Richard G. Lugar, United States Senator for Indiana

U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar today keynoted the International Meeting on Next Generation Safeguards. For more information on the event, visit http://nnsa.energy.gov/2123.htm.

Thank you, Ken Baker, for your kind introduction. I appreciate your long service to nonproliferation programs in the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration.

I also want to recognize Adam Scheinman, who put together our meeting today. His efforts to promote and create the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative form an important part of this international effort to revitalize safeguards. He comes from a family with deep nonproliferation expertise. His father, Larry Scheinman, assisted me in the work of the 2005 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Nonproliferation Policy Advisory Group, which was co-chaired by Ron Lehman and Ash Carter. The Group made important recommendations to the Committee, including several on International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

I should also note the presence of the head of the IAEA Safeguards Department, Olli Heinonen. Thank you, Olli, for all your years of service in the cause of nuclear nonproliferation.

I am pleased to address this group of experts. Through this meeting the United States has taken the initiative to work with the safeguards professionals of many nations and to call attention to the need for improvements in the IAEA’s safeguards system. This effort will require the support of Congress. From my discussions with other Senators, I am confident that there is strong backing in Congress for U.S. leadership in this area.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a long interest in nuclear safeguards. From ratification of the NPT in 1969 and our own safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1980, to the development of important laws governing nuclear cooperation with other nations, safeguards have long been an important part of the Committee agenda. Most recently in 2004 and 2006, the Foreign Relations Committee obtained Senate ratification and passage of implementing legislation for the U.S. Additional Protocol.

When the Committee recommended ratification of the NPT to the Senate in 1968, it did so fully aware that IAEA safeguards would change to become what we now call comprehensive safeguards. The Committee did not know exactly how this system would work. But it was convinced of the necessity of the NPT and the desirability of U.S. participation.

Forty years later, 189 states have approved the treaty and 163 states have safeguards agreements with the Agency. No other treaty in history has enjoyed such wide success.

The existential threat posed by the proliferation of nuclear weapons sits at the top of the list of challenges confronting the international community. Seven years to the day after September 11, 2001, we still reflect on the possibility of terrorists acquiring and using nuclear weapons. Such an outcome, as well as regional nuclear confrontation and other disastrous scenarios, are more likely if the safeguards system breaks down.

The IAEA is the only international organization with the authorities and personnel capable of implementing and managing an effective safeguards system. During the last 40 years, with sustained effort, a modern safeguards culture has been built. But this system faces challenges -- known to all in this room -- that require reevaluation and flexibility.

Revelations about Iraq’s covert weapons programs in the 1990s led to the creation of the Additional Protocol, which gave the IAEA authorities and tools for verifying not just a state’s declared nuclear program, but also its undeclared and suspect activities. For example, if Iran had an Additional Protocol in force, the Agency would have greater abilities to conduct verification activities in that nation.

States like Iran and North Korea highlight a series of problems for the nuclear safeguards regime. But the safeguards issues we face stem not only from the actions of noncompliant states, they stem from our own failure to invest adequately in the tools and innovations necessary to stay ahead of potential proliferators. I believe that the IAEA’s present safeguards enterprise is in need of reinvestment in all areas, and that is why the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative is so important.

Given the stakes involved in nuclear proliferation cases, maintaining an effective safeguards system bears directly on fundamental questions of international peace and security. Unfortunately, safeguards capabilities are often treated as a secondary concern compared to the political negotiations surrounding news-making proliferation cases like Iran and North Korea. But this ignores the point that without an effective safeguards system, political efforts to stop proliferation would be severely impeded.

Aside from larger issues surrounding putative nuclear weapons programs, the IAEA has experienced an increasing burden in its day-to-day safeguards activities. With 82 countries now implementing both comprehensive safeguards and additional protocols, there is much more for the Agency to do. If trends hold, the IAEA will be hard pressed to maintain the present level of attention it devotes to each nation. This is particularly worrisome given the burgeoning interest in nuclear power, which understandably has followed the rise in oil and natural gas prices. Many countries are actively pursuing nuclear power for electricity generation for the first time and 297 new reactors are presently planned or proposed worldwide. Increasing safeguards workloads in Europe, a new and important set of safeguards for India, and expanded nuclear activities in Asia will increase existing strains on the Agency.

The IAEA must maintain an ability to implement un-programmed safeguards and verification activities when issues arise, but maintaining routine safeguards grows difficult in times when many of its resources are already engaged.

Although the United States has helped the IAEA meet its resource requirements, too often these efforts have come only after a deficiency has become apparent. Little effort has been made to plan for the future. Solving these challenges from the Agency perspective has resulted in demands for greater intelligence sharing and more utilization of open-source information in drawing conclusions, but there have been few new investments in novel technologies or new authorities beyond the Additional Protocol.

The Next Generation Safeguards Initiative can address several of these problems. We cannot dictate to the IAEA, but we can offer our help in constructing a plan for the future. We can do that better if we reinvest in the safeguards enterprise here at home by creating a professional safeguards cadre ready to work in the Agency.

Today, a very small number of U.S. officials work specifically on safeguards, and we hold fewer key positions in the IAEA than we have in the past. We can correct this now by reaching out to our universities to train the next generation of American safeguards professionals. We should also create incentives for Federal workers who choose this line of work. The Next Generation Safeguards Initiative is already making advances on some of these points.

While the IAEA will always need the assistance of the United States and others, there is no substitute for the independent analysis done by the Agency itself. The simple fact is that the number of nuclear samples that the Agency must analyze is rising each year. I have seen how these demands are affecting the Agency’s Safeguards Analytical Laboratory. I was pleased to visit the lab outside Vienna, Austria, in November 2006. I was highly impressed with the lab’s staff, but I was troubled by the apparent state of the facility.

The lab’s infrastructure is aging. In fact, when I visited, several systems were broken, including the plutonium lab’s air filtration system, which reduced the time personnel could spend in it. The facilities are dispersed throughout the site creating inefficiencies and security complications for lab personnel. Almost all of the lab’s space is rented, hindering long-term planning and expansion at the site. Parts of the facility, such as the nuclear chemistry lab -- which is 33 years old -- have already exceeded their normal length of expected service.

On August 3 of this year, a small amount of plutonium was released when several glass vials containing the material broke. While no radioactive material was released into the facility, this incident should remind us that an accident or infrastructure breakdown at the lab would have consequences for the entire world. It would mean that the IAEA’s primary facility for nuclear sample analysis would close. During such a period, the international safeguards system would be severely encumbered, with all the attendant political and security implications.

In April 2007, along with my colleague Senator Evan Bayh, I introduced the Nuclear Safeguards and Supply Act. It authorized an additional $10 million for the Safeguards Analytical Laboratory. These funds could be used for the refurbishment or replacement of the lab, and it is our intent that the funds also initiate efforts in the U.S. Government to work with the Agency on the future of the lab.

Beyond money, the IAEA needs to take additional steps to ensure the vitality of its safeguards work. Most importantly, it should reconsider its staffing policies. For too long, the lab has been deprived of experienced professional staff because the Agency will not give them long-term contracts. Without such contracts, it has been more difficult to attract and retain some talented and experienced individuals. The Agency and the Board of Governors should reevaluate these contracts and review its staffing policies more broadly to ensure that it can compete for the best technical talent available.

Within the U.S. Government, more attention and support for safeguards is needed. The current U.S. Program of Technical Assistance to Safeguards is chaired by the Energy Department and works with the IAEA in meeting its requests. But this program does not do enough to bolster the safeguards enterprise in the United States, nor plan for how the safeguards system of the future should look. We need the interagency process to engage more with our national labs so that our premier scientists and technicians can move beyond existing approaches to safeguards decisions and requirements.

Such concerns prompted me to include a provision in our 2007 legislation that would require the Secretary of State, in cooperation with the Secretary of Energy and the Directors of the National Laboratories, to pursue a program to strengthen and improve interagency coordination on safeguards technology. Some of this work has already begun.

In sum, I believe that this meeting and the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative could achieve critical goals that will make the United States and the world safer. But the efforts to improve the international safeguards system over the long run require the financial and political support of the governments and institutions represented here today. They also require continuity in support across U.S. administrations. The next President must continue the focus that is being applied to the problem by this conference.

I look forward to working with all of you to strengthen the safeguards system and ensure that the IAEA has the tools it needs to do its vital work. Thank you.

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