DOE has a very high mountain that it has created, and we think it is very appropriate.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I have here a copy of an attachment that includes a Department of Energy budget. I think it would be interesting for the people of this country to know that nearly $8 billion is estimated to be spent on the National Nuclear Security Administration, and that environmental management, which doesn't include a certain amount of cleanup, is scheduled to be about $7 billion-nuclear waste disposal, about $591 billion-or million.

When you look at this overall budget, Mr. Chairman, there is a question that just needs to be raised in the context of this hearing, and that is the policy of our government with respect to building nuclear weapons in the first place. And while this is about the threat that derives from having produced such weapons, it appears that the weapons that we are producing, far from being a threat to other nations, end up being a threat to ourselves. Just a little thought for today.

Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Lewis.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Ms. Nazzaro and Mr. Podonsky, how adequately staffed are DOE and NNSA for insurance safeguards and security at the nuclear weapons complex sites?

Ms. NAZZARO. In regards to staffing, the issue we looked at was staffing as it relates to oversight, and that's where we found that there was a deficiency as far as capabilities to conduct oversight of the contractors. DOE's response has been that it will use this virtual organization whereby they would use individuals from other locations to conduct oversight.

However, we do have concerns that the staffing certainly is inadequate, and they do have a number of vacancies that need to be filled. But we looked at it only in that aspect.

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you.

Mr. Podonsky, what are DOE and NNSA doing about the staffing problem?

Mr. PODONSKY. To the NNSA and DOE's credit, they have increased the personnel in terms of security guard force, which was very important.

Relative to staffing at the sites for, as Ms. Nazzaro was talking about the self-assessment oversight, the programmatic oversight, they are taking a very rigorous approach to try and find more staff. We fully agree with the GAO from an independent oversight perspective, that there is a need, a very serious need, at all the site offices to beef up the staffing with qualified, capable folks to oversee the contractors, as well as the contractors to oversee themselves.

Mr. LEWIS. And what's the problem in getting the staffing up to par, finding qualified people? Or what's the problem?

Mr. PODONSKY. Well, you would have to ask the NNSA or DOE directly. But I would give you our opinion from independent oversight which is, there are a lot of competing concerns for security in the country today and it is very difficult. I know in my own organization to maintain and keep very highly qualified national-level experts in the security business and to attract them into govern

ment service is quite difficult because the salaries are not necessarily as attractive as they are in the private sector.

Mr. LEWIS. OK. Thank you.

I yield back my time. Thanks.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank you all for being here. Let me ask you, Ms. Nazzaro and Mr. Podonsky, how do you define adequate security? And let me just say, we are talking about security in our labs, our production facilities, our test sites, and the closed-down environmental sites.

And how would you define adequate security?

Mr. PODONSKY. It's very

Mr. SHAYS. And maybe in your answer you can tell me the different kinds of security we're talking about.

Mr. PODONSKY. Well, at the Department of Energy, security has been a focus through various ebbs and flow in time. Back in the 1970's, it was heavily focused on security and there were changes that were made.

In the 1980's, safety was focused on. In the 1990's, more safety. And then, of course, post-September 11, security was focused on again.

And I would just tell you that adequate security really depends on what is being protected. And from our standpoint, the Department, now more than ever, is focusing on providing appropriate security while still trying to maintain its mission.

If you talk to security professionals, they would give you an answer that may be unacceptable in terms of what type of budgets would have to be spent to provide the adequate security that they may need.

It's similar to what TSA is going through at the airports. How many security screeners do you need? What's appropriate for what you're trying to do? And the airlines will tell you that they're trying to make sure the passengers make it to the airplanes on time.

In the Department of Energy, we have different sites, different categories of protection, and the security and the design basis threat that we've talked about here is tailored to meet those needs. Again, I would say that the adequacy is difficult to pinpoint because it changes, dependent on what the target is and what you're trying to protect and what your mission is.

Ms. NAZZARO. Without getting into any classified information, what we would look at are two levels: One, there are a number of assessments that are performed to look at the adequacy of security, both surveys and surveillance that DOE uses; and we would expect that those would be clean assessments, you know, and that any action plans that were identified as a result would be addressed.

Second, they do identify a level of risk. And DOE does have various levels of risk, and we would expect those to be at the lowest level, as set out in DOE's policy.

Mr. SHAYS. Tell me, if we don't have adequate security, what are the potentials that could be used by governments, their spy networks or by terrorists, to—I want to know why this matters.

It may seem obvious, the question, but I want someone to articulate it. Why does all this matter?

Ms. NAZZARO. Well, there are certainly a number of threats-I mean, one being theft of nuclear weapons and/or materials; also, sabotage at the sites themselves. Certainly, within a terrorist environment, you've got people who are willing to die to go and actually detonate these at the sites.

Mr. SHAYS. But just going from your response, we're talking about the potential that someone could actually get a nuclear weapon; is that correct?

Ms. NAZZARO. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. We're talking about the fact that they could get weapons grade material?

Ms. NAZZARO. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. We're talking about the fact that they could come onsite and sabotage the sites?

Ms. NAZZARO. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. And we're also talking about the fact that they could potentially cause a radioactive catastrophe or a nuclear explosion? Ms. NAZZARO. At the sites. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes. So that's why we care about this?

Ms. NAZZARO. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. We're also concerned with countries, other countries getting the technology that, in many cases, they may not have at all, or that they may be 10 or 20 years behind us. Is that also a factor?

Ms. NAZZARO. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

When you did this report, I was-some of it seems-I don't want to say "technical" in that sense; I want to say that I was wondering if we were swallowing camels and straining out gnats. When DOE looks at this, do they-is their response to you that you know what? I will come back. After you've had your round, I'll come back for my round. I want to followup on this question, and my time is up.

Ms. NAZZARO. OK.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it is very important that you were asking the question, why does this matter, because if you look at the report that we have in front of us, it certainly does not reflect the-I think, what people in our country would consider the severity of the issue or the attention level that this deserves not just as a threat to Americans, but the possibility of the threat to others of technology, of even other countries being threatened by materials that we have through individuals that might seek them.

In looking at Ms. Nazzaro's statement, you have issues, such as stating that defining clear roles and responsibilities has not been effectively done; assessing the site security activities needs to be addressed; overseeing contractors; corrective actions; allocating staff-all issues or problems.

When you look at issues of our nuclear materials, you would expect that we would be able to use words such as "proactive" and "advanced." What we're clearly seeing in the materials in front of us are words such as "slow" and "incomplete."

And I'm just wondering, if you look through there and clearly it's unacceptable, so you have to ask yourself, is it an issue of

structure? Is it an issue of people just don't understand the severity of the issue in front of them? Is it a performance issues?

So I would like Ms. Nazzaro and Mr. Podonsky to tell us.

I mean, I'm certain that it is not acceptable, that this-reading this, you agree that this is not where we would want to be, and this is a concern for all of us.

Where is the problem, other than just saying the problem needs to be fixed? Is it structure? Is it understanding the mission? Or is it just a straight-out performance issues and somebody needs to be held accountable there?

Ms. NAZZARO. The report you have in front of you addressed management and oversight issues, as far as DOE and NNSA overseeing the activities of the contractors.

Some of the things that you're getting into would be more contractor performance issues, which we have not yet addressed; and that will be the subject of followon work, actually, that Congressman Shays has asked us to do.

As far as the issues, though, at hand, you're still talking about safeguarding and protecting the nuclear complex; and given the kinds of materials that they are in charge of protecting, you know, this is something that is critical to the country. I mean, if you don't have adequate management and oversight of the contractors, you're going to see problems with the contractors as well. So I don't think it minimizes it by saying, these are the kinds of problems we're seeing. It certainly is an overarching issue of whether you're even overseeing or managing what the contractors are doing.

Mr. TURNER. I take it from your answer, in looking at NNSA's management oversight, it's an agency performance issue at this point, you believe; or you're indicating that you think additional information has to be given for you to define why is this continuing to be a problem.

Ms. NAZZARO. No. As far as DOE, certainly we have seen ongoing problems for some time, since the creation of NNSA. As we said, this has been an agency in flux, and we have seen problems as far as defining roles and responsibilities where it's not clear who is supposed to do what; and basically what we have heard from the site offices is that they're all doing the wrong thing.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Podonsky.

Mr. PODONSKY. I would start out by saying, many items in the GAO report the independent oversight does, in fact, agree with. However, I think it's important to note that Secretary Abraham and Ambassador Brooks are aggressively taking steps that have never been taken before in the Department, as long as I've been there which is going on, unfortunately, about 19 years of overseeing this behemoth organization. And the step that they are taking is, they are finally, somebody is being held accountable. We're seeing this at our national laboratories. We're seeing this at the sites.

If you ask, Congressman, what's the root cause, I would tell you that my organization, after observing and writing reports on these very issues for many years, would tell you that roles and responsibilities have not always been clear; and the accountability, which is a critical part, has not always been taken where people were

held accountable for those jobs that they hold. So it is a performance aspect, as well as management.

But I would again iterate, the Secretary and the Ambassador are taking steps which we're seeing firsthand. We have teams out at some of the NNSA sites right now at the request of the Ambassador. Now, how that trickles down to the other managers in the security profession, that's where the rubber meets the road; and we think that's where further accountability has to be made.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Going to a second round of questions then, Mr. Duncan.

Mr. DUNCAN. Let me just ask this. You know, any time any government agency-I don't care what department or agency it is, any time they mess up, they always come in and say it's because of lack of funding or not enough money. And yet, we've had 10 or 15 years of very low inflation. In fact, the Federal Reserve is worried about deflation now. We've probably had 25 or 30 percent inflation over these last 10 years, and yet whenever you look at these agencies and ask what they're spending, compared to 10 years ago, they're at 60 and 100 percent over what they were 10 years ago.

I remember when the INS was criticized because they let all the hijackers in. They said they didn't have enough money, and we checked and they'd gotten a 250 percent increase in funding over the previous 8 years, which—I mean, this just boggles my mind that we hear this over and over again.

Now I hear that the NNSA, which was just started in 2000, March 2000, has a $7.9 billion budget. And I-you know, that'sI'm all for saving all the money we can, but you know, and now we're acting like we're not doing enough in security.

And Mr. Podonsky just said that we're doing far more than at any time in his 19 years at the Department. And I'm just wondering-you know, I don't want to scare people and think that we're not doing enough at these nuclear weapons facilities, and I'm curious about several things.

I've read several times, I've read different numbers, when-about the Iraqi war, and that there were 23 or 25 countries that have weapons of mass destruction. Does anybody on this panel know how many countries have nuclear weapons? How many countries are there that have nuclear weapons facilities? Do any of you know that?

Ms. NAZZARO. I wouldn't have a total number, no, sir.

Mr. PODONSKY. No, sir.

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, what I'm getting at, is there any country in the world that's doing more in regard to nuclear weapons facilities security than we are? Or any country that's doing even close to as much as we are? Surely somebody knows that question.

Mr. PODONSKY. I would believe that this country is doing, probably, the most of any.

Mr. DUNCAN. Probably by far?

Mr. PODONSKY. By far, yes, sir.

Mr. DUNCAN. And I'm not really clear on this. The NNSA budget, which is $7.9 billion and is all pertaining, supposedly, to securitybecause, I mean, that's what it's set up for. But how much is the DOE spending on security in addition to this $7.9 billion? Do you have any idea on that?