this meeting will come to order today we have a hearing on the always response to ongoing mismanagement at the los alamos national labs each member will be recognized for five minutes for their opening statement and i'll begin los alamos national laboratory is home to many of our nation's most secretive weapons program yet it's also home to some of the worst security breaches in our nation's history this is our thirteenth hearing on security problems at los alamos in just the past eight years and i have a list of those hearings that i'd like to enter into the record for sixty three years a university of california operated los alamos but after numerous high profile security lapses the department of energy was urged to competitively bid the contract for operation of lab in june of last year the university of california was again the contract under a limited liability consortium known as los alamos national security or lands this committee anxiously awaits proof that this new contractor will result will result in significant changes that last and not just put new drapes over a broken window at our january thirtieth hearing we investigate the october two thousand and six case of classified documents that were removed from los alamos by a contractor we learned at that hearing that the security lapse would probably have not been discovered if it had not been for a domestic disturbance of the contract employees hold the resulting investigation led to this government drug paraphernalia and discovery of classified paper and electronic files at the residence the female contract employee was not adequately watched by her escort the employee also had access to open ports on classified computers which enabled her to download and remove classified documents we heard a department of energy inspector department of energy's inspector general testify in january that they do not know how much other classified information may have been removed using this gaping hole in security we don't know where this classified material has ended up we hope to learn the answers to these questions from the f b i s investigation but they will not brief members until their investigation is complete many of the members of this committee were shocked that the national nuclear security administration and say approved basically clearance for this employee even though she admitted using illegal drugs within thirty days of her security clearance being approved we were equally shocked at the fact that there were there was no follow up evaluation or testing of this individual after she was granted her security clearance apparently her promise not to use drugs in the future it was good enough for and asked and saying this a curate a breakdown took place against a backdrop  previous degraded security performance in two thousand and six the department of energy office of health safety and security documented substantial substandard failing performance in fourteen of seventeen key security areas at los alamos see that tools six report right over there the poor grades were and were in categories such as classified matter protections and control cyber security an emergency management performance in two thousand and six had sharply deteriorated since the previous review in two thousand and two which had cited serious problems i'll be placing into the record summaries of these oversight reports see him up on the screen know in today's hearing i hope to focus on a number of issues including what is department of energy system issue classified security clearance is what led you to grant security clearance to an individual who admitted using illegal drugs within thirty days over clearance issues what lessons are learn from the security lapse what steps have been taken to correct a security deficiencies in the apartment of energy and at los alamos so we do not have to hold our fourteen hearing later this year at the january thirt that the secretary convened to task force one to examine cyber security any second task force to look at personnel security issues raised by the latest security breach today we will hear the results of these task force reports a key finding by the personal security task force was that at least two additional ploys admittedly illegal drug use in the thirty days prior to security clearance approval eighteen other employees had similar information in this twelve month period between two thousand and one two thousand  thereby causing deeley to reexamine their security clearances we look forward to hearing what secretary bodman plans to do about this and other security problems his task force uncovered we also look forward to hearing how he plans to hold the contractors accountable apartment of energy has various tools including enforcement actions and reducing award fees to hold its contractors accountable nonetheless this committee was disturbed to learn just this week that the department of energy apparently forgot to put legal requirements in its contract with the lab operator the los alamos national security these legal requirements would have obligated the contractor to comply with the stringent safeguards and security order known as deal order for seven zero this omission was discovered after the october two thousand and six incident which leaves open the question of whether the department of energy contracting officer may have handed l a last well most national security partner here a get out of jail free card if and when to bring it in for some action for multiple security violations associated with october sixth incident the committee wants to know when the department of energy learned of this contract omission was it before last year and were deal you fishel swore they had all the necessary tools to enforce this new security standards if so why weren't we informed of this problem when was the committee going to be told about this issue and what plans the department made to fix it after a january here in iowa long with my republican colleagues asked the government accounting office to evaluate evaluate whether the security footprint at los alamos is simply too large to manage the classified information effectively asked to evaluate the possibility of consolidating and moving classified operations at los alamos to another lab such as say india where security is managed more effectively a whole is moving forward on this evaluation despite requests by some legislators to be laid in addition the committee is reviewing h r seventy three legislation introduced on a bipartisan basis with my colleagues mr barton and mr wickfield to move responsibility for safety and security out of and say and place it under the direct control of secretary of energy we would welcome hearing the secretary's view on this legislation secretary bodman and his predecessors have come before this committee with commitments to improve the security culture at los alamos despite the creation of security is ours and task force the end result has been a litany of security breaches and mismanagement to say the least the committee is skeptical today mr secretary will want to know what is different what are you why are your proposals more likely to succeed when your predecessors proposals have not what assurances can you give us that these new reforms will work what resources from whom will deal you look to pay for these new security measures at los alamos i can assure you secretary by when in the american public that the committee will continue its oversight at los alamos i can also assure you that this oversight will continue just as it has in the past and a truly bipartisan basis when it comes to los alamos and security at nuclear labs this committee is united in its oversight i appreciate the assistance and cooperation of my republican colleagues led by my friend mr wickfield and his able staff and with that i would to the ranking member my friend from kentucky mr whitfield for his opening statement please thank you chairman stupak and for today's hearing to review ongoing security mismanagement at los alamos over the past decade this subcommittee has established a rigorous tradition of strong bipartisan oversight on the always security matters and i'm pleased that the committee has continued this tradition with its close attention to ongoing mismanagement at los alamos the most recent security incident which occurred last tobar resulted in the loss of over one thousand five hundred classified documents as i point out at the january hearing this incident demonstrates poor security management lack of formality of operations and emphasis in sufficient oversight that has plagued the lab for decades dramatic new ideas from the department from lands and from congress are needed at los alamos the security environment is certainly challenging operations are spread out over a forty three square mile area the lab has approximately fifteen thousand employees there are more than two thousand classified computers and one thousand seven hundred seventy four separate classified security areas to give perspective there are more classified security areas at los alamos than there are total rooms in the rayburn cannon and longworth house office buildings combined los alamos has and that a large volume of classified information and conduct classified activities in too many areas involving too many people factors including the geographical dispersion of activities continue to make l i n l susceptible to security failures that's elias herring i stated that land must be held accountable for the loss of classified documents last october and that it should pay a price that the department of energy must assert its contract and regulatory authorities to compel greater security performance the department has three primary tools to help compel performance the enforcement of new information security regulations with strong civil penalties the withholding of incentive associated with security performance and three the use of the conditional payment clause in the contract that allows the department to withhold up to one hundred percent of the award c the department has not yet found finalize how they will use these enforcement tools but i know members of the committee and in the congress will be quite interested in what the final decision will be six months have elapsed since the opto were two thousand and six security incident that is a reasonable amount of time to allow both in an essay and land to formulate a plan to help improve security at the site later today we will hear from lab director michael anastasia on the remedial actions he has taken to correct security failures i think director anastasia owes efforts to date appear to be more responsive than what we've seen in the past i am encouraged by his initial steps to reduce the number of classified vols at los alamos and i improvements i'm delighted that secretary bodman has joined us today and we certainly look forward on this very important issue and thank you mr chairman in one minute thank you make these recommendations i am sure that we will hear about how everyone this matter of security seriously i'm sure that in fact everyone is about improving security and i'm certain will propose changes that will make sense but before we claim victory in our battle to improve we need to look closely at what is being proposed and whether in fact it differs from in this regard i recommend we pay particular attention to the tools you actually has to enforce the new security proposals i understand that the departments ability to assess  infected has come into question in a light of information provided to the committee this week the deal we officials who reviewed and signed the contract on behalf of the u s government with a new contract los alamos national security apparently violations were discovered in fact these requirements were not included in the contract until after january two thousand and five two thousand and seven a mere five days before our last hearing on los alamos i am curious to know i would observe that we have been working on los alamos for a long time and our problems with security there have been substantial and have run all the way from penetrations by foreign countries into the security there to loss briefings from your your staff at commerce regarding security and safety issues when you were there but that you also poked around the base to assure that the situation with regard to security was going properly certainly mr secretary we need that kind of approach today i think we have to look beyond fines and penalties to fix the problems at los alamos for that reason along with my good friend the chairman of the sub committee our good friends and colleagues in the minority we have requested that the government accountability office g a o conduct a comprehensive audit of los alamos to determine what functions are sexual at that  laboratory their reform report will inform us of the options available i hope to assist the committee and the g a o in this important study in our efforts to improve security at los alamos and throughout your department i thank you for your presence here and respect and also the hope that you will have success in straightening up something which has defied your predecessors in office in this matter i want to thank all of our witnesses i to appreciate the continuing efforts in a bipartisan manner of this subcommittee to try to figure out how to provide full security at these labs and secretary i want to welcome you as my colleagues have done and appreciate the work you're doing on this i noted in your testimony that you indicate that you feel like the significant process progress has been made in security at los alamos and yet then you go on to say you're still not satisfied and i'd be curious to know  with only twenty months left in office provided you're there to the end how are we going to get this thing resolved do you think it's possible we've had this you know multiple hearings over multiple years in both classified settings and non classified and continue to chase this one and if anybody can get this fixed i'm confident you certainly have the commitment ability to get it done so look forward to hearing that i you know before of held up the j b weld which  is the world's find this cold glue i guess for households and hobbies it's great for farm machinery and equipment it's also for ninety nine at wal mart and was used i believe to plug something in the order of seven thousand two hundred u s b ports at los alamos but only after there had been about a year of security breach it seems to me if for for ninety nine you can fix this problem maybe it wouldn't cost that much more to and our ranking member mr whitfield for the work on the issue and i want to thank our participants for being here on what looks like it's going to be an interrupted day and before we began the hearing i do want to give a little bit of an overview of how i see things it is gone on without seeming to have a lot done about it and i see no significant effort by an essay or the d o b to change the culture and i come to this decision by reading the reports that you have given us  partially relieved to see that the previous organization which appeared to be incompetent in so many different areas that they have been replaced and i have several concerns about the new operator and we will address those and questions and from time to time i think we say new policies that are brought forward and mr secretary we hold great hope for you that new policies are actually going to do something to correct the problem that there will be time lines that there will be guidelines and some accountability measures i think all too often we see that people admit there's a problem they define the problem but unfortunately they do not seem to have the  correct the problems and that is the situation in which we find ourselves right now not correcting the problems it appears to me to each employee would be a disservice to their personal record it would be a disservice to the administration it is definitely a disservice to the american people it is something that i hope we hear from the director and also from you mr secretary that is no longer going to be tolerated and that you can give us a measurable and some quantitative data that will prove to us that changes are indeed taking place we are hopeful for your progress and i yield the balance of my time those are all the ones we've been plus the visits down there secretary bodman i'm delighted to see you today and i'm really glad you came because i think that resolving these problems it's going to take i to come from your level and i know you've got that commitment so i'm pleased i'm going to submit my whole statement for the record because frankly i'm really tired of saying the same thing over and over again and emoting about what a disaster it is down there and this latest this latest incident with the employee who apparently had had problems with her security credentials men she takes critical documents on a flash drive and then she gets busted for drugs it's just it's just it boggles the mind but but and it goes on and on but but there are some really important legal questions that we've heard about in recent days that add yet a new dimension that i haven't even wind about once because they just came to light and that is about the contracting procedures that the department of energy the committee has learned that the management contract signed by the department and with great fanfare i may add lacked key components that allow penalties to be assessed when dio used security procedures were not followed and because those orders were inadvertently omitted from the contract some of the security breaches we've seen could go on punished which frankly just underscores the the the cavalier attitude really that a lot of people take toward security at what should be frankly our most secure facility so here's the big picture the american people need to know that management at los alamos which comes from a lucrative multimillion contract is top notch that hasn't been the case far from it and all of our constituents need to have the confidence that if managerial negligence is found if security pre breaches do occur and if specific d o a procedures are not followed then there will be severe consequences that hasn't been the case either enforcement so far has amounted to a slap on the wrist and i think we all agree that's not acceptable so there will be several questions i'll be exploring today what went wrong with the contracting procedures addio e how could these admissions have occurred has this compromised the department's ability to enforce its rules and assess penalties and what's being done to information at our national labs especially at los alamos national lab is critical to ensuring that we're able to protect the american public against those who may intend to do us harm the frequent security breaches at this and other labs are completely unacceptable i'm looking forward to hearing the testimony of secretary bodman and his colleagues as we work together to ensure our nation's classified nuclear information remains protected it's no secret that there are and have been over a number of years serious security questions at the los alamos national lab thankfully most of these breaches have been of an accidental nature due to inadequate security major speeding in place in essence the breaches have served as a wake up call to all of us i shudder to think what may have occurred had the breaches been the result of a well thought out and intentional plan to secure classified information for sale on the black market we've been lucky so far but if security there is not not made ironclad our luck will surely run out i'm looking forward to hearing about the improvements that have been made since october two thousand and six investigation as well as what improvements have been made since our last hearing on this matter in january i'm also very interested in being able to judge the level of commitment to security improvements not only on the ground at the site but all the way to the secretary's office i believe it's critical that the secretary maintain his vigilance not only on this particular incident but on the entire security systems under his purview one thing is clear when it comes to the long history of violations at los alamos and intensive short term focus which trails off once the media focuses on another subject will only lead to future concerns at the lab we on this committee those in the administration and those on the ground at the labs must continue to shine a light on security while working together to ensure their procedures are updated so that the facilities are not only more secure today but will become even more secure with the passage of time former secretaries of energies have come before congress with promises of new security but for one reason or another they have fallen short and violations have continued now this matter falls to you secretary bodman we on this committee hope to work closely with you so that you will succeed where your predecessors have failed security especially nuclear security is not a democratic or republican issue it's an american issue in which all branches of government and both political parties must work and in hand to ensure that the american people have the protections in place they deserve we must renew this focus today and continue to fully and completely protect our facilities and the critical information they possess at both the physical and cyber levels anything less opens our nation to dangers that none of us even want to believe could happen so again mr chairman i commend you for your continued vigilance i look forward to hearing the testimony of our distinguished panelists and i yield back the balance of my time thank the gentleman from pennsylvania mr burgess for an opening statement opening statements only by members of the committee well thank you mr chairman and i guess i'm glad we're here today like everyone else i'm frustrated that this we never seem to make a forward motion on this it is a bipartisan issue we all share the same concern and the anxiety regarding security the lab i appreciate the aggressive nature the committee has taken on the crucial issue of national security we have three witnesses today that can drive insight into problems and solution and hopefully solutions to the los alamos problem secretary bodman inspector general freedman director at estadio i welcome you all here today and i look forward to entering into an instructive discussion with each of you i understand that there have been improvements made but are still many many challenge ahead of both you and today we're going to be reviewing the findings of both the personnel security task force and the cyber security task force encouraged by reading about the task forces but unfortunately we've been told in the past that actions and repercussions will occur but they never do that's why we've held hearing after hearing year after year on los alamos to quote the inspector general in his written statement many of the actions many of the actions are in process and the key to the successful resolution of the matter is detailed in our november report implementation and execution end quote implementation and execution all have good ideas that will significantly affect the security of los alamos but it's not enough for us to come here and hold these hearings and talk and talk and talk about it one of these days someone is going to have to walk the walk i'm still not completely comfortable with using basically the same contractor for operating at los alamos do believe that director anastacio is capable and qualified to help turn things around but also mentioned during the last hearing you have some of the most intelligent minds in the world at work at los alamos clearly an institutional problem we must also remember that there are thousands of hardworking employees at the lab who make a remarkable contribution to the science and the country on a daily basis also at the last hearing we discussed the issue of accountability it's appropriate to re address that issue today while there are many organizational changes that can be made to better ensure the security of our country classified information one of the easiest and most effective remedies is to make the contractor in charge of security pay a steep  penalty as a steward of the taxpayer dollar support this idea if the contractor is penalized substantial sums and in washington substantial sums are substantial sums of dollars maybe then they will finally recognize how serious of a problem that is and must be stopped at all costs one of the other things we learned at our fall hearing is or our hearing earlier this year was the fact that although the contract for the lab had been rebuilt in real warded that that process could be opened again if there were substantial problems encountered i would submit to you that it appears that there are substantial problems but i would like an update on whether or not the department of energy is going to hold the contractor accountable for his actions or lack thereof if there is going to be a reopening of the contract that was awarded the past year i have also another issue within the department of energy that i think it's appropriate to briefly mention and discuss i understand that there is dry concurring at the nuclear security weapons plant in my home state of texas the pan texas military and i would appreciate it if secretary bodman to give us a brief update on that issue and the impact of security at the plant chairman thank you for holding this bipartisan hearing in which we can further address the security at los alamos we are all committed to continuing these hearings until this cycle of security breaches at los alamos is over once and for all i yield back bodman secretary of the united states energy secretary bodman it's the policy of this subcommittee to take all testimony under oath please be advised that witnesses have the right on the rules of the house to be advised by counsel during their testimony do you do you wish to be let the record reflect that the witness replied in the affirmative mr secretary under oath you may begin your opening statement please mr chairman ranking member whitfield members of the subcommittee i'm very pleased to be here  to discuss what i consider to be one of the most pressing management issues confronting my department since coming to the department one of my top goals has been to institute a safer more secure work environment across the dio complex and i have meant this to include physical safety and security as well as cyber security i want to be absolutely clear with all of you the protection of sensitive information is essential to our ability to meet the mission of this department without it we can't do it what i'd like to do today is to briefly outline the steps that we have taken since the deputy secretary testified before you in january  in summary i would i would make two points first we have made significant progress in my judgment and i am i am confident that we are on the right track that being said we are not satisfied with where we find ourselves today we are staying on top of this issue we continue to look for ways to identify and correct any potential weaknesses if i may i'd like to now describe some of the improvements and also note that more details appear in my written testimony which will be submitted for the record if that's acceptable to the chairman first we have made some senior management and oversight changes in response to the security breaches at los alamos in january i made what for me has been a very difficult decision and that is to replace the undersecretary for nuclear security tom d'agostino was named as the acting undersecretary and then that's a administrator in addition n s a has reassigned the los alamos site office manager and has put one of its strongest managers daniel glen in place as the acting manager further tom d'agostino has has requested that the always office of health safety and security conduct annual inspections at last i'm out at los alamos for the next three a has already been there and conducted her inspection the site office will conduct annual and regular observations of the laboratories security programs i would just add that i continue to be in close contact with the senior leadership of the laboratory in fact i met with all of the national laboratory directors just last week in chicago at the department level i informed two teams of senior officials including under secretaries the chief of security and our chief information officer and asked them to make specific recommendations based on the report of the department's inspector general who conducted his report at my request i have directed that these recommendations be implemented department wide including enhanced mandatory training for those involved in granting of security clearances a strengthened departmental policy on drug testing for those that hold security clearances everyone better quality assurance oversight for granting security clearances and a revised organizational structure for our personnel security program that will ensure accountability we're also taking actions based on the recommendations from our cyber security team those include mandatory separation of duties for critical positions improved training for all individuals with cyber security responsibilities and improved line management oversight we are carrying out the department's new authorities related assessing civil penalties for classified information security violations at the same time the laboratories current management contractor plans is also taking corrective action of their own among other issues lands recognizes that the labs volume of classified holdings is on the sarah lee large is conducted into many security areas involves too many people and is too spread out as a result and with the approval of n s a they are aggressively reducing the number of locations where they hold and process classified matter in closing mr chairman let me say this the men and women who work at our national laboratories are among the world's most talented scientists and engineers since their founding these laboratories have demonstrated again and again the tremendous power and terrific promise of science to help our nation solve its greatest challenges but such a system cannot tolerate the kind of lapses in security that we have seen be they in the physical or cyber realm protecting critical information and maintaining a vibrant collaborative science culture are not in my judgment mutually exclusive quite the opposite is true in this case you absolutely cannot achieve one without the other and you continue to have my word that i will do everything in my power to support both objectives the american people deserve no less i would like to say sir that in my view the objectives of this committee and all of the statements that i have heard made by the members of the committee are very consistent with my own feelings we have a real problem here and i think we have the opportunity of working together to try to deal with it thank you very much los alamos plan in various areas and in the past whenever we've discussed official use only information we've either gone into executive session or a closed session or we've worked with the department to agree on redacted material before we release anything to the public and i was just curious i know i mean that's one of the documents there i know it's been partially partially redacted but i would ask the chairman what his intent is on this issue official use only well i think the gentleman for posing the question as you can see on the reading some rain we had it up during my opening statement that was the most recent los alamos site office and  rating summary the broad categories are there but the detailed areas of the security have been redacted at the request of the minority and the majority and  documents with more detailed information in there will not be released and have no intentions of being released even the ones i think we have in mr biden and secretary bodman book up there as already for the audience the yellow broad category are cybersecurity but we don't have any details in there no nor do we intend to releasing of those details as you said they are for official use even though this committee or any member would have a right to release it i believe in a hearing in the context of their official duties but still longer official use that document can be released the ones that say official us with the details there is no intention that i know of anyone on this committee or myself or staff of releasing that nine votes coming up here i don't know if you want to do an opening before we do the vote so i don't know if we want to go half way through questions and if they want to proceed to questions i'll start off mr secretary to cybersecurity task force calls for an independent oversight review of cyber w in what areas are they still suffer the fish and well we have a number of recommendations that have been put in place in the cybersecurity area most notably a  systems manual that was delivered and made available to the the to the contractor contractors correct and with the stipulation that these be entered into the the agreements with each contract so it's not entered into that on track that they are in the process of being entered into it i think it was on the date of march eighth that the the security manual was issued they have ninety days in which to accomplish that and we expect them to accomplish that by june eighth june what  eighth now that will then put it in being a part of the contract correct there will then be a period of time i can read through the various issues if you would also when do you think the implementation will be it's going to be a couple of years sir before all of this is done because this calls for training it calls for a change in the way we manage the entire cybersecurity responsibilities of the department if it's contractor in charge of this lab yes you might call it sixty percent of lands university of california no matter it's not for ok sir i just it is not is it is whatever it is but it's not the sixty percent is not california if i heard you correctly at the end plans agree that los alamos is too large too many people to spread as what you said at the end correct they believe that the that the use of classified information that there are too many senators we have too many classified retrievable electronic media that are being used and there is a specific program that i'm sure director anastasio will review with you for reducing those ok as you know we've asked the g a o to take a look at this yes or not just in the cybersecurity but the whole footprint out there because many of us feel t costly they will require the approval of this congress in order to get sufficient funds to do one of the tax payers and to pay for all these new security measures that will be perhaps shift around from one part of the of the organization to another so i'm not saying there will be a total increase in the budget but i'm saying that there will be a funding for this that is required why don't throw good money after bad but i mean we're low concern here when we learn this past week that the force that mechanism for land was an even in the contract now thirteen months later i guess it's uncertain and i said get out of jail free card that's from the game on op only well and that is real money not paper money will not believe when one entity managed this lab for sixty three years  in your inspector general's testimony said the federal contract managers need to manage the lab more aggressively than the department and the lab must develop a regiment of compliance testing however it appears you're going in the opposite direction by using a pilot program at los alamos which is based on reduced federal oversight and increased contractor self assessment given the core weakness security safety in the history mismanagement do you believe that reduced federal oversight is appropriate model at this time it was going to take her three or four years of course not why why why would you propose a test pilot program that i'm not i don't understand what that is and ever heard of it los alamos i do know i heard that yesterday the in preparation for this hearing that there was an allegation of that but i do not know anything about that we heard that some mr chairman i want i will repeat for your searcher i do have a record of truthfulness and integrity in handling management matters i do have a record of some competence in handling management matters  some of your statements are in my judgment are not correct they have the wrong premises what is not right so i have and i have attempted to correct those as we've gone along was not but i will i will tell you sir that we are committed i am personally committed to trying to improve the security situation at los alamos i frankly find myself in a position of some embarrassment why because i did not personally ask the right questions in the early days of my tenure in this job and the questions might have been something along the line have all past  declarations of secretaries been included in policy that has been included in the contract between this department or between the the n s a and the contractor the answer is no they have not been and so there are many things why do not we why haven't we had a compulsory drug testing program for all members of who are cleared we have not had we will now to the extent that we're able to do it and so i'm just saying that with there are a number of things that have been done and i'm here to tell you that i am committed to trying to get it done but i also repeat i am somewhat embarrassed i didn't ask all the right questions in the beginning when asked january thirtieth hearing the department of energy know that they didn't put the enforcement mechanisms of the deal we order for seventy in the lance contract in january i don't i don't know sorry i learned about it about that time but that time yes or no one told us about until last week that the by the time we learned about it it may have been a week or two earlier but i just you know i don't know why last week's a lot different from january thirtieth that's quite a bit time for and what about the cell phone and in the vault you said you just learned about that too i just learned that the allegation of the cell phone in the vault i don't know the truth this is an investigation sir that i still ongoing and i would remind you of that and so i am on able to comment on anything specific that i have heard but i just will tell you with respect to the any questions about the cell phone i have not heard about it before when is your investigation illegal drugs in the thirty day period prior to the approval of their security clearance i don't know if it was a violation of the only policy but it didn't make any sense to do that sir ok and in review we've seen at least two other employees  eighteen others who have what you call derogatory information in it who had received security clearance that probably based on derogatory information should not have received it or at use drugs within thirty days of receiving that i don't know what those were i can tell you that part of the recommendation on the improvements in the security system for the department involves a review of all of the  and that we are in the process of doing that and i expect to have that done during the balance of this season i would guess during the summer time certainly had a reputation in the private sector as being a strong executive and when you look at the situation you hear a lot of comparison about lawrence livermore and los alamos and we know that we've had a same university of california has been involved in the management of both of them for many many many years for about sixty three years or so and yet there doesn't seem to be the problems at lawrence livermore that there is that los alamos from your position as secretary of energy and experience is running businesses as a strong executive why do you feel that there's been so much problems at one of these labs but not the other and that that's a sort of a speculation on my part i guess i would cite for you sir the there are significant differences between the two institutions as to where they are located geographic location and getting the right management in san francisco is a very different matter than getting the right people to move to los alamos and to take on that assignment so that would be one comment come into i think it goes back to the very history of the laboratory there have been issues  of security if you were to read back the history of this for sixty years and there have been a very there has been a very challenging environment there because of the preeminence of scien science and less interest apparently at times and in security responsibilities the one you should really ask that question of is mr honest will testify next and because via the answer that question he's the person i would ask ok at both places who who at the department was responsible for overseeing the contract lighting that lions recently won and the security requirements were omitted from that contract  who in the department is very responsible for negotiating that contract the ultimately i'm responsible mr whitfield well of the contract you then go down lot of things went on if i might say at that point in time i also would add this is the world according to sam and not anything else i think that there will be ample opportunity whether or not there is  specific inclusion of specific arrangements in there for whatever penalties are deemed desirable by the enforcement actions to be implemented you know some people feel like that university of california has been involved in management of this plant for sixty three years and that there was a strong argument that maybe we need to just change it completely and i know they're still a part of lands right where is there any discussion of that at the department about maybe just a complete culture change by really changing the major certainly was a discussion and i think the first of all it's important to recognize that there officer and these are all career employees and so it's something that is done in order to prevent political interference with the ultimate decision so i think that there was i'm sure i know there was a discussion of this of the general matter but i i would think that it's important to recognize that the the team was recognized for the combined scientific excellen university of california and the management expertise of both back till as well as b w x t and the washington group right now this group i would tell you from having i have personally dealt with this board on a one on one basis  meeting with both the chairman and the vice chairman of the board since this event occurred i think it's fair to say this event caught them by surprise just as to how serious this matter was and is they immediately dispatched their own people i'm sure dr honest oziel will review that with you in order to review the situation they found a very glaring failure in cyber security programs they said about their own program over and beyond anything we're doing in order to try to deal with this with secretary thank you we have about a minute left so i guess we need to get over and vote  know the rest of the day you know unfortunately they give us down votes right now i understand that and i honor that i want you to honor what time pressures i have sir understand thank you thank you stay in recess eleven fifteen two of them here and pacifically for los alamos is also my understanding that this pilot is well known by other key officials including the inspector general who is rather critical of it tend to ask inspector general or next panel here nothing of it i find that troubling unto itself and we'll ask the secretary in writing the same questions we've had problems as you all know in the past with the head of the nuclear national nuclear security administration not conveying key management information related to the secretary i wonder if this is yet another example so we can move to our second panel so we can get these questions out i would know of course second panel of witnesses the honorable gregory freedman inspector general for the department of energy mr michael director of the los alamos nuclear laboratory a policy of this subcommittee gentleman to take all testimony under oath please be advised witnesses have the right on the rules of the house to be advised by counsel during their testimony if you wish to be represented by counsel mr freeman both indicate not would you please rise raise your right hand opening statement please mr chairman and members of the subcommittee i'm pleased to be here at your request to testify in the concerns expressed in your april fifth letter regarding operations of the los alamos national laboratory in january of this year i testified before the subcommittee on the special inquiry conducted by my office regarding the diversion of classified data from los alamos from los alamos specifically at the request of the secretary of energy we examine the efforts of the department and its contractors to protect classified information and the steps that were taken to ensure that only authorized individuals had access to such information our report on this matter was issued on november twenty seventh two thousand and seven the office of inspector general found that the security environment los alamos was inadequate despite the expenditure of millions of dollars by the national nuclear security administration upgrade various components of the laboratory security apparatus in particular related to side to the cyber security control structure we found that certain computer ports had not been disabled classified computer racks were not locked and some individuals were in appropriately granted access to classified computers and equipment to which they were not entitled in many cases laboratory management staff had not developed policies necessary to protect classified information in force existing safe guards or provided the attention or emphasis necessary to ensure protective measures were adequate some of the security policies were conflicting replies and consistently we also found the laboratory and federal officials were not as aggressive as they should have been in conducting security reviews and physical inspections in short our findings raise serious concerns about the laboratories ability to protect both classified and sensitive information systems they all i g also reviewed certain aspects of the security clearance process in place for laboratory employees we don't a five particular weaknesses associated with this program which were discussed in a closed session of the subcommittee in january of this year after this incident was discovered department of laboratory majerus officials launched several efforts to correct control deficiencies that certainly contributed to an environment in which classified information could be removed without authorisation in particular the deputy secretary directed in the media review of policies and practices related to computer ports and each of the department facilities further the secretary stablished two high level task forces to address our findings the reports of the secretaries task forces and a list of the proposed corrective actions were provided to my office last week many of the corrective actions outlined by t forces are in progress implementation deployment and execution are key if properly carried out the corrective actions should improve classified operations at los alamos and could help prevent similar incidents at departmental facilities throughout the complex as i have testified in several occasions the department must do a better job addressing the recurring challenges that it faces and i have four or five seven specific suggestions number one with regard to the current matter the department must ensure that all actions and recommendations outlined the task force reports are formalized into policy and adopted as practiced throughout the department is part of that effort these policies should be incorporated into all facility contracts to to achieve the recommended reforms that apartment must establish firm schedules with specific implementation timelines and performance metrics three both federal and contractor officials need to manage more aggressively as part of that process the department needs to ensure that its federal contract management function is adequately staffed with the appropriate skill mix in addition department and laboratory socials must develop a more comprehensive regimen of compliance testing and follow up to ensure that security policies and procedures are rigorously followed individuals and institutions both federal and contractor must be held accountable for failure to follow establish security measures as it has begun to do so in response to the recent los alamos incident the department should have the size of the failure to properly protect us right information materials will have meaningful consequences finally consistent with our november two thousand and six recommendation we continue to believe the department to perform a risk based evaluation of cybersecurity funding at los alamos the objective of this evaluation would be to ensure that the resources are available for complete implementation of the revised cybersecurity policies and procedures for the past five years we have identified both cyber and physical security as pressing management challenges for these reasons and because of the recent incidents the office of inspector general continues to be concerned about security across the department of energy complex we have ongoing activities to examine information technology and system security implementation a revised security measures disposal of sensitive property and issues relating to protective force training in addition to our ongoing work the full committee in january two thousand and seven requests of the that the g a o examine the security of the department's unclassified unclassified information networks and it security programs my office coordinates closely with g a o and reviews of the department and we are hopeful that the assessment requested by the committee will provide recommendations leading to a strengthened agency wide security posture my office continues to conduct six and president of the los alamos national security l l c i'm pleased to report that we have continued to make significant progress and many fronts since i last addressed the subcommittee eleven weeks ago today in keeping with the subject of this hearing also costs and security and i want to reiterate what i said at the last hearing that i personally take the issue of security at los alamos very very seriously first we have significantly reduced risk in both cyber and physical security and this includes reducing consolidating classified holdings for the subcommittee stated concerns second we have taken actions to make policy clear and consistent and to change employee behaviors and third we're putting in place comprehensive corrective actions with a major focus on long term sustainability here's some examples of the specific actions my management team my board of governors and i myself personally are taking to reduce risk starting with cyber security we now have positive control over all our classified computer ports including using a combination of software physical locks and tamper into getting devices all of our classified systems have been inspected and found to be compliant and we have reduced the number of standalone classified systems by twenty  percent security improvements we've made our vault escort requirements clear and tougher for example requiring the search of all belongings carried by those escorted both in and out of the falls by december will reduce our accountable classified removable electronic media known as a cram by fifty percent we have destroyed almost fifteen hundred classified parts and five hundred boxes of classified documents that we inherited we've eliminated fourteen vol type rooms a reduction of ten percent with more to come in the area of policy and behaviors we have uniformly trained our information systems security officers our i s f and our hiring senior i assess those in all key organizations to provide consistency across the laboratory we are clarifying and simplifying security policy in addition to mandatory training we will promote the right behaviors through active employee participation for example we have directly involved employees and work to lead security teams at multiple levels in our line organizations on march fifth we launched an enhanced substance abuse program where every newly employed newly hired employee tested for illegal drugs and every badge holder is now subject to random testing regardless of his or her clearance level for long term effectiveness and sustainability we have begun constructing a super bowl type room the first of its kind this will allow us to consolidate and uniformly control classified information managed by security professionals at the same time it'll give authorize a station access to this information i expect to complete construction of the first functional prototype this june this project on will initially allow us to close six additional type rooms and reduce our a crime library by one third by constructing additional superball type rooms will reduce the number of  classified to an absolute minimum consistent with our operational and mission requirements we've also been careful to embed validation of verification regimes into our corrective action plans in order to sustain all of these efforts  and to prevent any backlog backsliding wherever everything we're doing is being closely scrutinized not only by congress by my own border governors by the deal and in this and other oversight bodies i welcome that continuing scrutiny validates that we're heading in the right direction and keeps our eye on the ball so in conclusion mr chairman as i've testified previously on this issue there are no silver bullets where security is concerned but with the security and board of governors support and oversight we're aggressively moving los alamos in the right direction as we are in many other fronts vital to our success as a national security science laboratory thank you again for the opportunity to testify and i'm happy to take your questions thank you both for being here and we'll start with questioning over ten minutes glad to see mr utils still here friday or over for the week about your testimony that the federal contractor managers need to be more aggressive in fact is that in your opening statement and department must develop a regimen of compliance however we seem to have this pilot program at los alamos which really would reduce federal oversight increased contract or self assessment do you believe that reduced federal resizes the appropriate model at this time if so or if not why not i do not mis not the expert as to how they're rolling it out but it seems to me that it may have been initiated at sandia and it has some relationship to the kansas city plant but certainly it is contemplated for los alamos as well it's actually says in december of two two we have a new approach to oversight with the national nuclear security administration so this is the pilot program we've been speaking about this memo is not with los alamos as to a pilot of the new national nuclear security administration oversight model for los alamos i certainly can't testify on behalf of the secretary on that i really don't know should the secretary be made aware of it of the individual's background and what's in her investigative file is certainly part of that that investigation and i would not want to say anything inadvertently in response to a question that would compromise that i am familiar with the with at least one incident and seventy four deal we order for seventy we don't see knowing about that would only seem that only about cell phone seems like not only is there structural problems within los alamos but seems like there's a communication problem too well i think that the the the people responsible for direct most directly responsible for operations of the laboratory and the and the federal site were  the incidents as best i can determine and certainly we were aware of them so the fact that the secretary was not aware of it given the again the scope of his activities i'm not sure it's all that surprising the fact that you're aware someone in deal we should be made aware absolutely testify in the on the program itself but the the essence of it is as you as you characterized it's reliance on a self assessment with a third party review of the of the assessments similar to commercial standards i mean that's that's basically what we're talking about we have for many years been concerned we've expressed this in a number of forums about the effectiveness of their part ment's administration of its contracts and it's our view that that sort of stepping back while it may be satisfying to the contractors because it means less reports less intrusive reviews less evaluations is not is not the approach that we should take steps aggressive approach as you've been suggesting though it's not the five hundred fifty security police officers went on strike at pentax i think mr burgess mentioned it in the first panel in his opening there and there is a force of about two hundred eleven to replace them given  assets are being protected a level that's sufficient to meet department requirements well i i don't know how many people i accept your numbers mr chairman and i don't quarrel with them we issued a report  last year at the oak ridge complex in which we were concerned about the amount of overtime that it was excessive and it would lead to a degradation of the ability of the of the guard force and i take it that the guards that have been sent to pentax have been sent from other locations throughout that apartment complex so certainly to the extent that we have been concerned historically about overtime and the impact of the overtime on the on the ability of the guards to do their job there is that there is that concern well besides the drawing of personnel from other areas of the the other sites to beef up pan techs while we have this security please went on strike there what would be the longer term consequences to the pan takes operations if this dispute goes on for protected for protracted period of time my concern is pentax where we assemble everything in this assemble it seems like one morning sensitive sites if this goes on protective period of time that's going to lessen our security think overall let me let me divert for just one second i should tell you that in the interest of full disclosure that we there are five or six points that we have concerns that have been expressed to us by the guards themselves and others individuals and we are pursuing those aggressively now we have an open open inspections on those those issues those fundamental issues and they do deal with with safety and six  safety and security i am not in a position to evaluate what the short term mid term or long term impact of a strike would be i think it's it's pretty clear that this is one of the most sensitive sites that the united states government has  secretary testified i think you were in the room then about the memo here to do the implementation of your cybersecurity i believe it was the booklet was given to to you or to your organization  plan that will do the implementation over a specific period of time and then of course we'll have lots of oversight in our effectiveness of carrying out that plan both to put it in place and to make sure that we have an effect made up of you see people what percentage i said sixty he said it wasn't sixty what is it you know it's the the management is an equal partnership of the two major partners of the u c and the back to back to national corporate back to last case so it's equal as a fifty percent and as an example the executive committee of the board has six members three from the university and three from the industrial partners so what about the board make up and by the executive committee three and three so that's fifty percent investor ok i guess my time has expired mr waldron for questions they missed chairman appreciate that director in your testimony you point to progress at the site based it by stating i quote we've destroyed five hundred boxes of classified we inherited at los alamos sounds like a lot of documents however i'm told when the committee staff ask about how many classified documents there are at los alamos try and put this in perspective  labs response was there's no requirement to maintain strict accountability of each classified document we can't tell you how many classified documents we have which leaves some of us wondering do you know how many classified documents you have and is there any there's no system in place to monitor those there is a set of specific kinds of classified documents that we're required to keep in an accountability system where we have a strict numbering system on every individual document and we track those but the general large collection of documents that we have there is not a requirement to keep it in a strict it's to keep it in strict accountability system so you do protect those documents are  very rigorous very rigorous way i understand the need to do that i guess i'm just trying to put your comment in perspective because i don't know how big the boxes are i'm sorry so we have probably i would estimate i don't have an exact count i would estimate we have several million classified documents and so i mean i guess the question is i've heard estimates of up to thirty million classified express is that we are actively in just the last on weeks off working down a large volume of both documents parts removable media vault type rooms and so forth we have in a concerted effort to move that on there's really concrete progress that we've made just just the last eleven weeks and i appreciate that i think that's a good thing how many boxes would normally be destroyed in a given year i assume this is like my business where you're always shredding things  prior year and you're kind of keeping you know the shelving available as you move forward another year is five hundred down marginally it my impression in los alamos is they have not destroyed many things very often information more effectively that way because you can search it just like you would information on the internet but you know in a classified network in a classified computer share attack that and then then that obviates the need for obvious  for the document and we can start getting rid of documents so there's a very active program and a very active desire on our employees in fact to move that way because it's easier to manage sure you know we have obviously and i have made reference to the k weld project of security enhancements at the labs and you know that are proper here to point out simple solution to as a more simple solution would have been to order computers and don't have u s b ports to begin with rather th glue the shot as you replace computers which i assume the labs doing are they ordering computers with u s b ports and or they ordering them without u s b ports on them most computers have a u s b port as an example to plug the keyboard in that's through a u s b port of course you need a keyboard on the computer in some cases some computer you actually want to get information off the computers and you need a mechanism to do that but what we've done is we've put controls in that for instance even if you have a keyboard with a u s b port plug then you can put software in place as an example but make sure that that port only recognizes a keyboard if you try to put a thumb drive or the equivalent into it the computer doesn't recognise what it is it's incapable capable of reading that when we moved to this super bowl type rooms that i alluded to in my testimony what we're looking at right now is part of this prototype is to have what i like to call  idiot savant computer a computer that's very very capable at displaying data but is very stupid doing anything else and so it doesn't have the operating system capability to recognise ports to do anything so there's a keyboard there's a mouse and it can display very rapidly high resolution data but it can't process the data that that's done on the server that's locked up in this vault protected by people who are security protect professionals  with with a different approach to security when done in the past so that's the direction we're trying to move to really move away from from being even concerned about whether you have a port or not you're just going to disable it so that it can't function at all and clearly it's not really our job to micromanage the security of your labs but it is our job to make sure somebody is doing that and so i know we've all gotten to know each other all too well in the last few months and years and hope that that we couldn't spend this kind of time on every agency but i can't think of one that's more important to america's security in many respects than the one that you're in charge of home and then got caught and i i guess i just still struggle wondering how is it so hard to fix i mean you were at lawrence livermore before that's correct and we didn't see these kinds of breaches of security at lawrence livermore did we did you not of this nature knows what what different here i mean you've been there a while now with what's going on i mean you've got good people i'm sure both lab top notch brain scientists but the security function just seems to be a problem well i think there's a variety of issues i think having the right leadership team and the people who who are focused on this to bring a system level approach to it to have consistency and simplicity so the employees can understand actually making systems that employees can succeed you know people are human they're fallible people make mistakes so we need to put in place a system so that if there is a mistake these are systems that if you start to drift off there's something there remind you hey you're starting to make a mistake you need to stop and that happens before there's any significant consequence so these are the kinds of systems we're trying to put in place  to really make sure the employees can be a success they are very committed to our national security they're very conscious and conscious about about security in this sense and so my job is to make sure that i give them all the tools they can have to be a success and at the same time hold them accountable for my expectations of them and if they really intentionally violate the rules then then there's severe consequences for that and frequent at all mr friedman are you comfortable with what i'm hearing here today from your independent perspective that things are going to turn around  over and expecting different results as i testified in january i am really hopeful that the new management team at los alamos and the department's aggressiveness will result in a meaningful change in the way they view security and safety and the other operational issues that have been a problem there for so many years can i give you a level of guarantee i hope is the case and i would be serve everyone if that is the case so we need to plan on another hearing in a couple of months which time you should be able to give us certainty correct only if you serve lunch for them for the next year and hopefully it won't be a barbecue you what could you tell us specifically needs to be done that's not currently be done at the lab so that you can control classified and classified sensitive information well i think as the secretary testif this morning that many of the corrective actions are a work in progress and that has been historically one of the problems it seems to me is that that we get off to a good start we have good ideas we try to implement good fixes but they lose steam the momentum is lost so one of the important things that has to be done is that all of the good things that have been proposed discussed here today have been reduced to writing in various forms are in fact implemented and they flow down to the entire organization again one of the story problems we found is that the upper levels frequently got it but it didn't always make it down to the ten thousand or so other people who work at los alamos so that's that's one secondly i think we need to ensure that there's we overcome the resistance to change change is difficult for all of us but we found and i was it was the question was posed previously about the difference between los alamos and livermore  as examples as an example we have found historically that there has been strong resistance to change at los alamos as much as i myer admire the laboratory and the work they do with the people that are there there is that resistance and that has to be overcome the maybe we have to make sure that the attempt to reduce the footprint that dr on the stage you know described today that is reduced the number of alts consolidate actually takes place we've been advocating that frankly for a long long time and our recommendations simply have never been accepted so there are some common sense sorts of things that i think need to be done and can be done and certainly the secretary has committed to it as his doctor out and with the right set of oversight principles i think we can we can hopefully make progress i want to ask dr i've been told that the deal he failed to incorporate the current safeguards and security contained an order for seventy in its contract with lance when the contract was signed in december o five is that accurate my understanding is that the new orders that were included did not include the appropriate language that civil civil penalties could result per the new ten c f r a twenty four order so i believe and i'm not i'm not the expert this but i believe they were in the they were in the contract but it wasn't done in the right way to make them subject to this new this new order but that has my understanding is that has now been fixed we'll have th orders contractually by noon on the on the contractor now my understanding is that's the case right now yes or ok thank you then at lawrence livermore and now you're at los alamos how do you characterize this resistance to change is that is that something that's real or or is this just something we just talk about i think it is real i think there's a resistance to change and i think all organizations have a resistance to change all individuals do of a employees at los alamos have been through very tumultuous times over the last many years and there's been a lot of things happen to them i think there's a lot of anxiety and the workforce and that's one of my goals of course is to stabilize the morale and get us focused on the future and part of that is change and and i think the eye of the laboratory has not been through as much change at los alamos as i experience the livermore having to face during my career there but the new goal in the the goal i set out with the laboratory i said let's think about it is improvement is not change to make your life worse let's go decide what laboratory we want to be that's going to cheese all these goals that are hard to deny and let's go create that laboratory the laboratory we want to have the kind of service in the twenty first century and and i find that employees are responding very much to that but we have to take them through change change is a process we all know and we're in the middle of that process we're not done yet but i feel the laboratories been very respons people want that kind of leadership they want to move forward they don't like the fact that they get talked about in hearings like this and they're very receptive to doing the things they need to do to to go forward for the future of the total number of employees including independent contractors i don't have an exact number off the top of my head but around thirteen thousand but the morale has been low just because of this constant barrage of bad publicity  continuity leaks and the constant barrage of the change of contractors that the change of directors los alamos was used to having a director for you know ten years twenty years at a time over the last five years maybe we've had three or four different directors i mean there's just this kind of change that's gone on that they're not not used to and so we have to move move move move the employees through that course you're the one responsible for doing that how do you feel yourself about the progress that you're making right now i think we've made some really good progress as i tried to outline in my testimony some examples of very concrete things that we've accomplished i am would be anxious to be able to do it even faster than we're doing that would be my desire so i'm pushing the system but on the other hand it's very important that we don't do this the way some things have been done in the past as well where you do band aids because i think that's a missed friedman's comment that can we sustain this if it's just one band aid here in the next thing comes another band aid they're just moving from issue to issue we need to put in place a system that's sustainable that puts us not to catch up with the threat that we have but get in front of it so that we can respond to the future threats cyber security so difficult because computer technology advances so rapidly and is at advances that generates different kinds of threats so we have to put into place a system that's really a sustainable in the long term that puts us on front and we are as well as putting in place the risk reduction immediately to handle of the problems we have today trying to catch up to that we're also trying to build a system that will serve us well well into the future well we wish you the very best in this and as you know i mean i think everyone in the country tire of the issue and and hope to get directed to move immediately into a two year pilot of our new oversight model one to concur in the los alamos national security l l c lance contractor assurance system that your group right yes sir so this pilot would apply to your group coming into los alamos yes sir so you'd be familiar with this man i am i am familiar with this and i would like to just clarify one thing about this pilot and i do know about it of  course and we're off doing our part this is of course is a little memo to the site manager to the federal workforce not to not to us but one thing to be to be clear on it was very clear to me and still is that this is a this something that does not apply to security it's something that does not apply to nuclear safety and high hazard facilities this is something up with overall management of this site deals with overall management but look what it says oversight model of security and of nuclear operations has not changed because of this pilot as pilot about other things like this management management of the site it's totally relate it whether you're dealing with classified and classified employees using drugs not using drugs cell phones not using cell phones the whole thing and it says right here your rival of the new management team you alluded to it mr friedman to it you come into a new management team you're all fired up you're not within six months we lose enthusiasts and nothing filters down so having more federal oversight we're having less federal recife with self assessment by the new management team the new management team which has financial incentives to do well in their assessment  seems like foxes guarding the hen house in a way just to clarify again sir that there's two issues there is the management system i use inside the laboratory and how we manage the laboratory and what tools we use to do that and we're trying to get at how is your and how we're going to be different and that's on the other track and that's our contractor assurance system this outlined here this is a management tool i use for all activities that management system is transparent to the central government so they can see my dashboard how i'm doing against metrics on the second issue which is how does the government provide oversight governments in this pilot the government will maintain the same level of oversight it's not enhanced as what's going on now in things like security and like nuclear safety pilot is to try to change the oversight model for things that aren't that there's a management system which is our contractor surance system which is my system and a part of that provides less oversight health safety and security phone failing or substandard security performance and fourteen of the seventeen key areas that's the charter over there at los alamos including classified material protection control cyber security and emergency management the trend was negative compared to all to mr pole dance the head of that office testified on january thirtieth or last year in that quote los alamos received the lowest set of performance ratings for security and emergency management since one thousand ninety nine as you're looking at your dashboard what explains this why are we going downward in our performance security cybersecurity just to recall that that that audit was done last fall between october and december of last  year of course i'm very aware of it and was very concerned by it we have taken the number of specific actions to address those issues i've outlined a few of the concrete results of that the other thing i would say is that many audits and reviews have and in talking to those folks after the review they they believe that in fact we've made very significant progress that we've improved relative to what will change the colors on the chart will change to red to something other than red that yellow to at least green in may when get a blue one under some day how do we do it well i think those are the steps that we've been taking that i've outlined for you today and that i believe that i've tried to demonstrate that posted on the web site of a former sub contractor and work for the former company lujan software services to remove information you have any idea how long that information about these employees were  still investigating that issue right now mr chairman so i don't know for sure how long it's been been there we believe the data is from the nine hundred ninety eight period is when the data was how long it's actually been that information was buried and several layers down inside that web site very relatively small company so we are hopeful that that there's been little opportunity to compromise with the second thing that we've done of course my first concern in this whole incident was for the employees themselves correct and we've taken a number of actions to do to to to support the employees and i could go through those but my point was going to be that in fact we have not heard that we have so informed all the employees or fact that we have heard back from none of them say that they had a concern that they think that their information might have been compromised from this side hopeful that there was little there was little i take it would be a violation of the contract the sub contract they have this information there it's certainly part of this is sub contract was to protect protect the personal information what action or culpability has been taken for  software services well certainly we've made sure that we took down that information off that web site the lawyers and working with the i g we're doing the investigation to understand what the although no one forced what action we have yet but we're still in the middle of the investigation the inspector general testimony calls for a risk based evaluation of cybersecurity funding at los alamos to make sure that the resources are available for revise to the department on our requirements for funding requirements to meet the goals that they set out for us so we we do that every year and in addition we've been in discussion with the department about extending this idea of super bowl type rooms and made some estimates of what that might cost to propagate if this works like we hope which will we'll learn as we run this pilot we've been discussing with him as well what it would take to to propagate that through through the site in the way we'd like over several years you have any numbers or a thing for us i think it's premature to tell you what the number is i think we've made some very simple estimates and let me just say ten many tens of millions of dollars that's what i said earlier no it's not get out of jail free it's not one aapl it's not paper money it's taxpayers money  then the piano lab up and up in washington has been under the same contractor and i think that's coming up for competition and i don't remember exactly when but in the near term so there's other sites that have had one contractor for for many  decades but if you have one contractor we have secretaries come and go and members come and go and there's really no incentive to make that change to bring forth any kind of change it seems like if you're always going the same contract  hearings we have and things like this in your board still fifty percent you see but as you said to me the committee's subcommittee said to me early on a question why didn't we see these problems at livermore and i spent most of my career at livermore which was under the contract to so i don't think these problems are fundamentally an issue of the contractor per se i think it's about the the the local situation more than it is the  fundamental issue as a contractor that's that's my personal view but i would also say that that i'm very personally motivated to make los alamos a success this is certainly something that that i believe very important for the country and i can certainly speak for all the employees there that they're very concerned about their role in these turbulent times in the country faces to fulfill their role to help the country's security no one questions your commitment to the process but as we've heard over and over again from many many people is that in those chairs that they're all enthused are all excited it goes for a while it says i'll never seem to get down to the other thirteen thousand employees we have a security strike at the guards