Radiological Weapons:  Senate Bill Would Create Regional Shelters for Orphaned Radiation Sources

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D-Del.) introduced a bill yesterday to reduce the threat of terrorists obtaining radiological materials for use in a “dirty bomb” (see GSN, Sept. 9).

“Each year, many radioactive sources worldwide — such as certain X-ray equipment and portable power generators  — are abandoned or stolen and leak out of the existing control system,” Biden said in a press statement.  “We must, and we can, raise significant and sensible barriers to protect against terrorists who would use dirty bombs to do us harm.” 

The bill calls for the creation of five regional shelters worldwide to provide safe storage for orphaned radioactive sources and provides $5 million in fiscal 2003 and up to $20 million annually thereafter for their construction and operation.  It also would establish a joint U.S-International Atomic Energy Agency program to find and inventory orphaned radiological sources, with the bill authorizing $5 million in special voluntary contributions to the IAEA.

The bill also authorizes $10 million per year for three years to help replace equipment located in the former Soviet Union powered by radioactive sources, such as weather stations and communication nets, with non-nuclear technologies (see GSN, June 10).  It authorizes $5 million per year for three years to help train foreign first responder units to handle a radiological emergency.

Under the legislation, the secretary of state would be required to conduct a global assessment of the threat of radiological terrorism to U.S. missions overseas and to provide the information in an unclassified report to Congress.  The bill would also create a special representative with the rank of ambassador within the State Department for the negotiation of international agreements on inspecting cargo at its port of embarkation for nuclear materials (see GSN, Sept. 23).

“The threat of radiological terrorism, and even of true nuclear terror attacks, is real,” Biden said in a press statement.   “We know that most radiological attacks will kill few Americans, but we are just as certain that they will be economic crimes of the greatest consequence.  We must do something to head off the nuclear and radiological terrorist threat where it will most likely first appear” (Senator Joseph Biden release, Oct. 16).

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