[Senate Hearing 111-1096] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] S. Hrg. 111-1096 NUCLEAR TERRORISM: STRENGTHENING OUR DOMESTIC DEFENSES ======================================================================= HEARINGS before the COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ PART I AND PART II __________ JUNE 30 AND SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 __________ Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 58-397 WASHINGTON : 2011 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, U.S. Government Printing Office. Phone 202�09512�091800, or 866�09512�091800 (toll-free). E-mail, [email protected]. COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman CARL LEVIN, Michigan SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas JOHN McCAIN, Arizona MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada JON TESTER, Montana LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware Michael L. Alexander, Staff Director F. James McGee, Professional Staff Member Brandon L. Milhorn, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel Christopher J. Keach, Minority Professional Staff Member Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk Patricia R. Hogan, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee Laura W. Kilbride, Hearing Clerk C O N T E N T S ------ Opening statements: Page Senator Lieberman............................................ 1, 21 Senator Collins.............................................. 3, 23 Senator Akaka................................................ 35 Prepared statements: Senator Lieberman........................................... 39, 77 Senator Collins............................................. 42, 79 WITNESSES Wednesday, June 30, 2010 Eugene E. Aloise, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 4 Micah D. Lowenthal, Ph.D., Director, Nuclear Security and Nuclear Facility Safety Program, Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, National Research Council of the National Academies............ 6 Dana A. Shea, Ph.D., Specialist in Science and Technology Policy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.......................... 8 Wednesday, September 15, 2010 Hon. Jane Holl Lute, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.............................................. 25 Alphabetical List of Witnesses Aloise, Eugene E.: Testimony.................................................... 4 Prepared statement........................................... 43 Lowenthal, Micah D., Ph.D.: Testimony.................................................... 6 Prepared statement........................................... 58 Lute, Hon. Jane Holl: Testimony.................................................... 25 Prepared statement........................................... 82 Shea, Dana A., Ph.D.: Testimony.................................................... 8 Prepared statement........................................... 68 APPENDIX ``Combating Nuclear Smuggling: Inadequate Communication and Oversight Hampered DHS Efforts to Develop an Advanced Radiography System to Detect Nuclear Materials,'' Statement for the Record by Eugene E. Aloise, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, and Stephen L. Caldwell, Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S. Government Accountability Office, released on September 15, 2010................................. 99 Letter from Nelson Peacock, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, dated September 21, 2010.............................. 111 Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from: Ms. Lute..................................................... 113 Warren M. Stern, Director, Domestic Nuclear Detention Office, U.S. Department of Homeland Security *..................... 119 * Mr. Stern appeared as a witness during the closed portion of the September 15, 2010, hearing. NUCLEAR TERRORISM: STRENGTHENING OUR DOMESTIC DEFENSES--PART I ---------- WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2010 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman and Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. Good morning and welcome. This is the eighth in a series of hearings our Committee has held since 2007 to discuss how our Nation is confronting the real and dire threats posed by nuclear terrorism. And I must say that today it seems to me, as I look back and look at where we are now, that the threat of a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is growing faster than our ability to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on our homeland, and obviously as the Homeland Security Committee this is of great and growing concern to us. I know that most people would prefer not to think about the unthinkable, but President Barack Obama, to his credit, has clearly recognized the threat that brings us together this morning. At the 47-nation nuclear summit held in April, the President outlined the dangers here quite clearly: ``Nuclear materials that could be sold . . . and fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations. Just the smallest amount of plutonium--about the size of an apple--could kill and injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people. ``Terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeeded, they would surely use it.'' These are all continuing quotes from the President. ``Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world--causing extraordinary loss of life, and striking a major blow to global peace and stability. ``In short it is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security--to our collective security.'' Then, a month or so later, the National Security Strategy, released by the Administration added: ``The American people face no greater or more urgent danger than a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon. . . . Black markets trade in nuclear secrets and materials. Terrorists are determined to buy, build, or steal a nuclear weapon.'' The International Atomic Energy Agency's Illicit Trafficking Database, which tracks all reported cases of smuggling, theft, unexplained losses, or black market sales of nuclear materials, reports there have been 1,340 confirmed incidents of smuggling since 2007 that involve materials that could at least be used to make a so-called dirty bomb. And of those cases, 18 involved the smuggling of highly enriched uranium or plutonium--the material that is critical to the making of an actual atomic weapon. In 2008, our Committee held hearings to examine the office created in our government to counter this threat--the little- known Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). At that time, the question was: How do we keep DNDO on track? Today, I ask seriously whether DNDO has been on the right track and moving rapidly enough to achieve its critical mission. Though most Americans have never heard of DNDO, its mission is clearly vital to our homeland security in the world in which we live in today. President George W. Bush established the DNDO in 2005 to coordinate and oversee Federal efforts to protect the United States against nuclear terrorism. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 designated DNDO as the lead organization for domestic nuclear detection and charged it to work with the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State, and others to develop a Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA). Though it has never been defined in statute, the GNDA seems to consist of programs across numerous agencies designed to stop terrorists from getting nuclear materials or weapons, and if they do get them, to stop them from bringing them into the United States, and if they do bring them into the United States, to stop them from successfully detonating them. DNDO was given the critical job of coming up with an overall plan about how the different departments would work together to implement that plan and then to recommend what kind of investments in technology would be needed. This was a big mission that they were given, and in fairness I should say that there have been some successes. For instance, DHS has deployed nearly two-thirds of the more than 2,100 radiation portal monitors identified in its deployment plan at established ports of entry on the Northern and Southern Borders. Today nearly 100 percent of the seaport containerized cargo and 100 percent of vehicle traffic on the Southern and Northern Borders are scanned for nuclear material. But there also have been omissions and failures, and they are serious. Cargo coming by rail from Canada or Mexico is still not scanned, only a small percentage of international air cargo is scanned, and DNDO apparently has no plans to scan commercial aviation aircraft or baggage. Five years into its existence, based on its record, it is just inescapable to conclude that DNDO requires real retooling, and quickly. It has made too little progress on its major mission, which is the development of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. Even DNDO seems to have concluded that its approach to this task is fundamentally flawed and now seeks an increase of $13 million in next year's budget for a new round of studies to produce yet another overarching strategic plan over the next several years. The time for multi-year studies is over; the time for urgent action really is now. We are going to hear today that DNDO has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to develop a new radiation detection technology that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concludes is only marginally better than we have now. Known as the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP), this program has clearly drained resources from other programs, including development and deployment of mobile, portable, or hand-held technologies that could screen other types of inbound cargo or bulk shipments, like those on international trains and commercial aviation. I know that the Administration is reexamining DNDO. We hoped that DHS would come and testify today; they said that they were not ready. We have set down a hearing for July 21 to hear their response to what we are going to hear from this distinguished group of independent evaluators of DNDO, and I will say that it is certainly my expectation that what we need to hear from DNDO, from the Department of Homeland Security, is exactly what they intend to do with and to DNDO to make sure it gets its critical mission right, and quickly. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Safeguarding our Nation against the threat of nuclear terrorism is one of the most important responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security. The Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Commission, in its 2008 report, predicted that ``it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.'' Technological innovation is a critical element in our efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism. It is, therefore, troubling that the Department's efforts to develop a next- generation technology for scanning cargo for nuclear materials at ports of entry have been less than successful. As the Chairman has pointed out, the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) program has repeatedly encountered problems since its inception in 2004. As a result, the ASP has been relegated to being a potential secondary scanning tool, although that technology has yet to receive certification from DHS for even this limited function. Given the unwavering ambitions of America's enemies, our Nation cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. The DHS office currently responsible for making decisions about the development, testing, evaluation, and acquisition of detection equipment is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, as the Chairman pointed out in his remarks. DNDO must make well-informed and threat-based investment decisions to meet the challenge of interdicting illicit nuclear material not only at our Nation's borders but also within our country. Given our Nation's significant investment in this critical area, it is disappointing that DNDO has not made more progress. DNDO must also serve as a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. Again, the Department has fallen short in this area as well. As we navigate the road forward, the Department must have a clearer strategy for developing the next-generation of scanning technologies to detect and identify shielded and unshielded nuclear materials. The three organizations represented at our hearing today, the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), and the National Research Council, have all produced recent reports that have found significant problems with the ASP program. They can give us valuable insights into the challenges the Department confronts, and that Congress must consider, as we move beyond the ASP program. It is surely significant that the Department is not represented here today. They are not represented because they are not prepared to give us that strategy forward and to respond to these reports. So the second hearing that the Chairman has announced for next month is also going to be extremely important. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Collins. We will go right to the witnesses with thanks for the considerable work you did in preparing your reports and your testimony, all of which will be entered by consent in the record in addition to the testimony you will deliver. Our first witness is Gene Aloise, Director of the Natural Resources and Environment Division at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Thanks, Mr. Aloise, and please proceed with your testimony. TESTIMONY OF EUGENE E. ALOISE,\1\ DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE Mr. Aloise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member Collins. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Aloise appears in the Appendix on page 43. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am pleased to be here today to discuss the progress DHS has made in deploying radiation detection equipment to scan cargo and conveyances entering the United States by land, sea, and air for nuclear and radiological materials and the development of a strategic plan for the Global Nuclear Detection System. My testimony is based on our numerous issued reports as well as current work assessing U.S. Government efforts to deploy radiation detection at home and abroad. On the positive side, and as you have just mentioned, Mr. Chairman, DHS has made progress and reports that it scans nearly 100 percent of the cargo and conveyances entering the United States through land borders and major seaports. On the down side, however, DHS has made little progress in scanning for radiation on rail cars entering the United States from Canada and Mexico, international air cargo, and international commercial aircraft, passengers, and baggage. Nationwide, about 1,400 radiation detection portal monitors have been deployed. That is about two-thirds of the 2,100 monitors planned for deployment, and another 700 monitors are needed. Scanning for nuclear materials in international rail and air cargo are presenting DHS with unique challenges. For example, the length of trains presents a huge scanning problem because trains can be up to 2 miles long, and separating cars that trigger an alarm from other train cars for a closer look is very difficult. Air cargo is a problem because, among other things, there is a lack of natural choke points in airports where fixed detection equipment can be deployed, and until solutions can be found, DHS goal of scanning 99 percent of air cargo at 33 international airports in the United States by 2014 is on hold. The only scanning for radiation that is now occurring for international rail and air cargo is being done with hand-held detectors, not portal monitors. In addition, DHS efforts to plug the gaps in the nuclear detection system is just at the early stages of development. Current gaps include land borders between U.S. ports of entry, international general aviation, and small maritime craft such as recreational boats and fishing vessels. It is important to close these gaps because dangerous quantities of nuclear materials can be portable enough to be carried across borders by vehicles or pedestrians and on most private aircraft or small boats. Closing the gaps is a major challenge because the United States has over 6,000 miles of land borders with many locations outside of established ports of entry where people and vehicles can enter. Also, according to the Coast Guard, small boats pose a greater threat for nuclear smuggling than shipping containers because, among other things, there are at least 13 million pleasure craft and 110,000 fishing vessels in the United States. DHS is addressing these gaps by, among other things, developing, testing, and deploying radiation detection equipment and developing threat studies, but these efforts are all in the very early stages. Regarding DHS strategic plan for the Global Nuclear Detection System, it has been 2 years since we testified before this Committee and recommended such a plan, but no such plan yet exists. DHS officials told us they are working on a plan and hope to complete it by this fall. The lack of a strategic plan has limited DHS efforts to complete the Global Nuclear Detection System. Without a plan, it has been difficult for DHS to address the gaps in the system. Also, DNDO's failed 4-year effort to develop the next- generation portal monitor, the ASP, is a consequence of not reaching consensus on a strategic plan with other Federal agencies. We believe the proposed deployments of ASP has distracted DNDO from finishing the nuclear detection system and closing the gaps in it. In short, Mr. Chairman, because it had no plan to follow, DNDO took its eye off the ball. Instead, DNDO focused on replacing current equipment with questionably performing ASPs in areas where a detection system was already in place. At this moment DHS is at a crossroads. Because of the vast land borders, coastlines, and airspace to protect, addressing the gaps in the detection system is in many ways more challenging than preventing nuclear smuggling through fixed ports of entry. Now that the ports of entry are more secure, it makes the gaps in the system more attractive to would-be smugglers or terrorists. With increasingly limited Federal resources, it is especially important for DHS to develop a strategic plan which prioritizes how it will address the gaps in the detection system and allocate resources accordingly. Given the national security implications and urgency attached to combat and nuclear smuggling globally and that multiple Federal agencies are involved, we continue to stress that a plan needs to be developed as soon as possible. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks, and I would be happy to address any questions you and the Ranking Member may have. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Mr. Aloise. That was right to the point. Our next witness is Dr. Micah Lowenthal, Director, Nuclear Security and Nuclear Facility Safety Program of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board at the National Research Council of the National Academies. That is a heck of a title. But we appreciate very much your expertise and your testimony this morning. TESTIMONY OF MICAH D. LOWENTHAL, PH.D.,\1\ DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR SECURITY AND NUCLEAR FACILITY SAFETY PROGRAM, NUCLEAR AND RADIATION STUDIES BOARD, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES Mr. Lowenthal. I look forward to having a shorter title someday. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Lowenthal appears in the Appendix on page 58. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good morning, Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins, and Members of the Committee. My name is Micah Lowenthal. As noted, I am on the staff of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences. I am here to testify on a congressionally mandated study on testing and evaluation of ASPs for screening cargo as part of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. I am the study director supporting the Committee that wrote the study's interim report. I will begin by providing background on the request for this study, and then I will describe the report's recommendations on evaluating costs and benefits. Congress directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to request advice from the Academy on procuring ASPs, specifically on the testing approach, assessing the costs and benefits, and bringing scientific rigor to the procurement process. Due to delays in the test and evaluation program, the Academy and DHS agreed that the study committee would issue an interim report to provide advice on how the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), could complete and make more rigorous its ASP evaluation. The interim report was issued in June 2009 and provided advice on the difficult task of analyzing costs and benefits of the ASPs. To be effective, the Committee found, the cost/benefit analysis must include three key elements: One, a clear statement of the objectives of the screening program, including describing the ASP's role in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture; two, an assessment of meaningful alternatives to deploying ASPs; and, three, a comprehensive, credible, and transparent analysis of benefits and costs. Throughout the study, the Committee considered what information the Secretary would need to decide whether to procure ASPs. The Committee criticized DHS certification criteria and analyses as of June 2009 because even if the criteria were met and the analyses completed, DHS still would not know whether the benefits of the ASPs outweigh their additional costs, or whether the funds slated for procuring ASPs are more effectively spent on other technologies to meet the same need or on other elements of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. The analyses focused on operational efficiencies but not on the security benefits, and the alternatives for cargo screening and the opportunity costs in the Global Nuclear Detention Architecture were not part of the analysis. It is a complex task to evaluate the probability of an adversary attempting to smuggle nuclear material into the United States. In fact, that probability is impossible to know definitively. And the consequences of such smuggling are likewise uncertain for other reasons: The range of possible consequences is very broad. These uncertainties make it quite difficult to factor the benefits of preventing nuclear smuggling into a cost/benefit analysis. Despite that difficulty, however, it is important for analysts to understand what they can about the risks and also the benefits of reducing those risks. The Committee offered several approaches for analyzing security benefits of different alternatives. A capability-based planning approach is a structured assessment of the options for how a program can meet specific operational goals and of the resources required for each option. This approach has been applied in a number of defense applications. It can provide a rich comparison of the security benefits emphasizing the circumstances under which each option might be preferred. Capability-based planning can, however, quickly lead to a large and complex analysis, and analysts have to balance the complexity against the need for simplicity to draw salient insights about the system's capabilities. Game theory could provide insight into the deterrence or deflection benefits from different parts of the Global Nuclear Detention Architecture. Studies of other security applications have found that the simple presence of security can change criminals' behavior. For example, looking at theft statistics using game theory, Ian Ayres and Steven Levitt found that increases in the use of hidden radio transmitter devices for tracking stolen cars in a given area resulted in overall declines in car thefts. In contrast, use of observable car security measures just tended to shift or deflect the risk of theft to other vehicles, but not lower the overall theft rates. So having an effective defense in some cars, and no way for an adversary to determine which cars have it, reduced theft rates. Likewise, the existence of some radiation monitoring at seaports and land border crossings may deflect adversaries, simply causing them to focus on easier paths through the Nation's security. Efforts to improve current screening technology have sometimes been described as fortifying the locks on the front door but leaving the windows open. For those reasons, improving detection for truck-borne cargo may have only a modest overall benefit as long as there are significant gaps in the Global Nuclear Detention Architecture. Improved detection should have more of an effect as those gaps are filled. The difficulty with game theory is that analysts have to make assumptions about the adversaries' goals, resources, and reasoning. What constitutes success and what are the costs of being caught? But still, it can provide useful insights, including reasoning through what fraction of the containers entering the United States would need to be scanned or screened to deter smugglers. Finally, cost-effectiveness analysis and break-even analysis are related approaches that have been used to assess costs and benefits when performing a complete cost/benefit analysis is difficult or impossible. Because the goals of the ASP program may be difficult to value monetarily, comparing program alternatives using cost- effectiveness measures such as dollars per life saved or dollars per attack avoided could provide insights into their relative merits. Break-even analysis seeks the conditions that must be met for benefits to exceed costs. In security applications, these conditions could be a required reduction in overall risk. In cases where break-even analysis identifies meaningful bounds on decisions, that is, in cases where the threshold conditions for a decision clearly exist, this approach can simplify decisionmaking. The downfall of break- even analysis is that those conditions do not always exist. These and other methods for evaluating security benefits can provide different insights based on their approach, and none is likely to provide fully quantitative and definitive results. But most policy decisions are made without fully quantitative and definitive results, so DNDO should provide the most informative cost/benefit analysis it can. This concludes my testimony. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I would be happy to elaborate in the question- and-answer period. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Dr. Lowenthal. Now we will go finally to Dr. Dana Shea, who is a Specialist in Science and Technology Policy in the Resources, Science, and Industry Division at the Congressional Research Service. Thank you very much for being here. TESTIMONY OF DANA A. SHEA, PH.D.,\1\ SPECIALIST IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY, RESOURCES, SCIENCE, AND INDUSTRY DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Mr. Shea. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins, and other Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Committee today. My name is Dana Shea, and I am a Specialist in Science and Technology Policy at the Congressional Research Service. At the Committee's request, I am here today to discuss efforts to strengthen nuclear detection. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Shea appears in the Appendix on page 68. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My testimony today will address the Department of Homeland Security's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, its coordination of nuclear detection activities, and the January 2010 report to Congress that describes them. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 established the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office in 2005. The Security and Accountability For Every (SAFE) Port Act codified the office in 2006. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office became responsible for developing an enhanced Global Nuclear Detection Architecture that multiple Federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, and State, would implement. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office developed an initial Global Nuclear Detection Architecture and reported its first budget cross-cut of Federal programs in 2006. Subsequently, Congress enacted the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, which directs the Secretaries of Homeland Security, State, Defense, and Energy, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence to conduct a joint annual interagency review of their activities and ensure that each agency assesses and evaluates its participation in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. Additionally, the Secretary of Homeland Security is required to evaluate technologies implemented in the domestic portion of the architecture. The results of these reviews are to be reported to Congress by March 31 of each year. The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office issued reports in June 2008 and January 2010. The January 2010 report has both strengths and weaknesses. The report is the most comprehensive and integrated source of information about the programs that make up the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, the activities underway in those programs, and how the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office categorizes the budgets of the programs by architectural layer. The report discusses agency attempts at strategic planning and developing metrics for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. The January 2010 report draws heavily on the previous report issued in 2008. The report does not address whether agencies have shaped the reported budgets to align with the priorities of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. And, finally, the report is retrospective in nature and was submitted after its statutory deadline. As such, the report's timeliness may be brought into question. My analysis of this report and other documents raises a number of policy issues. I will highlight three. First, a key question for policymakers is: What activities and programs should comprise a nuclear detection architecture? While detection technologies for identifying and interdicting smuggled nuclear materials have been a central focus of the architecture, other counterterrorism activities, such as law enforcement and intelligence collection, also impact nuclear smuggling. Similarly, while the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, and State are the main participants in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, other entities, such as State and local law enforcement and agencies overseeing licensing of radiological materials, also have roles. Greater assessment and inclusion of these investments might lead to increased harmonization of nuclear detection efforts and, thus, a stronger domestic architecture, but might also complicate consensus planning activities. A second policy issue is the adaptability of the architecture. How adaptable is it to new threats and capabilities? Periodic assessment of new nuclear detection technologies will likely play an important role in the government's ability to improve the architecture. The frequency and formality of such assessments will affect both the utility and the costs associated with this process. It is noteworthy that the January 2010 report repeated the language of the previous report's technology assessment. Finally, a fundamental issue for policymakers is whether Federal investments appropriately support the needs of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. The architecture is a network of interrelated programs, and the ramifications of shifting funding between these programs may be understood best from a holistic architectural perspective. A single Global Nuclear Detection Architecture budget submitted annually as a budget supplement might provide policymakers with a more transparent correlation between agency funding and the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. Alternatively, rather than directly increasing or decreasing program funding, policymakers might empower the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office Director or another official with the authority to review and assess other Department and agency investments in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture and comment on or recommend alternative allocations. Detection of nuclear smuggling and prevention of nuclear terrorism are high national and homeland security priorities. This multi-agency endeavor is complex and relies heavily on coordination among the participating agencies. The Department of Homeland Security and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office face significant challenges in coordinating these activities. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to answer any questions that you or other Members of the Committee may have. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Dr. Shea. We will go ahead with a 7-minute round of questions. I must say overall the reports that the three of you have given I think represent a real alarm bell going off about DNDO, and we all acknowledge that it has done some things that are important to us, particularly with portals, both sea and the established land ports. But it has not done a lot that it should have done, and I want to explore a bit why. Mr. Aloise, I was struck again by your testimony that the development of a strategic plan had been recommended almost 3 years ago, and DNDO now says in its congressional budget justification for fiscal year 2011 that it expects to complete the strategic plan during fiscal year 2010. To the best of your knowledge--and then I will ask others if you have opinions--what happened here? Why didn't it do the strategic plan more quickly? Mr. Aloise. I am really not quite sure what the true answer is on that, but as I mentioned in my statement, almost 4 years ago now, they took their eye off the ball of what they were supposed to do, and that is, complete the architecture with existing equipment. And, of course, upgrading the equipment is something you always want to do, but the urgency of the situation we are facing now requires that this detection system be completed first with what we have now, and DNDO followed the path of pushing through the ASPs. It was an research and development (R&D) program, too early to be deployed, and we issued numerous reports and testified numerous times before the Congress and this Committee, warning them that they were falling into a trap, and they fell into that trap. Chairman Lieberman. Well, that is really important because you have said in that answer, I think, what is a critical problem here, which is that it is not just that we asked them to do a plan and were upset that they did not do the plan. What I take from your testimony is that there is an absence of a plan and clearly established priorities, particularly the priority to develop an overall architecture--which I take to mean how do you cover in some way all the points of vulnerability that we are trying to cover. Am I right about that? Mr. Aloise. You are correct, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. And so they did not do that, and the absence of a plan certainly facilitated what it sounds to me like what you would say was the most significant mistake that DNDO has made, which was to focus on spending a lot of money improving their capacity to detect nuclear material coming in at ports of entry--where they already had some coverage-- instead of covering areas such as you mentioned in your statement: International rail transportation, international cargo, passengers, and baggage. Right? Mr. Aloise. That is correct, sir. Chairman Lieberman. Now, I want to ask Dr. Lowenthal and Dr. Shea to respond to that, if you agree with what Mr. Aloise has said. Mr. Lowenthal. Well, our study committee really was looking at the testing and evaluation of the ASPs, and not the rest of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Lowenthal. The reason that the committee said something about the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture was because there was some ambiguity about the mission of the ASPs and the objectives that they were trying to accomplish with these devices. And the committee could not find an articulation of that in the context of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. And so, yes, the committee said that the justification has to be there somewhere. The committee said we would like to see it probably in the context of a cost/benefit analysis for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, some trade-off studies, which would help set priorities, as you have described. But because it did not exist there, the committee recommended that they do it in the context of the ASP cost/ benefit analysis. Chairman Lieberman. Dr. Shea. Mr. Shea. To the question about the strategic plan, I would point out that the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture is implemented by many different agencies. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Mr. Shea. In DNDO's coordination role, I think that they are challenged to both consider the strategic purposes of those different programs in those different agencies and the goals of those programs and also have those programs align with the goals of the architecture. With the development of a strategic plan solely by DNDO it might be difficult for the agencies to fully adopt the purposes of that strategic plan, but also the development of a strategic plan by an interagency process is often a challenging activity. So that may be the source of some of the difficulties with respect to---- Chairman Lieberman. So is part of this organizational? In other words, does DNDO not have adequate authority to coordinate across the various departments, even though the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 designated DNDO as the lead organization and charged it to work with the Departments of Defense, Energy, State, and others? Has it not been up to the task? And should this be raised up either to the departmental level or given to some centralized entity such as the White House or the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)? Mr. Shea. That certainly would be one approach to increase the ability of agencies to come together in an interagency process. I think that DNDO, of course, would be in the best position to answer whether or not it believes it has sufficient authority. But I would say also that the SAFE Port Act and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 do provide authority to the implementing agencies to establish policies in the areas that they are implementing their programs. So even though the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office does have the responsibility of developing the overarching architecture, those implementing agencies also have their own independent policy authorities in the areas where they are implementing programs. Another approach might be to provide some authority to the implementing agencies to develop parts of the architecture in conjunction with DNDO, for example, and then give DNDO the responsibility of integrating the different architectural frameworks into one more coherent and integrated architecture. Chairman Lieberman. Mr. Aloise, let me come back to you just to set the predicate here. I am right, is it not so, that the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 made clear that DNDO had this authority to work with other agencies for the specific purpose of developing the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture? Mr. Aloise. Yes, that is correct. GAO has been in this area a long time. We had reported in the 1990s that each of the agencies had their own programs--Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and the State Department--and a major problem was coordination. And DNDO had the role of coordinating all those activities, not managing each of them, but coordinating so everybody is headed towards the same goal. When we started our work on ASPs, what we found was a major management problem. DNDO was not even talking to these agencies. They were not telling them what they were planning to do with the ASP. It was GAO going in there telling them what was going on, and it was not a pretty scene. Chairman Lieberman. Your answer to the question really puts on the record what we forget, which is that this attempt to set up an architecture to prevent a terrorist nuclear attack on the United States did not just begin on September 11, 2001. Mr. Aloise. No, it did not. Chairman Lieberman. There was a lot of background here before. Mr. Aloise. Right. The Department of Energy has been securing nuclear material for years, and even the second line of defense program, putting in portal monitors on other countries' borders, and our efforts here in the United States began in the late 1990s. Chairman Lieberman. Just a last question for you. Do you think DNDO can do this job based on its record? Or do we need to kick it upstairs somehow and give it to OMB or the White House? I hate to do that reflexively. We give too much to the White House, really. So I want to invite your reaction to the organizational structure here. Mr. Aloise. I think our view is DNDO ought to use the powers it has been given to coordinate effectively the creation of this plan. And what that means is they have to get the buy- in of the other Federal agencies, and then it is a consensus plan. You have your goal. You can move forward. And we need to move forward. So we think it can be done. Chairman Lieberman. Yes. Well, obviously, this is a critical matter of homeland security, and you hate to see either bureaucratic turf protection or just bureaucratic inertia standing in the way of getting this job done. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Aloise, I want to go back to the issue of the strategic plan because, like the Chairman, I think that is a really critical issue that you have brought to the Committee. I want to go back to the timeline because I actually think that the failure of DHS in this area is even more acute than the Chairman put forth. It was 2 years ago that GAO last recommended that DNDO complete a strategic plan, but it actually was more than 7 years ago, in October 2002, that GAO first established the need for a strategic plan. Is that correct? Mr. Aloise. That is correct, Senator, yes, and we were recommending that Customs and Border Protection (CBP), or at that time the Customs Service, develop that plan. Senator Collins. So if the Department issues the strategic plan for Global Nuclear Detection Architecture this fall, it will actually be about 8 years since GAO first made that recommendation. Mr. Aloise. That is correct. Senator Collins. That is so troubling to me given what is at stake, and I know that it is to the Chairman as well. I am wondering if this is a case where the Department became so entranced with upgrading the technology of the radiation portal monitors that, as you put it, it dropped the ball; and instead of focusing on the gaps in the system, it just became entranced by the technology. Is that a fair assessment based on your analysis? Mr. Aloise. I think it is, Senator. I think there was this promise from the ASPs--which, by the way, is not new technology. What was new was the software. Senator Collins. Correct. Mr. Aloise. And there was a lot of marketing going around that this was the silver bullet. But we had looked at that technology and we had looked at the promise it offered, and even our earliest review back in 2006 said this will only be a marginal improvement, so, CBP, DNDO, and DHS need to do a cost/ benefit analysis to see if it is going to be worth that marginal improvement, because if you are spending money on ASPs, you are taking money away from somewhere else. Senator Collins. And, Mr. Lowenthal, when you looked at the ASPs, did you look at how much money was spent by the Department on this technology? And as GAO has pointed out, it was actually a software upgrade. Did you look at the amount of money spent? Mr. Lowenthal. We were focused on the cost of the devices going forward, their life cycle costs and whatever benefits they might offer. We did not look at the historical investments within the ASP program and how they might have been spent otherwise because the committee was chartered to look at the testing and evaluation rather than whether DNDO is carrying out its larger mission properly. Senator Collins. Correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Aloise, but I think the Department spent in the neighborhood of $2 billion on the ASP technology. Do you know if that is correct? Mr. Aloise. Well, that was what was planned to be spent. Senator Collins. Planned to be spent. Mr. Aloise. Yes. They have spent so far--not counting testing--$224 million. We have actually asked for more updated information. We wanted it for this hearing, but they did not provide it to us yet. Hopefully they will have it for the next hearing. Senator Collins. I guess what is so troubling to me is here the Department was prepared to invest $2 billion in one kind of technology when, in fact, it had never worked out a plan for railroads or for other means of smuggling nuclear materials into the country; and then when the technology did not prove to be as effective as hoped, there is this diversion of attention, money, energy, to just one kind of technology. And I think you put it so well that then what happened is the Department took its eye off the ball and, thus, we are faced with the situation that we have now. Dr. Shea, you raised a really good point, that there are a number of other departments that play a role--Energy, State, Defense, as well as Homeland Security. Isn't that the reason that having a strategic plan becomes even more important? How, otherwise, do you know the investments that are going to be made by other departments? Mr. Shea. Yes, I agree. The agencies themselves have their programmatic priorities and invest in those programs trying to meet the programs' goals. But absent a strategic plan that lays out what the architecture's goals are and how to measure success towards those goals, it could be very difficult for an agency to be investing with that purpose in mind, they would not have that information to bring into their budgeting process. So I think that a strategic plan that lays out the strategic goals of the architecture and provides metrics within that strategic plan for the agencies to align their program goals with is key for getting all of the agencies to work together in the same direction. Senator Collins. And it also ensures that resources are going to be allocated appropriately. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. I have a couple more questions. Let me go back to you, Mr. Aloise. At the outset, you talked about the difficulty of dealing with some of the areas of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture that DNDO has not dealt with. You mentioned, for instance, the length of freight trains coming in from Canada, let us say. Do you have any doubt that this is an achievable task that we are giving DNDO? In other words, it may be difficult, but am I correct that you believe it is doable if they had concentrated on establishing essentially at least baseline defenses all across our country as opposed to focusing on the portals? Mr. Aloise. Actually, we do believe it is doable. We are not going to say it is easy, but we have gone around the country and looked at train depots, and we have seen where people have set up train portal monitors at certain choke points. It is not going to work everywhere, but there are certainly ways, if given the resources and analysis, you could do it. So, yes, we do believe it can be done. In fact, when DNDO made the push for ASPs and their proposal was to spend $2 billion, they said they could do trains. Now they say they cannot, and they have to develop a new technology. We are not sure a new technology is needed, but it may be. There may be emerging technologies out there that would help. Chairman Lieberman. They said at that point that the ASPs could deal with the international rail cargo as well. Mr. Aloise. Yes, the ASPs were to cover almost all forms of entry into the United States. Chairman Lieberman. And now they conclude that they cannot. Mr. Aloise. Right. Chairman Lieberman. Give us an overall view on the public record here about whether there is any work going on within DNDO now in these areas of the architecture that they have at least underattended to. Mr. Aloise. There are studies going on. There are discussions going on. There is very little that actually has been done. In the green borders between ports of entry, they are starting to talk about using law enforcement more, which makes sense. They are not going to seal the borders, but they are going to have a presence at the borders. Chairman Lieberman. And when they say law enforcement, what do they mean? Mr. Aloise. Well, have a presence at the borders with customs officials. Chairman Lieberman. Customs and Border Protection. Mr. Aloise. Right, which sort of mirrors what the State police do in hunting down speeders on your highways. You do not know where they are, but you know they are out there, and you could be caught if you speed. So it is a deterrent. And we actually think that has merit, and they are looking at that. Chairman Lieberman. Years ago, when I acquired a burglar alarm system for my house, at the end of the installation the man doing it gave me the stickers for the windows and the doors and said, ``Ninety-five percent of what you are paying for are these stickers.'' And he was an honest man. So I get your point. I want to get to the question about whether there ought to be some consolidation across governmental departments of budgets and authority with regard to nuclear detection and ask each of you if you have a thought on that. I know we have said that DNDO has the authority under the Presidential Directive. Is there some value to the Committee, even by legislation, considering centralizing more of that budget authority for this function as a way to basically compel the various departments to work together? Mr. Aloise. I guess I will go first. Chairman Lieberman. Please. Mr. Aloise. I think our position is--and I know I sound like a broken record here--we would like to see a plan first on how we are going to complete this architecture. And by looking at the plan, where our resources will be devoted, what our goal is, and how fast we are going to get there, then I think we could see if anything else is needed beyond that to get this job done. But until we know what the job is, I am not sure what fixes we could put in place. Chairman Lieberman. Good enough. Dr. Lowenthal, do you have an opinion on that Mr. Lowenthal. Yes, the report did not address this, so I will just say a few words. First of all, the academy does not tell the Federal Government how it should reorganize itself unless sopecifically asked. It highlights problems and maybe some options for how to do it. Chairman Lieberman. You are really different than the rest of America in that regard. [Laughter.] Mr. Lowenthal. But I think that what Mr. Aloise said is very consistent with what the Committee said in its report, which is that you need to establish what the priorities are in order to make trade-off decisions. And without a plan, it is hard to do that. Chairman Lieberman. Dr. Shea. Mr. Shea. As I believe all the witnesses have said, there are many agencies that are participating in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, and some of the programs of those agencies, they are not solely dedicated to nuclear detection. Bringing all of the budgets together into a single authority might pose challenges, especially for the programs that have a shared responsibility between nuclear detection and some other role. That said, the current budgetary cross-cut for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture is retrospective in nature. It appears in the Joint Annual Interagency Review report, and as a consequence, for planning purposes, it is not presented to Congress at a time that would allow it to influence, for example, budgetary decisions that were being made by Members of Congress and congressional committees. If the request from the President's budget was cast in such terms as is used in the Joint Annual Interagency Review, then perhaps that would provide some transparency for congressional policymakers in how the funding at the various agencies is feeding into the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. Chairman Lieberman. Based on what you know about the development of the ASP at this point, would you recommend that DNDO just stop any further work on the ASP and really focus on the development of the parts of the nuclear detection architecture that are undeveloped, the ones we have been talking about all along, the areas essentially outside of the official portals of entry? Mr. Aloise. I think it would be our view that, yes, even if you deploy the ASP, it is going to be of marginal value. And what we need to do is close the gaps in the architecture first. Chairman Lieberman. Dr. Lowenthal, do you have an opinion on that? Mr. Lowenthal. No, and I will just tell you what the academy is doing at this point. Chairman Lieberman. Go ahead. Mr. Lowenthal. DNDO has been trying to respond to the recommendations in our report from last year, and so our study committee has been reconvened to evaluate their progress on that. We are not going to come out in the end with any kind of conclusion as to whether the ASPs should be terminated, continued, or expanded. Chairman Lieberman. Dr. Shea. Mr. Shea. I think that the cost/benefit analysis that the Department is currently performing with respect to the ASP program will likely inform the office as to whether or not this investment is a good investment for them to continue or not. One of the recommendations out of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) interim report was that such a cost/benefit analysis be done in the greater context of the architecture, and I think that the results of such an analysis would inform that question as to whether or not continued investment in the ASP would be beneficial. Chairman Lieberman. But at this point, you are not prepared to reach a conclusion yourself? Mr. Shea. I do not think that I have the information. Chairman Lieberman. Understood. Thanks. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Chairman has raised an important issue about whether government is organized correctly to have sufficient coordination, and he raised the issue of whether there needs to be a position within the White House or OMB. In fact, there already is a position. It was created in 2007, and it is within the Executive Office of the President, and it is the Coordinator for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism. The reason no one remembers this position is neither the Bush Administration nor the Obama Administration has ever filled this position, which is a presidentially nominated, Senate-confirmed position. So I do not think the problem is the need for the creation of a new position. I think the problem is that this position has not been filled. And that is an editorial comment rather than a question for our witnesses. Chairman Lieberman. I just want to join you in that op-ed. [Laughter.] Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one final question, and it is for our GAO witness. The GAO today is releasing a report that assesses DHS management of its complex acquisitions. It finds that in almost half of the DHS programs reviewed, there were no baseline requirements for the program until more than 2 years after the program began. Obviously, it is very difficult to have a successful acquisition if you start the acquisition before you establish the requirements. Aren't we seeing some similar things when we look at DNDO's acquisitions in the ASP program and, in general, its failure to produce a plan before acquiring the equipment and technology? Mr. Aloise. Yes, Senator, it is very similar. The ASP program had no mission needs statement, had no cost/benefit analysis, had no life cycle cost analysis, and still does not have a plan. It was not until 2007 when the appropriations act said the testing should meet a significant increase in operational effectiveness before certification, and it was not until August 2008 that there were even any criteria established for that language. So, yes, it is eerily similar. Senator Collins. It is, and I appreciate your confirming that because this is a problem that seems to permeate several agencies within DHS acquisitions, and it causes schedule delays and cost overruns and the procurement of the wrong kind of technology. We saw it with the puffer detectors that the Transportation Security Administraiton (TSA) used at airports that turned out not to work. And straightening out that fundamental planning process to me is absolutely critical, and I think, unfortunately, the ASP program and the failures at DNDO are regrettably additional examples of that. And when it comes to DHS, the consequences for the security of our Nation are enormous. So we have to get this right. Mr. Lowenthal. Senator, can I add something? Senator Collins. Yes. Mr. Lowenthal. I think the academy report endorsed what Mr. Aloise was saying and what you have said about articulating what the needs are before you procure. The academy report also said something more about how they should do this, how they should proceed with deployment if they determine that they have promise there. And it is not that they should make a single decision that then means that they put these everywhere, that they should instead deploy them in a limited number of places, and see how they perform. These are complex pieces of equipment, and the software is complex as well. And so this should be an incremental deployment with some iterative performance enhancements as they go rather than just one big purchase. Senator Collins. I agree. Dr. Shea, do you have anything to add to this? Mr. Shea. I do not have anything to add. Senator Collins. Thank you very much, and I want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins, for your partnership in this. Thanks to the witnesses. I know that in many ways you spend a lot of time and quite hard work, but I really want to thank you because that work today has helped inform the Committee, and you have really, from my point of view, focused some tough questions. Some might say this has been an indictment of past behavior but certainly a critique of past behavior by DNDO and the Federal Government generally on this critical question of homeland security. But more to the point now, going forward, you have focused some questions for the Department of Homeland Security to answer, and, again, we are going to make clear to them--I hope somebody is here from the Department; if not, we are going to ask them to read the testimony--that they must be prepared to come in here on July 21 and answer the questions that your work and testimony and the Committee have posed. And hopefully those answers will then lead to corrective action so we will not have to be back here a year from now with all or some of you telling us that they still have not plugged the gaps that we need to have plugged. So I thank you. Do you want to add anything, Senator Collins? Senator Collins. I do not. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. The record of the hearing will remain open for 15 days for submission of additional statements or questions. Again, I thank you very much. The hearing is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] NUCLEAR TERRORISM: STRENGTHENING OUR DOMESTIC DEFENSES--PART II ---------- WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, and Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN Chairman Lieberman. Good morning. The hearing will come to order. This is the second part of the Committee's investigation of efforts by the Department of the Homeland Security (DHS) to strengthen our Nation's defenses against the threat of nuclear terrorism. I want to welcome Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl Lute, who will be our primary witness today, as well as the new Director of the Department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, Warren Stern, and representatives from other DHS agencies that have important roles to play in preventing a nuclear terrorist attack. The first thing to say is that this threat is real. In fact, the National Security Strategy released by the Administration in May contained the following stark warning, ``The American people face no greater or more urgent danger than a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon. Black markets trade in nuclear secrets and materials. Terrorists are determined to buy, build, or steal a nuclear weapon.'' At Part I of this hearing on June 30, witnesses from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional Research Service (CRS), and the National Academies of Sciences testified that one of the key offices assigned to protect us from this threat, which is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), is woefully behind in its planning and implementation efforts, despite $2 billion in funding since it was created in 2005 as an office within the Department of Homeland Security. And since our last hearing, DNDO has provided further financial information to GAO that shows another $2 billion was spent department-wide by Homeland Security in support of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office's mission. And what has that $4 billion bought over 5 years? In part, that money has gone to expanding existing programs at Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and other DHS agencies that are critical to our defenses against nuclear terrorism. But, unfortunately, there is too much evidence that very little progress has been made with the funds that have been targeted to enhancing our current nuclear detection capabilities. Most importantly, the overall nuclear terror defense plan DNDO has been working on since it was created now 5 years ago, the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, is still not completed. And, in fact, last year, DNDO officials concluded that the plan they were developing was too dependent on unproven technologies and did not take into consideration the contributions that law enforcement and intelligence agencies could make with their existing assets. I appreciate that designing a global system of systems and coordinating the activities of agencies and other departments that are part of that system is a big challenge. But the threat is enormous here, and the size of the challenge, therefore, cannot explain away the failure of DNDO to develop a strategic plan for strengthening parts of the domestic layer of the architecture operated within the Department of Homeland Security and help guide the nuclear detection investments by its fellow DHS agencies. So that will be a focus, the primary focus of this hearing. In our previous hearing, we also heard that DNDO has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to develop new radiation detection technology known as the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP), that the GAO concluded is only marginally better than what we have now. GAO has also provided the Committee details about the failure of a second large DNDO technology investment known as the Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System (CAARS). According to GAO, the Nuclear Detection Office awarded contracts for the CAARS systems without ever determining if the system could be used in domestic ports of entry or whether it would meet the requirements of the Customs and Border Protection agency, which is on the front lines of protecting our borders. GAO estimates that DNDO has spent approximately $400 million combined on the ASP and CAARS programs with little or nothing to show for it. GAO also contends that had DHS completed its strategic plan before making these investments, it might well have considered the security benefits of other mobile or portable detection systems. Last year, GAO strongly recommended that DHS ``develop a strategic plan for the domestic part of the Global Nuclear Detection Strategy to guide the domestic nuclear detection investments of DHS agencies.'' This is sound advice, but it apparently has not been followed by DHS or DNDO in making expensive decisions about the investments that they are making here at home. So this morning we really need to hear a direct response from DHS to these criticisms, and we need to know what corrective actions are being taken now. Because our Committee wants to make sure that in carrying out our oversight responsibilities we do not cause the revelation of any information that could be exploited by our enemies, the hearing will adjourn at the appropriate time, to be resumed in closed session in the Senate Security offices. Finally, I would say that the problems that are facing the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the Department of Homeland Security in our efforts generally to design and implement the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture are not new, and they have been well documented. We held hearings on this topic during the previous Administration, but now this Administration is in charge and must step up to the plate and close this gap in our defenses against nuclear terrorism. Senator Collins. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this second hearing on the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security to prevent nuclear terrorism against our country. At our first hearing, we examined the Department's inexplicable failure to complete a much needed strategy to address this growing threat. As the Chairman has pointed out, we know that time is not on our side. The 2008 report by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction predicted that it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013. There is no more alarming prospect than that of a nuclear September 11, 2001. After all, a nuclear bomb is the ultimate terrorist weapon, causing an unimaginable amount of death, suffering, and horror--precisely the kind of frightening and inhumane outcome that terrorists seek. Terrorists have made clear their desire to secure a nuclear weapon. Given this stark reality, we must ask: What has the Department done to defend against nuclear terrorism on American soil? The answer, unfortunately, is: Not enough . . . not nearly enough. Today the Department still lacks a strategic plan for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, a necessity first identified by the Government Accountability Office nearly 8 years ago. We cannot wait another 8 years or even another 8 months. The Department must complete this plan now. As the Chairman has indicated, the office charged with this effort at DHS, the office known as DNDO, has seemed more intent in the past on investing in new technology than on the nuts and bolts planning that should guide these acquisitions. The office, for example, has spent approximately $282 million over nearly 5 years on the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal Program, with the goal of developing the next-generation primary cargo scanning technology to detect unshielded nuclear and radiological materials. But in February 2010, DNDO announced that the ASP was no longer being pursued as a possible primary scanning technology and now was only being looked at as a possible secondary scanning technology. Unfortunately, the GAO has determined that the technology is only slightly better than the existing monitors. GAO's statement for the record today highlights problems with another scanning technology mentioned by the Chairman that would X-ray the contents of cargo containers. GAO found that DNDO failed to adequately communicate with Customs and Border Protection about such basic issues as how large the equipment could be to still fit within the port of entry inspection lanes. I must say this is so frustrating. One of the reasons that we worked so hard to bring all of the agencies together under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security was to enhance communication and to ensure that the right hand knows what the left is doing. So to have this so basic a communications lapse is really discouraging and inexcusable. After more than 2 years of work, DNDO has decided to cancel the acquisition of this technology and focus on more research and development. DHS must be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. Time and money have been wasted as DNDO has focused almost completely on marginal improvements in technology, rather than on identifying gaps in coverage and then determining the appropriate technology to eliminate those gaps. And as the Chairman indicates, this problem started in the previous Administration, but it is discouraging to not see more progress in this Administration which is now in charge. Moreover, troubling gaps continue to exist that could be exploited by terrorists seeking to smuggle illicit nuclear materials into the United States. We know that terrorists are constantly probing and testing our vulnerabilities. Now, to be sure, the Department deserves credit for deploying more than 1,400 radiation portal monitors, allowing nearly 100 percent of cargo entering our seaports and nearly 100 percent of vehicle traffic on the southern and northern borders to be scanned for unshielded nuclear material, and that is significant. But cargo coming into this country by rail from Canada or Mexico is still not scanned, and only a small percentage of international air cargo is scanned. Effective scanning technology for these shipments would form an important part of a layered, risk-based defense to nuclear terrorism. Let me go back, however, to what I see as the essential issue, and that is the lack of a strong strategic plan to establish priorities, identify gaps, and to give our tactics cohesion. Without that, we are going to continue to see slow progress in an effective defense against terrorists' nuclear ambitions. This strategy should also include a comprehensive cost/benefit analysis that accounts for currently available and potential future technologies as well as the personnel, intelligence, and infrastructure needed to combat this threat. In addition, to improve the coordination across government, President Obama must appoint a coordinator for the prevention of weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, and terrorism as required by the 2007 Homeland Security Act written by the Chairman and myself. This coordinator would help promote the interagency collaboration needed to develop and implement an effective strategy. Inadequate planning causes schedule delays, cost overruns, and the procurement of the wrong kinds of technology at great cost to the taxpayer. And when we are talking about preventing nuclear terrorism, those failures can lead to catastrophic consequences for our Nation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. Deputy Secretary Lute, thank you for being here. You are in the hot seat, I suppose, this morning because you can sense or hear the frustration that the Committee has with how this responsibility has been advanced over these two Administrations, and that frustration has been deepened, of course, by the independent reports, including GAO's. So I am very anxious to hear your response to those critiques and where you are going to lead the effort now. TESTIMONY OF HON. JANE HOLL LUTE,\1\ DEPUTY SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Ms. Lute. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning. Good morning, Senator Collins. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Lute appears in the Appendix on page 82. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Members of the Committee, it is my pleasure actually to be here before you today to discuss efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to increase our security and reduce the risk, as you both have pointed out, of nuclear terrorism. Countering threats from terrorism is the Department's primary mission, and preventing nuclear terrorism has been and remains among our top-most priorities. The Department's first Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, which we released this year, reaffirms this critical mission. DHS cannot meet this challenge alone. Other Federal departments and agencies are and must be engaged in this effort, as must State and local law enforcement agencies, governments, and other responsible parties around the world, as well as international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Since the establishment of DNDO in 2005, this Committee has engaged with the Department on the full range of issues associated with preventing terrorists' use of nuclear weapons, and we respect and appreciate that engagement and understand the frustrations that have been expressed this morning. My remarks today will focus on the core tasks we believe are inherent in effective detection and interdiction, namely, anticipating the threat and preventing hostile use. This is a tough set of issues, as this Committee knows. We believe we now have a better understanding of the challenges that are posed by the limitations of technology, by operational constraints, and by issues related to the scale of the challenge of interdicting and detecting illicit nuclear trafficking across or within our borders. And we must do more, as you have noted, to synchronize and integrate the efforts of all actors to fill gaps and minimize vulnerabilities. Noting these challenges, however, should not detract from progress that we have made in extending the coverage of our domestic nuclear detection capabilities and increasing the capacities of technologies and processes that are at the heart of that coverage. I will address this progress but also the challenges in greater detail when we have an opportunity to meet in closed session. I do want to note that we have seen a major expansion, as Senator Collins has noted, of monitors at our Nation's ports of entry and at other locations, detectors along our land and maritime borders, and there have been sizable increases in the development, testing, and evaluation of new detection systems. We have increased the training of qualified detection officials and been continuing to work on the development of new materials for potential future use. As you have noted, I am pleased to acknowledge that DNDO has a newly appointed Director, Warren Stern, whose expertise and experience is valuable and will be directed and put to great aggressive, vigorous use, as the leadership of DNDO. And I know that the Committee is keenly interested in discussing DNDO's programs further with him. One of DNDO's core mandates is to develop the strategic framework for a Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA), which is a risk-informed, multilayered network designed to detect illicit radiological and nuclear materials or weapons and is, therefore, a key part of our overall effort to prevent nuclear terrorism. I acknowledge the Committee has been expecting this for some time. I acknowledge, understand, and, in fact, share the frustration that this has not yet been presented. That work is progressing, and we expect the strategic plan to be completed by the end of the year, as I have already testified before this Committee. I know the Committee is also keenly interested in DNDO's Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitoring program. Again, I will reserve more detailed comments for our closed session regarding ASP. This program has taken longer than anticipated, and while its likely deployment in secondary screening differs from the original plan, we believe it will offer a significant contribution to our nuclear detection capabilities. Moreover, many of the problematic aspects of ASP have stemmed from our immaturity in developing and managing large acquisition programs, and I believe that we have built on the progress achieved by the leaders who preceded us at DHS and on the work that has been ongoing to establish a much more rigorous process for establishing requirements at the outset, knowing what we need as an operational Department, and ensuring that those requirements are validated through rigorous operational testing. This was not the case when ASP was started in 2005. The Department has also recently established a Nuclear Terrorism Working Group staffed by the heads of key components in the Department. I chair it. We meet weekly. The working group examines the Department's role and activities, the components' roles and activities, and coordinates those activities with DNDO and also with our Science and Technology Directorate, headed up by Under Secretary Tara O'Toole, who is also with us today. And we want to understand and develop our plan for meeting the operational challenges on the ground. DHS is now 7 years old, but as I have said to this Committee before, it is not 1 year old for the seventh time. A lot of progress has been made in those 7 years thanks in large part to the aggressive, continued focus of this Committee and the dialogue between us. The Department has matured. Our understanding of the threat has matured, and we have developed and tested several technologies and explored operational requirements to devise solutions for the gaps that arise. For decades, the United States has led the world in efforts to control nuclear weapons and materials and more recently to counter the threat of nuclear terrorism. As the President announced in his Prague speech of April 2009, the United States intends to pursue a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within 4 years. Smuggling of nuclear materials has occurred, only in small quantities that we know of thus far, and it remains a grave concern. Controlling it is a very high priority. While the ultimate aim of the United States is to make nuclear terrorism near to impossible, our immediate goal is to make it a prohibitively difficult undertaking for any adversary. But the responsibility to increase security and reduce the overall risk of nuclear terrorism is not owned by any one office, department, or even government. It must be a collective effort. Thank you again for this opportunity to come and speak with you today about the Department's nuclear terrorism prevention efforts. Mr. Chairman, I have submitted my full testimony for the record, and I look forward to your questions. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Deputy Secretary Lute. We will go ahead with 7-minute rounds of questions. I must tell you--and I will go back again over your prepared testimony, which I looked at yesterday--that I am somewhat disappointed because a number of the questions that the Committee specifically posed to you in our invitation to testify today have not been dealt with, nor have there been specific responses to the GAO, CRS, or Academy of Sciences' critiques. Now, maybe some of those you are going to give us in the closed session, but we have a lot of work to do. And, again, I come back from this statement that the GAO prepared a statement for the record today. Have you had a chance to see that? Ms. Lute. No, Senator, I have not. Chairman Lieberman. Well, I want to ask you to take a look at it and then respond in writing. In one case, they added a new--I will call it an accusation, that the Department has been misleading Congress with regard to the CAARS program. That is a serious question, and I think it is very important that you respond to it as soon as you can. They also say in the statement filed for the record of this hearing, and I quote again, ``To date, DHS has spent $4 billion on various aspects of the Nuclear Detection Architecture, but has not developed a strategic plan to guide its efforts to develop and implement this architecture, as we recommended in 2008.'' And I know you expressed your own frustration with that. We are now more than a year and a half into this Administration. What is holding up that strategic plan? Why hasn't it been done earlier, either by the previous Administration or this one? Ms. Lute. Mr. Chairman, there are probably a number of reasons that account. They may sound like excuses. It is not my inclination to offer excuses. We now have a non-acting, head of DNDO. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Ms. Lute. We have established an interagency group at the Assistant Secretary level to guide and complete the implementation of the GNDA Strategic Plan. And we now have that strategic plan in draft form. So what I can tell you is that, notwithstanding the lack of progress made to date, we expect to deliver that plan before the end of this calendar year. Chairman Lieberman. Well, the sooner the better, obviously. I wonder if you are in a position to indicate to the Committee in generality what the content of the plan will be. In other words, will there be sufficient detail to enable DHS and the Federal Government to accomplish what it set out to do 5 years ago? Ms. Lute. This is going to be a strategic plan, Mr. Chairman, and as such, it will outline the vision, the goals, the objectives, and the performance metrics. It will necessarily be followed by an implementation plan which will look specifically at the existing architecture that we have in the domestic environment, look more specifically at those gaps, and identify concrete pathways with respect to procedures, acquisition, training techniques, and other elements necessary to put that plan to full effect. Chairman Lieberman. In the final version of your prepared statement for this morning, which we saw later yesterday afternoon, it looked to me like you were saying that DHS wanted to de-emphasize the domestic part of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office's role and to emphasize the global aspects of the role. Did I read that correctly? Ms. Lute. That may be due to the inadequacy of my drafting, Mr. Chairman. By no means. Chairman Lieberman. That is not your intention? Ms. Lute. By no means. There are, points of activity on both fronts, both domestically and abroad, but the focus of the domestic office begins domestically. Chairman Lieberman. Has to be domestic, of course. I appreciate that and am reassured to hear that. As I understand it, since 2005, DNDO has spent, as I said, about $400 million researching, developing, and testing the CAARS machines and ASPs. You have had a chance now to look over this, I presume, and I want to know what your conclusions are about why DNDO put such a large investment into these devices. Maybe, to the best of your ability before you answer, you should give us a brief lay person's description of CAARS and ASPs. Ms. Lute. So I will speak to this to a certain degree, Mr. Chairman. I am not an expert. Chairman Lieberman. Yes. If you want to call somebody else up for the technical detail. Ms. Lute. But we can also discuss some of this in the closed hearing, with your indulgence. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Ms. Lute. I thank you for that invitation, so if I need to use a lifeline, I will. Chairman Lieberman. OK. Ms. Lute. But ASP essentially is the next generation of detection technology to be used at our ports of entry to screen cargo. Why did we want it? We wanted it because we bring in between 20 and 25 million containers of cargo annually, and we need to be able to screen that cargo or scan that cargo. And we also need to be able to keep commerce moving. We pursued ASP as a fast means to detect reliably dangerous materials and fill gaps that we had. Chairman Lieberman. That was presumably better than the current system? That was the goal. Ms. Lute. That was the goal. We have learned some things. We were perhaps too aggressive in trying to field unproven technology. We have also known very fundamentally that good programs have to be supported by good process, and good process helps in turn generate good programs. We now have a solid acquisition system in the Department, a management directive that covers it, and that takes these large, complex requirements to which we are trying to match novel technologies, and walks us through the discipline of oversight and engagement at every step of the way. The test results of ASP, if we want to go into detail, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, we will wait until the closed session. But we did want it there fast in order to reduce false positives and improve our capability both for detection and for throughput. Chairman Lieberman. How about the CAARS program? Ms. Lute. So this was a Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System and, again, part of a multilayered defense that we have, and we are not pursuing it. Beyond that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to go into closed session. Chairman Lieberman. Do you draw any general lessons from these two investments about what should happen going forward? I mean, obviously, they had good intentions, but they both sound like they represented a considerable waste of money. Ms. Lute. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think there are some lessons learned. Hope is not a method. We need to rely on the accuracy of our understanding of the operations of this Department. This is an operational Department. Technology must work in the field. It must solve the problems that we have in the field. We know this intuitively. You know it if you are an operator. And now we have built our ability to test equipment before it is fielded with field testing into our acquisition system. We know that, again, good programs have to be supported by good processes, and the process itself does begin with a deep understanding of exactly what our requirements are from an operator's point of view. In both of these cases, as Senator Collins has pointed out, it is unacceptable that our research and development arm would not talk to our operating arms. Chairman Lieberman. I agree. Ms. Lute. It is unacceptable. Chairman Lieberman. So, presumably, that is one thing that is not going to happen again. Ms. Lute. No, not if I can help it. Chairman Lieberman. Yes. And the Department maintains the goal of improving the current monitoring equipment that we have? Ms. Lute. We do. Chairman Lieberman. Am I right that the Department has over the last 5 years, and more, increased the number of monitors at ports of entry? Ms. Lute. We have. Chairman Lieberman. Significantly. Ms. Lute. We have, and we are prepared to share greater detail in closed session. Chairman Lieberman. My time is up, but I want to indicate to you that in the GAO statement for the record today that I referred to, the charge of misleading was specifically with regard to the CAARS program, and I will quote from it. ``The description of the progress of the CAARS program used to support funding requests in DNDO's budget justifications was misleading because it did not reflect the actual status of the program. For example, the fiscal years 2010 and 2011 DHS budget justifications both cited that an ongoing CAARS testing campaign would lead to a cost/benefit analysis. However, DNDO officials told GAO that when they canceled the acquisition part of the program in 2007, they also decided not to conduct any associated cost/benefit analysis.''\1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ The prepared statement from GAO appears in the Appendix on page 99. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- So that is a troubling statement. Part of that--it sounds like it happened on your watch with regard to the budget, so I hope you will take a quick look at that and respond. Ms. Lute. Mr. Chairman, I apologize. Just before walking in, I did see that statement. I did not realize it was presented for the record of this hearing. I will certainly revert back to the Committee with a written answer.\2\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\ The response from DHS appears in the Appendix on page 111. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chairman Lieberman. OK, because it is a serious charge, obviously. Ms. Lute. Absolutely. Chairman Lieberman. In terms of our trust from both branches of government. Thank you. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Mr. Chairman, I am going to pick up exactly on that point with Deputy Secretary Lute because it is extremely troubling to read what GAO has written about the Department's annual budget justifications. There is no dispute between GAO and the Department that DNDO made the decision in December 2007 to end its acquisition and deployment plans for the CAARS program. Yet the Department's last three budget justifications to Congress have cited the development and deployment of the CAARS technology as being feasible. And, indeed, when GAO looked at the budget justifications for fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011, the Department cited an ongoing testing campaign that would lead to a cost/benefit analysis for the CAARS program. It is inconceivable to me that the Department is still putting plans and money into its budget justifications for a program that it had decided to abandon in December 2007. So how could that happen? If DNDO ended its acquisition and deployment plans for the CAARS program, for the cargo screening program and as a result had decided not to proceed with a cost/benefit analysis, why were they included in the DHS budget documents that were submitted to Congress? Ms. Lute. Senator, CAARS was transitioned in 2007, it is my understanding, into a research and development (R&D) program. I only quickly glanced at the statement of GAO this morning. We will certainly provide a detailed response to this line of inquiry. Senator Collins. But that is not what the budget justification says. The budget is still citing the development and deployment of the CAARS technology, and this is long after DHS decided to cancel the acquisition plans. We have to be able to take at face value the information the Department presents to us; otherwise, how can we proceed to evaluate the budget justifications? Ms. Lute. I absolutely agree with that basic point, Senator. Absolutely. And, again, I will provide a detailed response to you in writing. Senator Collins. I just want to emphasize that I share the Chairman's view that this is extremely troubling because this speaks to the credibility of the budget requests. At a time when we are scrutinizing the budget, squeezing every dollar, if we cannot rely on the credibility of the information provided by the Department for a program that, nearly 3 years ago was abandoned, that is very serious. So I think we need an answer to this question. I hope, Mr. Chairman, you will put a time frame on it, that within the next week we get an answer to this question. Chairman Lieberman. Why don't we just agree that we would like to hear back from you by a week from today on that question. Ms. Lute. Yes, absolutely. I would just like to say, Senator, that there can be no question--and let me leave no doubt in your mind--the Department seeks and works to achieve a standard of highest fidelity and integrity in our interactions with Congress and our interactions with the American people. I do not accept at this point the characterization by GAO that we were misleading Congress, but I will provide a written answer in detail within the time frame we just agreed. Senator Collins. The second issue related to CAARS that I want to pursue further with you is the inexplicable lack of communication between DNDO and the client agency that actually was going to use the technology. And GAO's report says it very well in a headline: ``DNDO planned for the acquisition and deployment of CAARS without fully understanding that it could not feasibly operate in a U.S. port environment.'' That is just extraordinary. It said that when the officials from CBP and DNDO finally met, CBP officials said that they made clear to DNDO that they did not want the CAARS machines because they would not fit in primary inspection lanes and would slow down the flow of commerce through these lanes and cause significant delays. That is an extraordinary statement. That those basic requirements were not identified before a single dollar was spent is something that I just cannot understand. And it clearly led to the waste of millions of dollars. How is it that acquisition officials in DNDO could be proceeding with a technology that did not meet the needs of the end-user agency in a very fundamental way? It is not we need to tweak this a little bit or we will need additional training for our personnel. This is saying the technology will not fit in the primary inspection lanes and would lead to significant delays. How much more fundamental a specification is there than whether or not it would fit? How can this have happened? Ms. Lute. Senator, if it in fact happened, it is inexcusable. You are absolutely right. And even in your description of it, I find myself getting equally frustrated and annoyed. There is no excuse in an operating department for the acquisition of material that does not meet basic operational purposes like does it fit. There is no excuse. I would just offer, in addition to responding to the specific question that you have asked on the transition of CAARS into an R&D program, that we give you a full accounting of how CAARS has unfolded to address these concerns. What I can tell you, Senator, is that we have fixed that problem. We have established an acquisition system that fully integrates the needs of the operators with the acquisition system itself. We have introduced points along that system for active engagement and oversight. We have introduced an operational testing phase as well--and that is a field testing phase--to prevent these things from happening. Senator Collins. You said ``if this happened.'' Do you take issue with what GAO has told us in a written statement? Ms. Lute. Again, Senator, I just glanced at the statement before I walked in. I would like the opportunity to provide to you in writing, in detail, in a fully transparent way to the Committee the unfolding of this program. Senator Collins. Let me just ask one final question on this round since my time has expired. Chairman Lieberman. That is OK. Senator Collins. And that has to do with the strategic plan, the need for which was first identified 8 years ago, a source of huge frustration to the Chairman and myself, and a cause of significant waste of time and money. You have said that there is a draft plan underway. I am going to ask you a very basic question. When will it be done? Ms. Lute. Before the end of this calendar year. Senator Collins. More precisely--I mean, the end of this calendar year is a long ways away. Ms. Lute. Senator, I cannot give you a precise date. I can tell you before December 31. Senator Collins. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would say that December 31 is too long. The need for this plan has been evident for 8 years, and in the meantime, the Department either has to freeze all of its technology acquisitions, because it does not really know what it needs--and that puts us at risk-- or it has to proceed with acquisitions that may end up wasting more millions of dollars. So this has to be a priority. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Collins. I agree. This has been a long time in coming, and it is September 15 today. Look, we cannot compel you by a court or other action to do this by a given date, but the fact is it is long overdue. And it would impress us at least if you got it done by sometime significantly earlier than the end of the year. Is this going to be just an overall strategy? We had a little exchange before, but I presume this will be clear enough that it will guide action. I understand there may need to be details that follow, but I hope this will be a real working strategic plan that will come forward. Ms. Lute. Senator, it will be at a strategic level. It will identify the vision we are trying to pursue, and it will outline objectives and performance metrics. Chairman Lieberman. Right. Ms. Lute. From that, we will necessarily create an implementation plan which will go into greater detail about programs, technologies, execution, and timelines. I think I would just like to offer as well that we are following the original impulse of the Department when DNDO was created, which was to look at our existing operations in the three main areas that we work on to ensure the security of this homeland: Our border regions, the interior of this country, as well as abroad. And we have looked to reinforce existing processes and procedures with the kinds of technologies that give us a stronger hand in the ability to detect and interdict the movement of illicit materials. So we are not frozen, Senator, and I know that is a concern of yours. It would be a concern of mine as well. We are not frozen in place. We are continuing to apply those technologies and procedures, to train our personnel in field, to deploy more trained personnel, and to develop our understanding of the threat and vulnerabilities. But I equally share your frustration--and certainly understand it--that this plan has not yet been produced. Chairman Lieberman. I really urge you to get it to us before the end of the year if you possibly can. I think that would be a significant step forward. I have just a couple more questions. Incidentally, when you look at the statement that GAO filed for the record on this question of DNDO misleading the Congress, there is a final sentence in the paragraph that says--and this is GAO speaking-- ``During recent discussions with DNDO officials, they agreed that the language in the budget justifications lacked clarity, and they have no plans to prepare a cost/benefit analysis.'' So there has already been some acknowledgment. It may be a difference of terminology. The GAO says it was a kind of intentional act of misleading Congress. DNDO acknowledges that it lacked clarity. But I want to ask you from your position as administrative accountability and responsibility at the top of the Department to give us your view of what happened here and how it should affect our interactions. We have talked some about the unacceptable--I think that is the word you used--failure of some of the component agencies of the Department of Homeland Security to cooperate and to communicate in the development of some of the nuclear detection systems. DNDO, as you know, is also given the responsibility for coordinating nuclear detection activities of the Department of Homeland Security with other departments of our Federal Government--Defense, State, Justice, and Energy. The question I want to raise is--I do not know whether it is under consideration at all. In light of the fact that it is not clear to me that DNDO has the authority to tell those agencies what to do and, therefore, must rely on cooperation from them, each with their own jurisdictions, sovereignties, and perhaps stovepipes, whether we ought to be considering giving additional authority to DNDO to coordinate this responsibility for a defense against nuclear terrorism or whether we ought to confine DNDO's responsibility in some sense and have all these agencies accountable to someone higher up, in the White House, in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), something of that kind. Is that under consideration at all? And if not, do you have any first responses to that? Ms. Lute. Senator, the situation is as you described. We do not have the authority such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has, and there have been some informal discussions about this. The right way forward, I think, remains to be decided. We are certainly engaged vigorously with them, for example, on the strategic plan for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture at the Assistant Secretary level, so DNDO is moving out aggressively to establish the relationships and operating pattern to achieve the kind of cooperation that is expected. I think it is certainly a live consideration that additional authorities be considered. Chairman Lieberman. Well, I would welcome your thoughts on that. The final question I have is really the initial point, and just to draw you out on it, I take it that the Department and DNDO are operating on an assumption or a conclusion based on intelligence that the threat of nuclear terrorism is real and that terrorist groups continue to have an active interest in gaining the capability to carry out a nuclear terrorist attack, including within the United States. Ms. Lute. Yes, Senator. Beyond that, I would like to reserve our discussion for---- Chairman Lieberman. Understood, but I wanted to clarify that. The second may be a little harder but--which is--I know there was a relatively recent IAEA report recording some cases of attempts to smuggle quantities of enriched uranium out of the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. I guess I am asking whether you have a concern about whether in terms of the thoughts about Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, whether the countries of the world, including Russia, are doing enough to protect the nuclear material that they have. Ms. Lute. Again, Senator, with respect to a more detailed discussion on that, I would like to reserve it for the closed session. But I think it is fair to say that no one should be satisfied with the current state of efforts and that more has to be done. Chairman Lieberman. Senator Collins. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my understanding that in preparing the strategy, the Department is using these model guidelines. This is a document for nuclear detection architectures that DNDO developed in consultation with the international agencies as well as national domestic experts. These model guidelines state that the strategy should include a clear assignment of responsibility to the Federal, State, or local agency that is responsible for carrying out the strategies. We are told that the draft strategy currently being considered at DNDO does not include such basic elements as which agencies are responsible for which strategic goals, and that instead Congress is going to have to wait for yet another plan to be produced and an implementation plan for the strategy to be delivered at a yet unknown future date. If the guidelines are recommending that agency responsibilities be defined in the national level strategy for the architecture, why isn't the Department doing that, including that critical information and assignment of responsibility within the strategy? Or are you going to, let me ask? Ms. Lute. Senator, that is why it is still a draft, so we are using in part the model guidelines. We are mindful also of getting something delivered. And we are mindful of getting something delivered that forms a credible basis for the implementation plan that follows, and we will ensure that it has all the essential elements for that purpose. Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Collins. Senator Akaka, good morning and welcome. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA Senator Akaka. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be here with you and our Ranking Member, Senator Collins. Thank you so much for holding this hearing, and I would like to thank the Deputy Secretary for being here with us today Ms. Lute. Thank you, Senator. Senator Akaka. Nuclear terrorism is among the chief threats facing the United States. The Department's Global Nuclear Detection Architecture is a crucial tool in stopping the illicit movement of nuclear and radiological materials. I have some ongoing concerns about the status of the improvements to our nuclear detection capabilities, our international efforts, and our ability to prevent the entry of nuclear materials into the United States. I hope to hear more about these issues today. Deputy Secretary Lute, in 2009, I introduced the Strengthening the Oversight of Nuclear Nonproliferation Act, which was included as an amendment to this Committee's WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act. My bill would require U.S. analysis of the IAEA's ability to detect a country's diversion of nuclear materials that could be used as a weapon and recommend ways for the United States to further support the IAEA. Is DHS incorporating analysis of IAEA's detection capabilities, and ways to further its support of the IAEA, into its nuclear detection efforts? Ms. Lute. We are, Senator, but I am not in a position to give you a detailed accounting of how. Senator Akaka. Fine. Madam Secretary, education, training, and exercises can better prepare personnel charged with stemming the illicit flow of dangerous nuclear materials. What steps has DHS taken to put comprehensive training efforts in place for these personnel throughout the United States? Ms. Lute. Senator, DNDO has an aggressive program with respect to education and training, and we can provide details of the numbers of programs, numbers of trained individuals as well, to you in writing. Senator Akaka. Fine. International efforts to prevent nuclear smuggling require information sharing between international partners within a broad nuclear detection framework. To what extent has the U.S. Government coordinated with international partners to improve information sharing in support of nuclear detection at both the strategic and operational levels? Ms. Lute. Senator, as you know, there are a number of international programs that the government participates in on this set of issues. Where the Department of Homeland Security fits in, this is also part of our engagement as well. We have a number of quite specific dialogues with international partners regarding port activities, the issues of cargo movements, and, indeed, the whole question of secure global supply chains incorporates a set of issues that the United States is trying to pursue with its international trading partners. So it is an imprecise answer to your question in terms of under which specific programs all of this is being conducted. There are other departments--the Department of Energy, for example--that have these dialogues as well, and equally there is dialogue with the private sector. We can provide those to you in writing. But as I mentioned earlier, we view homeland security and the efforts that we undertake to ensure the security of this homeland as entailing work abroad with the international community. Senator Akaka. Madam Secretary, in the DHS Bottom-Up Review Report, the Department stated that it will increase efforts to detect and counter nuclear and other dangerous materials by prioritizing nuclear detection research and development and by working with the intelligence community to develop new capabilities. How is DHS implementing these efforts? And what new technologies and capabilities are being considered in these efforts? Ms. Lute. Senator, I would like to reserve any discussion of technologies for our closed session, if you will, and I would characterize at this point in an open setting our efforts on the intelligence front. We want to understand the threat fully. We want to understand who those individuals might be, or groups, or other institutions, agencies, entities that exist that might be trying to acquire illicit materials. What are the lines of communication that they might exploit, what are the means they might exploit to advance their threat? What are our vulnerabilities? How can we best address them? Those are the kinds of things that we are putting into our dialogue with the intelligence community to more fully develop our understanding of the threat. Senator Akaka. According to the Bottom-Up Review Report, DHS plans to enhance its risk assessment and management across its mission areas. One related effort that DHS has considered is conducting a homeland security national risk assessment. If conducted, how do you foresee this assessment better informing strategies, investments, and operations related to countering the threat of nuclear terrorism? Ms. Lute. As I mentioned in my opening statement, Senator, we believe that eventually we would like to make it near to impossible for anyone to acquire or attempt to use illicitly nuclear materials and weapons. In the meantime, we want to make it prohibitively difficult. That depends on creating significant uncertainty in the minds of potential adversaries through layered defenses that reduce risk and shore up our ability to defend ourselves. We believe this country can defend itself in this area as well as others, and so we will use all the tools at our disposal, including analyses and understandings of risks, vulnerabilities, and capabilities of technologies, processes, and our operating components to ensure that we keep this country safe. Senator Akaka. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Akaka, for being here and for asking those thoughtful questions. I think probably it is best now to adjourn to closed session. Look, bottom line, I think you hear us. We are not happy or satisfied with progress on the whole nuclear detection architecture and the way that a considerable amount of taxpayer money has been spent up until now without any substantial result. So we are counting on you, Deputy Secretary Lute, and, of course, Secretary Janet Napolitano, to really step in and take charge of this. Short term, we look forward to the response within a week to this question of DNDO misleading the Congress on the budget question. And then you set the goal, but it is September 15. If you can get that strategic plan out sometime in November, that would be a great step forward and a sign of encouragement to us that things were changing. I am tempted to ask Mr. Stern whether after this hearing he wants to go forward and take over DNDO. Ms. Lute. Of course he does Chairman Lieberman. He does, I know. So I appreciate that you do. It needs fresh new leadership, and we look forward to working with you on the progress that we all want. With that, we will reconvene for the closed portion of the hearing as soon as our legs can take us to Room 217 in the Senate Security Offices over in the Capitol Visitor Center. The hearing is adjourned. 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