Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Safe Storage of Radiological Materials Act of 2005 to prevent sealed radioactive sources, which can be used to create "dirty bombs," from getting into the hands of terrorists. This bill is similar to S. 1045, the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Act, which I introduced in 2003.
Since September 11, 2001, the Congress has faced the challenge of anticipating where the next attack on the United States will come from and in what form it will come. Knowing everything cannot be protected, where to invest precious security resources must be weighed carefully. Many vulnerabilities deserve serious attention. Some can be addressed with relative ease.
Thousands of unwanted sealed radioactive sources are currently held by the private sector, research institutions, and medical laboratories where these sources are generally unprotected and accessible. An April 2003 report I requested from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) entitled "Nuclear Proliferation: DOE Action Needed to Ensure Continued Recovery of Unwanted Sealed Radioactive Sources," stated that "if these sealed sources fell into the hands of terrorists, they could be used as simple and crude but potentially dangerous radiological weapons, commonly called dirty bombs." Most experts agree that it would not require much scientific expertise or funding to cobble together a dirty bomb from radioactive material. In other words, the required materials are accessible and the assembly is relatively rudimentary.
The GAO report focused on greater-than-class-C (GTCC) sealed sources. GTCC radiological sources are the "high end" of the continuum of low-level radioactive waste. Class A, B, and C wastes can generally be disposed of at existing commercial disposal facilities. But wastes that exceed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's criteria for Class C, known as greater-than-class-C wastes, are potent enough that they cannot be disposed of at existing facilities. While GTCC wastes are not as dangerous as high-level radioactive waste and therefore are not considered the highest security priority, they are the most potent of low level waste and necessitate progressively more stringent disposal requirements.
The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments of 1985 (P.L. 99-240) required the Department of Energy (DOE) to provide a facility for disposing of all GTCC radioactive waste, including GTCC sealed sources that are no longer utilized by their owners. GAO found that little to no work had been done to designate a permanent disposal site. Although DOE has said that the facility will be up and running by 2007, it seems unlikely as they have only just begun the necessary environmental impact statement.
In 1999, DOE created the Off-Site Source Recovery Project (OSRP) to recover unwanted GTCC sealed sources and temporarily house them at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory. According to GAO testimony before the Senate Energy Committee in September 2004, approximately 10,000 GTCC sealed sources from about 160 sites across the U.S. had been recovered to date. However, approximately 8,000 sources still remained in insecure facilities at the time of the hearing.
The job is not done, but the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the division within DOE responsible for the U.S. Radiological Threat Reduction (USRTR), previously the OSRP, has made great strides. Since I first introduced S. 1045, the Low Level Radioactive Waste Act, in May 2003, the prioritization of off-site recovery of GTCC sources has heightened. DOE received a $10 million supplemental for the program in 2003 and the President's FY 06 budget proposes funding the USRTR at $12.75 million, up 69 percent from the FY 05 enacted level of $7.54 million.
Earlier this month, NNSA called to let me know it intended to remove 100 sources of cobalt-60, which is GTCC, from the University of Hawaii. The University had been trying to get DOE, the owners of the material, to dispose of the sources for years. The radioactive material was used in an irradiator and loaned to the University back in the 1960s for agricultural research. I am grateful that NNSA stepped up its recovery of unneeded radiological sources and helped to relieve the burden of guarding potentially dangerous material from the University administration.
The progress made by NNSA, while appreciated and laudable, is nonetheless a first step. Without the designation of a permanent disposal facility for GTCC waste, DOE will run out of temporary storage space. The Department already encountered problems finding a place to store stronium-90, cesium-137, and plutonium-239, all GTCC sources that have unique storage requirements. A permanent disposal facility that can accommodate all GTCC waste must be identified.
The Safe Storage of Radiological Materials Act of 2005 would require DOE to report to Congress on the current situation and future plans for disposal alternatives for GTCC radioactive waste and the cost and schedule to complete an environmental impact statement and record of decision on a permanent disposal facility for GTCC radioactive wastes. My bill would also require DOE to provide Congress with a plan for the short-term recovery of GTCC radioactive waste until a permanent facility is available. This legislation parallels the recommendations of the April 2003 GAO report, and I believe enactment of this bill is critical to securing sealed sources of nuclear material.
Twenty years is too long to wait for an agency to do its job. I urge my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.
I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD following my statement.
