<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:21641.wais]
REDUCING THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM:
A REVIEW OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S
GLOBAL THREAT REDUCTION INITIATIVE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 24, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-67
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
__________
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------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
JOE BARTON, Texas, Chairman
RALPH M. HALL, Texas JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida Ranking Member
Vice Chairman HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
FRED UPTON, Michigan EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia BART GORDON, Tennessee
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico BART STUPAK, Michigan
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING, ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland
Mississippi, Vice Chairman GENE GREEN, Texas
VITO FOSSELLA, New York TED STRICKLAND, Ohio
ROY BLUNT, Missouri DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
STEVE BUYER, Indiana LOIS CAPPS, California
GEORGE RADANOVICH, California MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire TOM ALLEN, Maine
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania JIM DAVIS, Florida
MARY BONO, California JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREG WALDEN, Oregon HILDA L. SOLIS, California
LEE TERRY, Nebraska CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey JAY INSLEE, Washington
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
SUE MYRICK, North Carolina
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
Bud Albright, Staff Director
David Cavicke, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Reid P.F. Stuntz, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky, Chairman
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida BART STUPAK, Michigan
CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING, Ranking Member
Mississippi DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JAY INSLEE, Washington
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan,
JOE BARTON, Texas, (Ex Officio)
(Ex Officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Testimony of:
Ferguson, Charles D., Fellow, Science and Technology, Council
on Foreign Relations....................................... 31
Longsworth, Paul, Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear
Proliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration.... 4
McGaffigan, Edward, Jr., Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission...................................... 12
Rohlfing, Joan B., Senior Vice President for Programs and
Operations, Nuclear Threat Initiative...................... 37
(iii)
REDUCING THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM: A REVIEW OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
ENERGY'S GLOBAL THREAT REDUCTION INITIATIVE
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2005
House of Representatives,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:10 p.m., in
room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed Whitfield
(chairman) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Whitfield, Walden,
Burgess, and Inslee.
Staff present: Mark Paoletta, chief counsel; Dwight Cates;
investigator; Chad Grant, legislative clerk; Voncille Hines,
minority research assistant; and Chris Knauer, minority
investigator.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I will call this hearing to
order. This is the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
for the Energy and Commerce Committee, and the topic of today's
hearing is Reducing the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism: A Review
of the Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction
Initiative.
I want to welcome Mr. Inslee here with us today. Ranking
Minority Member Bart Stupak is controlling time on the floor on
the stem cell debate, and so Mr. Inslee will be serving as the
ranking nmnority member at least at the beginning of this
hearing, and I am glad you areyou were here, Mr. Inslee.
At this time I will go on and make my opening statement.
Over the past several years the Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee has held several hearings on
nuclear terrorism prevention. We must prevent any effort by
terrorist organizations to obtain nuclear materials for use
against us in a radiological dispersion device or a nuclear
device. A comprehensive defense against nuclear terrorism
deserves our sustained attention.
Our earlier hearings reviewed the efforts of the Bureau of
Customs and Border Protection to target and inspect sea cargo
containers to stop nuclear material from entering the country
at the border. These efforts include the installation of
radiation portal monitors at all ports of entry that can detect
nuclear material inside cargo containers.
Today the hearing will review DOE's Global Threat Reduction
Initiative. The GTRI program provides an additional layer of
defense on top of the effort of the Bureau of Customs and
Border Protection. While the Bureau of Customs and Border
Protection is primarily focused on detecting nuclear material
at our borders, the GTRI program is focused on identifying,
removing, and securing vulnerable nuclear material before the
terrorists can even attempt to smuggle it into our country.
The GTRI program also has an extensive domestic effort to
secure radioactive materials here in our country that could be
used in a dirty bomb. This is a worldwide effort, and the
challenges are significant. For decades the U.S. and Russia
have promoted the peaceful use of nuclear power around the
world by sharing tons of highly enriched uranium. With dozens
of foreign countries now in this age of terrorism, DOE is
focused on recovering this highly enriched uranium and
converting research reactors to the use of LEU.
The GTRI program has identified 25 research reactors here
in the U.S. that will be converted from highly enriched uranium
fuel. Already 11 reactors have been converted, including two
domestic research reactors which were announced last month at
Texas A&M University and the University of Florida.
HEU is a major threat because it could be used in a nuclear
bomb that could produce a catastrophic explosion. However, the
threat of a radiological dispersion device that contaminates an
area with a smaller amount of radiological material is also a
major concern. The GTRI program is working closely with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to identify, recover, and dispose
of sealed sources here in the U.S.
It is important to understand that sealed sources licensed
by the NRC are essential for medical-industrial purposes and
will continue to be used in this country every day. However,
until recently, there has been no program to recover these
materials when they were abandoned, discarded, or no longer
necessary for their intended use.
NRC is working to upgrade security for sealed sources and
has developed a national tracking system for high-risk sealed
sources in use across the country. I look forward to testimony
from the NRC and the NNSA on these important programs today. I
also look forward to input from witnesses from the Nuclear
Threat Initiative and the Council on Foreign Relations, who
will provide their input on the current status of the GTRI
program's efforts to identify, remove, and secure nuclear
materials.
With that I yield back my 51 seconds and recognize Ranking
Minority Member Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Chair
indicated, Mr. Stupak is managing the stem cell issue right
now. I know he has a tremendous interest in the Global Threat
Reduction Initiative. In fact, he organized a secure briefing
on this some time ago and we appreciate his leadership, and I
will try to fill in for him with whatever skills I can bring to
bear.
This is a very important thing in my district. With Seattle
and Takoma Ports in the State of Washington, we recognize the
risk associated with this. We recognize how much of the
material is in the world today, much of it still insecure, some
of it padlocked, some of it under cybersecurity, some of it
very well secured, and much of it perhaps maybe a chain link
fence, maybe less. So I can tell you that this is of great
concern to my constituents and myself as well, because I
consider it probably the greatest threat that really does exist
today. And there are many, but I consider this one to be
preeminent and probably the one that we can do the most about
by identifying and securing this particular material.
The initiative has had some major successes today, but we
have got a lot of work to do, and I will be particularly
interested in a review and discussion today about how the
agencies are working together. This is a situation because we
have multiple jurisdiction of agencies. It does strike me that
there are potentials, that there are cracks not being filled
and perhaps duplication of effort. I am very interested to see
how the agencies are working together, particularly on the
international and domestic side.
Obviously, the purpose of the initiative is to remove or
secure high-risk nuclear and radiological materials around the
world, and this is an effort that we do want to be
comprehensive in addressing this material threat from poorly
guarded facilities.
Some of these materials are found domestically, which is
why we have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before us today
so we can understand better how the NRC interacts with DOE in
this effort. Of course, we have a major international
component, as carried out in cooperation with the Department of
State and a range of international organizations such as the
IAC.
To this point the committee has conducted only limited
oversight of this program. Nonetheless, what we have observed
does appear encouraging, at least to me.
The initiative has successfully removed nuclear materials
from a variety of sources throughout the globe. It has also
successfully secured material at various sites.
And, Mr. Chairman, I will say that this is a great
investment of taxpayer dollars. We have got to make sure that
they are comprehensive.
With that in mind, I will be looking forward to several of
the questions we will have today, if I can allude to them now
and perhaps the witnesses can keep them in mind.
First, do we have a list of priority sites based on a
realistic threat assessment and material risk? How do we
establish that prioritization? Have we done that on a multiple-
agency basis?
Second, is there general agreement among the key agencies
that we are addressing the most troubling sites and doing so in
a timely manner? Or are there disagreements in that regard and
how do we resolve them?
Third, and perhaps most important, the one that we are
responsible for on this side of the desk, are we adequately
funding this effort, and is the initiative working as
expeditiously as possible? In addition to adequate financial
support, does the program have sufficient support from the U.S.
State Department to place priority sites high on an
international agenda?
So I look forward to that discussion today and yield back
the balance of my time.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Inslee.
[Additional statement submitted for the record follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Joe Barton, Chairman, Committee on Energy
and Commerce
Chairman Whitfield, thank you for holding this important hearing.
Although the words ``homeland security'' are not in its name, the
Department of Energy is really the leader in homeland security in
several areas. This hearing is about an important homeland security
issue--reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism.
The core purpose of the Department of Energy is to ensure the
country has a fully functioning nuclear weapon stockpile that continues
to serve as our primary deterrent against acts of war on our nation.
The Department of Energy's extensive knowledge and experience in
nuclear weapons research and production is also relied upon to prevent
the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. DOE is the
worldwide leader in providing critical nuclear non-proliferation
assistance to several federal agencies and international governments,
and also provides on-the-ground programs to identify, secure, and
remove vulnerable nuclear materials before they fall into the hands of
terrorists.
There has not been a successful attempt by any terrorist
organization to obtain and use radiological material in a ``dirty
bomb'' or a nuclear device in this country. However, a comprehensive
strategy to prevent nuclear terrorism is needed to keep nuclear
materials out of the hands of terrorists, and to prevent a successful
attack in the event terrorists were to accumulate nuclear materials.
A comprehensive strategy requires several lines of defense, but
also a good offense. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is leading
the charge for the offense. With the assistance of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the GTRI program has recovered over 10,000
sealed sources containing radioactive material here in the U.S. that
otherwise may have been abandoned in un-secure facilities across the
country.
The GTRI program is also working to prioritize the recovery of
highly enriched uranium and radiological materials in countries where
terrorists are known to operate.
Today we will learn about several successful efforts by GTRI around
the world. While these success stories are notable, the GTRI program
was just recently created, and I am concerned that the program lacks a
set of performance measures that can be used to clearly track overall
progress from year to year. I hope this issue can be examined today. I
want to express my full support for DOE's ongoing effort in preventing
nuclear terrorism. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time I will welcome the first panel,
and before I introduce them I would like to ask unanimous
consent that all members of the subcommittee may have up to 7
days in which to introduce their opening statement,
particularly since so many of them are not here this afternoon.
So, without objection, so ordered.
At this time on Panel I, we are very pleased to have with
us this afternoon Mr. Paul Longsworth, who is the Deputy
Administrator for Defense Nuclear Proliferation at the National
Nuclear Security Administration. We welcome you, Mr.
Longsworth.
In addition, Mr. Ed McGaffigan who is a Commissioner at the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We welcome you.
At this time, Mr. Longsworth, we will call on you for a 5-
minute opening statement.
STATEMENTS OF PAUL LONGSWORTH, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR DEFENSE
NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION; AND EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., COMMISSIONER, U.S.
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Longsworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Inslee.
I am going to talk about initially our five-pronged
approach to ensure that the materials, the technology, and the
expertise that are required in any nuclear--any weapons of mass
destruction program do not fall into the wrong hands.
First, our programs at NNSA. We want to secure and account
for nuclear materials in Russia and the former Soviet Union and
we are making progress in that area. We have accelerated our
programs to secure an estimated 600 metric tons of weapons-
usable material in Russia. To date, we have secured over 70
percent of the sites where these materials are stored, and we
are on course to finish all of our work in Russia by 2008, a
full 2 years ahead of the schedule established prior to 2001.
In fact, this year, we will complete all of our work at the
Russian Navy nuclear weapons sites.
Second, we want to establish the capability to detect the
movement or trafficking of weapons-usable materials. Through
our programs like Second Line of Defense and the Megaports
Initiative, we are working with selected countries to install
radiation detection equipment at key transit choke points
throughout the world such as seaports, airports and land border
crossings, and this committee has done a lot of work in this
area. We are currently operating more than 50 land border
crossing detectionsites, and we expect to add several more this
year.
Third, we want to stop the production of new fissile
material in Russia and eliminate existing stockpiles.
Currently, Russia operates three reactors that produce
plutonium. They need these reactors for district heating and
electricity, but they produce about 1.2 metric tons of
plutonium every year. That is enough, roughly, for a couple of
new nuclear warheads every week.
We are working with the Russians to shut down these
reactors and replace them with coal-fired plants, and we are on
track. We began work at the first site in February, at Seversk,
and we will begin at Zheleznogorsk we hope later this year or
early next year.
Fourth, we want to eliminate existing material. We do this
through several programs. The HEU purchase agreement, which I
know the chairman is intimately very familiar with, that is a
very successful program. This summer we will reach the halfway
point in blending down 500 metric tons of weapons origin HEU
from Russian warheads. As an aside, half of U.S. uranium
requirements are met by dismantled Russian nuclear warheads. So
nuclear is 20 percent of the overall U.S. energy mix. That
means 1 out of every 10 of these lights in this hearing room is
fueled by dismantled Russian nuclear warheads. So it is a very
successful program.
Fifth, we want to eliminate or consolidate the remaining
weapons-usable nuclear material and radiological materials that
exist throughout the remainder of the world. This past May, the
Department of Energy launched the Global Threat Reduction
Initiative, which is the topic of the hearing here today. As
the chairman said, we hope to identify, secure, recover, and
disposition vulnerable high-risk, nuclear and radiological
materials that pose a threat to the international community and
to do so as quickly as possible.
GTRI works to achieve this mission by converting targeted
research reactors around the world that use highly enriched
uranium to a low-enriched uranium fuel. We try to then
repatriate the spent fuel and fresh fuel from these facilities
back to the U.S. if it's U.S. origin or back to the Russian
Federation if it's Russian or Soviet origin.
We secure high-risk vulnerable radiological materials that
might pose a threat to the United States or our allies, and we
identify and address nuclear and other radiological materials
that had not been previously addressed, and we call these gap
materials. These are, in many cases, materials that are neither
Russian nor U.S. origin that might have been created in an
indigenous program in a country around the world.
The reason we are so concerned with this material is
obvious. If terrorists were able to get, particularly
fissionable material, HEU or plutonium, they would have
overcome the most critical step in constructing a nuclear
weapon. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency,
only 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium is needed for a
nuclear explosive device. Therefore, any civilian research
reactor, especially those that possess HEU, we believe we need
to focus on on a time-critical basis.
We prioritize our work by applying risk-based approaches to
identify vulnerable nuclear materials and radiological
materials. This risk-based approach is informed by several
criteria, including but not limited to the type and quantity of
the material involved, the security conditions at the site
where the material is located, and the regional and country
issues where the material is actually located. So how secure is
the country; is there known terrorist activities in that
country?
To help ensure that GTRI is prioritizing our efforts, we
conducted last year the Global Materials Removal and Research
Reactor Security Study. This study drew from both classified
and unclassified data and there was an attempt to put into one
classified report, using all sources, the locations and
quantities of all materials that we view to be a risk to the
United States. We use that report as a living document, and
that is the report that guides where we do our work and what
materials we focus on.
I would like to go just very briefly to the various
component of GTRI. I mentioned that we are trying to convert
the reactor cores that use HEU. We do this by converting cores
that can be converted, using existing technology as quickly as
possible. We also are developing a new variety of fuel to
convert cores that, because of the way the reactor is designed
or the mission that it has to carry out, requires a much higher
density of neutrons. That variety of fuel does not exist today.
We have targeted 105 reactors worldwide. Of these 105, 40 have
already converted to a low-enriched core; 35 can convert with
available fuels, and we are queuing those up to be completed on
an accelerated basis; 30 cannot convert using existing
technology, and that is why we have doubled the budget to
develop this new variety of fuel to convert those last
remaining reactors.
To show the world that we are practicing what we preach, we
are also working, as the chairman noted, to convert domestic
reactors, and this year we have identified two reactors that we
will convert, the University of Florida and Texas A&M. And we
will be making a decision in the future about what additional
U.S. reactors need to be converted. There are 14 remaining in
the U.S; 8 can be converted; 6 require the new fuel that we are
working on.
Once we have converted the reactor, we want to return the
spent fuel and fresh fuel and any bulk materials that might be
used in targets or other activities at the site back to Russia
and the United States, and we do that by bringing those
materials back to a secure location. In Russia's case, we bring
it back to a facility where we have already provided security
upgrades.
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that
these reactors are in countries that are sovereign countries,
and they must agree to convert the reactors. As Mr. Inslee
pointed out, there is a diplomatic strategy that has to be
carried out in order to convince the countries that the
reactors can meet their missions, which are medical isotope
production, industrial uses, research uses, very legitimate and
very important missions. Our task is to convince them that they
can convert and meet their missions, but to do so in a safe
way.
Last month, I chaired with my Russian counterpart Ivan
Kamenskikh, a working group to set a schedule for the return of
fresh and spent fuel from all remaining Russian origin sites.
We have set our deadline as 2010 to have all of that material
back into Russia. They are working on a regulation now that
would make it legally possible for them to do so. There is no
current regulation. They don't have the regulatory authority to
repatriate that fuel.
I will quickly go through this. The U.S.-origin fuel, we
have extended the window during which U.S.-origin HEU fuel can
be brought back into the United States. We extended that window
by 10 years. We estimate that there are 40 countries with about
20 metric tons of material that we need to bring back to the
U.S.
Moving on to RDDs, since September 11 we have focused with
increasing emphasis on the threat that radiological sources
pose. There are two components to our work. There is a domestic
component and an international component. Domestically we have
recovered roughly 10,500 excess sources. We work very closely
with the NRC. They tell us when a licensee has orphan sources,
and we mobilize our teams to go retrieve those sources and
bring them to a secure location.
Last year, Congress gave us an 18-month window and told us
to get 5,000 sources. We got 5,500. So this program is to date
very successful. We estimate that there are probably another
15,000 additional sources that we will have to recover that
will be declared excess that we will have to recover over the
next 5 years domestically.
Internationally we are currently engaged with about forty
countries. We do so bilaterally with each the countries. We
also work with the IAEA to form regional partnerships. We also
work with other countries who have a regional role like
Australia in the southern Pacific region, and we work with law
enforcement such as Interpol.
Since the program's inception, we have completed
radiological security enhancements at 125 worldwide facilities
and recovered 63 Russian civilian radioisotopes, thermal
electric generators, or RTG.
Thus far in 2005 alone, we have secured 56 sites in
countries such as Belarus, Colombia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan,
Russia and the Ukraine.
There are at least an additional 16 high-risk countries
with over 100 facilities that our International Radiological
Threat Reduction Program will address over the coming years.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will conclude. I want to thank
you for holding this hearing and we look forward to answering
your questions.
[The prepared statement of Paul Longsworth follows:]
Prepared Statement of Paul Longsworth, Deputy Administrator for Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration,
U.S. Department of Energy
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the nonproliferation
activities of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA). In the past, nuclear non-proliferation focused
on preventing non-nuclear weapon states from acquiring such weapons.
That's still important, of course. In the aftermath of 9/11, we have
intensified our efforts to keep nuclear material and nuclear weapons
out of the hands of terrorists. The NNSA has accelerated and expanded
its implementation of a five-pronged strategy to deny terrorists and
states of concern the materials, technology, and expertise needed to
develop nuclear weapons.
First, we want to account for and secure nuclear material in Russia
and the former Soviet Union. We are making progress in improving
security measures at facilities in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
We have accelerated our programs to secure an estimated 600 metric tons
of weapons-usable material in Russia. To date, we have secured over 75
percent of the sites where these materials are stored and we are on
course to finish this work by 2008--a full two years ahead of the
schedule established prior to 2001. We will complete our work to secure
Russian Navy warhead and nuclear fuel sites by 2006. We are moving
rapidly to identify and secure all remaining 12th Main Directorate and
Strategic Rocket Forces warhead sites. We expect to complete work on
the Strategic Rocket Force sited by the end of 2007. Also, as discussed
at the recent Bratislava Presidential Summit, we are exploring ways to
accelerate our schedule in securing the 12th Main Directorate sites.
Second, we want to establish a capability to detect the movement or
trafficking of weapons usable nuclear materials. Through our programs
like Second Line of Defense and Megaports, we are working with select
countries to install radiation detection equipment at key transit choke
points throughout the world--such as sea ports, airports, and land
border crossings--to detect proliferation and trafficking of nuclear
and radioactive materials. We currently operate more than 50 land
border crossings and have already equipped two seaports, with 3 more
expected this year.
Third, we want to stop the production of new fissile material in
Russia and eliminate existing stockpiles. Russia currently operates
three plutonium producing reactors, which--together--make 1.2 MT of
plutonium each year. That's enough for roughly a couple of warheads a
week. The U.S. has agreed to build replacement, coal fired plants to
make it possible for Russia to shut down these reactors. We are making
progress in this area as well. In February, we began work at the first
site, Seversk.
We are also working to eliminate existing material. More than 231
metric tons of Russia's HEU has been converted to non-weapons grade
material for use in commercial power reactors under what is often
called the ``Megatons to Megawatts'' program. Altogether, 500 metric
tons of Russia's HEU will be converted and used as fuel in civilian
nuclear power plants. The U.S has declared 174 metric tons excess at we
are currently down-blending this material at U.S. facilities.
Additionally, through our plutonium disposition program, we are working
with the Russians to eliminate 68 metric tons of weapons-grade
plutonium--34 metric tons in each country--enough for over 17,000
nuclear weapons.
Fourth, we want to eliminate or consolidate the remaining weapons-
useable nuclear and radiological materials that exist throughout the
remainder of the world. This past May, DOE launched the Global Threat
Reduction Initiative (GTRI) to identify, secure, recover and/or
facilitate the disposition of vulnerable, high-risk nuclear and
radioactive materials that pose a threat to the international
community, as quickly and expeditiously as possible. GTRI works to
achieve this mission by converting targeted research reactors around
the world from the use of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) fuel to low
enriched uranium (LEU) fuel, repatriating Russian- and U.S.-origin HEU
fuel, securing and/or disposing of vulnerable, high-risk radiological
materials that pose a threat to the United States, and identifying and
addressing nuclear and radiological materials not previously addressed
by existing nonproliferation efforts, the so-called ``gaps''.
There is a good reason we are so concerned with the materials
mentioned above--particularly HEU and plutonium. If terrorists were to
get access to plutonium or HEU, they would have overcome a significant
step in the pathway to a full weapon. The International Atomic Energy
Agency estimates that about 25 kg of highly enriched uranium is enough
to manufacture a nuclear explosive device. That's why civilian research
reactors that possess HEU are a new and time-critical focus of GTRI.
PRIORITIZATION
DOE prioritizes its work under GTRI by applying a risk-based
approach to identify vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials that
pose a threat to the United States and the international community.
This risk-based approach is informed by several criteria, including,
but not limited to the type and quantity of material, security
conditions at the site, and location of material. However,
participation under GTRI is voluntary in nature. Therefore, diplomatic
breakthroughs or voluntary offers by countries may also impact GTRI's
prioritization and schedule. This approach is applied to all sites,
countries, and regions prior to GTRI taking action and committing
resources.
Because participation in GTRI programs is voluntary, NNSA's success
in achieving the objectives of each individual program is contingent
upon reaching diplomatic agreement with each individual country on the
best path forward to address their high-risk nuclear material.
To help ensure that GTRI was prioritizing its efforts in the most
effective way, DOE undertook a comprehensive worldwide survey entitled
``Global Materials Removal and Research Reactor Security Study''
(GMRRSS). This study, which drew from both classified and unclassified
data, focused on research reactors and associated facilities given the
large number of research reactors in the world that still operate with
HEU. The study was coordinated with the U.S. interagency, including the
Department of State and the National Security Council, and is intended
to serve as a ``living document'' that will be updated as new
information becomes available.
Based on the results of the study and our risk-based approach to
identify high-risk, vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials, GTRI
is targeting several countries of highest concern. We will continue to
work closely with the Department of State and the NSC to implement a
coordinated DOE action plan.
I would next like to go into a little more detail about our GTRI
program elements--first, specifically focusing on our efforts to
eliminate use of the several metric tons of HEU that exist at research
reactors throughout the world.
REDUCED ENRICHMENT FOR RESEARCH AND TEST REACTORS
The Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors, or RERTR,
program mission is to minimize and, to the extent possible, eliminate
the use of HEU in civil nuclear applications by working to convert
research reactors and radioisotope production processes to the use of
LEU fuel and targets throughout the world. Specifically, GTRI is:
1. Developing advanced, high-density LEU fuels;
2. Providing assistance to research reactors for feasibility studies,
conversion analysis and licensing support;
3. Converting research reactors to the use of LEU fuel; and
4. Developing and demonstrating LEU-based radioisotope production
techniques.
We are currently targeting 105 research reactor around the world
for conversion to LEU fuel under the RERTR program. Of these 105
reactors, 40 have already converted, 35 can convert with available LEU
fuels, and 30 cannot convert with available LEU fuels. To address this,
we are accelerating our work to develop higher-density LEU fuel in
order to enable the conversion of these 30 reactors ``the FY05 RERTR
budget is more than double that of the preceding year. We have also set
an aggressive goal of 2014 to complete conversion of all 105 targeted
research reactors to LEU fuel.
Another important development under RERTR is that, beginning in
FY05, GTRI is working to convert two domestic university research
reactors to the use of LEU fuel--one at the University of Florida and
the other at Texas A&M. Former Secretary Abraham pledged under GTRI to
achieve the conversion of all U.S. domestic research reactors by 2013.
RECOVERING AND REPATRIATING HIGHLY-ENRICHED NUCLEAR FUEL
In addition to our reactor conversion efforts, we have two
complementary programs that focus on the recovery and repatriation of
research reactor nuclear fuel containing HEU. The Russian Research
Reactor Fuel Return (RRRFR) program ensures that Russian-origin HEU
fresh and spent fuel at foreign research reactors is returned to Russia
and the Foreign Research Reactor Spent Nuclear Fuel Acceptance program
ensures that U.S.-origin HEU spent fuel is returned to the United
States. Both of these efforts work closely with our RERTR program to
reduce and eventually eliminate the use of HEU in civilian nuclear
research reactors and related facilities throughout the world.
THE RUSSIAN RESEARCH REACTOR FUEL RETURN (RRRFR) PROGRAM
The United States, the Russian Federation and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have identified more than 20 research
reactors in 17 countries that have Soviet-/Russian-supplied nuclear
fuel that is eligible under the RRRFR program. The Uzbekistan fresh HEU
fuel shipment featured in a February CBS ``60 Minutes II'' piece is a
perfect example of the tangible results being achieved in this program.
Those countries that wish to participate in the RRRFR program must
agree either to shut down their research reactors or to convert them
from the use of HEU to LEU fuel as soon as suitable LEU fuel can be
licensed and made available. Under an aggressive schedule established
by the former Secretary of Energy, we are accelerating repatriation of
both fresh and spent HEU fuel under the RRRFR program. For instance,
based on Secretarial commitments, we hope to complete the repatriation
of all Russian-origin spent HEU fuel by the end of 2010. This schedule
represents a significant acceleration of the original timelines--a full
three years ahead of the original schedule.
Just this past April, I co-chaired the first ``Joint Coordinating
Committee Meeting on Russian Research Reactor Fuel Return'' meeting
with my Russian counterpart, Ivan Kamenskikh. We agreed to an action/
prioritization plan for Russian fuel return that should help us meet
our aggressive schedule.
To date, we have repatriated a total of 105 kilograms of fresh HEU,
enough for four bombs according to the unclassified IAEA estimate.
Russian-origin HEU has been repatriated to Russia from: Serbia in
August 2002 (48 kilograms); Romania in September 2003 (14 kilograms);
Bulgaria in December 2003 (17 kilograms); Libya in March 2004 (17
kilograms); Uzbekistan in September 2004 (3 kilograms); and most
recently, the Czech Republic in December 2004 (6 kilograms). Numerous
other shipments are being planned, including a shipment this week of
fresh HEU and our first shipment of spent HEU nuclear fuel from
Uzbekistan.
Overall, by 2010 we expect to repatriate 1,370 kilograms of Russian
HEU, thereby securing it from possible diversion for malevolent
purposes.
THE FOREIGN RESEARCH REACTOR SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL (FRR SNF) ACCEPTANCE
PROGRAM
Under the FRR SNF Acceptance Program, U.S.-origin fuel from
research reactors in over 40 countries is eligible to be returned to
the United States. About 20 metric tons of material is eligible for
return under the current FRR SNF Acceptance Program. To date, a total
of 6,445 fuel assemblies have been returned to the United States under
this voluntary program, thereby reducing civil use of HEU by almost 500
kilograms. Over the last year and a half, we have repatriated to the
United States 418 SNF assemblies from Japan, 293 SNF assemblies from
Indonesia, and 126 SNF assemblies from Germany.
This past November, the Secretary of Energy extended the deadline
for participation in the FRR SNF Acceptance Program by ten (10) years.
Prior to this extension, a number of countries did not participate in
this program because of concerns surrounding the potential economic,
financial, or scientific impact of returning the spent fuel. This
extension will prevent disruptions of important research reactor
operations, and permit continued fuel acceptance until suitable
replacement LEU fuels are qualified and available.
By 2019, the FRR SNF Acceptance Program expects to return or
validate acceptable disposition of 22,743 U.S.-origin spent fuel
assemblies from foreign research reactors.
RADIOLOGICAL THREAT REDUCTION
In addition to addressing the problem of terrorist acquisition of
nuclear weapons, GTRI encompasses two programs that reduce the ability
of terrorists to obtain material for a Radioactive Dispersal Device
(RDD) or ``dirty bomb.'' An RDD disperses radioactivity using
conventional explosives or other means and the RDD threat has only been
taken seriously since the advent the Global War on Terrorism. The two
components of this work in GTRI include a domestic program to recover
excess and unwanted radiological sources that are most vulnerable to
diversion or theft and an international program to assist foreign
countries in securing their vulnerable, high-risk radiological sources.
Our radiological threat reduction programs address ten radioactive
isotopes that pose a threat for use in an RDD. These isotopes are
americium-241, californium-252, cesium-137, cobalt-60, curium-244,
iridium-192, plutonium-238, plutonium-239, radium-226, and strontium-
90.
U.S. RADIOLOGICAL THREAT REDUCTION
The U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction Program has the mission of
recovering vulnerable radiological materials in the United States that
could be used in a RDD. Originally, the DOE Office of Environmental
Management managed this program, which in 1993 began to recover certain
radioactive materials that had no commercial disposition path. But, the
recovery program was oriented towards environmental, health and safety
concerns. In response to the threat of radiological terrorism, this
program was transferred into NNSA, and priority was give to
radiological materials that would be most dangerous if used by a
terrorist. The program successfully recovered over 5,500 sealed sources
in an 18-month period between October 2002 and March 2004, as mandated
by Congress. To date, over 10,500 excess domestic sealed sources have
been recovered and securely stored or disposed. This includes several
notable accomplishments:
1. We removed 68 high-risk sources from 55 sites in Boston and New York
prior to the national conventions;
2. Most recently, we recovered approximately 1000 curies of cesium-137
from 5 high schools.
We estimate that there will be more than an additional 15,000
sealed sources declared excess that meet our threshold criteria and
would be available for our program to address over the next 5 years.
INTERNATIONAL RADIOLOGICAL THREAT REDUCTION
The International Radiological Threat Reduction (IRTR) Program
identifies, secures, and/or facilitates the disposal of vulnerable,
high-risk radiological materials located around the world to reduce the
threat of a radiological attack against the United States or its
interests. IRTR is currently engaged in over 40 countries.
Bilateral cooperation under IRTR is buttressed by cooperation with
the International Atomic Energy Agency, regional partners such as
Australia, and with Interpol. The IRTR has been a primary source of
assistance to the IAEA's new Office of Nuclear Security and had
considerable involvement in working with Greece to protect against
radiological terrorism during the Olympics. This program also had a
major role in the recovery of a very large quantity of radiological
material from Iraq. Since the program's inception, we have completed
radiological security enhancements at 125 facilities worldwide and have
recovered 63 Russian civilian Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators
(RTGs). Thus far, in FY05 alone, we have secured 56 sites in countries
such as Belarus, Colombia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Russian, and Ukraine.
There are at least 16 additional high-risk countries with over 100
facilities that IRTR will address over the next few years.
PATHS FORWARD
Under GTRI, we have aggressive plans in all of these areas. In
FY05, GTRI plans to:
1. Convert five research/test reactors around the world from HEU to LEU
fuel, in countries such as the Czech Republic.
2. Repatriate to Russia 76 kilograms of fresh and/or spent HEU fuel
from Soviet-Russian-supplied research reactors including fresh
HEU from Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Libya.
3. Return 359 fuel assemblies containing U.S.-origin spent fuel from
foreign research reactors in countries such as the Netherlands
and Sweden.
4. Recover 1,500 U.S. excess sealed sources in the United States in
FY05.
5. Secure 105 high-priority international sites with vulnerable
radiological material at high-risk sites in countries such as
Colombia, Ukraine, Jordan, Nicaragua, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and
Yemen.
In FY 2006, GTRI plans to:
1. Convert four research/test reactors around the world from HEU to LEU
fuel.
2. Repatriate to Russia 130 kg of fresh and/or spent fuel from Soviet-
Russian-supplied research reactors.
3. Return 472 assemblies containing U.S.-origin spent fuel from foreign
research reactors.
4. Recover 2,250 U.S. excess sealed sources in the United States.
5. Secure 125 high-priority international sites with vulnerable
radiological materials.
The specific details of our strategies and future plans in the
remainder of FY05 and in FY06 identify specific locations that may have
vulnerabilities; we and our international colleagues consider this
information sensitive. We would be happy to provide more specific
details in closed testimony.
CONCLUSION
I would like to thank you for this opportunity to discuss DOE's
Global Threat Reduction Initiative with you.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you Mr. Longsworth.
Commissioner McGaffigan, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR.
Mr. McGaffigan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, Congressman Inslee, it is a pleasure to be
here this afternoon on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to discuss our aggressive and comprehensive efforts
to enhance the security of high-risk radioactive sources and
research and test reactors. We believe that significant
achievements have been made by our agency in this area over the
past 3.5 years.
Since September 11, the NRC has thoroughly reevaluated its
safeguards and security programs across the board, and to date
we have issued over 16 different categories of orders and
confirmatory action letters covering hundreds of licensees and
actions involving the radioactive materials of greatest
concern. The overall approach is risk-informed and focuses on
radioactive materials of greatest concern.
We did that prioritization that Mr. Inslee talked about
back in 2002, and we have been following a program that we
think is the right program now for several years.
Let me enumerate a few of our successes. The Commission, in
coordination with our DOE colleagues and other agencies, has
taken the following actions:
NRC, in cooperation with the Agreement States, issued
advisories to licensees who possess high-risk material on March
17th, 2003, consistent with the launch of Operation Liberty
Shield. Those advisories went out to over 2,000 entities.
NRC and DOE in consultation with other Federal agencies,
issued the DOE/NRC Working Group Report in May 2003 on
radiological dispersal devices and radiological exposure
devices. That report defined threshold quantities of
radioactive materials which are of highest risk and have the
greatest potential for malevolent use.
During 2002 and 2003, the Commission worked with the
Departments of Energy and State and the international community
to reach agreement on which radioactive sources are of the
greatest concern. Those sources are set forth in the
International Atomic Energy Agency Code of Conduct on the
Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. The Code was
adopted in December 2003 and has received very high-level
endorsement by the G-8 heads of state at the Sea Island summit
last year.
The NRC, in coordination with the Departments of Energy,
State, and Homeland Security, has approved a final rule
amending our export and import regulations to impose more
stringent controls over the Code materials. The U.S. is the
first country to implement the export-import provisions of the
Code of Conduct guidance documents.
The NRC, in cooperation with DOE and other Federal
agencies, is developing a national source tracking system, as
the chairman mentioned, to track radioactive materials of
greatest concern specified in the Code.
The NRC has developed and is maintaining an interim data
base of these radioactive sources for both NRC and the 33
Agreement States and their licensees.
The NRC has required security enhancements for various
classes of NRC and agreement State materials licensees,
including fuel cycle facilities, like Paducah, large
irradiators, and manufacturers and distributors of radioactive
materials, and we are working on additional orders.
The NRC has issued security orders governing the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel, and the NRC, as mentioned
by Mr. Longsworth, has assisted DOE to accelerate the
collection of unwanted radioactive sources through DOE's
offsite source recovery program.
Turning to research and test reactors, the NRC has required
security plans and procedures at research reactors since the
1970's.
Following 9/11, the NRC promptly advised research and test
reactor licensees to heighten and enhance security in
accordance with preestablished notices to protect against
radiological sabotage and theft of nuclear material.
Subsequently, as we proceeded with our security review, NRC
required research and test reactor licensees to take additional
security measures, the details of which are inappropriate for
an open hearing.
The NRC has verified implementation of these measures to
protect research and test reactor facilities.
The NRC has worked with DOE to convert, as Paul mentioned,
research reactors to low enriched uranium fuel which is a less
attractive target for terrorists.
The Commission welcomes DOE's initiatives to convert the
University of Florida and Texas A&M reactors to low enriched
fuel and its plans to convert other research reactors for which
suitable low enriched fuel has been developed.
The Commission also welcomes the House Appropriations
Committee action to add an additional $20 million in fiscal
year 2006 for the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test
Reactors program to accelerate the conversion of domestic
reactor fuel from highly enriched to low enriched.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that the
Commission and Commissioners themselves, all of us on a
bipartisan basis, will continue to be very active in ensuring
the development and implementation of enhanced controls on
radioactive sources that could be used in an RDD or RED.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank the committee
for their support of section 662 of the energy bill which will
allow us to require fingerprinting for a broader set of
licensees than we do today and including the ones we are
discussing today and do much more thorough background checks.
Again, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
today on behalf of the Commission and look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Edward McGaffigan, Jr. follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edward McGaffigan, Jr., Commissioner, Nuclear
Regulatory Commission
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, it is a pleasure to
appear before you today on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) to discuss our efforts to enhance the security of high-risk
radioactive sources and research and test reactors. The NRC takes very
seriously its responsibility to ensure the adequate protection of the
public health and safety. Mr. Chairman, we believe that significant
achievements have been made by our agency in the area of security. Let
me enumerate a few of these achievements.
Since September 11, 2001, the NRC has thoroughly reevaluated its
safeguards and security programs and, to date, has issued over 16
different categories of Orders and Confirmatory Action Letters covering
hundreds of licensees and actions involving radioactive materials of
greatest concern. The NRC continues to devote considerable effort to
determining what additional actions could be used to enhance the
security of these materials in use, in storage, or in transport. The
emphasis of this effort is on preventing the use of radioactive
materials that have the potential to pose a risk to public health and
safety if used in a radiological dispersal device or a radiological
exposure device (RDD/RED). The objective of NRC's programs to control
these radioactive materials is to ensure the protection of the public
and the environment and to promote the Nation's common defense and
security. The overall approach is risk-informed and focuses on
radioactive materials of greatest concern.
MEASURES TAKEN TO ENHANCE SECURITY OF SOURCES
There are millions of radioactive sources in the United States and
although these sources are in the possession of a large number of
organizations, only a small fraction of those sources would present a
credible terrorist target and are therefore considered radioactive
materials of greatest concern. This is because most licensees use
radioactive material that is in very small quantities; has a short
half-life; is relatively inaccessible; is in a form which cannot be
readily dispersed; or has a combination of these attributes. We have
applied a graded approach to security that is generally consistent with
the potential radiation risk from these materials.
Mr. Chairman, the Commission in coordination with our Department of
Energy colleagues, has taken the following actions to improve the
security of high-risk sources:
NRC, in cooperation with the Agreement States, issued advisories to
licensees to enhance security measures on March 17, 2003,
consistent with the launch of Operation LIBERTY SHIELD.
NRC and DOE, in consultation with other Federal agencies, issued the
DOE/NRC Interagency Working Group Report on RDD/REDs in May,
2003. This report defined threshold quantities for radioactive
materials which are the highest risk and have a potential for
malevolent use.
During 2002-2003, the NRC Commission worked with the Departments of
Energy and State and the international community to reach
agreement on which radioactive materials and sources are of the
greatest concern. Those sources are set forth in the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Code of Conduct on
the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. The Code of
Conduct was approved by Member States at the IAEA General
Conference in September 2003. The U.S. Government committed to
implement the Code of Conduct in late 2003, and it was then
endorsed by the G-8 at the Sea Island summit in 2004. The
threshold values in the Code of conduct are in substantial
agreement with the values contained in the DOE-NRC RDD report.
The NRC, in coordination with the Departments of State, Energy, and
Homeland Security, has approved a final rule amending its
export and import regulations to impose more stringent controls
over the Category I and Category II materials defined by the
IAEA Code of Conduct with the exception of radium-226 (Ra-226),
a naturally occurring radionuclide which the NRC does not
currently have the authority to regulate under the Atomic
Energy Act. This rulemaking implements a key element of the
Code of Conduct and its guidance documents by increasing
licensing requirements, as well as notice and consent
requirements. The United States is the first country to
implement the export-import provisions in the Code of Conduct
guidance documents.
The NRC, in cooperation with DOE and other Federal agencies, is
developing a National Source Tracking System to track
radioactive materials of greatest concern specified in the IAEA
Code of Conduct on a permanent basis. The NRC is working
closely with the Department of Energy, the Agreement States,
the Department of Homeland Security, the Environmental
Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, the
Department of State, the Department of Commerce, the Department
of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ensure
that the system addresses needed functions and minimizes
unnecessary duplication. NRC will involve the public through
our rulemaking process.
The NRC has developed and is maintaining an interim database of
Category I and II radioactive sources for both NRC and
Agreement State licensees. This database will be maintained
until the National Source Tracking System is complete.
The NRC has required security enhancements for various classes of NRC
and Agreement State materials licensees, including independent
spent fuel storage installations, fuel cycle facilities, large
irradiators, and manufacturers and distributors of radioactive
material. Orders for NRC and Agreement State materials
licensees in the medical academic and industrial fields (e.g.,
blood irradiators, gamma knives, radiographers, well loggers,
etc.) are currently in final stages of development.
The NRC has issued security Orders governing the transportation of
spent nuclear fuel, and Orders governing the transportation of
other radioactive materials in quantities of concern are also
currently in the final stages of development.
The NRC has implemented the Homeland Security Advisory System for NRC
and Agreement State licensees.
NRC has assisted the DOE, where possible, to accelerate the
collection of unwanted radioactive sources through the DOE's
Offsite Source Recovery Program. Since its inception in 1997,
the DOE program has recovered over 10,000 sources from
approximately 400 locations in the United States and the DOE
has consistently been very responsive to NRC requests for
assistance.
RESEARCH AND TEST REACTORS--SECURITY/CONVERSIONS
The NRC has required security plans and procedures at research
reactors since the late 1970s in accordance with our regulations. The
security programs and systems are required to provide early detection,
and assessment of and response to unauthorized access or activities.
These security programs also include control of access to facilities,
emergency response personnel (e.g., University Police, Local Law
Enforcement Agency, or contract security forces), alarms, other devices
and procedures to detect unauthorized activities. Response forces are
required to respond to all indications of unauthorized penetrations or
activities.
Following September 11, 2001, the NRC promptly advised research and
test reactor licensees to heighten and enhance security in accordance
with preestablished notices to protect against radiological sabotage
and theft of nuclear material. Subsequently, as it proceeded with its
security review, NRC required research and test reactor licensees to
take additional security measures. These additional security measures
were focused on protecting against land-based assaults and insider
attacks. More specifically, these additional security measures include,
but are not limited to, enhancements to access authorization and
controls, communication systems, and vehicle and package searches. The
additional security measures also include heightened coordination with
appropriate local, State, and federal resources.
The NRC has verified the implementation of these measures to
protect research and test reactor facilities. Further, NRC maintains
regular communications with other Federal agencies (including the
Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National
Counter-Terrorism Center) to continue assessing potential threats to
all classes of licensees including research and test reactors. We have
conducted consequence assessments of these reactors and have concluded
that there is a low risk to public health and safety from potential
threats.
The NRC has worked with DOE to convert research reactors to low
enriched uranium fuel which is a less attractive target for terrorists.
The Commission welcomes DOE's initiatives to convert the University of
Florida and Texas A&M reactors to low-enriched fuel, and its plans to
convert other research reactors for which suitable low-enriched fuel
has been developed. The NRC, DOE and research and test reactor
licensees also have been cooperating on efforts to identify irradiated
fuel which is no longer needed and ship it to a DOE facility. This
cooperation is based on NRC and DOE initiatives recognizing that
keeping unneeded fuel onsite is an unnecessary risk under the current
threat environment. Considerable progress in this regard has been made.
The Commission welcomes the additional $20 million the House
Appropriations Committee approved for FY 2006 for the Reduced
Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR) program to accelerate
the conversion of domestic research reactor fuel from highly enriched
uranium to low enriched uranium.
The NRC has recently taken the initiative to identify various
unwanted radioactive materials, such as fission chambers, fission
foils, fission plates, and various government-owned materials at NRC
licensed research reactors and has informally requested DOE to assist
with their removal.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that the Commission is
and will continue to be very active in ensuring the development and
implementation of enhanced controls of radioactive sources that could
be used in an RDD/RED. I also want to take this opportunity to thank
the Committee for their support of Section 662 in the Energy Bill
(H.R.6) which will allow us to require fingerprinting for employees at
the facilities we have been discussing today. Again, I appreciate the
opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the Commission and
stand ready to answer any questions you or the other members of the
Subcommittee may pose.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Commissioner.
We appreciate the testimony of both of you, and each member
will have 10 minutes for questions if we want to use that time.
Mr. Longsworth, let me first ask you, how much money was
appropriated for the GTRI program for 2005?
Mr. Longsworth. It was about $93 million.
Mr. Whitfield. What was it prior to that?
Mr. Longsworth. It was $69, $70 million, roughly. So it was
a fairly significant increase.
Mr. Whitfield. So do you feel like you have sufficient
funds to--I know you always need more, but do you feel that you
have sufficient funds to be effective in what you are doing?
Mr. Longsworth. Well, we have set very aggressive goals in
terms of the number of reactors we want to convert and the
schedule by which we want to do that. We are fully funded to
meet our mission requirements today. If we were given a broader
mission to convert U.S. reactors, which we have only identified
two currently, we are not funded for that, but we are fully
funded to--over our 5-year budget plan to meet requirements
that we have--we have been given.
I will add, the radiological source recovery is what I
refer to as a dialable program. You can spend more and get more
work. We think that our program currently is a credible program
and it's adequate to meet the risk, but that is a program you
can--if you add more money, we will just recover more sources.
If you take away money, we will recover fewer.
Mr. Whitfield. In November 2004, the GAO issued a report on
the GTRI program, and they specifically said that DOE had not
reached agreement with 11 of 23 countries that still have U.S.-
origin highly enriched uranium to return to the U.S. Now, this
report is about 6 months old. Can you give us an update on your
progress to reach agreement with those 11 countries?
Mr. Longsworth. Yes. As I said earlier, even though the
reactors in question and the fuel were--really have their
origins in Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Initiative. So we gave
countries access to our reactor technologies and have supplied
them fuel over the years, but they are sovereign countries who
either have to agree to convert their reactors.
We are working with most of those countries. I will note
that some of them are countries that we are not as concerned
with such--like France and Britain, that we don't think pose
the same kind of threat that, say, other reactors might in
other parts of the world. We are working with all of the
countries on that list to get all of that work done by 2014.
Mr. Whitfield. I might add that we will go into executive
session when this is over to get it into a little bit more
classified material, and so I appreciate your comment on that.
In reading some of the testimony of some of the witnesses
on Panel II--I don't remember which one, and maybe it was both
of them--but they made the point that instead of Russia and the
U.S. being so focused on returning highly enriched uranium to
the U.S. and to Russia, that we might be better off finding a
safe storage place, wherever it may be, and that they would
recommend that. What are your comments about that?
Mr. Longsworth. Well, one thing I did not mention and I am
remiss in not mentioning is while we are discussing the
conversion of the reactor and the return of the material
itself, we also have efforts to secure these locations where
the material is stored. So we do go in in almost every case and
provide security upgrades at the site where this material is
located, if it's HEU and it is one of our targeted reactors.
We don't provide security for LEU, low enriched, reactors,
so we do do that where we can. Obviously there is a 5-megawatt
U.S.-origin reactor in Tehran. We have not provided security or
any work there, but the countries where we can work, we do.
Mr. Whitfield. All right. Now GTRI has developed criteria
for identifying and recovering specific high-risk radioactive
sources based on the potential for the source to be used in a
dirty bomb, and it is my understanding that NRC uses a
different method that was developed by theInternational Atomic
Energy Agency for identifying high-risk sources. So there seems
to be a little bit of inconsistency between the two agencies,
and I know that the administrator, Linton Brooks, wrote a
letter to Chairman Diaz in February 2005 touching on this
issue. Would the two of you respond to this different approach
that you have?
Mr. McGaffigan. Mr. Chairman, the approach that we arrived
at in 2003 in the international process was derived from the
joint DOE-NRC working group report. We negotiated that with our
international partners through the International Atomic Energy
Agency. We got to within a factor of 3 on every radionuclide
that is of concern. The factor of 3 is the threshold level, and
frankly the modeling errors are on the order of a factor of 10.
So we use the IAEA Code of Conduct because the purpose of
the Code is to put in place mutually reinforcing export-import
regimes so that the national cradle-to-grave controls for these
high-risk sources reinforce each other. That is the goal, and I
believe over 50 nations have committed. We are well in front of
any other nation in terms of meeting our commitment to the
Code, but our colleagues at DOE--I will let Paul speak for
himself--in some cases we use the term ``high risk'' a little--
high risk in source recovery isn't the same as the IAEA Code,
and his international programs for resource reasons isn't the
same, but it--so the words for us, when I say high risk code, I
mean Category 1 and 2 codes covered by the Code of Conduct to
which about 60 nations have committed.
Mr. Longsworth. Our mission is not to focus on safety or
environmental issues. We only focus on removing threats. What
we have tried to do with our standard, which we think is
consistent with the Code of Conduct, is not--it would be, I
think, erroneous to say that we are inconsistent, but we have
tried to set up a range of curie levels that set a floor for
action on our part. What that means is we can actually address
sources down to that level, if needed, and if they need other
risk criteria.
So our standard is a--it is apples and oranges compared to
what I think the NRC works with on the Code of Conduct, but
they are not inconsistent. We are just trying to do another
mission. So we have set a floor. The floor is actually a range
of values, and we can take action if we find a source in
Kazakhstan, for example. That floor sets the boundary below
which we cannot secure the source. So we have tried to set a
floor. We don't get every source that meets down to that level,
but we use it as a guide, and we also look at other factors in
that country. We look at risk factors. We look at terrorist
activities, the enforcement of regulations in that country. So
we have a broad, flexible program because we do have limited
resources and we want to address the highest-risk sources
first.
Mr. Whitfield. To explore this just a little bit further,
in his letter that Mr. Brooks wrote to Chairman Diaz, he
specifically said that it is timely to further develop the
unified U.S. position on the security of high potential
consequence radioactive sources and to present this position to
the international community that is also in need of unifying
guidance and clarification. Would you agree with that
statement?
Mr. Longsworth. Yes, sir. I worked for Ambassador Brooks. I
agree with him.This is the Code of Conduct as we were
discussing it, but this Code is--it explicitly does not address
malevolent uses of sources. So it is explicit that it does not
address, for example, terrorist uses of radiological sources,
and that is what we are all about. That is our only mission is
addressing that. So we are--what we are trying to do is to try
to get the international community to focus on the issue of
malevolent uses of sources. I think that is----
Mr. McGaffigan. Mr. Chairman, I think there might be a
slight disagreement here in that we believe--and Commissioners
were involved in the negotiation of the revised Code of Conduct
in 2003. Chairman Diaz himself made a key breakthrough in
identifying the materials of concern, a key diplomatic
breakthrough, but we did follow the DOE-NRC working group
report within a factor of 3 on every radionuclide.
It is, I believe, the position not just of the Commission,
but also the Department of State, that we do not need to
renegotiate it at this time. We need to focus on getting the 69
nations that have committed to it to implement it, and that
doesn't mean--in many cases, Mr. Longsworth and Mr. Brooks have
less resources. So if the Code says that three hundred curies
of strontium 90 is the Category 2 level above which we control,
I think DOE has chosen 1,000 curies, that is a reasonable
judgment based on the resources that they have.
It's better--occasionally DOE goes below the Code, and that
causes us some concern because it gives a mixed message to
other nations.
And furthermore, the security--security is built into the
Code. The reason we had it, it used to be the Code of Conduct
on the Safety of Radioactive Sources, it became in 2003 the
Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security, and we did take
into account RDD and RED exposures in setting our threshold
limits with the international community.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you for that comment. Since I have
been reading from this letter, and it is my understanding that
you all did see it, I would ask unanimous consent that we
introduce it into the record.
At this point I would recognize Mr. Inslee for his question
period.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. If the U.S. reconsiders its
reprocessing position, and there is some talk about that in
this bill we have on the floor today, would that affect your
efforts in any way, in regard to your relationship with these
other countries that we are inspiring to responsible activity?
Mr. Longsworth. Well, there is reprocessing going on today,
as you know, in France and in other countries and in Russia,
and those facilities are safeguarded, and we think they are
secure. There has been no allegation of diversion or any other
activities at those facilities that would cause harm.
I think what the U.S. is looking at from a policy
standpoint is looking to the future for what types of
reprocessing or recycling we can pursue for the future. We are
investing funding in my program and in the nuclear energy
program to look at that question. That really is the question
is for the future: What type of recycling do you need for
nuclear material? Werecycle everything else. There isn't any
reason why we can't recycle nuclear material.
There are ways technologically to recycle nuclear material
that don't pose a proliferation threat. For example, you can
reprocess plutonium out of spent fuel but keep that plutonium
mixed with the actinides, the very highly radioactive
actinides. That material actually has a very high energy
content, and it can be used in FAC reactors. And the U.S. and
other countries, I don't think we have adequately explored that
concept. So there are ways that you can recycle nuclear
material that actually don't pose a significant proliferation
threat. That is probably where we are taking our resources and
looking to the future.
Mr. Inslee. Could either one of you describe in general
terms--we will have another session in closed session--what you
consider your major challenges right now?
Mr. Longsworth. Well, my challenges are primarily
diplomatic. We think we have--I will speak just to GTRI. We
have many other challenges in the other parts of our
nonproliferation program, but for just GTRI they are primarily
diplomatic. And it is no fault of anyone's, not the fault of
State Department or ours or these other governments, but
working with sovereign governments that perhaps don't have good
relations with the U.S. or want to distance themselves from the
U.S., that has been one of our largest challenges.
In addition to that, where the countries perhaps don't want
to work with us, there are other countries that view our desire
to convert their facilities or down-blend their weapons-usable
material, they think we should pay a price for that. We view it
as just good stewardship. We believe it is a responsible step
for countries to take, but we find that we actually have to
provide incentives in many cases for countries to convert, and
that drives up our costs and it slows down our progress.
So our problems for the most part have been diplomatic in
nature, engaging countries and convincing them to convert their
facilities and to remove materials that could be used in
weapons programs.
Mr. McGaffigan. Sir, I think our challenges pale in
comparison with the Department of Energy's. We are--the
National Source Tracking System is a very large undertaking for
us. It's going to cost, for a relatively small agency, $10 to
$20 million over the next 5 years to get fully in place and
implemented. We have an aggressive schedule on the information
technology support that we need to meet that goal. This is
going to be a secure data base. We are fully going to comply
with FISMA from the get-go so we don't build it in later. But
it is a very aggressive schedule to get the National Tracking
System in place.
We also have to continue to work to complete our program of
borders for additional categories of licensees. That is not a
resource issue, really, but we do work with the 33 Agreement
States, including Kentucky and Washington, to not catch them by
surprise. We do have some dual regulation here because we are
doing a lot of this stuff under our common defense and security
authority which we cannot delegate to the States.
The National Source Tracking System is an example of that.
We have to have a uniform national system, and we are doing it
primarily for common defense and security reasons.
So those are the ones that come to mind. The resources, the
House Appropriations Committee has given us an additional $4
million next year to work on material security matters that was
beyond our request, and we appreciate that, and we need that in
order to continue to pursue the program that we want to pursue
as aggressively as we want to pursue it.
Mr. Inslee. Could you give us an assessment of what
confidence level we have about our knowledge, data base, of
existing threat material, material that poses some threat? I
mean, if you said with 90 percent confidence we know about X
percent that is there, is there any way to sort of quantify
that, put any parameters on that?
Mr. McGaffigan. I will say domestically with regard to the
Code of Conduct-controlled material, we have an interim data
base with a very high response rate, over 99 percent, from
Agreement States and NRC licensees, and we have Oak Ridge
updating it. It's really not a data base. We eventually want to
have 1-day transactions. If a source is transferred from here
to here, we want 1-day notice of both ends of the transaction.
That is what the National Source Tracking System will do.
The interim data base is an annual update. We had it in
place really by March 17, 2003, not with all the bells and
whistles, but enough to send advisories out saying that
hostilities are about to start, improve your security posture.
So we update it quarterly. Oak Ridge is our contractor for
this effort and we are very proud of it. We are not aware of
any other regulator in the world that has an interim data base
of IAEA Code of Conduct sources. Is it perfect? No. Do we have
the research and test reactors in there at the current time?
No.
We have over--there are 1,300 entities in this country that
have--approximately, that possess Category I or II high-risk
sources. In the Washington area, it tends to be hospitals,
George Washington, Washington Hospital Center, Georgetown, et
cetera, because they have cesium blood irradiators. They have
other sources that are used in the care of patients. In fact,
there isn't inside the Beltway--at USDA outside the Beltway
there is a fair number of high-risk sources used in
agricultural research. Inside the Beltway, I believe all the
entities that have high-risk sources are hospitals.
Mr. Longsworth. In our work, we know where reactors are
located and we know which ones are using highly enriched
uranium. So where there is a physical footprint we know. There
is a critical assembly associated with that reactor. We know
where that is.
What we often don't know is in some cases these reactors
operate on varying power levels. They may have different burn-
up rates. So can we say for sure exactly how many kilograms of
fuel remain at this site? Those are calculations that we have
to do.
In classified session I think I can tell you a little bit
more about what we track using other sources for programs that
might have military uses or other uses, but we do keep track of
those.
For radiological sources, internationally, that is harder
because those sources tend to disappear in countries where
there is not a vigorous regulatory body or licensing
requirements and accountability requirements. But we are
working with the former Soviet Union and Russia particularly to
begin to identify and track down those sources. That is one of
the primary missions we have right now is working at the
request of the Russian Federation to go find their sources that
they gave out during their equivalent of Atoms for Peace, to
repatriate those, secure them and dispose of them. So that is a
very active area for us right now; and again, it was at the
request of the Russian Federation that we began to accelerate
that work.
Mr. McGaffigan. Mr. Chairman, I might just add in response
to something that Mr. Inslee asked at the outset, domestically,
we coordinate very closely with the Department of Homeland
Security as well as the Department of Energy. In fact, there is
a government coordinating council for the nuclear sector. The
fundamental document is the National Infrastructure Protection
Plan. We work hand-in-glove with DHS as they prepare the
sector-specific--nuclear sector coordinating plan. And there
also are nuclear sector coordinating councils that bring the
private sector in. One for reactors, one for--it's being formed
for research reactors, and one for radioisotopes, and those are
DHS entities. But under the law of the Atomic Energy Act, we
are the primary regulator for safety and security within this
country.
Mr. Inslee. Quick question. Maybe it's not too quick. Ms.
Rohlfing is going to testify. I read some of her testimony. She
said that given the threat, there is no comprehensive baseline
inventory of warheads and nuclear materials that must be
secured worldwide. She basically is suggesting, I think, that
there is a lack of a risk-based global inventory on hand. Is
that accurate, and if so, can we fix that? What is your
assessment in that regard?
Mr. Longsworth. She is right, there is no one document that
has all of that information in there. Unfortunately, if you
were to create such a document, there probably would be two or
three people in the entire Federal Government that would be
cleared to read it. So what we do is we package that kind of
information into various programs.
We have programs to address and are for the most part
classified to address warheads. Our work with Russia is very
open. We do that work--as I have indicated, we will be finished
with all Russian Navy warhead sites this year.
We are just embarking on an accelerated plan to secure what
are called 12th GUMO sites, which are their large warhead
consolidationsites in Russia.
Any other activity that we have would be highly sensitive
and obviously highly compartmented, but it is a misnomer to say
that there isn't one report, because that is absolutely true
but one report wouldn't do you very much good. We do keep track
of, in a very centralized way--keeping these things in
compartments, we do keep track of where we think fissionable
material is, either in the form of a warhead, in bulk material
and reactor fuel. If it's weapons-usable, we are tracking it.
The report that we prepared that I mentioned in my
testimony, the Global Reactor and Radiological Source Report
that we just finished last May, was the first time that the
government had ever put in one document all of the material
that is not part of a weapons program. We only looked at
civilian programs, but that was the first time that we had
taken all of the world's civilian programs that have
fissionable material and put that in one report. That report is
classified. We can't talk about that in this session and we did
use all sources, including Intelligence Community sources.
But adding to that, then, what we know about other
countries' nuclear weapons programs and the locations of their
warheads and conditions of security would make that report even
more sensitive than it is already. So it wouldn't be a useful
report to have in one document. It wouldn't be usable by
anybody.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Walden's recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Longsworth, a DOE Inspector General's report from
January of 2004 studied DOE's efforts to recover U.S.-origin
HEU sent to foreign countries as you know, but according to
this report there was no effort by DOE to recover an additional
12,300 kilograms of HEU dispersed to foreign countries, which
was not included in the HEU acceptance program. The IG report
is more than a year old.
Can you tell us why DOE did not originally include this
12,300 kilograms of HEU in its HEU recovery program and whether
the GTRI program will take steps to recover this material in
the future?
Mr. Longsworth. I can. The decision was made in the early
1990's when this foreign research reactor fuel program takeback
was initiated, and they identified a finite universe of
reactors. They had criteria at the time that they used to
identify the varieties of fuel and the locations. What we did
last year was we realized that even that legal authority to
take back that universe of material was about to expire. So
first and foremost, we wanted to make sure we had the ability
to bring back the material we had already identified, and I
will say this is no criticism of anybody who has worked on the
program in the past. We had managed that program out of the
Office of Environmental Management, and we did it as a safety
and environmental program.
After 9/11 it became very clear that this material had
other malevolent uses and so we--it was transferred into my
program, because it was then viewed as a threat reduction
program. So we have tried to accelerate that program since that
time and have done so, but we are again focusing on that finite
universe of material that we have legal authority to take back
today.
We are studying the other--the remaining material, which
is--I believe, and I am going to get this--it's roughly a third
of the U.S.-origin material was identified in the first
environmental impact statement. That means roughly two-thirds
is not covered.
As I said earlier, some of that material is in countries
like France, which we don't worry about as much, and Germany
and other places, but there are some troubling locations
outside in that remaining 60 percent. We are studying ways to
address that material, and we are studying what legal authority
we would need in order to repatriate that.
Mr. Walden. I also understand the U.S. has exported 15,000
kilograms of LEU to foreign countries. How much of this U.S.-
origin LEU has been recovered?
Mr. Longsworth. I don't think any of it actually. I don't
know. I don't know the answer, but I can take that for the
record.
Mr. Walden. How concerned should we be about that?
Mr. Longsworth. Well, LEU is a commercial product. It is,
of course, not useful in a weapons program unless you had a
large facility, perhaps like Portsmith or Paducah, to enrich it
up to a weapons grade.
Mr. Walden. Can it be used for dirty bomb?
Mr. Longsworth. No, it is not suitable for a dirty bomb.
Mr. Walden. All right.
Mr. McGaffigan. Sir, we don't have any security
requirements beyond basic safety requirements for LEU fresh
fuel. Obviously once it's irradiated, then it is a different
story and we have very, very strict security requirements at
our reactors for our spent fuel storage facilities. But once
it's irradiated it's potentially useful for a dirty bomb. That
is not, if I were a terrorist, where I would go to get the
material.
Mr. Walden. Mr. Longsworth, I understand that the GTRI
program is working with other countries to improve the security
of high-risk radioactive sources. For instance, you are working
with other countries to improve security at hospitals that have
radiation teletherapy units that contain large amounts of
powder cesium. When you are finished with security enhancements
at foreign hospitals, are they more secure than what NRC
requires for security at hospitals with teletherapy units in
America?
Mr. Longsworth. In some cases yes, in some cases no. It
depends on the security conditions in the country. What we have
done in some countries is we do some simple things like put
bars on windows so that somebody couldn't steal a source and
throw it out to a waiting car and drive away. We put alarms on
the actual--in the oncology clinics on top of the--with the
machines that have the sources inside.
It's very low--it's for the most part low tech. We assess
whether they have response forces and what the response time
might be if somebody attempted to take that source, either
usually off hours when nobody's using the source. But it varies
from country to country, and it is driven primarily by the
security conditions in the country.
Mr. Walden. Do you think in the end, though, that those
hospitals will have a more secure environment than ones here as
required by the NRC?
Mr. Longsworth. It's going to vary dramatically from
hospital to hospital. It's without a specific example.
Mr. McGaffigan. Sir, I don't believe so. We have had
together with the 33 Agreement States very robust requirements
at the hospitals for such large sources over the years, before
9/11.
Since 9/11 we have advised them and we expect soon to issue
orders to approximately 700 university research facilities and
hospitals that have these sorts of materials to further enhance
security.
One of the issues that we deal with when we meet with that
community is the cost of some of our additional controls, and
we try to take that into account. We try to be reasonable, but
our security requirements are solid. They are about to improve
for that category of licensees very shortly. The staff has
promised us the orders very shortly for that category of
licensees that--hospital licensees.
I, unfortunately, see doctors at the Washington Hospital
Center more than I would like to, and I talk to the head of
oncology there, and that--we rely basically--our philosophy in
this country is to rely on local law enforcement and to have
very--have multiple means of contacting local law enforcement
within minutes.
That is basically what our--and we expect the local law
enforcement to help us, in addition to all the safety things we
do to make sure people don't come in contact with these sources
because it would be a real problem for them.
Mr. Walden. Well, how do the GTRI program security
improvements at foreign hospitals compare with what NRC
requires? It's just all over the map; is that what you are
saying?
Mr. McGaffigan. This is an area where I am not sure we have
had--we have--I think the fault is on both sides. We coordinate
with the DOE Office of Security through this Government Sector
Coordinating Council. The DOE Office of Security doesn't work
for Mr. Brooks or Mr. Longsworth, and so whatever documents
they have been using at foreign hospitals, like in Athens last
summer, are not something that we have cleared in our
documents. We only found out recently and have shared with
them, we weren't necessarily sharing with them. We were sharing
with the 33 States but weren't sharing with them. We have some
problem here, but we are following on that. We are going to fix
this. We are going to fix it promptly. We are going to be
talking to Deputy Secretary Sell next week with all of the
Commissioners, but this was not as coordinated as I think it
might have been.
I think within both of us, Paul has been given a mission
overseas, and we are a regulatory agency and the timelines of
the two don't always intersect. He felt that he needed to do
stuff in Athens last summer. We are still working on the orders
with the 33 Agreement States and the private sector to make
sure and it is also security information. Hospitals don't have
procedures for security information, and we are trying to help
them in that area. So there is a sort of walk-before-you-run
thing.
Mr. Walden. But GTRI is planning to provide guidance for
security enhancements at hospitals and at other facilities too
that use high-risk sources here in the U.S., aren't you?
Mr. McGaffigan. I think that what is happening, sir, and we
are coordinated on this through the IAEA, there is a--there is
some draft security documents that we, DOE and Department of
State are currently working on.
And we will coordinate on those documents before we go to
other nations. And that is a commitment. That is a commitment.
Mr. Walden. But I am informed GTRI has a pilot program
working now?
Mr. Longsworth. We have done some work here. Let me say,
the work we have done overseas--the Athens example is a great
example. We were asked by the Greeks to go look at their
facilities in the run-up to the Greece Olympics to ensure that
those sources were secured. And the work we did there, frankly,
was very low cost at these clinics, and so we probably provided
some things there that we might not provide other places simply
because of the request of the Greek government. And the
additional cost was almost immeasurable. We had teams there
putting in extra locks and putting in bars on the window.
Mr. McGaffigan. We had all of that. In the United States,
we--the blood irradiators, if you go and visit one of the local
hospitals, Children's Hospital or Washington Hospital Center or
GW, or whatever, they are in the basement. They are secured.
You know, you have all this lead shielding. That is why these
things tend to be in the basement. And we don't have open
windows where you have high-risk sources. It is just not--but
that mostly is prior to 9/11.
The additional things, we are really focusing on background
checks. And I mentioned in my testimony, we would like the
ability to do--the committee has given us the ability to do
fingerprinting checks.
Mr. Walden. My time has expired. Thank you for your answers
and testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Walden.
At this time I will recognize Dr. Burgess for his 10
minutes of questioning.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I apologize for
being late. So if anything I ask is covering ground you have
already covered, again, I apologize.
But, Commissioner, do you want to finish that last thought
about what has changed since 9/11?
Mr. McGaffigan. Well, we are focused on making sure that
there are multiple means of dealing with local law enforcement,
and we are focused on having reliable people have access to the
high-risk sources. But we could use additional authority, and
this committee has provided it to us on multiple occasions,
just never in a bill that got to the President, to have
background checks and fingerprinting for some key individuals.
We are not going to do everybody at the Washington Hospital
Center, but we will do the people in the oncology department
who have regular access to the high-risk sources if necessary.
I mean, this is something we have to talk through with the
States if we get the authority from the Congress.
But the focus isn't on guards and guns at hospitals and
research facilities. It is on making sure that there is very
robust--that the stuff is controlled and that we have local law
enforcement support. And we have had that in place, I believe,
since March 17, 2003, since Operation Liberty Shield. Everybody
was advised, and they take our advice seriously even though the
order hasn't been issued to--in this category to have robust
coordination with local law enforcement. That is the theory
under which we proceed.
Mr. Burgess. Very well.
Along the lines of the high-risk sources, the NRC has over
the last several decades licensed some high-risk sealed sources
for commercial and industrial uses such as food irradiators.
And they do contain a significant amount of radioactivity,
which could be useful if you wanted to make one of those
disbursal devices. When the NRC initially licensed these
sources, NRC didn't require tracking of the high-risk sources.
So I guess the question is, why not now develop that data base
to track those high-risk sources?
Mr. McGaffigan. Sir, we already have--we have done two
things. We have an interim data base with the 99 percent
response rate. And I can't promise it is perfect, but we know
the 1,300 to 1,325 places that have high-risk material in a
snapshot in time. We intend to issue a rulemaking which goes
through all the processes that will allow us to have a national
source tracking system which will have 1-day transactions. If
somebody in Texas sends something to Kentucky, we will get both
ends of the transaction within 1 day. It is going to be Web-
based. It is going to be secure. It is going to take, as I said
earlier, $10 to $20 million over the next--I think the number
is $14 million, I don't have it in my head. But that is just
for the computer system and the support to the computer system.
We have worked this with the States. We have worked it with our
colleagues and other agencies through an interagency
coordinating committee that includes the Department of Energy
and the Department of Homeland Security.
So we are aggressively moving out as rapidly as we can. We
want this to be--I forget the--FISMA, is that the term? The
information security oversight requirements of Congress. We
want those to be built in from the get-go so we don't have to
patch them on at the end.
The staff has the goal of having phase one of this in place
by the end of 2006. That is a very aggressive goal in
information technology space and may be too aggressive, and we
will back off. We are not going to put in place a system that
isn't adequately secure.
Mr. Burgess. Very well.
Mr. Longsworth, has the Department of Energy pursued the
use of commercial companies and facilities for the recovery and
interim-based storage of domestic radioactive sealed sources?
Mr. Longsworth. We are looking at commercial disposal.
Right now, most sources require disposal at a DOE facility. So
either we bring them to Los Alamos in most cases and we can--we
are also looking at expanding our disposal capacity at other
sites like the Nevada test site. We are hopeful that there will
be commercial disposal options, increased disposal commercial
options for these sources in the future. For the record, I can
get you the exact percentages that currently go to commercial
disposal, which is a significant percentage. We are trying to
increase that to try to get more capacity in the commercial
sector for disposal of unused and--of used and unwanted
sources.
So it would be your opinion that the Department is best
served by using the existing sources of both commercial and
governmental solutions?
Mr. Longsworth. Absolutely. A mix of both is required. Now,
some sources you will never be able to send to a commercial
facility, so we will have to maintain some capability in our
complex.
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you. We are going to go a second round
here to about 5 minutes for questions. So at this point, I will
start a second round.
In panel two's testimony, which we have all read, one of
them refers to the Schumer amendment, to the 1992--in 1992--
that required recipients of U.S. HEU to commit to convert their
reactors to using nonweapons-usable low-enriched uranium. And
then at another point, they mentioned that, in the energy bill,
the Schumer amendment was in effect removed or left nonoperable
as it passed on the House side. Do you all have any comments on
that?
Mr. Longsworth. Well, I will speak for the administration.
We actually supported the Schumer bill, the Schumer amendment,
that we think that is a good standard. I will note, one of the
consequences of that standard is that it did not make any kind
of economic assessment about whether a facility could convert
economically or not. And not that we are promoting that, but in
some cases, some of the users of the these highly enriched
uranium targets claimed that they could not economically
convert and, therefore, might shut down and cutoff the supply
of much needed rare isotopes for medical uses.
But we support the Schumer amendment. And one of the
reasons we are doubling the budget for designing new reactor
fuels, part of that work also goes to design new targets so
that you don't need highly enriched uranium targets to make
medical isotopes.
Mr. Whitfield. I guess, to be correct, that the language in
H.R. 6 would create an exemption from the conversion
requirement if the cost for such conversion exceeded 10
percent.
Mr. Longsworth. I was trying to articulate what I thought
the amenders were seeking. But let me be very clear. The
administration has said we do support the underlying Schumer.
Mr. Whitfield. The underlying Schumer amendment.
Mr. McGaffigan. And I believe the Commission has supported
the committee's actions in H.R. 6. The only exports, we see--we
follow the law. The only exports of HEU that have been at all
problematic during my 9 years on the commission--and they
haven't been really problematic, it is just that we have been
trying to follow the law--are exports of HEU to Canada and to
the Netherlands. Both countries have done extraordinary things,
and they are close allies, to try to convert first to low-
enriched uranium fuel, of course, and then, in the case of the
Canadians, they are trying, thus far without much success,
working with Argon, to find alternatives to HEU targets for
producing medical isotopes.
So we have followed the law. We have conditioned the
exports. That is our authority. We get executive branch views.
And we have thus far agreed with the executive branch that the
problem that the licensee would point out is that they are in a
bit of a do loop in that they believe in annual reports
submitted to us--I am talking about the Canadian licensee at
the moment. They have to say that there is an active program
under way--Schumer amendment requires that--with Argon. But
if--the economics they think is prohibitive, but they haven't
tied that down, partly because they haven't got the reactor
working yet. So it is a very complicated area that staff has
worked out I believe as part of the conference report. The last
Congress' H.R. 6, a provision that was--is certainly acceptable
to the commission, and I think Chairman Diaz has said that in
previous correspondence.
Mr. Longsworth. Let me clarify also, as the Commissioner
said, it is not possible today for the Canadian facility to
convert, so there is no requirement to stop shipments of
targets. But I think--and, again, we are working to try to
develop those targets and to do so in an economic way.
Mr. Whitfield. Let me make sure I understand. You support
the underlying Schumer amendment. But do you have an official
position on the way the language read as it passed, the energy
bill passed?
Mr. Longsworth. Let me clarify. I think the underlying
Schumer amendment--we support the notion that if a facility can
convert, then we should explore ways to make that possible.
Mr. Whitfield. Okay.
Mr. Longsworth. Congress will have to make an assessment
about whether, because of that requirement and perhaps a
licensee's inability to economically convert, that you might
lose that critical isotope production. But we are trying to
make it possible. Our mission is to try to make it possible for
facilities that use HEU in any use to convert. That may not be
economic for all users, and, again, that would--I think that
would defer back to you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you very much.
I will recognize Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. Longsworth, can you give us some sort of percentages
perhaps by weight or volume of what is out there to be still
secured or obtained, where we are and where we get to the end
point? I mean, can you put this in percentages for us?
Mr. Longsworth. Percentages of how much material is out
there and how much we have actually secured?
Mr. Inslee. Yes. Or otherwise secured and obtained in our
own possession. I am just trying to get a lay perspective of
where we are in this job.
Mr. Longsworth. Well, Russia is to weapons-usable nuclear
material what Saudi Arabia is to oil. I mean, most of the
material is in Russia. It is estimated to be 600 metric tons;
it may be more. It is most likely maybe less than that, but 600
metric tons is the benchmark that we use for Russian material.
Now, that is just material at their facilities that are
equivalent to DOE facilities. So their material
productionsites, we think, house about 600 metric tons.
There is some number of metric tons which in classified
session we can go into that are in the form of warheads or
weapons parts that are in their production chain. That is a
smaller number, obviously. But, in Russia, again, we are
working to secure all of that material. And we are on track to
be done with everything including warheads perhaps as early as
2009.
Mr. Inslee. So what percentage have we obtained up to now?
Is it half? 70 percent? What?
Mr. Longsworth. Again, warheads were--they don't tell us
exactly how many warheads they have. That is at various
locations, so that is against Russian law for them to tell us
that. But we will be done with all of the Navy sites this year.
We will be done with strategic rocket forces we think in 4 or 5
years. And then--and we think in that timeframe we can also be
done with all of the 12th GUMO sites which tend to be larger
sites and which are warhead consolidationsites.
For the 600 metric tons that is in their productionsites,
we are about halfway done in terms of volume. We are about
three-quarters of the way done in terms of locations, which
means that last 25 percent of locations or sites houses a much
higher percentage, or a much higher volume of material remains
at those last few sites.
Mr. Inslee. Now, could we--is there a one-to-one
correlation between our appropriations and our speed of
finishing that job? If we are halfway through now, if we double
your appropriation, can you get the job done in half the time?
Mr. Longsworth. I don't think it is quite that math for it
depends on what year you are in. From 2001 roughly to 2002,
2003, we were not limited by funding. We were limited by the
Russians' ability to absorb our funding. We then made several
breakthroughs where we needed additional funds. We asked for
funds. Congress gave us some additional funds, and we have
caught up. We are now at the point where I think we are fully
funded to achieve our 2008 deadline for the 600 metrics tons,
and we are fully funded for the warhead work as well.
There are two caveats I would put on that answer. One is
for the 600 metric tons; it requires the Russians to give us
access to their serial production enterprises, these last--
their last sites, which we have never been given access to.
These sites have ongoing nuclear weapons work. They are the
most sensitive sites in Russia. And I think one Russian told me
that no Westerner has ever set foot in these closed sites. So
getting into those sites or at least implementing programs that
will enhance security of those facilities and doing so in a way
that we can verify that the work was actually done, that is a
challenge, and that is a roadblock that we have to overcome if
we are going to meet the 2008 deadline.
Mr. Inslee. So what is the date for the 600 tons?
Mr. Longsworth. 2008.
Mr. Inslee. 2008.
Mr. Longsworth. 2008, yes, sir.
Mr. Inslee. Okay. And for completion of the warheads, that
is?
Mr. Longsworth. 2008, 2009. We are waiting for the Russian
federation to give us a comprehensive list of sites that they
want to do work at.
Mr. Inslee. A quick question. What do you see as the most
serious threat, domestic or overseas, and why? I mean, if you
had to sort of pick the one thing that would make you lose the
most sleep, what would you say it was?
Mr. Longsworth. In my mind, it is a lost nuclear warhead,
because that is ready to use, and probably an artillery shell
or something that is a man-portable nuclear weapon. That is a
very low-risk, high-consequence event. The Russians do provide
better security for warheads than they do for bulk material in
most cases. So it is a lower risk, but the consequence is high.
At the other end of that spectrum is a potential use of an
RDD device, which is a lower consequence but a higher
probability because of the availability of those sources. But
the thing that I think that, when we prioritize our work, we
prioritize--warheads get the highest priority. If we are given
the ability or access to secure a warhead site, we will divert
all of our resources to do that first. Then we go to bulk
fissionable material. This is the 600 metric tons. And then
kind of last on our list would be an RDD. So we would--that is
how, if you want to think of it in a rough priority, that is
how we would prioritize our work. And that is actually in our
budget guidance, and we manage that. We build our budgets based
on that.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Inslee.
Dr. Burgess, do you have any further questions?
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I will
yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, that would conclude the testimony and
questions for panel one. I would remind you all, since you have
been so kind to already spend an hour and a half with us, that
after we finish the opening statements, the statements and
questions for panel two, we will move into closed session in
2218. And that will probably be within 45 minutes from now. So
thank you all. And we look forward to seeing you in 2218.
At this time I would like to call the witnesses for the
second panel. First, Dr. Charles D. Ferguson, who is a fellow
of science and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations;
and Ms. Joan Rohlfing, who is the senior vice president for
programs and operations for the Nuclear Threat Initiative. We
genuinely appreciate your being with us this afternoon, and we
look forward to your testimony.
As you know, this is an investigative hearing, and
normally, we take testimony under oath. And I would ask you
all, do you have any difficulty in giving your testimony under
oath this afternoon? And of course, you would have a right to
counsel. Do you have a wish to have counsel with you when you
testify?
Then if you will rise and raise your right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you. You are now under oath, and you
may give your 5-minute summary of your written statement.
And, Dr. Ferguson, we will recognize you for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF CHARLES D. FERGUSON, FELLOW, SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS; AND JOAN B. ROHLFING,
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR PROGRAMS AND OPERATIONS, NUCLEAR
THREAT INITIATIVE
Mr. Ferguson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman--and
Congressman Inslee I see left the room--and Congressman
Burgess. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to this
important hearing on GTRI.
Because U.S. governments witnesses have ably reviewed the
accomplishments to date and the progress in achieving current
program goals, I will address some urgently needed
enhancements.
The United States should continue to delegitimize use of
civilian highly enriched uranium. The United States government
policy already points strongly in this direction. The GTRI Web
site in particular states that one of its important goals is
to, ``minimize and to the extent possible eliminate the use of
highly enriched uranium, HEU, in civilian nuclear applications
worldwide.''
Lending support for this longstanding policy, Congress
passed in 1992 the Schumer amendment to require recipients of
U.S. HEU to commit to converting their reactors to using
nonweapons-usable low-enriched uranium.
Mr. Chairman, I urge your committee to strengthen the
purpose behind the Schumer amendment. At a time when President
Bush has identified terrorists armed with nuclear weapons as
the gravest danger our country faces and at a time when Osama
bin Laden, one of America's greatest enemies, covets nuclear
weapons, we need to make sure that U.S. legislation does
everything it can to remove the temptation of HEU from nuclear
terrorists.
Mr. Chairman, it may be too little too late, because the
House energy policy act of 2005, H.R. 6, was sent to the Senate
recently, but I believe it is important to discuss some serious
concerns with Section 603 of that legislation. If enacted, the
amendment in that section will allow highly enriched uranium to
continue to be prevalent in the marketplace. This is in direct
opposition to President Bush's policy of keeping these
materials out of the hands of terrorists.
The amendment removes the incentives in current law for
isotope producers to work with the United States to resolve
technical conversion issues and reduce the cost of converting
to LEU. The study under the amendment is a fiction. The biggest
problem is the amendment's definition of feasibility of
conversion to LEU, a less than 10 percent increase in the cost
of producing isotopes. Current law simply defines it as a less
than a large percentage increase. The 10 percent definition is
arbitrary and has no demonstrable relationship to the
commercial feasibility of isotope production or to the price
that consumers must pay. In fact, the isotope production cost
is only a small fraction of the total product cost.
The study itself should weigh the cost of conversion
against the benefit of reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism
without presuming in advance what an acceptable cost would be.
We already know that conversion to LEU is feasible because
companies in other countries have successfully done it. The 9-
year time line, 5 years for the study followed by 4 additional
years that isotope producers would have to convert to LEU, is
strong evidence of the real purpose of this amendment: create
lots of smoke in the language and look serious. But the real
impact will be to repeal current protections for keeping HEU
out of the hands of terrorists.
Keeping current law in place will not affect medical
treatment of any patient. As long as foreign companies make a
good-faith effort to pursue conversion, they can continue to
receive HEU from the United States.
Now let me turn to another issue. The United States should
promote removal of HEU from potentially vulnerable sites to any
secure location, not necessarily the country of origin. GTRI is
striving to repatriate Soviet- and Russian-origin HEU fuel and
U.S.-origin HEU fuel back to Russia and the United States.
While this objective is laudable, if GTRI encounters resistance
in expeditiously repatriating HEU fuel back to the country of
origin, GTRI program managers should develop the program
flexibility to remove this dangerous material to any secure
site.
For instance, if a particular country holding Soviet-origin
HEU objects to repatriating this material to Russia, GTRI
managers should try to find a creative way to go around this
roadblock. These managers should request, if necessary, the
program flexibility to emphasize removing vulnerable HEU and
not be tied down to restrictive repatriation policy.
Next, the United States should mobilize its intelligence
resources to support the mission of GTRI. To help GTRI meet the
worthy goals of securing HEU and converting HEU fuel research
reactors, better intelligence assessments of facilities
containing HEU are urgently needed. While NNSA recognizes that
the insider threat is the most dangerous threat to loss of HEU
from these facilities, it is unclear whether NNSA has developed
detailed intelligence profiles of each facility. If it has not
already done so, Mr. Chairman, I recommend that your committee
urge NNSA and GTRI managers to coordinate their program
activities with the intelligence community.
To determine how vulnerable HEU at a facility is to theft
or diversion, the United States needs to know who works at each
facility, how susceptible is each worker to blackmail and other
means of coercion, how much scientific or commercial work is
done at each facility, and what physical security protection
measures are in place. A detailed intelligence profile would
also determine how much it would cost to shut down each
facility and direct workers to early retirement or to move
their research or commercial activities to a more secure
facility. The United States needs to move as quickly as
possible along as many parallel paths to remove HEU from
vulnerable facilities, to convert needed facilities to low-
enriched uranium use and to shut down or buy out unneeded
facilities.
Now, in my remaining time, let me quickly turn to the
second major component of GTRI, dealing with the threat of RDDs
or dirty bombs. GTRI should work closely with the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission to apply lessons learned in the
successful recovery of thousands of unused radioactive sources
within the United States. As you know, Mr. Chairman, there are
two regulatory systems within the United States: the agreement
State system and another system that is directly licensed by
the NRC itself.
One of my students at Georgetown University in the masters
degree program recently did his masters thesis on looking at
the agreement states versus nonagreement states. He has
uncovered evidence that the agreement states appear to be doing
a much better job at controlling their radioactive sources. So,
Mr. Chairman, I would urge your committee that we need to do an
expanded study. Unfortunately, my student only had enough
resources to look at four states. I believe that we need to
encourage the NRC, GTRI, and the agreement states to work
together to share information to determine the best security
practices among the states. In the interest of impartiality,
Mr. Chairman, I recommend that independent institutions such as
the National Academy of Sciences perform this analysis.
And, finally, the United States international partners
should build a sustainable radioactive material security
system. Mr. Longsworth talked at length about this, so I won't
go on. Let me just jump to what I think was not covered and
needs to be covered. And I am not recommending phasing out
radioactive materials; I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that
they serve very beneficial uses. But they can be used more
wisely, and we could apply smart alternative technologies to
phaseout selective high-risk radioactive sources. This has
already been done in selected industries in the United States.
It has saved money. It has increased safety and security. But I
think we need to do a much better effort at looking at ways to
introduce alternative technologies to make these radioactive
sources even more secure.
And one other point related to that, Mr. Chairman, is that
the national laboratories, in particular Los Alamos National
Laboratory, have done research on trying to make certain
radioactive sources less dispersible, less potent if used in an
RDD or dirty bomb. And what we need to do is develop a private-
public partnership to try to figure out how to take those ideas
and that research into the marketplace to try to phaseout
dispersible radioactive materials and put in place radioactive
materials that are more secure and safe.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me an
opportunity to contribute to this hearing and to offer some
recommendations to enhance national security and prevent the
use of nuclear radioactive materials in acts of nuclear
terrorism.
[The prepared statement of Charles D. Ferguson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles D. Ferguson, Fellow, Science and
Technology, Council on Foreign Relations
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this
important hearing on the Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction
Initiative to combat nuclear and radiological terrorism. My work on
preventing nuclear and radiological terrorism began on September 12,
2001, when I was serving in the Department of State's Office of the
Senior Coordinator for Nuclear Safety. On that date, I was asked to
write a memorandum to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell warning him
about the threat of radiological dispersal devices (RDDs), one type of
which is popularly called a ``dirty bomb.'' In March 2002, I left
government service to work as scientist-in-residence at the Monterey
Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). In January 2003,
CNS published ``Commercial Radioactive Sources: Surveying the Security
Risks,'' one of the first in-depth post-9/11 reports on the RDD threat.
I was the lead author of that report. Involvement in that report led to
officials at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) hiring me, as a non-governmental consultant, in
April 2003 to help them develop their action plan to secure dangerous
radioactive sources that could fuel potent RDDs. I am pleased that in
May 2004, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham launched the Global
Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), an integrated program to apply
NNSA's expertise to securing, removing, and disposing of both high-risk
radioactive sources and nuclear-weapons-usable highly enriched uranium
throughout the world.
This first anniversary of GTRI's launch presents an opportune time
to take stock of what GTRI has accomplished and what the United States
needs to do to continue to strengthen nuclear and radiological security
efforts. NNSA deserves substantial credit for working to prevent
nuclear and radiological terrorism through the GTRI and other important
programs. Because the U.S. government's witnesses have ably reviewed
the accomplishments to date and the progress in achieving current
program goals, I will mainly provide a brief assessment of the thinking
behind GTRI and then will address some urgently needed enhancements.
Among U.S. government agencies, the NNSA has the unique technical
and policy strength to tackle nuclear and radiological terror threats.
It can draw on the technical talent residing in the U.S. national
laboratories. In particular, Argonne National Laboratory has provided
much of the technical muscle in working to convert dozens of research
reactors worldwide from weapons-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) to
non-weapons-usable low enriched uranium. For decades during the Cold
War, the two major suppliers of HEU-fueled reactors were the Unites
States and the Soviet Union. Starting in the late 1970s, the United
States and the Soviet Union recognized the dangers of HEU-fueled
research reactors and began a program to convert these reactors to low
enriched fuels. Based on the past several years of nuclear security
work in the former Soviet Union, NNSA officials have also formed
valuable working relationships their counterparts in this region, where
large stockpiles of vulnerable radiological and nuclear materials are
located. GTRI has expanded its reach beyond the former Soviet Union to
include about 40 countries.
Domestically, the Department of Energy, for decades, has had the
responsibility to provide a secure disposal pathway for many of the
most potent commercial radioactive sources. In late 2003, NNSA was
wisely put in charge of this important domestic program--the Off-Site
Source Recovery (OSR) Project--because the Department's leadership
recognized it is a national security program as well as a radioactive
waste disposal program. The OSR Project deserves praise for
successfully exceeding its congressional mandate by securing more than
10,000 at-risk disused radioactive sources throughout the United
States. I believe that it should continue to receive needed financial
support from Congress. The program expenditures to date have been very
modest compared to the accomplishments.
In sum, GTRI works both domestically and internationally. This
broad-based approach should give GTRI the capability to apply lessons
learned within the United States to challenges confronted abroad.
Also, GTRI works to prevent use of the quintessential weapon of
mass destruction--a nuclear explosive--and the archetypal weapon of
mass disruption--a radiological dispersal device. Security experts
agree that terrorist detonation of a nuclear weapon is far less likely
to happen, but far more damaging, than terrorist use of a radiological
weapon. While there is consensus on this qualitative risk assessment,
there is disagreement among experts about how to allocate scarce
government resources to combating nuclear and radiological threats.
Should the U.S. government and its international partners spend
more resources on preventing and preparing for the most damaging or the
most likely acts of nuclear and radiological terrorism? To answer this
question, I devoted more than two years while at CNS writing the book
The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism with William Potter, Amy Sands,
Leonard Spector, and Fred Wehling. Published last year, this book
provides a prioritized plan for combating nuclear and radiological
threats. The book's fundamental conclusion ``is that the United States
must work immediately to reduce the probability of nuclear terror acts
with the highest consequences and mitigate the consequences of the
nuclear terror acts that are the most probable.'' Because of the
horrendous damage from a nuclear explosion, I believe that the United
States needs to spend more resources on preventing this threat from
occurring than preventing the much less harmful dirty bomb attack.
Nonetheless, as discussed in detail below, a wise, but still limited,
investment of government resources can do much to reduce the likelihood
and consequences of dirty bomb attacks.
The highest consequence nuclear terror act--terrorist detonation of
a nuclear explosive--would have devastating effects and could cause the
American people to lose confidence in their government. To carry out
that attack, terrorists would need to acquire an intact nuclear weapon
from a military arsenal or to seize highly enriched uranium or
plutonium to make an improvised nuclear device. Of these three pathways
to devastating nuclear terror, the highly enriched uranium route offers
terrorists the easiest method, assuming that official custodians of
nuclear weapons do not provide terrorists detailed assistance in
detonating an intact nuclear weapon. Unlike plutonium, HEU can fuel the
easiest to build nuclear weapon--a gun-type device--the type of bomb
exploded at Hiroshima. Such a crude, but devastating, weapon would not
require nuclear testing and would be within the technical capability of
certain terrorist groups. The most significant hurdle to the terrorists
is access to sufficient amounts of HEU. While governments must provide
rigorous security around intact nuclear weapons and plutonium
stockpiles, they must prioritize securing, consolidating, and
eliminating HEU stocks in both the military and civilian sectors.
Because GTRI aims to reduce and remove HEU from vulnerable locations
throughout the world, it is on the right path. But the United States
can do much more to accelerate efforts to secure and remove dangerous
HEU.
The United States should continue to de-legitimize use of civilian
highly enriched uranium. U.S. government policy already points strongly
in this direction. The GTRI Web site, in particular, states that one of
its important goals is to ``minimize and, to the extent possible,
eliminate the use of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in civil nuclear
applications worldwide.'' Dating back to at least 1978 with the
beginnings of the Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors
(RERTR) program, the United States has been striving to remove HEU from
the civilian sector. Lending further support for this policy, Congress
passed in 1992 the Schumer amendment to require recipients of U.S. HEU
to commit to converting their reactors to using non-weapons-usable low
enriched uranium. Mr. Chairman, I urge your committee to strengthen the
purpose behind the Schumer amendment. At a time when President Bush has
identified terrorists armed with nuclear weapons as the gravest danger
that our country faces and at a time when Osama bin Laden, one of
America's greatest enemies, covets nuclear weapons, we need to make
sure that U.S. legislation does everything that it can to remove the
temptation of HEU from nuclear terrorists. Consequently, I recommend
that your committee should work to determine what it would require in
terms of financial cost and political commitment for medical isotope
production companies requesting HEU supplies to convert expeditiously
to employing low enriched uranium in their isotope production reactors.
The United States should promote removal of HEU from potentially
vulnerable sites to any secure location, not necessarily the country of
origin. GTRI is striving to repatriate Soviet- and Russian-origin HEU
fuel in seventeen countries back to Russia; similarly, it is working to
repatriate U.S.-origin fuel in several countries back to the United
States. While this objective is laudable, if GTRI encounters resistance
in expeditiously repatriating HEU fuel back to the country of origin,
GTRI program managers should develop the program flexibility to remove
this dangerous material to any secure site. For instance, if a
particular country holding Soviet-origin HEU objects to repatriating
this material to Russia, GTRI managers should try to find a creative
way to go around this roadblock. Perhaps officials of the country in
question would welcome sending their HEU to an existing secure facility
outside of Russia. GTRI managers should request, if necessary, the
program flexibility to emphasize removal of vulnerable HEU and not be
tied down to a restrictive repatriation policy.
The United States should mobilize its intelligence resources to
support the mission of GTRI. To help GTRI meet the worthy goals of
securing HEU and converting HEU-fueled research reactors, better
intelligence assessments of facilities containing HEU are urgently
needed. While NNSA recognizes that the insider threat is the most
dangerous threat to loss of HEU from these facilities, it is unclear
whether NNSA has developed detailed intelligence profiles of each
facility. If NNSA is not already doing so, Mr. Chairman, I recommend
that your committee urge NNSA and GTRI managers to coordinate their
programs' activities with the intelligence community. To determine how
vulnerable HEU at a facility is to theft or diversion, the United
States needs to know who works at each facility, how susceptible is
each worker to blackmail or other means of coercion, how much
scientific or commercial work is done at each facility, and what
physical security protection measures are in place. A detailed
intelligence profile would also determine how much it would cost to
shut down each facility and direct workers to early retirement or to
move their research or commercial activities to a more secure facility.
Shutting down and consolidating vulnerable HEU facilities could result
in significant monetary savings. The United States needs to move as
quickly as possible along as many parallel paths to remove HEU from
vulnerable facilities, to convert needed facilities to low enriched
uranium use, and to shut down or buy out unneeded facilities.
Turning to the second major component of GTRI, I want to address
the issue of radioactive materials security. In certain respects, this
issue involves a different security paradigm than HEU security. Unlike
HEU, radioactive sources have a legitimate commercial use. Every day,
millions of people rely on radioactive isotopes to perform beneficial
medical, industrial, and scientific purposes. In contrast to de-
legitimizing HEU use, it would cause more harm than good to completely
phase out use of radioactive sources. That being stated, NNSA and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) along with international partners,
such as the G-8 and the International Atomic Energy Agency, can work
together to more smartly employ radioactive sources and ionizing
radiation.
GTRI should work closely with the NRC to apply lessons learned in
the successful recovery of thousands of disused radioactive sources.
Within the United States, there are two regulatory systems for control
of radioactive sources. The Agreement States system, formed under the
1954 U.S. Atomic Energy Act, as amended, includes 33 states. These
states have primary responsibility, with the NRC providing an oversight
role, for licensing commercial radioactive sources within their
jurisdictions. In contrast, the other 17 states turn to the NRC to
directly license their sources. Recently, Morgan Baker, one of my
graduate students at the Security Studies Program at Georgetown
University, discovered while writing his Master's degree thesis that
the states under the Agreement States system appear to control their
radioactive sources better than those states directly licensed by the
NRC. Because of his resource and time constraints, he only examined
four states. The GTRI's Off-Site Source Recovery program has amassed a
database of thousands of disused sources found throughout the United
States. This database can be mined for valuable information as to which
states have done the best job at controlling radioactive sources. Mr.
Chairman, I urge your committee to direct the NRC, the GTRI, and the
Agreement States to work together to share information in order to
determine best security practices among the states. In the interests of
impartiality, Mr. Chairman, I recommend that an independent
organization, such as the National Academy of Sciences, perform the
analysis.
The United States and international partners should build a
sustainable radioactive materials security system. Such a system would
go beyond merely locking up high-risk radioactive sources. GTRI
officials to a large extent recognize this and have been leveraging
IAEA assistance as well as working closely with their counterparts in
other countries to develop a safety and security culture. To paraphrase
words of wisdom from the Bible, it is better to teach a man how to
build his own effective security system than to keep providing security
for him. Nonetheless, for countries with weak controls over radioactive
sources, there is an urgent need for GTRI to provide rapid security
upgrades. A long term sustainable solution involves strengthening the
regulatory systems within those countries. The IAEA has had a program
to do that since 1995. But building strong regulatory systems take
time. They cannot just be legislated into existence. Training skilled
regulatory officials requires sustained effort. Another important
aspect of making the security of radioactive sources stronger is using
these materials wisely. As explained earlier in this testimony,
radioactive materials should not be fully phased out. Nonetheless,
smart alternative technologies can be used to replace certain types of
high-risk radioactive sources. In the fall 2003 volume of the National
Academies journal Issues in Science and Technology, Joel Lubenau, a
former senior adviser to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I
wrote:
The International Commission on Radiological Protection and
the congressionally chartered National Council on Radiation
Protection and Measurements (NCRP) hold as a pillar of
radiation protection the principle of justification. This
principle calls for evaluating the risks and benefits of using
a radioactive source for a particular application. Users are
supposed to opt for a nonradioactive alternative if there is
one that provides comparable benefit and less risk, including
the risk associated with waste management.
The NRC has taken the position that advocating alternative
technologies is not part of its mission. The commission's
reasons, which have not been explained, might be that it
believes it is only in the business of regulating the
radioactive sources that licensees choose to use, not the
business of overseeing licensees' decisions to use them.
Nonetheless, it can be argued that the NRC's charge from
Congress--to protect public health, safety, and property as
well as provide for the common defense and security--is
sufficient to require the commission to adopt the principle of
justification and, at least in principle, to encourage the
consideration of alternative technologies. This is not to
suggest that the NRC should second-guess licensees' decisions
to use radioactive sources, simply that the commission should
ensure that licensees are making informed decisions that take
into account justification and technological alternatives.
Applying the principle of justification would reduce the number
of radioactive sources in use and thus cut the risk of an RDD
event occurring. The National Academy of Sciences, the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the NCRP, and the
Health Physics Society have all recommended that users consider
alternative technologies.
One U.S. industry that is adopting alternative technologies
is steel, itself no stranger to the risks and costs of
radioactive contamination. Steel mills use nuclear gauges to
monitor the level of molten steel in continuous casters. If
molten steel breaks through the casting system and strikes a
gauge, the gauge housing and even the source could melt,
causing contamination. Accordingly, mill operators are
replacing nuclear gauges on continuous casters with eddy
current and thermal systems, even though they are more
expensive. The tradeoff--the cost of alternative technology
versus the cost of contamination--makes the new systems a smart
choice.
Some of the national laboratories are performing R&D to
replace the most dangerous radioactive sources (those
containing very dispersible radioactive compounds) with sources
that pose less of a security hazard. Unfortunately, technology
developed at the national labs is not readily available to the
marketplace. At an IAEA conference on the radioactive source
industry in April 2003, major source producers reportedly
expressed interest in forming public-private partnerships to
bring these alternative technologies to market. In the United
States, such partnerships are sorely needed.
Mr. Chairman, I recommend that you encourage the NRC to keep
licensees informed of smart alternative technologies that can safely
and securely replace certain high-risk radioactive sources. I also
recommend that your committee encourage the formation of private-public
partnerships to develop radioactive sources that are less hazardous to
use in potent dirty bombs. This action plan would support U.S. security
and complement the important national security work done by the NRC and
GTRI.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to
contribute to this hearing and to offer some recommendations to enhance
national security and to prevent the use of nuclear and radioactive
materials in acts of nuclear terrorism.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Dr. Ferguson.
And, Ms. Rohlfing, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF JOAN B. ROHLFING
Ms. Rohlfing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
committee for the opportunity to testify today. I would like to
request that my written statement be entered into the record,
and I will offer a brief oral statement.
The gravest threat facing the Nation today is the potential
for a terrorist organization to use a nuclear device in the
heart of an American city, not a dirty bomb but a nuclear yield
producing device bomb similar to Hiroshima. It is this threat,
the threat of a nuclear blast not a radiological weapon, that I
will focus on, because I believe that an attack using a nuclear
bomb is the most serious and the consequences the most dire for
our Nation, the globe and our way of life. Let me say, I am not
an alarmist by nature, but in this testimony today, I hope to
ring an alarm bell.
Terrorists have several pathways to a nuclear bomb. They
can acquire through theft or illicit purchase a fully intact
warhead from an existing nuclear weapons state. Or, more
likely, they will fabricate a crude nuclear device from a
stolen or illicitly purchased nuclear material, either
plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Getting plutonium or
highly enriched uranium, HEU, the essential ingredients of a
nuclear bomb, is the hardest step in making a weapon. These
materials are difficult to make, and current plutonium and HEU
production technologies require large, expensive and
technically sophisticated facilities that are today within the
exclusive domain of nation states.
Acquiring these materials through theft or illicit purchase
is the most difficult step for terrorists to take and the
easiest for us to stop. Unfortunately, the essential
ingredients of nuclear bombs are spread around the world, much
of it in purely secured facilities. HEU is of particular
concern because the simplest design for a nuclear device, a so-
called gun-type design, is based on HEU. There are over 40
countries that possess more than 100 research facilities that
use this material. Effectively reducing nuclear danger will
require global action and unprecedented global cooperation.
Governments around the globe, including the U.S.
Government, are not yet acting with the urgency or priority of
purpose required to address the threat. For example,
incredibly, given what is at stake, there is no comprehensive
baseline inventory of warheads and nuclear materials that must
be secured worldwide. There is no scorecard to keep score
against. And let me clarify: This was a question that came up
in the Q-and-A session. There was a question of Mr. Longsworth
about whether there is a comprehensive baseline inventory. He
suggested that there is no single integrated document. I am not
talking about creating a single integrated document, and most
certainly, it should be classified whenever this inventory is
created. I am talking about gaps in our knowledge. We don't yet
know where all of the weapons-usable material is, and
therefore, we can't keep score against it.
The Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction
Initiative is helping to reduce, secure and eliminate HEU,
plutonium and dangerous radioactive sources on a global basis.
But is GTRI doing enough, fast enough, to prevent the ultimate
catastrophe of nuclear terrorism from occurring? Has it been
given the tools it needs to perform this most critical of
missions effectively and rapidly? I believe it has not. The
program is not yet delivering the protection we need with the
urgency that we need it.
What will it take to create the kind of program that can
deliver the results we need on the timetable we need it? My
written testimony provides detailed suggestions for making the
program more effective, but I will sum up the main idea in one
sentence: We need to build a bold aggressive Apollo-like
program to prevent nuclear terrorism. We should be challenging
ourselves to think in terms of creating a model program. The
Apollo and Manhattan projects are two examples of what we can
do when we have a national goal and provide the leadership,
resources and authorities needed to achieve the goal.
Incredibly, even though our way of life is at stake here,
we are pursuing a business-as-usual approach to preventing
nuclear terrorism. We are talking about timelines. Just--if you
look at the budget documents submitted to the Congress, the I
would say very ambitious and frankly unrealistic timelines that
are described in those budget documents that go out 10 and in
some cases 14 years from now, are unrealistic because they are
not taking into account the entire universe of materials out
there. And if we go about reclaiming materials, securing
materials, locking them down at the pace that we have been with
existing programs, it is going to take the better part of a
quarter of a century. So we are nowhere near where we need to
be in terms of the pace of getting this job done.
The price of slow action could easily be loss of life,
property and freedom on an unprecedented and catastrophic
scale. We must recognize that we don't have the luxury of time
to pursue a business-as-usual approach, and we must act
accordingly.
In conclusion, a nuclear terrorism event has the potential
to alter life as we know it today, severely damaging the global
economy, seriously eroding the public's confidence in
governments, constraining the civil liberties we enjoy in the
United States, and devastating our sense of personal and
collective security. We have an enormous stake in ensuring that
this does not happen. At NTI, the organization where I work, we
frequently ask ourselves and our elected representatives and
our fellow citizens of the world: The day after a catastrophic
instance of nuclear terrorism, what will we wish we had done to
prevent it, and why aren't we doing that now? Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Joan B. Rohlfing follows:]
Prepared Statement of Joan B. Rohlfing, Senior Vice President for
Programs and Operations, Nuclear Threat Initiative
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I thank you for the
invitation to testify before you on this urgent national security
issue. I appear before you as the Senior Vice President for the Nuclear
Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the risk
of use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. I should make
clear, however, that the testimony I offer before you today is my own,
and has not been cleared by NTI's Board of Directors.
NUCLEAR TERRORISM--THE NEW NUCLEAR THREAT
The gravest threat facing the nation today is the potential for a
terrorist organization to use a nuclear device in the heart of an
American city--not a ``dirty bomb'', but a nuclear yield producing bomb
similar in effect to the one used in Hiroshima. It is this threat, the
threat of a nuclear blast, not a radiological weapon, that I will focus
my remarks on today because I believe that an attack using a nuclear
bomb is the most serious, and the consequences the most dire for our
nation, the globe, and our way of life.
The subject of this hearing--the Department of Energy's (DOE's)
Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) is a critical program in our
fight to prevent nuclear terrorism, by working to prevent nuclear
weapons materials, and dirty bomb materials from falling into the hands
of terrorists. As such, GTRI is one of the most important national
security programs that the US Government is currently undertaking.
Terrorists have several pathways to a nuclear bomb: they can
acquire, through theft or illicit purchase, a fully intact warhead from
an existing nuclear weapon state, or, more likely, they will fabricate
a crude nuclear device from stolen or illicitly purchased nuclear
material--either plutonium or highly enriched uranium.
Getting plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU), the essential
ingredients of a nuclear bomb, is the hardest step in making the
weapon. These materials are difficult to make, and current plutonium
and HEU production technologies require large, expensive and
technically sophisticated industrial facilities that are today within
the exclusive domain of nation states. The most likely way a terrorist
will get plutonium and HEU, therefore, is through illicit purchase or
theft. Acquiring these materials is the most difficult step for
terrorists to take and the easiest step for us to stop.
Unfortunately, the essential ingredients of nuclear bombs are
spread around the world, much of it in poorly secured facilities. HEU
is of particular concern, because the simplest design for a nuclear
device--a so-called gun type design--is one that is based on using HEU
as the fissile material to produce a chain reaction. There are over 40
countries that possess more than 100 research facilities that use HEU.
The DOE's Global Threat Reduction Initiative is focused on minimizing,
and eventually eliminating, the use of HEU in civilian applications
around the world by helping to convert these facilities (or close them
entirely) to ones that use low enriched uranium, a material that is not
suitable for a nuclear weapon. The GTRI is also working to remove HEU
from sites around the world, with an initial emphasis on HEU that came
from the US and Russia.
Effectively reducing nuclear danger will require global action,
through unprecedented cooperation in over 40 nations around the world--
including nuclear weapons states. No state acting alone has sufficient
authority, resources or influence to assuredly prevent a nuclear
attack, especially from nuclear terrorism. Because our international
security is only as good as the security of these materials at the
least defended site, all nations must move quickly to either eliminate
these dangerous materials, or improve the physical security of these
materials wherever they exist.
THE GAP
Governments around the globe, including the United States
Government, are not yet acting with the urgency or priority of purpose
required to address the nuclear threat--the greatest threat to our
security.
For example:
Incredibly, given the threat, there is no comprehensive baseline
inventory of warheads and nuclear materials that must be
secured worldwide.
Without this baseline inventory, it is not possible to develop a
coordinated and prioritized plan for securing or removing those
weapons/materials.
In Russia alone, less than half of the known nuclear weapons usable
materials in the country have been given some form of
strengthened security through US-Russian cooperative threat
reduction efforts. While the US and other states have been
working with the Russian Federation to improve security over
the last decade, bureaucratic disagreements over site access
and liability continue to slow progress.
While we recognize the threat that poorly secured HEU poses to our
security, we are still continuing international civil commerce
in this material. Despite pleas from the Director General of
the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei,
there is no international agreement and not much leadership on
the subject of curtailing the widespread use of highly enriched
uranium around the globe.
Beginning in 2002, the G8 pledged at Kananaskis to match U.S. threat
reduction funding for addressing weapons of mass destruction
threats, but this G8 effort is making glacial progress and
needs focused leadership.
GTRI A KEY PROGRAM, BUT STRENGTHENING NEEDED
The Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction Initiative
programs help to reduce, secure and eliminate highly enriched uranium,
plutonium and dangerous radioactive sources on a global basis. But is
GTRI doing enough, fast enough to prevent the ultimate catastrophe of
nuclear terrorism from occurring? Has it been given the tools it needs
to perform this most critical of missions effectively and rapidly? I
believe it has not.
Below I offer some reflections on what we must achieve to prevent
terrorists from being able acquire nuclear materials, and some measures
of how GTRI is doing against these benchmarks.
Former Secretary Abraham deserves credit for creating this program
one year ago. It is testament to his appreciation of the nuclear
terrorist threat that he consolidated into a single program a number of
important proliferation prevention programs within the Department of
Energy in order to ensure that they were better integrated, and more
effectively executed. But the program is not yet delivering the
protection we need with the urgency that we need it.
OBJECTIVES & MEASURES OF SUCCESS
Denying terrorists' access to dangerous nuclear material boils down
to three essential objectives:
1. Establish a comprehensive global inventory of weapons and materials
and a related threat assessment;
2. Secure and/or eliminate vulnerable weapons and weapons materials
against this inventory on an accelerated basis;
3. Stop the spread of additional HEU around the globe by ending its use
in civil commerce.
How is the GTRI doing against these three objectives?
On the first point, creating a global inventory and threat
assessment, DOE's Global Threat Reduction Office is working to create
one. But as far as I and my colleagues at NTI have been able to
discover, a risk-based global inventory does not yet exist. We
recognize that creating a comprehensive, global inventory is not an
easy task. It will require the integration of multiple existing
databases, the creation of new data, and the cultivation of
intelligence sources to fill gaps. We do not propose that this baseline
inventory, once created, should be made publicly available. But its
creation will be essential for understanding how much progress the
program is making, and, more importantly, for understanding whether we
are securing, converting and/or eliminating the highest priority
threats.
On the second point, securing and/or eliminating vulnerable weapons
usable materials, the Department of Energy is clearly making progress.
The Department's 2006 budget indicates a goal of converting five
research reactors (out of an estimated 66 remaining) this year from HEU
to non weapons-usable low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. It estimates
that it will take until 2014 to convert all 66 remaining reactors. But
the metrics DOE is using may be incomplete.
We are not confident that the estimate of 66 remaining reactors
includes all facilities that may have civil HEU. The DOE program to
convert research reactors was not designed to address other civilian
applications and facilities that use HEU, such as critical and
subcritical assemblies (a type of research facility), or Russian
nuclear icebreakers. There is also evidence, for example, that a
significant additional number of HEU research facilities may exist
within Russia, and we know that other HEU facilities of Chinese or
other origin exist that have not been included in this tally. A July
2004 GAO report on DOE's reactor conversion program cites a figure of
128 facilities around the world that contain 20 kilograms or more of
HEU. Moreover, can we say that we are working with the urgency needed
to stem this threat if we aren't planning--even with the more modest
inventory assumptions in the DOE budget--to finish the job until 2014?
A similar line of reasoning can be applied to the GTRI program
element that is responsible for returning US-origin spent fuel to the
US. Under the current budget plan, the US program will take spent HEU
fuel back from foreign research reactors until 2019. But the material
that has been declared eligible for ``take-back'' under the DOE program
has been narrowly defined. The General Accounting Office, in a November
2004 report on the US foreign fuel return program, found that another
12,300 kilograms of HEU (enough for 200-250 nuclear weapons) that had
been exported by the US was not eligible for return because the DOE,
when establishing the fuel return program, limited the types of fuel
that would be covered by the program. We need to broaden our definition
of what the US considers eligible to bring back to the US, or send to
Russia, including considering additional, third party disposition paths
for some of this material.
This brings me to the third point. Surprisingly, the US continues
to export HEU for use in research facilities abroad. The US is not
alone in this practice, other HEU producers also continue to produce
HEU for use in civil facilities. Even as we try to get our arms around
the global inventory, and rightly spend money to convert facilities and
eliminate HEU around the globe, the HEU ``spigot'' remains on. As of
yet, no global norm against the use of HEU for civilian applications
exists.
We must work to establish a global norm against use of HEU for
civil purposes on an urgent basis. We must create the policy, legal and
regulatory frameworks to support this long-term vision. Within the US,
we have implicitly been promoting this norm through the very
nonproliferation programs that now comprise the DOE's Global Threat
Reduction Initiative. But we need to move beyond an ``implicit'' policy
of minimizing use of HEU, to an explicit one. Specifically, the US
must:
1) Actively lead the global community in establishing a global norm
that HEU in civil commerce be minimized, and eventually
eliminated; and
2) Engage its HEU recipients in a serious dialogue about conversion on
a defined timetable.
While US policy on minimizing HEU in civil commerce has been
codified in law through the ``Schumer Amendment'' to the Energy Bill,
(which states that the US may not transfer HEU to another state for use
in research reactors unless it has provided assurances that it will
convert to alternative materials for operation when technically
feasible) this policy was recently dealt a serious blow by changes
proposed to it in H.R. 6, the House passed Energy Policy Act of 2005.
The amendment to the Schumer language in H.R. 6 would create an
exemption from the conversion requirement for nuclear facilities if the
costs of such conversion exceed 10 percent. The new language completely
undercuts longstanding US policy to minimize HEU in civil commerce, and
is moving us in the opposite direction of where we need to be globally.
The US will have no standing to press the rest of the world to
undertake nuclear terrorism prevention measures if it continues to hold
itself, and the recipients of its HEU, to another standard.
PROGRAMMATIC TOOLS FOR SUCCESS
My testimony would be incomplete without some mention of the
programmatic tools that federal program mangers will need to
effectively execute the essential elements of the GTRI on a time urgent
basis.
The rules and organizational structures of large government
bureaucracies and their oversight committees unfortunately do not
facilitate nimble program execution. This is not so important for
handling routine matters, where the price of slow action is often only
inconvenience. But where the program objective is to prevent nuclear
terrorism, the price of slow action could easily be loss of life,
property and freedom on an unprecedented and catastrophic scale. A
nuclear terrorism event has the potential to alter life as we know it
today--severely damaging the global economy, seriously eroding the
publics' confidence in governments, constraining the civil liberties we
enjoy in the US, and devastating our sense of personal and collective
security. We all have an enormous stake in ensuring that this does not
happen. Accordingly, it is in our self-interest to explore innovative
ways in which nuclear terrorism prevention programs, such as GTRI, can
be accorded special tools to expedite action--even if this means
granting unique or unprecedented authorities and execution mechanisms.
Several ideas come to mind:
Provide critical funding flexibility by allowing GTRI program
managers to move funds between program accounts as needed to
act on time urgent opportunities for action. This could
specifically take the form of allowing managers to move funds
that exceed the reprogramming threshold allowed for other DOE
programs. Another component of budget flexibility lies in the
use of ``uncosted balances''. Program managers should be
allowed to determine the best use of these funds within the
program, and not have these balances reclaimed by Congress or
the Administration to offset future budget requirements.
Congress should provide sufficiently broad legal authorities for GTRI
managers to execute their mission in an expeditious manner. For
example:
The GTRI Program should be given explicit authority to provide a
broad range of incentives to reactor facility operators to
convert facilities or eliminate weapons usable materials
expeditiously.
The Program should also be given broad flexibility to accept
nuclear materials for ultimate disposition in the US that
is not US-origin. This will require a provision, at a
minimum, to expedite the lengthy environmental reviews that
are required for any materials outside fo the scope of the
existing (US-origin) fuel return program.
These kinds of authorities, mechanisms and processes are essential
to the US Government's ability to move with the alacrity it needs to
perform the terrorism prevention mission. Unfortunately, today, we must
often engage in multi-year approval and funding processes before some
operations can be completed.
The above represent a few basic ideas of how we might facilitate a
more streamlined and expeditious program. We should challenge ourselves
to think of additional, and more creative management approaches,
establishing a kind of ``model-program'' approach to nuclear terrorism
prevention programs. We must recognize that we don't have the luxury of
time to pursue a ``business as usual'' approach to problem solving, and
act accordingly.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I want to recognize the many men and women of our
government, and other, who are working around the world on the critical
mission of locking down nuclear weapons and materials. There is no more
important task. The global threat of nuclear terrorism has never been
higher.
But we must ask ourselves whether we have given our government
servants the tools they need to get the job done with the urgency that
it requires. We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe.
Whether we win that race will depend upon how smartly and expeditiously
we act. At NTI, we frequently ask ourselves, our elected
representatives, and our fellow citizens of the world: the day after a
catastrophic instance of nuclear terror, what will we wish we had done
to prevent it? Why aren't we doing that now?
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Ms. Rohlfing, and Dr. Ferguson.
We appreciate your testimony very much.
I know, Ms. Rohlfing, you focused on nuclear devices
primarily, but I want to ask both of you a question relating to
the agreement states, the 33 states pursuant to the Atomic
Energy Act of 1954. Are any of you aware of additional reports
other than this masters thesis in which someone has questioned
or alleged that these 33 states are much more effective in
dealing with sealed sources than the other 17?
Mr. Ferguson. No, Mr. Chairman, I am not. And I have been
working on this issue for the last 3.5 years. I know the
Government Accountability Office has issued a number of
reports, and they have looked at the agreement State system.
But I don't believe they have done that kind of comparison,
comparing the agreement States to the nonagreement States.
Mr. Whitfield. What about you, Ms. Rohlfing?
Ms. Rohlfing. I don't have anything to add to that since I
have been primarily focused on the weapons-usable material.
Mr. Whitfield. Right. Now, you had a number of suggestions
of ways to improve this program. Are you advocating that it
needs more money? Or if you were in charge, what specifically
would you do that is not being done right now?
Ms. Rohlfing. I think it needs more money. That is just one
component. I think, more importantly than money, this needs to
really be elevated on the national agenda. In terms of the
national leadership on the issue, I would love to see more
Members of Congress holding hearings on this issue, informing
themselves, educating themselves, understanding the danger. I
would love to see the same within the administration in terms
of the priority level of attention that it accords to this
subject both in terms of day-to-day management and oversight of
the issue and execution of the programs within the government,
but particularly with respect to our diplomatic engagement.
Mr. Longsworth mentioned that diplomacy and diplomatic
challenges, access is a huge hurdle in being able to convert
day-to-day some of the research reactors and have some of the
vulnerable nuclear materials returned. But we have not yet made
this the No. 1 security agenda in our diplomatic engagements.
And, finally, I would say, when I say Apollo-like,
Manhattan-type program, I think we really do need to create
something that is a model program in terms of giving the
governmental personnel who are working on this issue broader
authorities, innovative authorities, flexibility to spend money
as opportunities do present themselves, and we have done none
of that.
Mr. Whitfield. Dr. Ferguson, you pointed out in your
testimony that you believe it is much more probable that a
well-organized terrorist group can obtain a radiological
dispersal device or dirty bomb before it could assemble a real
nuclear weapon, unless they were able to steal a nuclear
weapon. And you point out that this dispersal device is not a
weapon of mass destruction but rather a weapon of mass
disruption. Please tell us, what do you think would be the
short- and long-term health and economic consequences of a
successful dirty bomb in a major metropolitan area?
Mr. Ferguson. Mr. Chairman, even the worst dirty bomb that
I can imagine or other security experts I have talked to can
imagine doesn't come nearly as close to what even a very crude
low-yield nuclear weapon can do. It is like a firefly to--I am
sorry, a lightning bug to lightning in terms of comparison, a
dirty bomb to a nuclear weapon.
That being said, we can't discount the threat of RDDs or
dirty bombs because they can create, as you point out and I
point out in my testimony, a weapon of mass disruptive type
effect or weapon of mass effect situation, where we have
psychological and social effects run rampant, we have got
people who would be afraid to move back into a contaminated
area. If the government can't convince them that we have
cleaned the area down to safe levels, real estate would
plummet. The economy in the local area would be affected. And
then we would have to fear that these terrorists who struck
with a dirty bomb in New York or Washington or some American
city could do it at some other places within the United States
or other parts of the world and shut down our economy. That
would be my greatest fear. It is not that we would have a
tremendous loss of life. Maybe in the order of a few hundred
dead in the near term is sort of the worst case that I can
imagine.
Mr. Whitfield. Do both of you feel that there is real
disagreement within the government on where the priority should
be set for the policy?
Ms. Rohlfing. Disagreement. I am not sure I would
characterize disagreement within the government, and as a
nongovernment witness, I am probably not the best person to
address that question. But I would observe that I think there
has been a lack of attention at appropriate levels to this
issue, and therefore, we have not ended up with funds on the
right priorities.
For example, the very important program that we are
discussing at this hearing, Global Threat Reduction Initiative,
with a budget of, what, approximately $93 million, is a drop in
the bucket compared to the amounts of money we are spending on
our overall national security and almost any other budget line
that you can think of. That would suggest to me, especially
given the leverage that we get from addressing this aspect of
the problem, the front end, we call this locking down nuclear
weapons and materials the first line of defense. If you don't
get this right, then you have got to worry about having a good
second, third and fourth line of defense in place. And while we
should absolutely have multiple layers of defense, it is much
harder once nuclear material is lost to track it down. It is
like finding a needle in a haystack, or to find a weapon, God
forbid, should it get into the hands of a terrorist
organization. So we need to be doing more faster on this
particular aspect.
Mr. Whitfield. I would point out that, of course, that $93
million is one source of funds. But there are additional funds
being spent, obviously, on nonproliferation. Now, both of you
talked about the Schumer amendment, and I think that was
relatively well covered in the first panel. But both of you
basically feel like that what happened is a serious mistake, I
take it. Is that correct?
Mr. Ferguson. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Ms. Rohlfing. And I would just add, since I didn't include
it in my oral statement, that I strongly agree that the action
taken in the House energy bill is a serious blow to the overall
policy objective that the United States has been pursuing for
several decades, to try and reduce and eventually eliminate
highly enriched uranium in civil commerce. And we have got to
keep our eye on the big objective here, which is that we are
going to have no credibility as a Nation convincing other
nations to do the very things we are trying to do in this
program if we continue to push new material out the door even
if it is to the Canadians and, in fact, I might say, especially
if it is to the Canadians. I will stop there, but I would be
happy to describe why that is so if it is useful.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, I have no further questions.
Dr. Burgess, would you have some?
Mr. Burgess. Yes, please describe why that is useful with
the Canadians.
Ms. Rohlfing. The Canadians are using HEU to make targets
which they irradiate in a research reactor to create the
medical isotope Molybdenum 99. And there is no question that
medical isotope is important. It is widely used for beneficial
therapeutic purposes, and it is important to the U.S. market,
and in particular, Canada serves, I think it is roughly 60
percent of the global market for this particular medical
isotope. But it is not the only producer. One of the other
major producers is the Republic of South Africa. South Africa
right now maintains quite a large stockpile of highly enriched
uranium, and they are still operating their research reactor
both on highly enriched uranium fuel; they are also using HEU
targets. It is important that we be able to convince South
Africa. It is important that we be able to convince all other
countries that are using highly enriched uranium either for
fuel or for other civil applications to convert these
facilities if we are going to have a prayer of really
eliminating this inventory, taking it out of the sites of
terror organization. But as long as you allow an exception for
Canada, you have got to allow an exception for everyone else.
And so I agree with Mr. Ferguson--Dr. Ferguson. It guts our
policy, and it really handicaps our ability to achieve this
much more important national security objective.
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I will
yield back.
And we are going to go to closed session. Is that correct?
Mr. Whitfield. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Burgess. I yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. Mrs. Blackburn, do you have any questions?
Mrs. Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have one
follow-up question to that.
And I thank both of you for your testimony. I will tell
you, it is the type thing that you read and you shiver when you
read it because it does cause you to stop and kind of take
stock and think.
And Mr. Ferguson or Dr. Ferguson, I guess this really would
come to you. Let us talk a little bit about the intelligence
gathering, the counterproliferation measures, Special
Operations that should be there to thwart proliferation.
And, as you said, Ms. Rohlfing, keeping an eye on the ball
of where these things are going. Do you see DOE meshing its
operations adequately with other countries or organizations
that have the type information in this intelligence gathering
that we need?
Mr. Ferguson. Well, ma'am, I don't know exactly how DOE
coordinates with the intelligence community because I have
never worked with either the intelligence community or DOE. But
I have worked in the State Department, so I do have some
familiarity looking at other agencies.
What I was recommending is that there should be this type
of intelligence sharing that isn't already taking place. And
what I do know is that many Department of Energy officials and
government contractors go to these reactor sites and other
sites in Russia and other countries that we are concerned
about, and when they come back, they are required under law and
Department requirements to file a trip report. There are filing
cabinets full of trip reports at the Department of Energy, and
we could be mining that initially for information. So that is
one piece of information I know we already have out there, and
I don't know if we are doing proper analysis of that
information.
What I am also recommending is we have our intelligence
agents trying to develop detailed profiles of every one of
these facilities. Although it is a relatively large number, as
Ms. Rohlfing was saying, but there are only about 100 or so
facilities. So I think with the intelligence budget we have in
this country, we could develop the kind of detailed
intelligence profiles we need for every one of these
facilities.
Ms. Blackburn. So, in essence, what you are saying is that
they may not be meshing it adequately to meet the needs that we
have, but the information is there. They just do not mine it
appropriately.
Mr. Ferguson. I think a lot of the information is there. I
think there might be other gaps in information that we need to
find out. But we are not going to be able to identify those
gaps until we direct these agencies to put in place this kind
of smart program.
Ms. Blackburn. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I will stop with that and wait for the next
session.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, thank you, Ms. Blackburn.
And since I see there are no other questions for this
panel, I want to thank you all very much for your testimony. We
have read it and are looking at it, and your input is quite
valuable. So, with that, that will conclude the public portion
of this hearing.
And after consultations with the minority, I will now offer
a motion that the subcommittee move into executive session. The
Chair moves that, pursuant to Clause 2G of Rule 11 of the Rules
of the House, the remainder of this hearing will be conducted
in executive session to protect information that might endanger
national security.
Is there any discussion on the motion? If there is no
discussion, pursuant to the rule a recorded vote is ordered.
Those in favor, say aye. The ayes appear to have it. The ayes
have it, and the motion is agreed to. We will reconvene in just
a few short minutes in room 2218, and that portion of our
hearing will be closed to the public and open only to our
witnesses, the members and staff, to such members and witnesses
who have a Department of Energy Q clearance. And the
subcommittee will recess. And thank you all very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:57 p.m., the subcommittee proceeded in
closed session.]
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