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U.S. Lawmakers Ask for Audit of Bush Administration Plans to Buy Radiation Detectors By Chris Strohm WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants the U.S. Government Accountability Office to audit the Homeland Security Department's plan to spend more than $1 billion on new radiation-detection technology for scanning cargo containers entering the United States (see GSN, July 17, 2006). Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and ranking member Peter King (R-N.Y.) and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) asked GAO Monday to review the department's program for testing and buying advanced spectroscopic portal radiation monitors. The department announced last summer that contracts totaling $1.15 billion over five years were awarded to Raytheon, Thermo Electron and Canberra Industries to develop and deploy the new ASP monitors. Raytheon and Thermo Electron are both headquartered in ASP monitors are described as able to provide increased capability to detect illicit nuclear or radiological material inside containers with low false alarm rates. Current radiation portal monitors have been criticized for not being able to distinguish between innocuous materials that emit radiation — such as kitty litter, ceramics and bananas — from actual threats, such as a radiological dirty bomb. But lawmakers in both parties have expressed skepticism about the technology, even though they are pushing the Homeland Security Department to increase the amount of cargo entering the country that is scanned. In a report accompanying the fiscal 2007 Homeland Security spending bill, congressional appropriators required the department to certify that the new monitors will provide a "significant increase in operational effectiveness." Lieberman, Thompson, King and Waxman say in their letter to GAO that the department appears to be rushing its testing and certification program. “During a recent briefing for the staff of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, [department] officials indicated that they may limit the field validation testing of ASP prototypes to two or three weeks at selected ports of entry and could initiate the certification process as early as this summer,” the lawmakers wrote. "We appreciate the department's desire to increase the tempo of [its] testing, evaluation, and acquisition activities, but we question whether a few weeks of testing in operational settings will be sufficient to determine the readiness of the ASP systems for full deployment." The lawmakers also asked GAO to examine whether the projected long-term costs of ASP detection sensors are justified by the technology. They also asked for a review of the department's estimated costs for deploying "a global nuclear detection architecture" both inside the "More generally, we are concerned about the management challenges that are inherent in evolutionary or spiral advanced technology development acquisitions of the type [the department] is conducting," the lawmakers added. "These challenges have the potential to produce soaring cost overruns, schedule delays or performance problems, including those that result from laudable efforts by agencies to accelerate the use of advanced technologies." The department did not have an immediate response to the lawmakers' concerns.
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