to
systematically assess the security of this material. U.S.
interagency teams found that countries they could visit only
met security guidelines set by the IAEA about half the time. We
made several recommendations to improve oversight and
accountability, including recommending the development of an
inventory of U.S. nuclear material overseas.
Now, as you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in addition to nuclear
materials, this year's summit plans to address the security of
radiological sources. The nuclear material in these
radiological sources could be used to make a dirty bomb.
Therefore, it is essential that devices containing radiological
sources be secured from theft or sabotage.
Based on preliminary results from our ongoing work that we
are doing at your request, Mr. Chairman, we found that NRC's
security controls for hospitals and medical facilities may not
go far enough to protect these highly radioactive materials. As
a result, we are finding that hospitals and other medical
facilities are implementing the security controls in a variety
of ways, some better than others, leaving some facilities more
vulnerable to theft or sabotage than others.
According to NNSA, there are about 1,500 hospitals and
medical buildings in the United States that contain high-risk
radiological sources, with a cumulative total of about 22
million curies of radioactive material. DOE's Domestic Material
Protection Program provides hospitals with security upgrades to
the devices that contain high-activity radiological sources,
such as gamma knives and blood irradiators. It also provides
training for hospital personnel and local law enforcement on
how to protect themselves and their communities when responding
to an incident involving highly radioactive materials.
Mr. Chairman, during the course of our work, my team and I
have visited numerous medical facilities and observed instances
where equipment containing extremely high curie amounts of some
of the most dangerous radiological material were highly
vulnerable to theft or sabotage. For example, in one hospital
we visited, the door to the room housing a blood irradiator
with 1,500 curies of Cesium-137 had a combination lock on the
door, but the combination to the lock was written in pencil on
the door frame for everyone to see.
We also saw equipment containing high-risk sources that
should have been secured, but instead were on pallets with
wheels and close to areas of public access. In our view, it
would not be very hard for someone to steal these devices. My
full statement contains other examples from our visits.
NNSA is doing a commendable job in securing these high-risk
radiological sources, but some facilities considered high risk
by law enforcement officials have declined NNSA's assistance,
which is voluntary, including hospitals in cities thought to be
attractive terrorist targets. We are continuing to perform our
work in this area of high national security importance and plan
to issue our full report later this year.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman I would be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Director Aloise.
Mr. Countryman, the summit process has done an excellent
job of focusing the international community's attention on the
problem of nuclear material security. What do you hope to
achieve at the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul?
Mr. Countryman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
speak only in the most general terms about the summit meeting
in Seoul because we anticipate that President Obama and other
international partners will make a number of announcements, and
I would not want to preview those and take away the opportunity
to do that. But since the purpose of the summit is to review
and build upon the commitments that we made collectively and
that nations made individually at the Washington Summit 2 years
ago, I think there will be both a significant record of
accomplishments to list as well as renewed and updated and
improved commitments by participants. And in the particular
structure of the summit where the presidents and prime
ministers have an opportunity to discuss things in a less
formal structure than many other summit meetings, I think they
will have a very frank conversation about the remaining
challenges that we have around the world.
I hope that you can accept this very general
characterization of our expectations.
Senator Akaka. Yes, well, thank you very much.
Let me further ask you, after the 2014 summit in the
Netherlands is completed, what is the future of the summit
process? And how do we continue the international emphasis on
preventing nuclear terrorism?
Mr. Countryman. Thank you, sir. The summit is a unique
process in that having this very dramatic development, the
largest gathering of presidents and prime ministers ever to
come to Washington for the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, was
intended explicitly to have that dramatic effect of focusing
both public attention and governments' attention on commitments
that they could make to improve nuclear security in each
country and globally. And it had that effect. I think that a
number of countries responded to the uniqueness of the summit
by making those commitments and by following them up over the
last 2 years.
It was never the intent to create a new international
organization or a permanent process, but as to whether there
would be still another summit after 2014, I would prefer not to
speculate on that, but to let the leaders discuss it in Seoul.
Senator Akaka. Well, it has grown over the years, and now
as you point out, there are 50-plus partners in this, and it is
certainly getting some attention.
My next question is to the witnesses from State, DOE, and
DOD. Despite considerable progress, it seems likely that at the
end of the Administration's 4-year effort, all of the
vulnerable nuclear material worldwide will not be secured.
Please discuss whether you anticipate there will be countries
and facilities that you likely will not be able to address
during the 4 years, the reasons why, and what contingency plans
are in place to revise or extend this particular initiative.
Mr. Countryman.
Mr. Countryman. Again, we have always understood the 4-year
effort to be a focused international effort, not a uniquely
U.S. effort. It requires the commitments not just of our
government, all of our agencies working together, and an
important expenditure of resources, but a similar effort and a
similar commitment on the part of our partners around the
world.
We believe that the progress report that will be discussed
in Seoul 2 weeks from now will show significant progress, and
we believe that it will refocus us on the most important areas
that we still have to address, some of the places where the
physical or the political challenge may have been greater.
We have always assumed that there will be continuing work
to do after the 4-year time frame. As long as nuclear materials
exist, we will have the same need to set the best possible
example in the United States of securing those materials and of
sharing that capability for protection without other countries,
motivating them to do the same.
I would not want to predict now which particular spot in
the world will turn out to be the most difficult place to
secure nuclear materials.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Ms. Harrington.
Ms. Harrington. I would agree with Assistant Secretary
Countryman. The 4-year effort was aimed at securing a
prioritized list of materials that was considered to be the
most vulnerable. It does not imply that it captures everything.
We know that the job will continue following 2013, that there
will be more to do.
We also are looking forward into a global nuclear economy
which, despite the incidents at Fukushima, will continue to
expand in terms of use of nuclear power and uranium commerce.
So those things are all on our minds as we consider next
steps, and as Mr. Countryman said, these are things that will
be considered by the leaders when they convene in Seoul, and I
think we all sit here fully expecting that we will get new
direction and a new sense of energy out of that Summit.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Mr. Handelman.
Mr. Handelman. Mr. Chairman, the three of us have a
colleague, a very senior colleague, on the national security
staff who describes the 4-year lockdown effort as ``a sprint
within a marathon.'' I am a career civil servant. I have been
doing this for a number of years. The United States attention
to nuclear security did not start with the 4-year lockdown. It
is not going to end at the end of 4 years. What I think is
particularly significant about this sort of frame of reference
that the President has set up is that he has devoted his
personal attention and a lot of time to this effort. That is
pretty unique between the Prague speech and two summits--or
three summits, which would occur--I am not going to presume the
results of the election. That is pretty unprecedented in terms
of a world leader's personal attention to this issue.
So as my colleagues have said, wherever we are at the end
of 4 years, it will be a substantial accomplishment, but our
jobs will not have ended in this regard.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much.
Mr. Countryman, I know you are going to have to leave, but
let me ask you a question. Your testimony notes the importance
of implementing legislation for four key treaties that are
important United States commitments to enhance the tools to
fight international terrorism and WMD proliferation. In 2008,
the Senate unanimously provided its advice and consent to
ratification of all four treaties. However, the implementing
legislation needed to formally ratify these treaties is still,
I think, languishing here.
What are the road blocks to congressional approval of this
implementing legislation?
Mr. Countryman. Thank you, Senator. I am certain you do not
want me to do an analysis of the congressional process. All I
can say is that the Bush Administration first submitted a draft
of the implementing legislation. The Obama Administration has
submitted essentially the same text. We know that there is
support not just from our predecessors in a previous
administration who have made clear that this should move
forward. We know there is support of both parties in both
Houses. And I also know that these are somewhat complex legal
issues when you need to amend the U.S. Code to provide for a
new category of criminal offense, as these treaties would
oblige us to do.
I do not have any advice for you today, sir, on how to
overcome that. I would only want to emphasize that we ask for
rapid action on these in the interests of the national security
of the United States. We believe it gives our law enforcement
community new, significant avenues by which to investigate and
prevent the risk of nuclear terrorism in the United States, and
that matters to our national security. It has the added
advantage of providing the kind of example to the rest of the
world in terms of completing ratification that we always seek
to provide and that the United States has traditionally been a
leader in.
So there are many good reasons to do it. I do not assume
that the obstacles are huge, but I cannot give you an analysis
of what is happening outside the drafting process.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for your response.
The next question is to any of the Executive Branch
witnesses. This is to whoever has this type of responsibility.
Nuclear materials in the hands of rogue or unstable nations are
a particular threat. The consequences could have been dire if
we had not dismantled the Libyan nuclear weapons program before
the chaos leading up to the revolution began there.
I would like to give you an opportunity to discuss the
Libya initiative as well as its broader implications.
Mr. Handelman. Mr. Chairman, the Libya case is really an
important example, and it is certainly one where it is an
illustration of a successful coming together of like-minded
allies to work with a partner country that was in the frame of
mind to make some changes.
I think certainly where my Department is in terms of the
implications of another Libya or indeed if a nuclear possessor
State does not give up its nuclear materials in an orderly
manner, our attitude is we are never really going to be able to
predict with certainty how materials, be they weapons or
radiological materials, might wind up in the hands of
terrorists or somehow not be in positive custody of a competent
authority. So very briefly, let me describe sort of a framework
that we are using for planning, along with our interagency
partners.
The proposition is that intelligence or information is
always going to be incomplete on a loose nuke. We will be
extremely lucky if we get a hold of information or intelligence
that pinpoints a warhead or material and, we are able to do
perhaps what our military forces do best or our diplomats do
best. We are not planning for that. That is too good a
scenario.
So the notion is that there is going to be a zone,
indeterminate, that we would refer to as the ``source zone.''
It is coming from someplace, and you can pinpoint perhaps a
region of the world. Then there is a transit zone. It is
obvious what that would be, the different routes that
terrorists or others might take to transport material. And then
there is a target zone, and it seems that the United States is
always somebody's target. There might be others as well.
So from a military planning perspective, the issue is: What
does a commander, one of our regional commanders, need to think
about if he happens to be responsible for U.S. military forces
in the source zone, the transit zone, or the target zone? And
there are lists of activities that--some are common for each of
those three zones, and some are very different. All of them
involve different partnerships with other U.S. agencies.
What we realized is that because of the likelihood that we
will have incomplete intelligence, these lists of activities
that we will have to be doing in each of these zones is
probably going to be happening simultaneously.
So I guess our perspective on the Libya situation is that
was a success and we should continue to be working with other
governments to achieve continued success. But as is typical for
DOD's mission, we are sort of planning for a worse kind of
situation and how we would work with our interagency partners
to deal with it.
Ms. Harrington. If I could add to what Mr. Handelman just
said, Libya, of course, was one of the six countries cleaned
out of HEU since the Prague speech, and it was not a simple
affair. It took a great deal of concerted effort,
diplomatically led by the State Department, but also with
pressure from Russia, the involvement of the IAEA, when Colonel
Gaddafi decided he would hesitate a little bit before giving up
his final material. And it was only because we all worked
together both across agencies and across nations that we were
able to accomplish this task.
I think in terms of an object lesson, we need to take our
opportunities when we find them and be able to have the
flexibility and the nimbleness, which is not necessarily
something the U.S. Government is always known for, to be able
to react quickly and move into a situation, remove material,
stabilize a situation, and accomplish our security tasks.
We sometimes have challenges in that regard. Sometimes
there are legislative requirements for concurrence from the
State Department or coordination elsewhere. We are working on
these issues right now across the agencies. I do not think it
requires any help from Congress. It requires a bit of
creativity on our side. But we are looking ahead at exactly
that kind of situation where all of us will have to come
together, work quickly, and be highly effective.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Ms. Harrington. My next
question is for all of you. Ken Luongo, who is President of the
Partnership for Global Security, has raised concerns that this
budget is inadequate to meet the nuclear threat to American and
international security and could undermine the 4-year nuclear
security agenda. Others likely will argue that we cannot fully
fund the President's request.
Please respond to Mr. Luongo's view that more funding is
needed and address what effect less funding would have on our
ability to effectively secure vulnerable nuclear and
radiological materials. Ms. Harrington.
Ms. Harrington. I notice that Mr. Handelman is letting me
take this question first. Thank you.
If you look at budget projections that were presented
several years ago for where we would be in the 2013-14 space,
they are quite different from where we are right now. But that
is very much a reflection of fiscal realities in the United
States. The Budget Control Act governs what our limits are
going to be. The Budget Committees are very constrained
overall. And so across the government, every agency, every
program is looking at how it can continue to meet mission
goals, but with less resources.
We are no exception, and we are confident that the 2013
budget as presented will allow us to continue to meet our 4-
year goals. That does not mean that it is only the Global
Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) program, but we have to
maintain the funding in other programs that are also part of
this overall effort. There are at least four different program
areas that support the 4-year effort in my office.
So we have done our best to balance across those programs,
to make some tough decisions, but we believe they were the
right decisions to be able to carry this effort forward. Thank
you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Mr. Handelman.
Mr. Handelman. Yes, Mr. Chairman, Secretary Harrington I
think used the word ``balance'' three times in her answer, and
I think that is the key point. The Federal deficit is a
national security issue. All of us have multiple
responsibilities, and we just have to balance one against the
other when it comes time to building a budget.
I will note that the program that I described where DOD
makes its primary contribution to the U.S. Government's overall
nuclear security effort, the Nunn-Lugar CTR program, over the
past 3 years has seen between a 20- and a 25-percent increase
in the budget that we have requested, and Congress has
supported it. So for our part of the contribution, I think we
are appropriately funded right now.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for that.
Mr. Aloise, as you know, the upcoming summit in Seoul will
focus in part on radiological security. I was alarmed by your
testimony about unsecured radiological materials in hospitals
and medical facilities. A terrorist determined to build a dirty
bomb seems unlikely to go through the trouble of smuggling
radiological material into the United States if they can get it
here.
What can the Administration and the Congress do to address
this problem?
Mr. Aloise. Well, you are correct, Mr. Chairman. There is
plenty of the material here. It does not have to be smuggled
into the United States.
We looked at NRC's increased controls governing the
security of radiological sources at hospitals and medical
facilities over radiological materials, and basically I think
we are coming to the conclusion that they are too broadly
written and need to be tightened. A lot of the personnel we
visited in these hospitals and medical facilities needed more
guidance on how to better secure these radiological sources.
They also needed better training regarding the security of
radiological sources. They are trained in the health services.
NNSA has a commendable program to lock down these sources.
I think it needs and deserves continued congressional support.
Senator Akaka. I was surprised to learn and was, of course,
concerned about the problem. Is it that we need to set up
programs that can help them learn how to take care of these
materials?
Mr. Aloise. Right.
Senator Akaka. And that was the point I thought that was
interesting, that many of them do not know how to handle it.
Mr. Aloise. That is correct, yes.
Senator Akaka. And so my question was, what can we do to
help this situation across the country?
Mr. Aloise. Well, again, if NRC could tighten up their
increased controls, provide more training to health physicists
and health providers who are working in this area and, frankly,
expand NNSA's efforts to lock down these sources would be the
most effective thing we could do right now, because medical
equipment in these facilities is essential for providing health
care. Providing this health care is the primary function of
hospital personnel. They are not thinking security as their
first priority. So we need a culture change that recognizes the
importance of these facilities and this equipment, but also
recognizes that the equipment has to be secured. Ultimately the
licensee who holds these radiological sources is responsible
for ensuring their security.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Ms. Harrington, do you agree with GAO's assessment that
U.S. medical facilities with radiological sources are
vulnerable to theft or sabotage?
Ms. Harrington. We know through our program experience and
what we have seen along with GAO in various of these facilities
that there is substantial room for improvement. Having
discussions like this, you bringing attention to this issue, I
think is extremely helpful. Just as we work on developing
security cultures in other countries, we need to work on the
same kind of security culture in our country, particularly on
this radiological issue. So I agree that there is certainly
more that we can do.
Senator Akaka. Are you aware of any actual incidents of
potential theft or sabotage of radiological sources in U.S.
medical facilities in the last several years?
Ms. Harrington. There are some examples, but they would not
be something I could discuss here.
Senator Akaka. Fine. Thank you.
Ms. Harrington, GAO cites two impediments to your ability
to secure all domestic radiological sources: Your programs are
voluntary, and the costs to maintain security upgrades may be
too burdensome for some hospitals and medical facilities.
Do you agree with that assessment? And what steps can be
taken to advance your work to secure radiological sources?
Ms. Harrington. Mr. Chairman, I think there are a number of
things that can be done. Again, having a broader conversation
on the need to pay attention to security, introducing training,
as Mr. Aloise said, for people in the health profession,
including that as part of their education, that this needs to
be an issue that is integrated into how they perform their
daily work.
Because we do not have a national requirement, as Mr.
Aloise said, the NRC regulations are what they are, so we offer
this as a voluntary program. We actually have excellent
cooperation with the NRC, which often will reach out to
facilities and recommend that they work with us. So it is not
that the NRC is not trying to help. They really are trying to
do, I think, a good job in promoting this kind of work.
Similarly, as we look forward, if we have this broader
discussion and get hospitals and medical facilities and clinics
and so forth to think about security as they are designing
their programs, then it becomes something that is simply part
of the conversation and probably less expensive than putting
security on top of a facility that already exists.
So I think, again, broadening the conversation and engaging
in more community-based discussions is very good.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Let me ask GAO, Mr. Aloise, whether you have any comments
on the questions I just asked of Ms. Harrington.
Mr. Aloise. I would just add that many of the security
vulnerabilities we observed on our visits were in facilities
that were under NRC's increased controls. Many of the law
enforcement officials we talked to said that the NRC's
increased controls were better than nothing, but that would not
stop someone who wanted to get their hands on those sources.
That is why NNSA's program is so important, because the
upgrades we witnessed that NNSA put in were very impressive.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for those responses.
I would like to ask the next question to DOE and DOD. In
2010, GAO raised concerns that although your agencies had
individual strategic plans, there was no overarching
interagency strategy to meet the 4-year goal. GAO recommended
that the National Security Council lead the development of a
strategic plan that includes details about vulnerable foreign
nuclear sites, planned activities at each location, agency
responsibilities, potential challenges and strategies for
overcoming them, and cost and timeline estimates.
What is the status of an interagency strategic plan? And I
want to commend you folks for using an interagency process in
your work. Thank you.
Mr. Handelman. Mr. Chairman, I will start off. I think--
well, let me answer directly. The status of interagency
planning is that it is intense. I think there is a challenge
perhaps in how one defines strategic plan. I must say just an
executive branch manager, I think we need to be left some
flexibility to how we establish metrics of success and budgets
and targets for our own programs. Is there a telephone book-
sized product, labeled ``Strategy'' with all of the things that
one might include some of the things that you have referenced?
No. Does the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program have a
telephone book-sized product that sets targets and identifies
the impediments to achieving our goals? Sure, it does. And so
does Ms. Harrington, and we see a huge amount of each other,
often at the Old Executive Office Building, or as Ms.
Harrington described, in some of our, I will call them,
``bilateral agency coordination meetings,'' where we are
trading notes and synchronizing what these plans are.
I personally reflect on what the state of planning is today
and what it was when I first got involved in the nuclear
security business around 2001, and I will tell you, back then
we tried our best in Washington. What we always knew is that if
we were working on nuclear security projects or, indeed, any
kind of weapons of mass destruction nonproliferation project
overseas, we could always rely on the embassy country teams to
deconflict if we just missed a beat here in Washington and, for
example, the State Department and DOD were spending money to
address the same nuclear security type of threat in a
particular country. My confidence at the time in the embassy
country team was much higher than my confidence in the
interagency process to get it right from the start here in
Washington at headquarters. Today my confidence is equal, both
from where we do our original planning and targeting and
budgeting here in Washington, but it is still great to have the
safety net of our great State Department colleagues out in the
field who actually have to work with the implementers, who are
there to just double-check and make sure that we are not
double-tapping on a project or that we are not missing
something.
Senator Akaka. Any further comment, Ms. Harrington.
Ms. Harrington. Mr. Chairman, let me add to that. Each one
of these efforts is unique. There are diplomatic, technical,
logistical, and financing dimensions for each one of these that
have to be separately developed, negotiated, concluded. In some
cases, there are contracts that have to be executed. So there
is no cookie-cutter approach that we can apply. We have basic
goals that we want to achieve with each one, but I think it is
a real demonstration of success of how closely we have worked,
and how successful, that we have this chart\1\ here, which is
our set of goals for vulnerable material removals. And all of
the green is what we have accomplished. The yellow is currently
in process, and between now and 2013, our goal is to complete
the white.
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\1\ The chart referenced by Ms. Harrington appears in the appendix
on page 138.
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So I think this visually demonstrates that the process that
we have in place is actually working quite well. Sometimes,
however, there are things that are extremely disruptive to
being able to implement even the best plan.
We found, for example, that in 2011, when we had a whole
series of continuing resolutions (CRs), we actually could not
put enough money together to actually place the contracts that
were needed in order to manufacture the replacement fuel or
secure logistic support and so forth, and we experienced a fair
amount of slippage, which we have been making up, but there are
external factors that play extremely heavily on these kinds of
operations.
And so to the extent that we can be precise, we are. To the
extent that we can predict when a foreign partner's government
may change very quickly, those are things that we have to
basically step back from, recalibrate, work with our State and
Defense colleagues, and then figure out how to go forward most
effectively.
Senator Akaka. Well, thank you for your responses.
Let me ask this question to Ms. Harrington and ask GAO also
to respond to this. In 2011, GAO reported that the United
States is not able to account for most U.S. nuclear materials
sent overseas as part of civilian nuclear cooperation
agreements. This included significant amounts of weapons-usable
material. GAO noted that these agreements often do not provide
U.S. agencies with the right to access nuclear materials in
order to verify that materials are secure. We rely on other
countries to safeguard them.
Do new nuclear cooperation agreements guarantee U.S.
agencies will have access to United States supplied nuclear
materials?
Ms. Harrington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is probably
going to be an interesting conversation between Mr. Aloise and
me because, as you probably are aware, DOE, the State
Department, and NRC had a quite different view from GAO's in
terms of this report, and I think all three agencies provided
fairly strong responses to GAO's conclusions.
We believe that working together with the NRC and the State
Department and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), that
our bilateral assessments to visit foreign facilities and
assess the status of U.S.-obligated materials provides us a
good basis to keep track of those materials. We do follow the
IAEA Physical Security Guidelines, and the IAEA also provides
its own safeguard inspections of facilities. So we, I think,
feel quite comfortable that the system that is in place
actually is adequate.
In terms of accounting, the Nuclear Materials Management
and Safeguard System serves as our central repository and
database for our inventories. It has existed since material
first started being sent outside the United States, and that in
combination with the IAEA safeguards program give us a sense of
confidence that we do have a good picture of the status of our
materials.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Mr. Aloise.
Mr. Aloise. Well, as you might guess, I have a different
perspective on that. From 1994 to 2010, the United States, the
interagency teams--made 55 visits overseas to check on the
physical security of U.S. nuclear material, and about half of
those visits found that countries did not meet IAEA physical
security guidelines.
Much of this information is a black hole. We do not know
where the material is, how well it is being secured, and we
have made visits over there, and I visited some of those
countries myself and saw some situations which urgently needed
upgrading.
So we think the status quo in this area is not good enough.
We think more effort needs to be made to develop an inventory
of where this material is. I know it is a delicate dance with
our foreign partners who hold the material. However everybody
needs to understand that physical security guidelines should be
followed and our material needs to be protected.
Senator Akaka. Well, thank you, and let me ask a final
question to this panel, and particularly to DOE and DOD. Well,
let me put it this way. This question is for any of you that
want to respond.
Many agencies face difficulties recruiting and retaining
high-skilled employees, particularly in fields requiring
specialized technical, scientific, language, or other training.
An increasing number of Federal employees are retiring, further
complicating this challenge on personnel.
What actions are you taking to address recruitment and
retention challenges in your nuclear security workforces? Ms.
Harrington.
Ms. Harrington. That, Mr. Chairman, is an excellent
question and an issue that occupies our minds often. Ensuring
the future security of the country is as important to us as the
current security, and making sure that we have the right people
to step into our shoes when we all retire is essential.
We approach this in a number of different ways. I left in
our office a nonproliferation graduate fellow who works with
us. We usually have 20 or more of them who are recruited every
year. Young professionals who are interested in following a
career, who come into our offices, get security clearances,
work side by side with us, travel with us, and many of them end
up as part of our nuclear security family, either in the
Department of Energy, some in the Department of State. I
already lost one to you this year, Ken, who is now working
permanently with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
We also have within our laboratories a very good pipeline
of fellows and young scientists, and, similarly, with our
research and development office, we have a new university
laboratory consortium which allows a large group of U.S.
universities to work directly with Department of Energy
laboratories and allows our laboratories to work directly with
university faculties. It is a very exciting program. We think
it will give us a long pipeline into the future. But we do
think about this issue a great deal. Not only for us, but also
for other countries that are suffering through the same kind of
retirement bubble that we are experiencing in the United
States. We are not unique in this respect, and we have
interesting conversations with our Russian colleagues, for
example, who are looking at similar issues.
Thank you.
Senator Akaka. Thank you. Mr. Handelman.
Mr. Handelman. Mr. Chairman, it is an excellent question. I
think my response is not going to be completely satisfying
because I come from a policy organization, so we are not people
typically who can do mathematics in public. We can think big
thoughts and spell-check them.
If it makes you feel any better, I will tell you that every
time I am with colleagues at NNSA or, even more important, out
at the laboratories, the issue of recapitalization of our
physical scientific base is--those discussions are never ended
without a similar discussion about the recapitalization of the
intellectual base. So the people who can do math in public, I
can attest, are thinking about it very carefully.
I will tell you that in my organization, because of
Secretary Gates' efficiencies program, right now we are in a
hiring freeze, but I like to think that we--well, when we are
not in a hiring freeze, I like to think that we do need good
policy thinkers to pair up with the technical experts, and for
whatever it is worth, the people that we have been recruiting,
who had been applying to our jobs before the hiring freeze was
imposed, were absolutely stupendous. I mean, I could not
compete with them.
I will embarrass a close colleague in my organization, Dr.
Jason Hamm, who is sitting right behind me, who is a great
example of a person who is actually a Ph.D. experimental
physicist, who is in the policy world, and I get to take credit
for his good work.
So from a policy perspective, as retirements go forward, I
am actually pretty confident in DOD that we are able to keep
that human capital pipeline flowing.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much.
Would you like to make any comments, Mr. Aloise.
Mr. Aloise. Yes, Mr. Chairman. In a few months, we will
have a report to you that we are doing at your request looking
at the challenges NNSA is facing in hiring, in keeping people
in the areas such as nuclear weapons. People do not graduate
college as weaponeers. It takes years for them to become smart
on nuclear weapons. So that report will lay out the challenges
and what NNSA is doing to address those challenges.
Senator Akaka. Well, I want to thank you very much. Your
responses have been valuable, and it will certainly help us in
our further discussions and trying to deal with the challenges
that we will be facing on these issues.
I want to thank you so much for what you are doing, and you
have been responsive to us, and we are all working together to
make it better for our country. So thank you very much to the
first panel.
Now I would like to call the second panel to the table
here. [Pause.]
I want to welcome Mr. Kenneth Luongo, President of the
Partnership for Global Security, and Dr. Page O. Stoutland,
Vice President of the Nuclear Materials Security Program at the
Nuclear Threat Initiative.
As you know, it is the custom of this Subcommittee to swear
in all witnesses, so I ask you to please rise and raise your
right hands. Do you solemnly swear that the statement you are
about to give the Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Luongo. I do.
Mr. Stoutland. I do.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. Let it be noted for the
record that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Before we start, again, I want to remind you that your full
statements will be included in the record, and we ask you to
please limit your oral remarks to 5 minutes.
Mr. Luongo, will you please proceed with your statement?
TESTIMONY OF KENNETH N. LUONGO,\1\ PRESIDENT, PARTNERSHIP FOR
GLOBAL SECURITY
Mr. Luongo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
invitation to testify today, and thank you for holding this
hearing. I think it is a very important subject.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Luongo appears in the appendix on
page 84.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 was unprecedented, and
it was a successful event where the participants agreed to a
communique that highlighted many issues of global importance
and, in particular, endorsed the President's goal of securing
all vulnerable nuclear materials in 4 years. As you noted, a
second summit is in Seoul later this month, and then the next
one is in the Netherlands.
I think that the summit process has been important for a
variety of different reasons, including setting some new
precedents. One is that the pursuit of improved nuclear
material security does not need to be universal all the time.
It can be selectively multilateral, which is essentially what
the Nuclear Security Summit is. It does not include all
nations.
Another important precedent is that it seeks to achieve
goals within specific time frames, and I think that some of
that has happened and some of it has not happened, which I will
talk about a little bit more.
There are developments that have essentially further
solidified the current regime, but not allowed new policies and
strategies to be introduced to supplement today's system to
address nuclear terrorism. And I think a good precedent is that
each summit should build on the previous one to introduce some
new ideas and some new thoughts.
My expectation for the upcoming Seoul summit is that it
should build on the foundation of the Washington summit and
then create an improved governance structure for nuclear
material security. And it should focus on three things: It
should be comprehensive; it should help standardize the way we
do this across borders; and it should be accountable. If this
policy evolution can be initiated, then I think it will
significantly strengthen the nuclear security regime in the
future.
The current nuclear material security regime is essentially
a patchwork that is primarily designed and controlled by
national agencies and actors. It includes very little
transparency. International obligations are largely voluntary,
with no uniformity of security regulations or procedures. And
what is needed is a confidence-building architecture that
allows for comprehensive and clear but flexible standards.
You were kind enough to mention my criticism of the budget.
Thank you. I really think that the budget is a serious problem.
It has never been commensurate with the President's vision or
the goals that he set out in the Prague speech, and this year's
budget in particular I think is very problematic, and both as
it relates to the Second Line of Defense (SLD) and as it
relates to the GTRI program.
As your line of questioning in the first session indicated,
there is much more that we could do on radiological security,
and we really should do it. It is very important.
On the Second Line of Defense program, I would just make
one comparison. In the United States domestically, in New York
City in particular, we have installed about 6,000 radiation
monitors around New York City. Around the rest of the world, we
have only installed about 2,000 for all of the rest of the
globe. And yet the program is being cut by a very substantial
margin this year, and I think it does not make any sense. And I
think that the justification for that cut has never been made
clear, and I think it should be.
The President's goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear
materials in 4 years, as Gene mentioned, has never been very
well defined. I think it is a mistake that we in the outside
world never pushed for a specific definition. The definition
that we received today, which is that it was the protection of
high-priority materials as opposed to all vulnerable nuclear
materials, is not completely consistent with what the President
said.
I think that between now and 2020 a bolder agenda should be
pursued, and I think that part of that bolder agenda should be
the elevation and prioritization of radiological source
security. There is a serious problem with radiological
materials around the world, and one initiative that the
Congress could enact, should they so decide, is radiological
zones of security around the world.
I would just say that another item that would be useful is
to unify the current regime under a nuclear material security
framework. There is precedent for it in the environmental area,
and the Convention on Nuclear Safety also has precedent that
could be used.
In general, I would say that the Congress should provide
leadership on nuclear security by ensuring adequate budgets, by
authorizing and funding these radiological security zones, by
supporting a dialog among international regulators and nuclear
facility security personnel, and then, finally, by encouraging
the administration to focus on the need to improve nuclear
security governance and to explore the value of this framework
agreement that I mentioned. Thank you very much.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Mr. Luongo.
Mr. Stoutland, would you please proceed with your
statement?
TESTIMONY OF PAGE O. STOUTLAND,\1\ PH.D., VICE PRESIDENT,
NUCLEAR MATERIALS SECURITY PROGRAM, NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE
Mr. Stoutland. Thank you, Chairman Akaka. My name is Page
Stoutland. I am the Vice President for Nuclear Materials
Security at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonpartisan,
nongovernmental organization founded and co- chaired by former
Senator Sam Nunn and CNN founder Ted Turner. Over the last 10
years, we have worked to strengthen material security around
the world in a range of projects and are trying to catalyze
governments to do more in this area.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Stoutland appears in the appendix
on page 96.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My remarks today will focus primarily on the urgent need
for leaders to reach a global consensus on priorities for
nuclear materials security and on steps the international
community and individual countries can take.
Because there is no baseline assessment of nuclear
materials security conditions around the world, we recently
developed a first-of-its-kind Nuclear Materials Security Index
that scores 32 countries that have what we call ``weapons-
usable nuclear materials'' on their nuclear materials security
conditions, and also an additional 144 countries that have
small amounts or none of these materials but could be used as
safe havens or staging grounds.
Our hope is that this index will serve as a much-needed
basis for a dialog on security priorities and can be used as a
baseline against which progress can be measured.
In developing the index, we found that governments
generally are more aware of the threat posed by nuclear
materials and the urgent need to strengthen security and also
are more engaged in this effort. That was the good news, and it
was due, at least in part, to the 2010 summit.
We also, however, confirmed that there is currently no
global consensus on what steps matter most to achieve security.
There is no agreed international system or globally accepted
practices for regulating the production of, use of, and
security requirements for weapons-usable nuclear materials.
And, further, there is deliberate lack of transparency about
security measures that makes it impossible to hold States
accountable for their security responsibilities.
Briefly, we also believe that the nuclear terrorism threat
remains high. There are currently thousands of tons of nuclear
materials in the world, and many of those are not well secured.
That is why all countries with weapons-usable material have a
responsibility to secure them and to make sure that their
materials are not at risk of theft or diversion, and that is
why we, NTI, working with the Economist Intelligence Unit,
undertook the development of this index. Detailed information
is available at www.ntiindex.org.
Let me make one important point. The index is not merely a
rating system. It is not meant to be used to congratulate some
and chastise others. Rather, it is designed to be used as a
resource and a tool for all countries and international
organizations as we make the world a safer place.
Let me briefly summarize some of our key recommendations
that get to your question as to are we effectively securing
nuclear materials around the world.
An overarching recommendation is that all States must work
together to build a system for tracking, protecting, and
managing nuclear materials in a way that builds confidence that
each State is fulfilling its obligation.
Specifically, we recommend establishing an international
dialog on the priorities for materials security. Such a global
consensus does not yet exist, and the Nuclear Security Summit
or some other process would be a good place to start to build a
common framework for action.
Second, we must benchmark progress and hold States
accountable for security. Over the past 20 years, there has
been progress on securing and eliminating materials, but we
must track progress around the globe over time, and it is
critical that governments provide declarations of their
weapons-usable nuclear materials as well as the current status
of their nuclear materials security conditions.
Third, it is important to build appropriate transparency to
increase international confidence. We understand, of course,
that many details about security for sites where materials are
stored are--and should be--protected. But other information,
such as the general approaches to materials security and broad
descriptions of materials security regulations and holdings,
could be made public and could greatly enhance international
confidence in a country's security conditions.
Individually, countries can do more as well. The United
States ranked 13th among countries with weapons-usable nuclear
materials in our index. That rating was affected, in part, by
the quantity of materials and number of sites where they are
stored. If the quantities and sites were not included, the
United States would rank second, indicating high scores in
other areas. But in the future, the United States could improve
its leadership and its ranking by ratifying the relevant
international agreements that are critical in this area.
We are encouraged by reactions to our new index, by
progress on the President's goal of eliminating all materials,
and by ongoing attention. But today it is imperative that the
Congress continue to support these critical programs and
continue to support United States leadership in this area. We
strongly urge the Senate to complete ratification steps on the
2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of
Nuclear Material (CPPNM) and the International Convention on
the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT). Doing so
would set a powerful example for the world and reinforce the
United States' leadership in this area.
Again, great progress has been made on nuclear security. We
welcome the United States leadership provided by the summit,
and we are optimistic about continued progress. The index can
help inform that process and serve as a valuable tool to help
all of us better secure and protect some of the world's
deadliest materials.
I would like to take the opportunity again to thank you and
this Subcommittee for this work, and I am happy to answer any
questions you might have.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Dr. Stoutland.
Mr. Luongo, your testimony recommends that we devote
greater attention and resources to securing high-risk
radiological materials worldwide, and I agree with you on that.
You provide recommendations for expanding NNSA's radiological
security work both domestically and abroad.
Please elaborate on these recommendations, as well as any
observations you may have regarding GAO's findings on the
serious vulnerabilities at domestic hospitals.
Mr. Luongo. Well, I have two reactions, Mr. Chairman. The
first is that I think NNSA is doing a great job on radiological
with the money that they have, but the money is not adequate
for the mission. And I think the second reaction I have is that
what GAO found is a function of the fact that there is not
enough of an effort in hospitals to secure radiological
materials.
I was struck--there is a study from the Congressional
Research Service (CRS) on radiological terrorism, and I have
been working in this field for a long time, but I have to tell
you, the person that wrote that report came to something that I
was at and held up a vial of Cesium-137 and said this is what
it would take to have a radiological incident that had the
scope of radioactivity dispersal that he had in his report,
which would have gone from the White House up beyond Capitol
Hill, and that capsule was as big as my thumb.
It is a very serious problem because we have hundreds of
thousands of these sources around the world. The most high
intensity of them are less than the average source, and most of
them are found in hospitals and food irradiation facilities and
things like that.
So I think an initiative that--as a high priority for the
United States--is to secure all high-intensity radiological
materials in hospitals and other public locations would be a
great initiative between now and the next summit in 2014 in the
Netherlands. And I think it is something that the United States
could spearhead, and I do not think it is going to cost that
much. I think to do the job in the United States alone would be
something less than $200 million. But I think it is an
important initiative, and it has been undervalued. The
President never mentioned it in Prague, but I do think it is
something--now that the 4-year goal is coming to an end, it is
something that we need over the next 2 years or next 4 years a
much more intense effort on this issue.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for that response.
Dr. Page Stoutland, I applaud NTI's useful Nuclear
Materials Security Index. One factor you analyzed was the level
of political stability in each country with weapons-usable
nuclear materials. As the recent unrest in the Middle East
makes clear, this can change rapidly.
How does political instability undermine nuclear materials
security? And how can we best prepare for it?
Mr. Stoutland. Thank you very much for that very important
and interesting question. When we created the index, we tried
to create a very holistic framework, if you will, that included
the full range of things that we thought could affect a
country's materials security conditions. And as you
highlighted, it included political stability; it also included
levels of corruption.
And as challenging as those things are to evaluate--and I
should point out that we depended on the Economist Intelligence
Unit, which is part of the Economist Group and has a long
history of evaluating these things--we thought it was important
to couple the conversation of materials security to political
stability, because I think as we have seen just over the last
few years, both in Libya and the Middle East, and even in North
Korea where there has been a recent change, those changes
introduce a whole set of uncertainties that are very
unpredictable; and yet they must be considered as we think
about securing materials in each of these countries.
So you then ask the question, well, what can we do about
that beforehand to better deal with it given the potential
uncertainties and yet the potential seriousness of this. I
think there are several things that can be done. Probably the
most important would be to remove and eliminate materials from
as many countries as possible so that as we saw in Libya, the
situation was very different since the materials had been
removed beforehand. And so the potential for political
stability I think should motivate us to do even more in that
regard.
Second, I think we should make sure that the materials are
as secure as possible, and so for countries where they have
either high levels of corruption or political instability, or
in many cases both, those countries, I think, need to go the
extra mile, so to speak, to show the international community
that their materials are under very effective control and would
remain so, even in changes of government or other dangerous
situations.
Senator Akaka. Dr. Stoutland, your testimony states that to
effectively track, protect, and manage nuclear materials, the
IAEA would need to be significantly strengthened or a new
international entity created. Your testimony provides specific
recommendations for desirable outcomes, but does not address
how to strengthen the IAEA itself.
What recommendations do you have for building the IAEA's
capacity to achieve these goals?
Mr. Stoutland. Thank you for your question. This is
actually one of the areas where we have received many questions
after the index has come out, and, in fact, there is even a
short section in the index that talks specifically to the role
of the IAEA, because what we have found is that many people who
are interested in this area do not understand that the role of
the IAEA is currently restricted to civilian nuclear materials.
And, of course, the vast quantity of nuclear materials are in
nuclear weapons programs around the world. And so the mandate
of the IAEA would have to be dramatically expanded to include
military materials to accomplish such a thing, and obviously,
that is something that would be very difficult to do and take a
very long period of time.
Second, there is just the resource issue. The IAEA is
currently underresourced to do many of the jobs that it has
been asked to do, in fact, and so that is something else that
would have to be addressed.
So in the meantime, we have proposed that it is critical
that an international discussion be initiated, first of all, on
what the priorities are, and our index has offered a framework
for discussion that we can use to start to consider in a very
specific way what the priorities are. And as we do that, I
think we then have to consider what such a system might look
like and what its governance might be. But those things, I
think, are some time in the future as we start to sort this
out.
Senator Akaka. Well, let me ask Mr. Luongo the same
questions, what recommendations you may have for building the
IAEA's capacity to achieve these goals.
Mr. Luongo. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would say that, first and
foremost, the IAEA after September 11, 2001 created an Office
of Nuclear Security. It is under Nuclear Safety and Nuclear
Security, and the problem with that office is not that it is
not good. It is that it is underresourced significantly, and
there is a challenge in the IAEA in balancing how different
parts of their mission get money. So most of the money that
goes to the Nuclear Security Office comes from voluntary
contributions from individual countries. I think their budget
is somewhere around $25 or $30 million a year. I think they
could do more, provide more assistance to countries, if they
had more money and more specialists that could go out and
evaluate the security in individual countries. That is one
specific thing that I think would be very helpful.
Reforming the IAEA so that it has a mandate that is greater
than what it is now or that is more mandatory than what it does
now I think is going to be extremely difficult because in
nuclear security, what it does is it makes recommendations, and
it will do assessments, but it cannot enforce them. And the
issue, I think, that Page mentioned and others in the first
panel mentioned is that we do not have uniformity of
implementation of the security recommendations. The
recommendations are all very good, but we do not know how they
are implemented in a lot of countries, and there is no
requirement that they be implemented uniformly.
So I think trying to get a uniform baseline would be
extremely useful, and that is something that the IAEA could
contribute to. But the enforcement and the transparency of how
the implementation occurs is a key issue, and I think that is
not something that the membership in the IAEA would ever allow
in the short term, but it is a long-term goal.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much for that response.
Dr. Stoutland, as you know, Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea
received the lowest scores in your security index. Please
discuss why they received such low scores and to what extent
their lack of transparency about their nuclear materials
contributed.
Mr. Stoutland. Yes, thank you for your question. I think,
first, one of the key messages coming out of our index is that,
independent of where countries rank, there is more that all of
us can do to improve our security conditions. That said, I
think the countries you mentioned have a lot of room for
improvement, so to speak. We have found that some of these
countries do not fully participate in all of the international
legal arrangements. Many of these countries have very
challenging societal factors, be they political stability or
corruption. Many of them have capacity issues just in terms of
an ability to implement the guidelines that may have been
promulgated by the IAEA as an example.
And so these countries have a lot of challenges in front of
them, and I think you have mentioned the transparency issue.
One of the key things in our index which differentiates it from
some other projects is that we included the role of
transparency because we thought it was critical that not only
did countries have good materials security conditions but, in
addition, that they can assure others that they have good
security conditions. And so that issue featured prominently in
several countries, and I think there are specific things that
those countries can do.
Some have commented in reviewing our index, ``Isn't it at
odds with security to have too much transparency?'' And we are
very clear to say that we are not asking for transparency on
the specific security measures that might be in place at a
site. Those, of course, should be appropriately protected.
Rather, we are asking for some fairly general things related to
having a country have its regulations be public, by making
public declarations about materials quantities and overall
security practices. That could go a long ways to assuring the
international community that they, in fact, have their material
security under good control.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Mr. Luongo, you support GAO's recommendation to compile an
inventory of U.S. nuclear materials overseas, and you heard the
discussion during the first panel of that issue. Would you like
to comment on the issue and the agency witnesses' testimony?
Mr. Luongo. Yes, Mr. Chairman. On the one hand, I have a
certain amount of sympathy for the NNSA and other agencies that
have to go out and try to verify where this United States-
origin material is because a lot of it was delivered years and
years and years ago, and the level of scrutiny was not as
intense as it is today.
That being said, I think that getting the most accurate
record of where nuclear material is and who owns it is
extremely important, and there is this whole new field of
science called ``forensics,'' so if there is a nuclear
incident, you can identify what country that material came
from.
I would hate to see United States-origin material used in a
nuclear terrorist incident, and I think that stronger efforts
should be made to try and identify where this material is.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
To both of you, it took over a decade to publish revised
IAEA recommendations for the physical protection of nuclear
materials and facilities. Achieving international consensus
often takes quite some time, as you know.
What more can be done to make sure we have international
nuclear security mechanisms that respond quickly enough to
evolving security needs? Mr. Luongo.
Mr. Luongo. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the
challenge that we have in the international community is that
when you are seeking unanimity in support of something, you end
up with the lowest common denominator because it is always
watered down by countries that are least interested in making
progress on the issue.
So I think in a way the Nuclear Security Summit process,
even though it has not tackled the really difficult issues that
we are talking about today, has created this precedent for
selective multilateralism where I think leaders could emerge
and put in place, agree among themselves to be more
transparent, to agree to a common standard for nuclear
materials security, to submit their materials to peer review
with confidentiality.
I think leadership among some key nations--and those
nations I consider to be the United States, South Korea, Japan,
and others--would be an extremely positive example that others
could follow. The example that we have in the environmental
area for fluorocarbons, for example, is that not all countries
agreed on protecting the ozone layer at the beginning, but
ultimately many more came on board after the initiative was
begun and the agreement was put in place.
So I think we need to start with leaders, and then I think
we will gather followers.
Senator Akaka. Thank you.
Mr. Stoutland. If I could just make a quick comment and
largely second what Kenneth said, with perhaps an anecdote. As
we finished the index, we had many people come to us and say,
well, why didn't the IAEA or some other international
organization do such a thing, because it is in many ways
obvious that we want some sort of framework and be able to
track progress. And the answer we received was that it would be
either impossible or it would take a very long period of time
for an international organization that operates by consensus to
do something that in principle is actually quite
straightforward.
So we went ahead and did it. As we did it, we tried to--a
key part of our project was to have a fairly small
international panel so that at least we achieved some level of
international consensus on the framework and then, of course,
offered it for broader comment. But I think the notion of
putting forward something that is a nucleus around which people
can gather and start to achieve some consensus and hopefully
some momentum is a good one. I think the summit is a good
example of that, and there are others where we can start to
build consensus perhaps by starting with small groups.
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much. I would say that would
be my last question to you, and I want to thank you so much.
Your responses have been valuable, and it will help us move
forward with the security initiatives that we certainly want to
strengthen, not only in our country but abroad as well. And you
have been helpful in doing that, so I want to thank you so much
for being part of this hearing today.
The President's 4-year effort and the upcoming Nuclear
Security Summit in Seoul have put a much-needed international
spotlight on nuclear materials security. This renewed focus has
led to significant achievements in securing nuclear materials
abroad. However, many challenges remain, and our Nation is
alarmingly vulnerable. GAO's testimony today regarding
unsecured radiological materials in hospitals and other medical
facilities nationwide should serve as a wakeup call to these
facilities as well as to our Federal agencies and Federal
regulators.
I look forward to working with the Administration and my
Senate colleagues in continuing the critical effort to promote
nuclear and radiological materials security worldwide.
I will keep the hearing record open for 2 weeks for
additional statements or questions other members may have.
Again, thank you for your responses here and for being part
of this. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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