check check testing one two three four five six seven eight one two three four five six seven eight point three eighteen r the hearing will now come to order good morning welcome to day fearing the science of security lessons learned in developing testing and operating at radiation monitors in the wake of the terrorist attacks on september eleventh two thousand and one preventing the detonation of a nuclear or radiological device a dirty bomb in the united states has become a top national security objective that we've invested billions of dollars has not eleven to develop means to prevent detect and respond to any attack by weapons of mass destruction we develop radiation monitors at our ports and border crossings to screen millions of of cargo containers in or united states every year hunting for rad logical material that could be used for terrorist purposes since two thousand and four the department of homeland security has spent more than two hundred thirty million on a program to develop a new ready radiation detection system called an advance p that can both detect and identify a nuclear material congress expects of the funding federal agencies receive will be well spent when it comes to scientifically challenging or technically demanding programs  pays to have a well prepared program requirements demanding testing protocols and an independent and comprehensive cost benefit analysis those vital steps those vital program components to help managers make informed decisions about whether to move forward with a tight with the technology development program or order to place a proven technology with a new technology unfortunately despite recent progress the a f p program has suffered because it lacked all the preparatory steps they will manage program we'll hear about some of those problems today from the government accountability office and the national academies of science over the capabilities the agency relied on incomplete and unreliable data in their cost benefit and their cost benefit analysis submitting critical test data inflate the cost of current radiation detectors and underestimating the cost of a f p monitors  the department failed to produce to produce a requirements document were adequate documentation regarding major changes to the plan a f p deployment strategy d m d s never considered the option of investigating improvements of the program released yesterday reflects many of the same concerns the cademy calls for significant restructuring of the h s testing procedures for the s p program they question the criteria being used to judge the wrong the academy report provides a road map to how the program can be put back on track assuming that the department determines that is worth the cost and effort radioactive materials have become a norm a normal part of commerce they are used for medical procedures and industrial applications but nanna's have radiation technology can help us detect and identif radioactive sources in cargo containers but no technology can sort out good radioactive material intended for legitimate purposes from the bad radioactive materials intended to do us harm result human operators will still need to make important decisions often informed by intelligence efforts to keep the nation secure well trained well equipped people law enforcement officers and customs and border protection inspectors will always be critical to the equation  this hearing addresses our responsibility to the technological part of that equation before we move forward with a two or three billion dollar program we must ensure that we that we get our money's worth from the new technology put another way if we have two or three billion dollars to spend to enhance our security is this technology really how we should spend it i look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today and they'll recognize as dr brown the ranking member from georgia for an opening statement so member will hold a hearing on cyber security also said on the homeland security committee subcommittee on emerging threats cyber security science and technology as well needless to say d h s s kept me busy this week this morning we'll look into the status of the province i'm going to development of the next generation radiation portal monitors get an update from jail on their continuing work and receiver for from the national research coun goes without saying that this program has been followed closely for some time now and thankfully many of the testing issues that g a o has brought up in previous report seem to been mitigated somewhat however this program is far from out of the woods and their most recent analysis g a o and the cademy raise new issues relating to the rigor of the testing in the certification process and offer a path forward for potential acquisition in the future s takes these recommendations seriously and i look forward to ensuring that we that they are not some merrily dismissed for the sake of arbitrary timetables we see that frequently here in government looking forward c conduct a residual rigorous cost benefit analysis that takes into account updated drest assessments a review of all variations of concepts of operations potential upgrades for existing technologies and independent cost estimates it also needs to weigh the pros and cons not just of asked versus p v t and read but also whether the national capability gained outweighs the needs of other aspects of the global nuclear detection architecture unfortunately this may be hard to do at this point considering g a o indicated earlier this year that the domestic nuclear detection office had to quote quote not developed an overarching strategic plan to guide its development of a more comprehensive global strategy for nuclear detection unquote all of these factors need to be taken into consideration as d h s moves toward an acquisition even then i will remain cautious given the department's track where record with past acquisitions we're dealing with today could have been prevented by engaging in uses early on in the process clear also by clearly defining the requirements and simply following existing department acquisition processes last week the subcommittee held a hearing on issues plaguing impose asked program exhibits eerie similarities to that program in that it is tempted to link research and development activities with the acquisition of an operational system and had unclear architectural priorities let's hope other federal programs can learn from these lessons and protect taxpayers from future and i look forward to our witnesses testimony thank you thank dr brown it's i'm out please introduce our panel our first panel of witnesses mr gene elise izzy director of natural resources environment at the government accountability office and dr michael lowenthal is the director of the nuclear security and nuclear facility safety program in the nuclear and radiation studies board at the national research council of the national academy of sciences is that how you describe your job at a cocktail party as our witnesses should know five minutes for you spoken testimony your written testimony will be included in the record for the hearing when you have all completed your spoken testimony we will begin with questions and each member will have five minutes to question the panel it is a practice of the subcommittee to receive testimony under oath  do either of you have any objection to taking an oath you also have a right to be represented by counsel do any of you have counsel either of you have counsel here if you now please stand in raise your right chairman and members of the subcommittee i am pleased to be here today to discuss d h s s plans to develop and test advanced portal monitors for use at the nation's borders to prevent nuclear materials from being smuggled into the united states according to d h the current system of radiation detection equipment is effective and does not impede the flow of commerce however d h h s wants to improve the capabilities of the existing equipment with new equipment one of the major drawbacks of the new equipment is the substantially higher cost compared to the existing equipment we estimate in the september two thousand and eight that the life cycle cost of each standard cargo version of the a s b to be about eight hundred twenty two thousand dollars compared to about three hundred eight thousand for the t standard cargo portal and that the total program cost for d m d s latest deployment plan would be about two billion dollars since two thousand and six we have issued six reports and including today for testimonies and have ma thousand recommendations for improving d m d s efforts to develop and test for all monitors our concerns have focused on the need for realistic and objective testing of a s p s full disclosure and reporting up testing limitations development of cost estimates that consider the full cost of the ploy the new equipment and development of a sound cost benefit analysis which the term is whether the marginal increase in security from the a s p s is worth its very high cost my testimony today is based on our recent report assessed the most recent round of a f p testing i will also discuss the lessons learned from a f p testing our work on the latest round of a f p testing found that d h s increase the in comparison with previous tests and thereby added credibility to the test results however we still question whether the benefits of the s p justify the high cost in particular d h as his criteria for a significant increase in operational effectiveness require only marginal improvement in detection of certain weapons usable nuclear material the marginal improvement required of a as p s is particularly notable given that the n d o is not completed efforts to enhance t performance of the current generation of equipment c b p officials have told us that they have repeatedly urged india to investigate improving the performance of the equipment through what is known as energy windowing the n d o has collected the data necessary to do this based on light shielding however differences between the two systems were hard to recognize when shielding was slightly increased or decreased both systems had difficulty in detecting nuclear materials when shielding was somewhat greater than the threat guidance which is set to match the extent of the detection limits of the p v t importantly the threat guidance is not a realistic approximation of how a terrorist might shield a nuclear material to successfully smuggle it undetected through a border crossing delayed even further and d h has not updated its schedule as far as we know certification is scheduled for sometime this fall of concern to us is the fact that the n d o does not plan to complete computer simulations that could provide additional insights into s p capabilities and limitations prior to certification on this point the n d o does not seem to have learned from past mistakes or rushed to deploy as before all testing is complete leads the shortcuts in testing and raises questions among stakeholders about the equipment effectiveness and reliability furthermore the n d o has not yet updated its cost benefit analysis which might show that d n d owes plan to replace existing equipment is not justif one of the primary lessons to be learned from our work is to avoid the pitfalls and testing that stem from a rush to break your new technologies in the case of the s p the push to rush to replace existing equipment led to a testing program which lacks scientific rig or even for the new round of testing d n d o consistently underestimated the time necessary to conduct test and resolve problems and testing is still not completed in closing we believe that given the importance of this new equipment to our national security the congress and the american taxpayer still need to know three things does the equipment worth how much will it cost and does the marginal increase in security justify its very high cost mr chairman that concludes my remarks and i good morning and thank you chairman miller ranking member brown members of the committee my name is michael owen fall as you said on the director of the nuclear security and nuclear facility safety program at the national research councils nuclear and radiation studies board i'm here to describe  recently issued interim report from a congressionally mandated national research council study on advanced spectroscopic portals on the study director supporting the authors committee of that report and i'll begin by providing background on the request for this study and then i'll summarize the main messages of the report the department of homeland security or d h s wants to deploy new radiation detector systems called advanced spectroscopic portals or a s p s to improve screening of containerized cargo for nuclear and radiological material the a s p s are intended to replace some or all of the radiation portal monitors and handheld radio isotopes identifiers currently used at ports and border crossings across the united states congress require that the secretary of homeland security certify that the a s p s provide a significant increase in operational effectiveness over the old systems congress also directed d h s s to ask the national research council to advise the secretary on testing analysis costs and benefits of the species before the certification decision i want to point out that the appropriations committees who made these requirements said that they appreciate that sort of cation will be difficult both the study committee agrees with that that these hard these are hard problems both in the testing and the cost benefit analysis so it's not surprising that work has been challenging here now with a fine i mean findings and recommendations from the interim report the study committee found that the s p performance test prior to two thousand and eight had serious flaws the domestic nuclear detection office acknowledged problems with the test and it addressed a number of those flaws in later testing the two thousand and eight performance tests were indeed improved but shortcomings remain d m d s current approach to performance testing involves physically testing detector performance against a small number of configurations of threat objects and cargo in one environment but the set of possible combinations of threats cargo and environments is so large and multi dimensional that d n d zero needs an analytical basis for understanding the performance of detector systems not just an empirical basis our study committee recommended that s use a more rigorous approach in which scientists use computer models to simulate considerations and detector performance use physical tests to validate and refine the models and use the models to select key new physical tests that advance our understanding of the detector systems this iterative modeling and testing approach is standard in the development of some high technology equipment and is essential for building scientific confidence in detector  of an iterative approach also extends to deployment the study committee recommends a process for incremental deployment and continuous improvement of the a s p s with experience in the field leading to refinements in both the technologies and the operations for the next deployment as a first step in this process deploying the unused a s p s it already has to assess the a s p s performance in multiple environments without investing in a much larger acquisition at the outset d s p cost benefit analysis was not complete when our interim report was written preliminary estimates by d n dio indicate that the cost increases from replacing the current to the currently deployed systems with a s p s outweighs the cost reductions or savings from operational efficienc therefore a careful cost benefit analysis will need to reveal the security advantages if any of the a s p s over the current systems and possible alternatives such a cost benefit analysis should include three key elements a clear statement of the objectives of the program and assessment of meaningful alternatives and a comprehensive credible and transparent analysis of in scope benefits and costs should consider trail tradeoffs among different options for allocating it efforts and funds looking at the overall systems for ways to improve defense against nuclear smuggling the study committee recommended that d h s not proceed with further procurement of a s p s until it has addressed the findings and recommendations from the report and the s p has been shown to be a favored option in the cost benefit analysis now those are the main messages from the report for this hearing i was also asked to comment on any lessons learned regarding processes by which the a s p s have been researched developed and tested to date although the study committee only examine the testing of a s p s not a broader portfolio i think there are three lessons to be learned based on the study first the process of modeling and testing iteratively can be applied more broadly to other complex technology development programs second incremental deployment with continuous improvement is a good strategy for deployment of systems that have not fully mature it especially if they're in vision to have an ongoing mission and third the systems level approach that that is examining how to optimize choices within the overall system rather than focusing narrowly on one trade off decision is applicable to almost every use of equipment in security applications thank you for the opportunity to testify back we are now out of recess for colic ways around adlie one of the most peculiar style aspects of congressional service i've heard of political campaigns that eighty percent of all the effort is wasted the problem is no one knows what twenty percent is it's not i suspect that there's at least that ratio of wasted effort in congressional service and i'm very much is that for college or in the wasted effort category but it was something i had to do i will resist temptation to point to point out other aspects of congressional service that may be wasted brown rice the point that there are other priorities that we have to decide between priorities even within security so it's not security versus other things government does in october of two thousand and seven this committee ha a dirty bomb was detonated in two american cities and what we found was that we were probably better prepared certainly better prepared for katrina than we were for dirty bomb attack despite the fact that if there is one punch that let our people know that they can go back into offices office buildings that we might shut down indefinitely ten fifteen twenty square blocks of american city the midtown of an american city or perhaps to  they would probably take six years to complete the necessary environmental tests for one attack and one city nor testing on individuals to see if they had been exposed to radiation that might take a couple of years we would have to tell parents that they we could not test for children to see if they had been exposed to radiation for a couple of years but you know the child's hair started falling out call us maybe we can move them up in line and they failing there seem to be simply one of october four months from now about whether to sort of fire that is worth investing the two billion dollars in the s p's either you believe there will be enough information available this fall for the h s to make that done all the testing is done and we know whether or not this marginal increase in security is justified through a sound independent cost benefit analysis we should believe we shouldn't spend any money on this program or go forward with it and do you think there's a realistic chance those preconditions may be satisfied between now and october at this point it does not look that way dr  that the preconditions for going ahead with certification that there's a great deal of information that's needed i'm not really in a position to tell you how much time it will take them to get that information together there is some information that they presumably have already put together some analysis that they've already done that we haven't seen we will be happy to look at it when when they provide it but in terms of timelines we would not be inclined to to guess that when they will be  month why do you not believe that those test will be good enough to make the  actually sending more that they were actually sending more to secondary than the p t s so they had to work out a number of those problems and i'm assuming they have that's been while since the initial testing we just had to see how it goes  in we're going to be looking to see b p for a lot of the answers because they're the agency that's to live with this equipment and i feel fairly confident they're not going to go forward until they're satisfied that the testing is going right paull this testing that they're going to do for field validation is going to tell them something that they need to know but it won't tell them everything that they need to know and they committed the study committee's recommendations were to enhance what they're going to be able to learn from these sorts of tests with modeling and simulation the the range of environments that they're going to be operating in is very limited they're only doing field validation testing  at four different sites and there are a lot of other conditions a lot of other kinds of cargo and so on that are worth learning about some of that can be done with simulation and some of it can be done with the deployment that the committee recommended good system to the system within the entire global nuclear detection architecture start with dr load i should point out that the committee really only looked at the testing of the talked about what kinds of information a decision maker would want to have and so the committee recommended that they consider these other components of the global architecture and there are gaps that are known and have been pointed out by others within that architecture but the committee did not study that question itself what the committee did say is that if you look at this from the perspective of an adversary who is trying to sneak something into the united states if you can if you reinforce the places where you already are screening but you leave other avenues totally open you may not be gaining much improvement in security  agree as i mentioned dr lowenthal a minute ago we're spending a lot of money upgrading the locks on the front door but the windows in the back door wide open does that make sense to do with limited resources i agree wholeheartedly or there are there is that would benefit greater from the same level investments dollars well there are a lot of vulnerabilities that need to be looked at that have not been properly addressed in the architecture  not where we're going to come through if they've taken the time and trouble to get this material it's unlikely different to stick it in the cargo container and drive across through a portal monitor it with an open borders and just carry a d n a wherever they want to carry particularly let me ask you to answer your question in view of of a comment you made in your testimony about that we have s p sitting there now  if you would include that discussion well given the scope of our study i wouldn't be comfortable on to to try to identify what the most promising area is what the what the committee recommended is the dia just do that does not appear to have been done elsewhere and so the committee recommends that it be included in this decision now the other component of that is the deployment of the ones that they already own that's more for a learning exercise this is something where they where they can learn more about the performance of the systems in the field and improve them as they go forward i think that's these are directed at slightly different points of time disappeared so i  the criticism appears to be as much that the problems with the a s p s was not the technical challenges but that the whole program was just poorly managed  start and that the management more than anything else was a problem what lesson should we learn how should this program be managed differently how can be managed differently the teacher and other similar programs that's why we called for a cost benefit analysis before anything went further is it worth the marginal increase in security you're going to get from the s p's do that first then go talk to the congress and the decision makers can decide whether it's worth it or not and we know the story it was poorly done and that was based on assumptions not data and that leads us to where we are today and it was a rush to push technology through that was im mature and that has got to be the true lesson of this is that without proper and scientifically rigorous testing with without a technology that is mature it should not be generally rushed to deployment especially when you have a system already there that's working doctoral and all i should point out that our study committee was silent on the matter of whether this was managed well or not  but i think that the report highlights many of the points that you made in your opening remarks about what should be done in the future i think you hit on all of those well planned out testing program with  criteria stablished in advance and an idea as you go in for what you're going to learn from each stage of this making sure that it matches up with what the customer is looking for as israelis mentioned all of those all of those components lead to having a testing and evaluation program that will lead to a pure meant that gives the customer what he needs and the nation what it needs would it be fair summ i think we had a solution in search of a problem there is a problem but there may have been on the sleeve another solution you're reaching for your button dr low and all our clock is not working so each  about whether we can take the ass units that are available now put them in a parallel screening process out there in the field as appropriate is evidently or preventing us from doing would you recommend that we do so in news as something that you can put in your report so that we can look at that possibility and maybe even make that recommendation yes our study committee recommended that they take other ones but we don't have an exact number of how many they have but they have some number of them that they already own that they could deploy in the field the committee our study committees recommendation explicitly in the report is that these should be deployed it at selected sites and the experience gained from those will contribute to both their understanding of how they perform but also how they might be able to modify the operations had time to go back you probably did mr camper for more or less five minutes thank you very much i apologize for being late had a markup at another committee but i appreciate the opportunity that ask a question of both of you if you could just flow would that still be enough to justify deploying them getting all the other needs out there and our limited resources lab to go back to and i know i sound like a broken record on this a cost benefit analysis that we've been calling for for a couple years all of those factors that you mention need to be in there so that the decision makers can look at the weather and see whether i marginal improvement is worth it considering all the vulnerabilities we have in the architecture already that we need to address dr low and we agree entirely that a cost benefit analysis will be needed to that we are not in a position to judge whether whether they are going to be worth it partly because our study didn't examine the results of their tests for this interim report it looked at the approach once they have the results and they can factor those into their cost benefit analysis then they then a judgment can be made as to whether they are worth it mr allawi is a geo a has done a lot of work on how she should do a cost benefit while to develop a cost benefit analysis we it was based on working with ninety representatives from all the federal agencies including d h s and it lays out exactly what the best practices are but some of the things are must be based on facts must be fact based based on data not assumptions must have proper documentation all along the way and those are kinds of things that were missing from the the ones we looked at for d anything specific to this particular in particular test results what did the test results show ok dr without going to comment on that if i can just add one point we give some advice on how to complete the cost benefit analysis but one of the things that is pointed out in our report is that no cost benefit analysis at the end that deals with security matters is going to be totally honest that they are going to they're going to have to produce something that they you at this time i would like to introduce our second panel dr william hague and is the acting deputy director of the domestic nuclear detection office at the department of homeland security that's also a mouthful a title mr todd c owen is the acting deputy assistant commissioner of the office of field operations at the u s customs and border protection department of homeland security you will each have five minutes for your spoken testimony  written testimony will be included in the record when we have completed our your spoken testimony we will begin with questions each member will have five minutes to question the panel it is a practice of the subcommitt  in both indicated that is on have counsel present please stand and raise your right hand  do you swear to tell the truth and nothing about trick and should reflect that both witnesses took the oath i will begin with doctor good morning chairman miller ranking member brown and distinguished members of the  subcommittee is acting deputy director of domestic nuclear detection office d n d ago at the department of homeland security i am honored to be here with my colleague from u s customs and border protection mr todd on i'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to share lessons learned  portal program i would also like to thank the committee for its support of d m d s mission to reduce the risk of radiological nuclear terrorism to the nation with the past three years we have made substantial investments in the development of the next threat materials for unshielded to lightly shield the threats in primary inspection while improving identification capability and secondary inspection to ensure that a f p systems achieve the necessary technical and operational performance we're in the midst of putting them t rigorous test campaign as p has already been has already advanced through several rounds of performance testing and will face feel validation at ports of entry as well as independent operational testing and evaluation conducted by the d h s science and technology director its operational test of forty the successful the successful completion of these tests along with other analyses and consultation with the national academy of sciences will then inform the secretary's certification decision this for ask this fall in addition during the execution of our test campaigns we have cooperated with the government accountability office and the national academy of sciences to provide both groups within information and visibility into our testing and analysis processes the resulting reviews issued by the g a o and the n a s provide a valuable xterm all assessment of the s p program the two thousand and eight through two thousand and nine set of ongoing tests reflect a number of steps d m d s taken to reform test processes for example one of our most fundamental improvements has been to  standardize test event planning we now utilize detailed instructions with the six milestone process to ensure that test planning is done openly that partner inputs are included in the test events are designed to provide the data required to meet the objectives of the test and to help make programatic decisions additionally some improvements in the s p program have been the result of d h s wide enhanced months to program management the changes put in place with india us further ensure that any eventual certification acquisition decisions are consistent with the h s priorities and may with a strong acquisition management foundation specifically we are implementing d h s s new management directive one zero today show one for large acquisition programs which requires a complete set of analysis testing and documentation as input for an acquisition decision the set includes for example analysis of alternative concept of operations operational requirements mission need statements cost benefit analysis and others we're acutely aware that we must integrate end user requirements and conduct testing evaluation campaigns we recognize that the development and deployment of new systems can be pensive and the cost to taxpayers must be justified by the increased capabilities of the equipment we feel that the plans and procedures now in place for the s p program provide a sound foundation for future certification acquisition decisions s p systems have been under review and evaluation for over three years and further improvements will always be possible but i believe that after the plan testing and analysis is complete and the requirements of them do you want to today show one have been fulfilled d h s s will be in a position to make an informed decision as a final note i would like to emphasize that while we are diligently working to characterize and evaluate the performance of asked to ensure that operators receive appropriate quitman for their mission the asp program is only one piece of the multilayered solution we call the global nuclear detection architecture through which we seek to integrate efforts across the government into an overarching strategy to improve the nation's nuclear detection capabilities accordingly we plan to continue deployments of detection systems that are official ports of entry while also dedicating increased time and effort to a wider range of pathways in addition we have been working to strengthen the architecture by filling gaps improving technologies building that's a scary infrastructure and raising awareness about radiological and nuclear threats and the role of detection systems i look forward to continuing to work with our partners with in s other federal departments and state and local agencies and the members of this subcommittee and the congress to help keep the nation safe from radiological and nuclear terrorism this concludes my statement i thank you for your attention i'm happy to answer any questions  owen for five minutes good morning sherry miller ranking member brown distinguished members of the subcommittee as the acting deputy assistant commissioner for the office field operations with u s customs and border protection i'm honored to be here this morning alongside dr hagen to numerous priorities that were recognized in the american recovery and reinvestment act congress provided c b p with one hundred million dollars worth of stimulus funding towards non intrusive inspection equipment this funding will allow c b p to upgrade and expand its successful and i program and more efficiently inspect containers and vehicles crossing the border allowing them to enter our country and its commerce in a safe and prompt manner c b p has made tremendous progress in ensuring that supply chains importing goods into the united states are more secure against potential exploitation by terrorist groups aim to deliver weapons of mass effect c b p uses a multilayered approach to ensure the integrity of supply chains from point of stuffing through the arrival in the u s ports of entry this multi layered defense is built upon in a related initiatives which include the twenty four hour act in the trade rule twenty four hour rule in the trade act of two thousand to the automated targeting system the use of nonintrusive inspection equipment and radiation portal monitors are container security initiative and the customs trade partnership against terrorism program these complementary layers enhanced security protect our nation prior to nine eleven not a single radiation portal monitor and only sixty four large scale non intrusive inspection the systems were deployed to our nation's borders by october of two thousand two c b p had deployed the first r p m at the ambassador bridge in detroit today b p has well over twelve hundred r p m s and two hundred twenty seven large scale and i technology the systems deployed nationwide and i  allows the officers to detect possible anomalies anomalies which may indicate the presence of a weapon of mass effect or some other contraband and to date in fiscal year two thousand and nine c b p and i i systems have conducted over three point one million exams resulting in over seven thousand eight hundred narcotic seizures with a total weight of over two point six million pounds as well as six point two million in currency ceased in addition to the significant strides made in the area and i equipment c b p also continues to deploy first generation radiation portal monitors to our ports of entry currently ninety seven percent of the trucks and ninety three percent of the personally owned vehicles arriving from canada one hundred percent of the trucks and vehicles from mexico and ninety eight percent of the arriving sea containers  scanned by our current radiation detection technologies in total c b p scans ninety eight percent of all cargo arriving into the u s by land and sea using radiation portal monitors in addition c b p officers scanned one hundred percent of general aviation aircraft arriving to the u s from foreign destinations using handheld radiation identification devices since the first r p m was deployed in two thousand two c b p officers have scanned over three hundred sixty eight million conveyances for the presence of radiation and we have resolved two point one million radiological arms successfully with minimal or no impact to the flow of budget in the trade and travel c b continues to closely coordinate with key stakeholders to ensure the impact of this activity causes minimal disruption to port operations the first generation r p m systems although very sensitive do have limitations why they alert c b p officers to the presence of radiation secondary exam is necessary to positively identify the specific isotope cause in the alert in the event that a c b p officer is on able to positively resolve the alert scientific reach back is available twenty four hours a day seven days a week the ask is expected to enhance our detection capability while significantly reducing the number of secondary examinations this is du its ability to distinguish between actual threats and natural or medical radiation sources that are not security threats c b p has worked closely with the d m d on the development and operational testing of asked has provided d m deal with functional requirements and has been actively engaged in every step of the evaluation process c b p's focus for operational testing is to evaluate the effectiveness for systems deployed in our operational environments we will continue to work with d m d and the d h the science and technology directorate towards secretarial certification and we are also working within d h just to ensure that any future ask acquisitions and deployment decisions are consistent with d h as priorities the decision to purchase and deploy asked in the operational arena will be based on c p s mission needs operational requirements comprehensive cost benefit analysis to include the full understanding of maintenance and operation costs and analysis alternatives and other considerations mr chairman members of the subcommittee today have addressed to b p s commitment to investing in new technologies and emerging technology aimed at hanson cargo security we must continue to maintain our tactical edge by integrating new technology into our ports of entry thank you again for the opportunity to be here this morning to be happy to answer any questions through the system when it would be relatively easy to go around it that a lot of the testing seems to be an afterthought to justify a conclusion that was already reached  the end user or the customs and border patrol think that they are doing perfectly well and that their existing technology could be improved upon relatively cheaply compared to the investment  that would be required the spending that would be wired for a s p and both of the previous witnesses very much question the validity of the  urgency regarding some of the limitations of the current system we can't talk about these in open session but we'd be happy to do that at a later time but having said that the the october or something bad happens so what we're what we are what we are doing now is pushing forward as aggressively as we can to get to the decision point about deploying other words we're not saying we've got to deploy these right now we're saying we've got to get soon as possible to the point where we make that decision and as was said by the earlier witnesses the information that's required to make that decision as i mentioned in my oral statement there's a lot of information a lot of data lot of test results that have yet to be analyzed and brought together an integrated in this cost benefit analysis and that will be an important part of the decision that will be made in october  so i guess i would disagree that we are rushing to deployment i would say that we're rushing more towards getting all the information as fast as we can but doing it in a thoughtful deliberate disciplined way and through point did not really instill confidence in them that this new system would perform as for lobley as effectively as we would like or even to see existing technology  frontline officers need technology that will not only reduce the possibility of a missed threat but as well as reduce the rate of innocent alarms that our officers are spending their time on in the port of long beach for example we have between four hundred and six hundred radiation alarms every single day we have a team of about one hundred officers over the three shifts that work on just resolving these innocent alarms throughout the course of their their work day so having a new piece of technology or an enhancement to technology that will allow us to not only identify any missed potential threats but reduce the number of innocent alarms is something that we do support but as i mentioned in our hearing testimony we have been doing this for some time with the existing p v t we've been able to resolve those two point one million alarms without a negative throughput with the flow of co our ports of entry so the technology that we have is effective but again as we have matured the technology we are looking for that technology which will give us an edge if you will a step up from what we have particularly in terms to missing any threats that the  which will alert the container with i'm going to secondary where we'll perform the analysis with the radiation isotope identifier and we pushed that information back to our laboratory and scientific folks it's a process that we have we have crafted and we're feel comfortable with what we have seen in the operational area in terms of the energy when doing that you heard from the first panel is we have seen operational benefits to being able to make adjustments to the existing p v t to account for the recurring burden so naturally occurring radioactive shipments that come through in the gym a cargo so we have seen the benefits from energy windowing in the operational environment now as to have we pushed those benefits as far as we can through energy windowing we really need to defer to the scientists to deal with our partners at pacific northwest national laboratories to tell us if we have gone as far as we can with energy when doing but again as the operator of the systems we've seen benefits in the ports of entry where we have deployed energy wind maximize that i'd really defer to the scientists to give us that answer or stand to the principal problem with the current technology is that it is as you pointed out not so much that would miss less less a concern for missing radiation than the large number of false positives perhaps not false and since that is not radiation but that is not  screening if it goes through an rpm or radiation for a monitor of some sort if that monitor alarms then that conveyance is referred to secondary inspection where it is further examined the either with another monitor or radiation for a monitor or a handheld or read and s p is being considered for deployments to both of those both primary inspection and secondary inspection in the primary application the s radiation better go to secondary and off it goes in the case of a s t because of the spectroscopic nature of the system it can it can discriminate between a threat material and on threat material or if it can't discriminate then it sends it to secondary as well so it can dismiss and reduce the number of referrals to secondary in the secondary application if you have a s p there then you're comparing essentially the performance of a large spectroscopic portal which is very very large  compared to a very small handheld detector in which case the again i can't talk about the specifics of the results but the the s p is far superior to the handheld detector in terms of its ability  thresholds in the s p so we're not making software changes for simply tuning the system as you do with the p p t and then that will be will be have done a lot of analysis and simulation as was mentioned earlier to verify watch very closely as you very well know and i'll always give you almost always give you a lot of leeway less is some particular reason not to but that's not hagen what you're saying is man standing with heavily shielded or moderately shielded radiation that there's not much difference between the two programs and is it is it also not true that if anybody's going to bring in  speculate that that would be the case but you can't really know for sure and so so yes it's probably likely that someone would shield it but but a knowledgeable adversary might not do that for other reasons which i'll talk about later but going back to the first part of your question yes the two systems both p v t monitors and a f p monitors are what are called passive detection systems they both suffer from the limitation that if a nuclear material or a weapon is shielded enough then there just is no signal for either detector to detect now so what we are long at the long range plan for this and so already being implemented in part is to say that if if for ports the path by having these passive detectors we are forcing the adversary knowledgeable adversary anyway to heavily shielded material and another system will detect the material then you've covered you've done a good job of covering the complete spectrum of possibilities in the system is can be defeated by a knowledgeable adversary but by having those two systems safer after a few years ago when we were pulled over because my father had a stress test two weeks prior actually have some personal experience with alarms i didn't understand what was going on at the time first time i'd ever been pulled over didn't cause too much stress now  we were fine but i actually felt much better coming back home and telling people who had no idea that this was actually being detected as we all drive back home from canada but  almost half a million a billion dollars to point monitors at border crossings imports across the country including when i came across obviously does mr allan the customs and border protection believe that the current system and doing the secondary inspection with handheld detectors and other means it's working well in terms of keeping us safe and moving commerce along and i guess i'm wondering what is the cost of  manpower versus what is the cost of you know i'm looking at the dollars spent here knowing we have limited resources and where we best spending our money and i would just respond ma'am again two parts to that equation is is the p v t finding all of the threats or are there threats that could be slipping through just because of the physics involved and that's were asked can help us in that regard the second piece of that would be can we respond to the number of secondaries that are caused by the existing t systems and the answer is yes we demonstrate that there is a resource impact on this again we look at los angeles we look at what we do up in the peace bridge there in buffalo you probably came through it is a timely process the officers do have to go through each secondary exam and treated as if it is a real threat we cannot let our guard down and just assume it was your father in law that he had medical testing let you go down we have to take you out of the vehicle we have to go through that whole process so having a system that reduces the number of innocent alarms that are sent in to secondary will help us do that the cost of the manpower savings offset by the asp i think that is some of the work that the d m d s doing with their overall cost benefit analysis will take into consideration hundred thousand dollars a year to run as compared to eight thousand dollars a year for the p v t discusses how the budget to support this kind of system if it were deployed nationally and have you thought about what you would have to give up in terms of personnel or other you know equipment to run yes and that's a very good question that is a concern that we do have now the ass depending on how the final outcome of the cost benefit and the cost of the systems i think it's well accepted that it's going to cost more than what we have with the currently we have about twelve hundred fifty p t s deployed nationwide we continue to expand along the northern border we're going to get up to one hundred percent of the cargo coming in from canada this year will be covered by p v c s will end up with about fifteen hundred by the end of this calendar year there is an extensive operation and maintenance tail that comes with that i think any deployment decisions going forward with ass needs to be cognizant of the impact that will have on the operator there's much talk about the initial acquisition cost and the deployment cost to buy it put it in the ground but i don't think we can forget about the operation and maintenance tail that comes along with this that will then fall on the backs of the operator in this case c b p so it is something that we are concerned with it is something that again is going into the overall cost adjustments for what we can expect with the asp systems do you have any thoughts on with as they do in terms of personnel what it free up great numbers for other purposes well my view on this is this when you look at the way the layouts are in the seaports you have to have still an officer manned those exit gates where you have the radiation portal monitors so whether it's man with two officers or one officer because the alarms are less frequent they'll still be a cost figure associated with the manpower there may be some operational adjustments that we can make in the secondary areas but i think the cost savings are something that we still need to measure once we are confident that the ast are delivering as as we hoped they will do so there will be some so under the rules before we bring the hearing to a close i do want to thank all of our witnesses for testifying before the subsidy today and the rules of the committee the record will remain open for two weeks for additional statements from the members and for