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U.S. Slow to Improve Nuclear Security, GAO Finds
Fewer than half of U.S. Energy Department sites that store nuclear weapon materials are likely to meet a 2008 deadline to improve their security standards, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis delivered to a Senate committee in July (see GSN, Sept. 26). The study finds that just five of the 11 sites are on track to complete the improvements by the time department officials originally planned. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Energy Department has frequently reviewed the level of threat its facilities must protect against. Officials are now working to implement measures to defend against a security threat — known as the Design Basis Threat — established in 2005. The department “has struggled to determine ‘how much is enough’ security and, as a result, its DBT policy has undergone substantial changes in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007,” says a presentation slide from a July 27 briefing that GAO officials delivered to the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. The briefing papers were acquired by the Project on Government Oversight, a group that has raised frequent alarms over security conditions at POGO analysts have urged the department to consolidate its nuclear weapon materials into fewer storage facilities as both a cost-saving and security-improvement measure. “They wouldn’t be having these problems now” if the sites had been consolidated, POGO head Danielle Brian told the New York Times. While the department agrees that consolidation would be beneficial, implementing that goal has been difficult, said Robert Alvarez, another POGO official. “There’s a lot of pushback about moving fissile materials from a site, because then you lose a portion of your budget and prestige,” said Alvarez, who served as an adviser to the energy secretary during the
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