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U.S. Homeland Security Department Seeks Big Jump in Radiation-Detection Budget for Fiscal 2007 By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — The Bush administration’s Homeland Security Department budget request includes big increases for nuclear-detection programs in fiscal 2007 (see GSN, March 10, 2005). The $42.7 billion Homeland Security request released this week includes $536 million for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. The figure is an increase of about $219 million, or 70 percent, from fiscal 2006, the office’s first year of operation. Most of the jump is for research and development, which in the budget plan would receive a $137 million boost, to $327 million. The expanded research effort would include about $100 million for “transformational” research and development, nearly doubling the fiscal 2006 figure, detection office spokeswoman Tracy Tiell said yesterday. That increase would fund work on detection devices that seek to stimulate and detect radiation from shielded plutonium and weapon-grade uranium, Tiell said. Other devices would take advantage of the long “dwell” times of materials in cargo containers and others, she said. Some materials are difficult to detect unless the detector is in the vicinity of the material for an extended time. “We’re able to move forward with development of next-generation” technology, Tiell said when asked why the increases were requested for fiscal 2007. The request also includes a 42-percent increase, to $178 million, for acquisitions. Tiell said the money would fund continued deployment of radiation monitors at U.S. points of entry, as well as a transition to “next-generation” portal monitors at some locations and the building of “surge capacity” to deploy monitors on short notice as circumstances warrant. A new activity for the office is handling the Homeland Security portion of the Interagency Radiological and Nuclear Attribution and Forensics initiative. The budget request includes $18 million for the detection office’s work on the interagency effort, which Homeland Security said “will enable the department to combine information on potential capabilities of terrorist organizations and develop and deploy threat agents with laboratory-based forensics techniques that determine the source of nuclear and radiological materials or devices.” Homeland Security Associates founder Randall Larsen, a frequent critic of U.S. detection efforts, said spending increases to develop new technology are needed but criticized the department’s deployment approach. “I fully support spending money on research and development for detection, because what we have now is just not sufficient,” Larsen said yesterday. “What I am against is deploying current technological systems that I feel are a waste of money.” “Unless we’re hoping for dumb terrorists,” Larsen said, placing detectors at points of entry is of limited value. A smart terrorist is “going to bring it in a corporate jet,” he said, which limits the value of point-of-entry detectors. Instead, he called for placing more detectors around sites where nuclear materials are stored, in a bid to intercept attempts to smuggle out such materials. Money earmarked for detection programs should be spent on new rather than existing technology, Larsen said, but even more spending should be devoted to nonproliferation work. “The majority of the money should be spent on preventing terrorists from getting their hands on special nuclear materials,” he said.
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