U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

25–356 PDF 2007

DETECTING NUCLEAR WEAPONS

AND RADIOLOGICAL MATERIALS:

HOW EFFECTIVE IS AVAILABLE TECHNOLOGY?

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PREVENTION OF 

NUCLEAR AND BIOLOGICAL ATTACK

WITH THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY 

PREPAREDNESS, AND SCIENCE, 

AND TECHNOLOGY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 21, 2005

Serial No. 109–23

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

PETER T. KING, New York 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

TOM DAVIS, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana 

DAVE G. REICHERT, Washington 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

CHARLIE DENT, Pennsylvania 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

JANE HARMAN, California 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR AND BIOLOGICAL 

ATTACK

JOHN LINDER, Georgia, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut 

BOBBY JINDAL, Louisiana 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California (Ex Officio) 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island, 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

JANE HARMAN, California 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (Ex Officio) 

SUBCOMMITTE ON EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, SCIENCE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY

PETER T. KING, New York Chairman 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

DAVE G. REICHERT, Washington 

MICHAEL MCCAUL, Texas 

CHARLIE DENT, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER COX, California (Ex Officio) 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

JANE HARMAN, California 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (Ex Officio)

(II) 
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable John Linder, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Georgia, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and 

Biological Attack: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 1

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 3

The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Rhode Island, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Prevention 

of Nuclear and Biological Attack ........................................................................ 6

The Honorable Peter T. King, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York, Chairman, Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, 

Science, and Technology ...................................................................................... 5

The Honorable Bill Pascrell, Jr., a Representative in Congress From the 

State of New Jersey, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Emergency 

Preparedness, Science and Technology .............................................................. 3

The Honorable Christopher Cox, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California, Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security: 

Prepared Opening Statement .............................................................................. 7

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From 

the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 65 

The Honorable Bob Etheridge, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of North Carolina ................................................................................................. 68

The Honorable Jim Gibbons, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Nevada .............................................................................................................. 70

The Honorable Daniel E. Lungren, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California ................................................................................................ 73

The Honorable Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Massachusetts ........................................................................................ 71

The Honorable Michael McCaul, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas ....................................................................................................... 76

The Honorable Stevan Pearce, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New Mexico ...................................................................................................... 67 

The Honorable Dave G. Reichert, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Washington ............................................................................................. 74

The Honorable Rob Simmons, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Connecticut ....................................................................................................... 64

WITNESSES 

PANEL I 

Mr. Gene Aloise, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, Government 

Accountability Office: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 9

Prepared Sttement ............................................................................................... 11

Ms. Bethann Rooney, Manager, Port Security, Port Authority of New York 

and New Jersey: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 33

Prepared Sttement ............................................................................................... 35
Page

IV

Dr. Benn Tannenbaum, American Association for the Advancement of 

Science: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 40

Prepared Sttement ............................................................................................... 42

Dr. Richard L. Wagner, Jr., Chair, Defense Science Board Task Force on 

Prevention of,and Defense Against, Clandestine Nuclear Attack and Senior 

Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 26

Prepared Sttement ............................................................................................... 28

PANEL II 

Mr. Michael K. Evenson, Acting Director, Combat Support Directorate, DTRA, 

Department of Defense: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 89

Prepared Sttement ............................................................................................... 90

Mr. David Huizenga, Assistant Deputy Administrator, International 

Materials Protection and Cooperation, National Nuclear Security 

Administration, Department of Energy: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 83

Prepared Sttement ............................................................................................... 85

Mr. Vayl Oxford, Acting Director, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, 

Department of Homeland Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 78

Prepared Sttement ............................................................................................... 80

FOR THE RECORD 

Questions Submitted from the Honorable Norm Dicks, for Mr. Vayl Oxford 

Responses .............................................................................................................. 102
(1)

DETECTING NUCLEAR WEAPONS 

AND RADIOLOGICAL MATERIALS: 

HOW EFFECTIVE IS AVAILABLE 

TECHNOLOGY? 

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR AND

BIOLOGICAL ATTACK

WITH THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY

PREPAREDNESS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:25 p.m., in Room 

210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John Linder [chairman of 

the Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attacks] 

presiding. 

Present: Representatives Linder, King, Lungren, Gibbons, Simmons, Pearce, Jindal, Reichert, McCaul, Dent, Langevin, Pascrell, 

Markey, Christensen, Etheridge, and Thompson. 

Mr. LINDER. The joint hearing of the Committee on Homeland 

Security, Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack and the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, 

and Technology will please come to order. I see we do not have 

enough seats for all of our guests, but those who can find a seat, 

please do. 

I would like to thank our witnesses today and thank the distinguished gentleman from New York, Mr. King, who chairs the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology, 

for jointly holding this hearing. I look forward to your expert testimony regarding our efforts to deploy and develop technology to detect attempts by terrorists to smuggle a nuclear weapon or fissile 

material into the United States. 

I am a strong believer in the power of technology, because it will 

be an important key to success in the war against terrorism. However, there is a dark side to the astounding progress of S&T. The 

rapid pace of technological development is the greatest single reason that terrorists must be taken more seriously than ever before, 

because terrorists will eventually have access to that technology. 

From the past seven hearings and classified briefings that my subcommittee has held on nuclear terrorism, it has been made obvious 

that terrorists have access to science, technology and to scientists. 
2

Let me begin with a few facts about our borders. The U.S. shares 

a 2,000-mile border with Mexico and with Canada, 5,000 miles. We 

have 157 designated legal points of entry; 361 seaports, including 

77 container seaports. We let 440 million visitors arrive by land, 

sea and air each year; 118 million vehicles, 11 million trucks, 2.5 

million rail cars, 7 million cargo containers enter our ports annually. The length of the U.S. border, including coasts and lakes, is 

about 20,000 miles. 

My greatest concern is that we are moving forward with deploying technology that may catch the inept terrorists that attempt to 

smuggle a nuclear device or fissile material through our legal 

points of entry and miss the smart one that will slip in illegally 

with a pickup truck or a small boat to then construct and detonate 

a bomb in the United States. 

However, I firmly believe that we must invest in technology that 

would drastically limit avenues for smuggling a nuclear device into 

this country. I do not hold the notion that a terrorist that has gone 

to great lengths to acquire a nuclear device or fissile material is 

going to simply pack it in a random bale of marijuana and try to 

slip it into the country. Terrorists attempting to smuggle a nuclear 

weapon into the United States most likely only have one or a few 

weapons and will go to great lengths to limit the risk of being discovered. 

We must intelligently invest in detection technology and its deployment. I hope that we will discuss here today what kinds of detection technology we should invest in and how to leverage our 

technology options to create an architecture that maximizes the 

probability that we will deter smuggling and intercept a nuclear 

device. 

Our challenges are many. However, our investments in our national and academic labs, our strong partnerships with the private 

sector can and have provided us technological solutions. We must 

take this opportunity to invest wisely and not squander our scarce 

resources. 

I look forward to the discussion with our experts and government 

witnesses to help this committee understand the many questions it 

has. Do we deploy plastics or the more expensive sodium iodide 

gamma ray detectors? Should we use active or passive interrogation? Should we invest in detectors for non-nuclear physical attributes? How can we use an array of these options to maximize 

detection? 

It is not necessary to the terrorists’ chance of success that they 

be on the cutting edge of technology. They will not need to have 

the world’s most sophisticated technology in the year it comes out. 

They just need to know enough and have the sophistication to succeed in eluding us just once. However, to win the war on terrorism, 

we must constantly exploit our technological lead. 
3

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN LINDER

I would like to thank our witnesses today and recognize the distinguished Gentleman from New York, Mr. King, who chairs the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology for jointly holding this hearing. 

I look forward to your expert testimony regarding our efforts to deploy and develop technology to detect attempts by terrorist to smuggle a nuclear weapon or 

fissile material into the United States. 

I’m a strong believer in the power of technology, because it will be an important 

key to success in the war against terrorism. However, there is a dark side to the 

astounding progress of S&T. The rapid pace of technological development is the 

greatest single reason that terrorists must be taken more seriously than ever before. 

Because terrorists will eventually have access to technology that is being developed 

today. 

From the past seven hearings and classified briefings that my subcommittee has 

held on nuclear terrorism it has been made obvious that terrorist have access to 

science, technology and scientists. 

Let me begin with a few facts about our borders:

• The U.S. shares a 2,000 mile border with Mexico and the northern border 

with Canada stretches 5,000 miles. 

• We have 157 designated legal ports of entry. 

• 361 seaports, including 77 container seaports. 

• About 440 million visitors arrive by land, sea, and air each year—118 million 

vehicles, 11 million trucks, 2.5 million railcars, and 7 million cargo containers 

cross through our ports annually. 

• Length of the U.S. border including coasts and Lakes—about 20,000 miles 

My greatest concerns is that we are moving forward with deploying technology 

that may intercept an inept terrorist that attempts to smuggle a nuclear device or 

fissile material through our legal ports of entry and miss the smart one that will 

slip illegally with a pick up truck or a small boat—to then construct and detonate 

a bomb within the United States. 

However, I firmly believe that we must invest in technology that would drastically 

limit the avenues for smuggling a nuclear device into this country. I do not cater 

to the notion that a terrorist that has gone to great lengths to acquire a nuclear 

device or fissile material is going to simply pack it in a random bale of marijuana 

and try to slip it into the country. Terrorists attempting to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States, most likely only have one or a few weapons and would 

go to great lengths to limit the risk of being discovered. 

The value of a nuclear weapon to the terrorist provides us an opportunity which 

can be exploited. This means we must intelligently invest in detection technology 

and its deployment. I hope that we will discuss here today what types of detection 

technology we should invest in and how to leverage our technology options to create 

an architecture that maximizes the probability that we will deter smuggling and 

intercept a nuclear device. 

Our challenges are many, however, our investments in our National and Academic labs and our strong partnerships with the private sector can and has provided 

us technology solutions. We must take this opportunity to invest wisely and not 

squander our scarce resources. 

I look forward to the discussion with our experts and government witnesses to 

help this committee answer the many questions it has: Do we deploy plastics or the 

more expensive sodium iodide gamma-ray detectors? Should we use active or passive 

interrogation? Should we invest in detectors for non-nuclear physical attributes? 

How can we use an array of these options to maximize detection? 

It is not necessary to the terrorist’s chances of success that they be on the cutting 

edge of technology. They will not need to have the world’s most sophisticated technology in the year it comes out. They just need enough sophistication to succeed to 

elude us once. However, we can win the war on terrorism if we constantly exploit 

our technological lead.

The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the S&T subcommittee, Mr. Pascrell, for any comments he chooses to make. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Chairman 

King. On behalf of the minority, thank you for holding this hearing 

today on this very important subject of technology and equipment 

to monitor radiation at our Nation’s ports. 
4

Since 9/11, we have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars 

on radiation portal monitors, and this fact alone demands rigorous 

oversight on the part of the Congress. I applaud both subcommittees for taking action. 

While DHS should be commended for confronting the challenges 

of our changed world and taking immediate action to get this technology to our Nation’s ports, an abundance of recent evidence suggests that the technology used may not actually meet the needs at 

hand. It is the responsibility of the Congress to ensure that we are 

getting our money’s worth. In fiscal year 2006, the administration requested $125 million to 

purchase an additional 279 radiation portal monitors, which the 

House agreed to do within its Homeland Security appropriations 

bill. DHS began deploying these monitors in 2002 to mail facilities 

on the northern border. But from the beginning, this equipment 

has been plagued by problems, problems that are so severe that the 

government is now testing technologies to upgrade or replace the 

equipment recently installed. 

For example, the equipment that is currently in place cannot distinguish between a nuclear bomb and radiation that occurs naturally in items such as ceramic tile and cat litter. These nuisance 

alarms have caused some Border Patrol officials to adjust the sensitivity of the monitors downward, thus limiting their effectiveness. 

In February of 2004, the Department of Homeland Security 

adopted standards for radiological and nuclear detectors. At the 

same time, Under Secretary for Customs and Border Protection 

Asa Hutchinson said that ‘‘These standards will facilitate our ability to ensure that equipment meets rigorous standards and supports the quick deployment of the best equipment available.’’ 

I always applaud the development of robust standards, but 

should these standards not have been developed before the equipment was deployed? 

The committee will hear from representatives from three different Federal agencies. I am very interested in hearing from these 

witnesses about their roles and to what degree they can coordinate 

their efforts. 

One of these agencies is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. 

The mission of this office is to address many radiological and nuclear protective measures, but it is predominantly focused on nuclear detection. This includes establishing strong relationships 

across multiple departments and levels of government. I hope that 

this office, this Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, will ensure that 

conflicts are minimized among the agencies involved in this issue. 

I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses, especially 

from Bethann Rooney from the New York–New Jersey Port Authority. 

While we consider the deployment of radiation detection technology, it is imperative that we hear from the practitioners who are 

actually using the equipment. I am very interested in learning 

about the training that CBP inspectors or Port Authority police receive on this equipment as well. I am very interested in learning 

and hearing the Port Authority’s experiences with the equipment. 

It is my understanding that seaports have been the most difficult 

environment to deploy this equipment. How well did DHS work 
5

with the Port Authority? Are they experiencing the same problems 

of false, nuisance alarms? Do they have any suggestions on how the 

deployment process could improve? 

Again, thank you, Chairman King and Chairman Linder. 

We have been joined by Ranking Member Jim Langevin. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Mr. Pascrell. 

The Chair now recognizes the Chairman of the Subcommittee on 

Emergency Preparedness, Science, and Technology, the gentleman 

from New York, Mr. King, for any comments he might wish to 

make. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Chairman Linder. Let me commend you 

for your leadership on prevention issues, and Ranking Member 

Langevin and the ranking member of my subcommittee, Bill 

Pascrell, for their willingness to hold this joint hearing to examine 

the Federal Government’s efforts to protect us from nuclear or radiological attacks. 

I also want to welcome and thank our distinguished witnesses for 

appearing here today to discuss this issue which is of such vital importance to all of us. 

Like Bill Pascrell, I want to acknowledge Bethann Rooney, the 

Manager of Security for the Port Authority. As a New York resident, I want to thank her for keeping us safe. I know that Bill, who 

is from New Jersey, both of us have a particular vested interest in 

you doing your job, and I want to thank you for the job that you 

have done. 

In the interest of time, I am going to keep my remarks brief. But 

it goes without saying that the risk of a terrorist acquiring and detonating a nuclear or radiological device is one of the gravest 

threats to our Nation. 

To prevent a catastrophic nuclear or radiological attack, the U.S. 

has begun implementing a three-tiered strategy focused on securing nuclear weapons and radiological materials at their source, detecting the illicit movement of nuclear or radiological materials 

overseas, and enhancing our domestic detection and interdiction efforts. The installation and use of radiation portal monitors, RPMs, 

and other radiation detection technologies is a key component of 

each tier of the strategy, and this fact is at the very heart of this 

afternoon’s hearing. 

Our Nation’s reliance on RPMs and other detection devices, 

though, raises numerous questions, one, how effective is currently 

deployed technology at detecting certain radiological materials? 

What is the time frame for developing technologies that can detect 

illicitly trafficked nuclear material shielded by lead and other metals? How are the Federal agencies coordinating their RPM programs? 

I am especially curious as to why the Departments of Homeland 

Security, Energy and Defense each need multiple separate test 

beds. Isn’t such a duplication a waste of precious resources? Will 

the Department of Homeland Security’s new Office of Domestic Nuclear Detention, DNDO, enhance coordination among Federal agencies or just add one more layer of bureaucracy? 

Also—Congressman Pascrell commented on this—what kind of 

training does the Federal Government provide to port employees, 

border security personnel, first responders and others to operate 
6

radiation detection equipment? It is a truism that technology is 

only as effective as the people operating it. 

Even if radiation detection technology could be 100 percent effective, can RPMs guarantee our safety? Even with a domestic system 

in place, terrorists could detonate a nuclear device in a port before 

the cargo could be inspected. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to check 

for radiation when the cargo ships are still out at sea? 

Regardless of the technology’s effectiveness, should the Federal 

Government be spending up to $1 billion to deploy such technology 

at every point of entry into the United States? Even with the most 

robust system, couldn’t a terrorist simply just carry materials 

across an unprotected part of our land border with Canada or Mexico? 

These are the various questions out there. No one suggests the 

answers are easy, but it is hearings such as this that get to the 

root of the problems which do affect our Nation. 

So I am eager to hear your answers to these and other questions. 

I look forward to working with all of you on these important issues. 

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes my partner on this committee, the 

ranking member, Mr. Langevin from Rhode Island. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Chairman Linder. Let me just thank 

all of our witnesses for appearing today. I certainly look forward 

to hearing your testimony. 

I continue to believe that the threat of nuclear terrorism is very 

real and that our government must move aggressively if we are 

going to prevent a nuclear or radiological attack on our shores. 

This will be the subcommittee’s fourth hearing on the nuclear 

threat. After listening to many experts in both open and closed sessions, who have testified before us, I believe that the administration is not doing enough in terms of moving with the sense of urgency required to stay ahead of the terrorists. Not only is the administration not moving fast enough, but in some ways it appears 

it is operating in a vacuum. 

Today’s hearing will focus on the effectiveness of the radiation 

equipment deployed at our ports of entry. I know a great deal of 

attention will focus on the technical limitations of the equipment, 

such as radiation portal monitors. I think in fairness, though, we 

should state that these machines can detect the materials used in 

a dirty bomb, including plutonium. 

But what is more alarming to me than the device’s limitations 

is the speed at which they are deployed. Also the lack of detection 

strategy and the lack of resources needed to ensure that the best 

technology is being used in the field. 

Just 3 weeks ago, Secretary Chertoff was at the Port of Los Angeles–Long Beach, and he stated the port will have a full complement of radiation portal monitors by December 2005. That 

means that it would have taken the administration more than 4 

years after 9/11 to ensure that two of the largest seaports in the 

country have the ability to screen containers for nuclear or radiological material. I also understand that the Port of New York–New 

Jersey still does not have full coverage, and this is simply unacceptable. 
7

In addition, there is no overarching nuclear detection or interdiction strategy that drives the deployment or detection of equipment. 

Currently you have many government agencies involved in nuclear 

detection without a framework that ensures that all agencies are 

operating in an integrated fashion. We need a big-picture strategy 

to ensure that each layer in our defense is adequately covered. 

The administration has created a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, or DNDO, but it doesn’t appear that this office is responsible 

for developing and executing a national strategy. 

Finally, our detection capability will only be as good as the resources that are dedicated to it. Much more must be done from an 

R&D standpoint. 

The administration’s request for the new DNDO is $227 million. 

That is $273 million less than what is spent in Iraq in one day. 

If we are going to adequately deal with this threat, we have to ensure that our government is investing in the research required to 

develop and deploy the best technology available to our borders and 

our ports. This cannot be a case where our technology goes to the 

lowest bidder. The threat is too serious, and we all know that the 

terrorists are not going to wait for us to act. We must move with 

a sense of heightened urgency to deal with this threat now. 

I think today’s hearing is a good start, and I look forward to 

hearing from our witnesses. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman. Did the gentleman from 

Mississippi wish to make a statement? 

Mr. THOMPSON. No, Mr. Chairman. I have a statement for the 

record. 

Mr. LINDER. Okay. I would like to remind the rest of the members, statements for the record on your behalf are welcome. 

[The information follows:]

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER COX, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would also like to welcome and thank our witnesses for appearing today before this joint Subcommittee hearing to discuss this 

important issue and answer our questions. 

The risk of a terrorist acquiring and using a nuclear or radiological device is one 

of the greatest threats to our Nation. To prevent such an attack, we have sought 

to develop a robust layered defense—recognizing that there is no single, 100 percent 

solution. Under President Bush’s leadership, our Nation’s efforts to date include 

eliminating excess stocks of nuclear materials and weapons, protecting existing 

stocks from theft or diversion, detecting the illicit movement of nuclear or radiological materials overseas through both active and passive efforts, enhancing our detection and interdiction efforts here at home, and improving the security of our borders, ports, and cargo transportation systems. 

Today, we will focus on one part of this multi-pronged strategy—the deployment 

of radiation and nuclear detection technologies at key transit points at home and 

abroad. For the first time, representatives from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Department of Defense will 

be at the same witness table to talk about the various efforts the Federal government has underway to detect nuclear or radiological materials and prevent them 

from entering the United States. Each Department has its own program and area 

of responsibility, but today we will explore the level of coordination and harmonization among these programs. 

In particular, each of the Departments represented here today has its own initiative to install or deploy, whether at home or abroad, Radiation Portal Monitors 

(RPMs) and other radiation detection equipment at seaports, land border ports of 
8

entry and crossings, international airports, international mail facilities, and other 

critical facilities in an effort to detect smuggled nuclear or radiological materials. 

DHS, alone, plans to deploy a domestic, nationwide system of RPMs in an attempt 

to screen 100 percent of all incoming goods and cargo for such materials. While its 

initial plan called for a total cost of under $500 million and had a 2005 completion 

date, the latest revisions suggest a much costlier and lengthy project execution plan, 

with many unanswered technology questions. We need to fully understand this 

strategy and plan, and how it relates to DOE’s efforts overseas, before proceeding 

further. 

Each of the Departments represented here today also has a slightly different idea 

about which RPM technology is best and how it should be deployed. We need to 

know why. Does this make sense? Are our various Federal efforts sufficiently coordinated? 

Currently, we have numerous National laboratories and research facilities working on similar nuclear detection technology issues, under the direction of several different Federal agencies. While competition is useful to a point, we also need to ensure that we are leveraging these R&D investments most effectively. 

Similarly, there are questions regarding the efficacy of current and next-generation RPMs, as well as other radiation detection technologies such as Personal Radiation Dectectors (PRDs), and handheld isotope identifiers. Various elements of DHS 

are deploying these devices at significant cost, but are these investments worth it, 

and do the CBP and Coast Guard officers using these devices fully understand their 

limits? 

Mr. Chairman, let me close by emphasizing that we must never forget that the 

common denominator in all terrorist acts, of whatever kind or consequence, are the 

terrorists. Since there is no technology plan or strategy that will provide 100% protection against nuclear smuggling, these passive detection efforts—while important—must continue to be part of an integrated strategy that puts appropriate emphasis on offensive and active tracking, detection, and interdiction of the terrorists 

themselves. And it is within this broader context that radiation detection technology 

deployment must be considered. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and examining these important issues today, and as we continue to explore them in the 

future.

Mr. LINDER. We will now turn to our panel of expert witnesses. 

Mr. Gene Aloise is the Director of Natural Resources and Environment at the GAO. He is the GAO’s recognized expert on international nuclear nonproliferation and safety issues. 

Dr. Richard Wagner is a Senior Staff Member with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, based in D.C. He was a founding member of the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee of the Office of 

the Secretary of Defense and Chair of the Defense Science Board 

Task Force on the Prevention of, and Defense Against, Clandestine 

Nuclear Attack. 

Ms. Bethann Rooney is the Manager of Port Security for the Port 

Authority of New York and New Jersey. She is responsible for implementing and managing a comprehensive port security program 

and setting the strategy for the future of port security. 

Dr. Ben Tannenbaum is a Senior Program Associate with the 

Center For Science, Technology and Security at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received his Ph.D. in 

particle physics from the University of New Mexico. 

We welcome you all. Thank you for being here. We are happy to 

have you. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Aloise, if you would like to begin. We would like 

to try and have you keep within the 5-minute rule. We have your 

written statement for the record. You can start out how you choose. 
9

STATEMENT OF GENE ALOISE, DIRECTOR, NATURAL 

RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, GOVERNMENT 

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. ALOISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased 

to be here today to discuss our work assessing U.S. efforts to combat nuclear smuggling at home and in other countries through the 

deployment of radiation detection equipment at border crossings 

and other ports of entry. 

The threat that nuclear or radiological material can be smuggled 

across our borders is a real one and could happen in several ways. 

Nuclear material could be hidden in a car, truck, train or ship, carried in personal luggage through an airport, or walked across an 

unprotected border. 

My remarks today, which are based on our previous work in this 

area, will focus on the activities of U.S. Federal agencies deploying 

radiation detection equipment at home and in other countries, 

problems with coordination and planning among these agencies, 

and the effectiveness of radiation detection equipment deployed in 

the United States and other countries. 

Four U.S. agencies—DOE, DOD, State and DHS—are deploying 

radiation equipment and training border security personnel. Over 

the past 10 years, the Congress has appropriated about $500 million for international efforts and about $300 million for domestic efforts. 

Initial concerns about the threat posed by nuclear smuggling 

were focused on the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern 

Europe. As a result, in 1998, DOE created the Second Line of Defense program which, through the end of 2004, had installed equipment at 66 sites, mostly in Russia. In 2003, DOE implemented its 

Megaports Initiative, which focuses on major foreign seaports and, 

to date, has completed work at two ports and is equipping five others. 

Regarding the installation of this equipment at U.S. ports of 

entry, the U.S. Customs Service began providing inspectors with 

radiation detection pagers in 1998 and expanded its efforts after 9/

11. Just last month, DHS reported that it has installed more than 

470 portal monitors nationwide. Efforts to deploy radiation detection equipment at home and abroad did not start smoothly, and 

lacked effective coordination and planning. 

On the international side, one of the most troubling consequences 

of lack of coordination is that DOE and DOD were installing better 

equipment in some countries than the State Department installed 

in others. Specifically, DOE installed equipment in one country and 

DOD installed similar equipment in another country that is better 

able to detect weapons, usable HEU and plutonium than the lesssophisticated radiation detection equipment State has installed in 

more than 20 other countries. 

Since our report was issued, coordination has improved, though 

it is still a concern; and while better planning has occurred, in 

March of this year we reported that DOE’s Megaports Initiative did 

not include a comprehensive, long-term plan to guide its efforts. 

On the domestic front, we found that DHS had not coordinated 

with other Federal agencies and DOE national laboratories on 
10

long-term goals, including improving the radiation technology and 

portal monitors. 

This brings me to the subject of the effectiveness of the current 

generation of radiation detection equipment. It is well known that 

the equipment now being deployed in the United States and abroad 

has limitations. Furthermore, the ways in which the equipment is 

deployed, operated and maintained can also limit its effectiveness. 

Our work has identified problems not only with the equipment, 

but the way the inspectors have used the equipment as well, including allowing vehicles to pass through portals at high speeds, 

excessively reducing the sensitivity of portal monitors to limit the 

number of nuisance alarms, and using radiological detection pagers 

for purposes they were not designed for. In addition, environmental 

conditions, such as cold climates, high winds and sea spray can affect the equipment’s performance. 

It is important to note that radiation detection equipment is only 

one of the tools that Customs inspectors and border guards use to 

combat nuclear smuggling. Proper training and intelligence are key 

and are vital. 

Furthermore, our first line of defense are U.S. programs to secure nuclear material at its source, both in the former Soviet Union 

and the United States. Radiation detection programs complement 

these other programs. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. 

That concludes my statement. I would be happy to respond to any 

questions you may have. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Mr. Aloise. 

[The statement of Mr. Aloise follows:]
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26

Mr. LINDER. Dr. Wagner. 

STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD L. WAGNER, JR., CHAIR, 

DEFENSE SCIENCE BOARD TASK FORCE ON PREVENTION 

OF, AND DEFENSE AGAINST, CLANDESTINE NUCLEAR 

ATTACK 

Dr. WAGNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am gratified that your 

two subcommittees are addressing this problem. I have worked on 

this problem now, the problem of defending the country against—

Mr. LINDER. Doctor, your mike is not on. 

Dr. WAGNER. I am sorry. I thought it was. Is it working now? 

Thank you very much. 

I am gratified that these subcommittees are working on this 

problem. I have, for 33 years now, I think it is, been involved in 

activities to defeat this threat, until about—well, unfortunately, it 

took the events of 9/11 before the government and the country 

began to pay attention to it. So I am gratified to see your committee and the executive branch are now finally trying to pay attention to it. 

You have my prepared statement. It is clear to me from your 

statements that you are thinking ahead of this problem. So what 

I would like to do in my few minutes allotted here is not paraphrase my prepared statement, but try to address two or three of 

the points you made. I may regret this, because I am not sure I 

am going to be articulate enough to do it well, but I will try. 

Chairman Linder, you used the word ‘‘deterrence,’’ and I think 

that since no defense, no matter how much money we spend on the 

technology and the deployments, is going to be perfect, it is important for us to build it and deploy it and operate it in such a way 

that it enhances deterrence. That means creating an uncertainty in 

the mind of the attacker as to what the best way to penetrate the 

defense is. That uncertainty can be created either by accident or 

by deliberate actions. 

I think that those developing this system ought to put more attention than I believe they are putting on methods to deliberately 

deploy and operate the system in ways that create uncertainty on 

the part of the detector. I think that is an important subject for the 

Congress to look at. It would have to be done in closed hearings. 

Second, Chairman King, you asked how fast can we get to improved detectors? In my prepared statement and the Defense 

Science Board Task Force that I chaired, both assert that it is possible to improve detection technology by a lot, think a factor of 10 

better, although the metric for exactly what you mean by a factor 

of 10 is a little fuzzy. 

But, Chairman King, you asked, how fast can we get to better 

technology. And, Mr. Pascrell, you suggested that developing better 

standards should be done before the equipment is deployed. 

To me, the administration in its management of this work and 

the Congress are going to have to walk a fine line between exercising too little and too much oversight. To develop standards too 

soon means that they won’t be right. The standards will have to 

be developed in an iterative way, where systems are put in the 

field, worked with, the flaws are seen and then preliminary standards are developed; and then the next generation of testing the 
27

equipment in the field to those preliminary standards will lead to 

firmer standards. So that is an iterative process. 

I believe you and the executive branch are going to have to recognize that there will be false starts and there will be money wasted. 

If you and they try too hard to eliminate all mistakes, we will not 

end up with a system that protects this country, or we will end up 

with it in 500 years and we won’t have it when we need it. 

So I believe you are going to have to find some way—and I don’t 

have a prescription for you—for finding just the right degree of 

oversight, but not too much. The same for the executive branch. 

The key to that is getting some good people in place, leaving them 

in place and building trust between yourselves and them; and that 

is a two-way street. 

Let me comment on Mr. Langevin’s comment on the amount of 

money that is available. I am not carrying a brief for the administration’s programs here, I think they have been too slow, not just 

for the last 4 years, but for the last 20-something years, but I believe the administration’s request for R&D in this area for fiscal 

2006 is about right. That will be really kind of the first year, in 

which if the Appropriations Committees fund at the appropriate 

level, at that level, it will be really the first year for a serious program. 

I think you could expect, however, that the administration requests for R&D might go up in the years beyond that in order to 

reach what I will call the ‘‘technology limit,’’ as opposed to the 

funding limit approach to developing these technologies. 

Chairman King, you mentioned also that you would prefer to see 

checks for radiation while the cargo ships are at sea. I think that 

is a crucially important theme to pursue. I think that there have 

been two or three approaches brought to my attention, one by a 

graduate student—no, he was an undergraduate student at the 

time, at MIT—for doing that job in a pretty clever way. I think that 

more attention should be devoted to developing methods of detection at sea. And, in general, the farther out we can beat this 

threat, the better. I don’t want them to get even as close as the 

ports, and I would prefer they not get the threat objects onto the 

ship to begin with. 

To do that, to defend as far forward as possible, DOE has programs for second lines of defense and their Material Protection and 

Control programs, and the Nunn-Lugar activities are crucially important and have to be woven into an overall global architecture for 

dealing with this problem. 

Then, finally, let me say with regard to beating the threat far 

away from our shores, the Department of Defense is going to have 

to play an important role in doing that. Many of the scenarios, I 

think, that could lead to attacks like this will involve failed regimes, let’s say, in which DOD might want to take action forward, 

should have the capability to take action forward. 

The DOD is beginning to step up to this problem in several ways. 

I chaired the Defense Science Board Task Force, which reports to 

the Secretary of Defense, so I am involved in this. DOD has recently assigned the responsibility for their programs for combating 

WMD to the United States Strategic Command at Omaha. I am on 

their advisory committee as well, and I think it is crucially impor-
28

tant for DOD to continue to step forward on this problem, and I 

would suggest that your committee might want to help them do 

that. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Dr. Wagner. 

[The statement of Mr. Wagner follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD L. WAGNER

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, members of the committees, I am honored to be 

here to speak to you about the effectiveness of available technology for detecting nuclear weapons and radiological materials, and the potential for improving effectiveness in the future with new technology resulting from research and development. 

I am encouraged that the House Committee on Homeland Security and its subcommittees have focused so strongly on the crucial task of protecting our nation 

against clandestine nuclear attack. 

I represent the 2002/2003 Defense Science Board Task Force on Prevention of, 

and Defense Against, Clandestine Nuclear Attack. I am a senior staff member with 

the Los Alamos National Laboratory, although I do not represent the laboratory 

here today. 

Nearly forty-five years ago, my Ph.D. thesis experiment in physics involved radiation detection. Since then, on several occasions, I have done additional scientific 

work, or managed programs, that involved advanced radiation detection. Over thirty 

years ago, I helped form, at the national laboratories, what later became the DOE’s 

Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST). In the winter of 1978, I was co-scientificleader of the NEST deployment to northern Canada to search for radioactive debris 

from the Soviet Union’s Cosmos 954 satellite. In the 1980s, as Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy, I brought NEST capabilities into the Department of Defense, and was involved in various activities to detect nuclear weapons. 

In 1997, and again in 2002/2003, I chaired Defense Science Board (DSB) Task 

Forces related to defense against smuggled nuclear weapons. 

I want to make the following six points to you today: 

1. Radiation detection at portals is but one part of what must be a multilayered, 

multi-component, civil/military, global architecture to prevent smuggling of nuclear 

weapons into the US. Effective detection at portals will require detection of other 

signatures than radiation, but effective radiation detection is essential. 

2. Currently installed radiation detection systems, or systems which could be procured in quantity in the next year or two, are quite limited in their capabilities and, 

in general, are insufficient to the task. Substantial research and development (R&D) 

is needed to improve detection capabilities. But deployment of even the limited 

near-term capabilities should be significantly expanded to: (1) provide some degree 

of added protection for the nation in the near term, (2) expand the experience base 

in operations with radiation detection systems in order to help guide research and 

development of greatly improved capabilities for the future, and (3) build the necessary industrial base. • When I speak of radiation detection capabilities, I mean not only the detectors themselves, but networks of detectors, communications and signal processing, protocols for resolving alarms, and operational concepts for detection and 

response-to-detection systems. 

3. With an expanded, spiral, research and development (R&D) program, carried 

out in the aggressive style that characterized certain highly successful R&D programs in other areas over the past few decades, capabilities to detect the presence 

or transit of nuclear weapons can be improved greatly, within about five years, before reaching the limits imposed by the physics involved. 

• Capabilities of specific detectors against specific weapon designs are classified. Appendix #1 is an unclassified excerpt from the report of the most recent 

DSB Task Force that I chaired, which describes in general terms current and 

potential future detection capabilities. 

4. I cannot provide you with a detailed prescription for how to apportion resources, over time, among near-term deployments with limited capability, R&D, and 

later deployments of improved capability. Such time-phasing must be worked out in 

some detail, and must be allowed to change flexibly, even within budget cycles, as 

operational experience is gained and as early results of R&D come in. But it might 

be useful for you to think in terms of four generations of capabilities, as follows: 

• Currently installed detection systems. 

• Modest but worthwhile improvements that might be developed and deployed 

within a year or two. 
29

• A first generation of greatly improved detection systems that would be quite 

expensive, but which should nevertheless be deployed in limited quantities to 

protect some crucial locations and to try them out in the field. 

• A generation that achieves greatly improved detection at greatly reduced cost, 

which would be widely deployed in the mature, objective architecture. 

5. Even with the best detection systems, the overall future protection architecture 

will not be perfect. No defense can be perfect. But a less-than-perfect defense can 

be effective if it has enough capability to: 

• Cause prospective attackers to have serious doubts as to whether they will 

succeed. 

• Create synergies with other system elements, for example by forcing the 

attacker to mount a larger operation which is more likely to be discovered so 

that warning can allow the defense to surge its capability. 

I believe that, with an aggressive R&D program, we can achieve that level of capability. The utility of a less than perfect defense is discussed in Appendix #2, which 

is also excerpted from the DSB report. 

6. The establishment, by the administration, of the Domestic Nuclear Detection 

Office (DNDO) is a big step in the right direction. It should be strongly supported 

by the Congress, along with especially strong support for ‘‘transformational R&D’’. 

But work on transformational capabilities is unlikely to be effective unless it is carried out in the style that characterized certain highly successful R&D programs in 

other areas over the past several decades. In Appendix #3, which is derived from 

recent discussions on this subject among me and a few broadly experienced colleagues, I mention these programs and say some things about their style. Support 

of the Congress will be essential in doing the program this way.

APPENDIX #1. EXCERPT FROM DEFENSE SCIENCE BOARD REPORT: 

4.0 ASSESSING DEFENSE PERFORMANCE AND THE UTILITY OF 

POTENTIAL SYSTEMS’ IMPROVEMENTS 

. . .Defense performance is determined by many factors. The performance of radiation detection systems is only one of them, but it is an important one, and we will 

use such systems’ performance to illustrate broader issues. . . . 

As with other elements of the protection/prevention architecture, the performance 

of radiation-based detection systems can be thought of on three levels. . . . 

At the level of detailed technical metrics—detection range, detection time, false 

alarm rates, etc.—much of what this report recommends is based on our judgment 

that significant improvement is possible in detection-systems’ performance in threat 

scenarios. Relative effectiveness is not too difficult to assess, but assessing absolute 

effectiveness is difficult for several significant reasons. One difficulty is that the 

utility of detectors in real operations depends strongly on natural radiation backgrounds, which vary greatly from place to place and often in time. Such backgrounds, and the nature of radiation detection in general, introduce a probabilistic 

element in assessment of performance, and the significance of detection and falsealarm probabilities is very scenario-dependent. All of this fuzzes concreteness, which 

creates difficulties in assessing system performance and in planning defense (and 

is one basis for our belief that performance can only be determined by field experience with real systems). . .

4.1 Radiation detection performance 

Despite these difficulties, rough estimates of radiation detection performance can be 

made. The referenced IEEE paper lays out some approaches to improving radiation 

detection and attempts to assess the degree of improvement in terms of both technical metrics and scenario assessment. Key points are excerpted below. 

Today’s capabilities. Only passive detection is available today. Correlated operation of multiple detectors can be done today only for a small number of sensors 

that can be integrated by human intelligence, assisted by limited automatic processing. With these and other capabilities: 

• Plutonium devices can be detected in vehicles at portals, in cargo containers, 

and in vehicles at speed, if the device is unshielded or lightly shielded. 

• Detection of devices containing highly enriched uranium (HEU) is very difficult and varies widely and is limited today to short range. In some cases lightly shielded devices can be detected at portals. In other cases they can be detected only if they are essentially unshielded. 

Some high-value targets are defensible, thanks to geographic features that channel 

traffic through defensible chokepoints, where capable portal monitors can be stationed. Traffic that attempts to bypass these chokepoints (e.g., on foot) is by definition suspect, and can be detected by non-nuclear techniques. 
30

These current capabilities may be impaired by high and/or variable natural radiation backgrounds or innocent man-made radiation sources that yield unmanageable 

false alarm rates. 

In the future. This report recommends greatly expanded R&D on radiation detection. The referenced IEEE paper illustrates some improvements in capabilities that 

would result from R&D. The following points summarize the potential benefits: 

• Detection range can be extended by an order of magnitude, opening new defense operational modes such as rapid, wide-area airborne and vehicle sweeps, 

and monitoring large remote areas and/or extensive road networks. Shielding 

around the weapon could reduce performance of the detection systems, but the 

shielding mass can slow down the attacker and expose him to discovery by 

other means—e.g., detection of the shielding itself. 

• Increased range and improved false alarm rejection will enable intelligent 

networking of detectors. This could enable coverage of road and rail transport 

over significant distances—e.g., along the U.S. East Coast, where long-distance 

transport must pass through a relatively small number of choke points. 

• Background and innocent alarm rejection will allow detection of HEU in a 

wider range of circumstances, for example (in certain cases) in cargo that is naturally radioactive (e.g., bananas). 

• Increased sensitivity and background rejection could virtually eliminate the 

effects of incidental shielding in vehicles or cargo containers, except for HEU 

in certain cases. 

• More-portable and longer-lived sources for active interrogation will enable 

widespread screening of containers and vehicles. Advances in detectors and 

sources will allow operational restrictions on active interrogation due to health 

and safety concerns to be reduced. 

Beyond such general and qualitative statements, what can be done with radiation 

detection is complicated to describe. It is a multi-dimensional parameter space, even 

for a single attack scenario against a single defense layer. There are many possible 

scenarios, and we have posited a multi-layer defense. The format of the chart below 

is one greatly simplified way of summarizing some of this complexity. It illustrates 

a fundamental offense/defense trade between the detection range and time available 

for detection, and amount of shielding around the device that can reduce the radiation output of the threat object.

The detection metric that the vertical axis represents is a function of range and 

dwell-time, and it varies by approximately six orders of magnitude along that axis. 

The diagonal lines on the chart reflect current and future capabilities, some of 

which are summarized in the paragraphs immediately preceding the chart. The uncertainties and variations in the vertical location of the diagonal lines are about an 

order of magnitude, as illustrated by the plutonium current technology line. The relative locations of the lines are less uncertain. ....
31

Appendix #2: Excerpt from Defense Science Board Report

4.3 Thinking about the utility of imperfect defenses 

When and if the community involved in this work becomes able to assess system 

performance against threats accurately and comprehensively, it will be found that 

the defense is not leak-proof, as no defense can be. Because of this, some might 

argue that devoting the level of resources entailed in the Task Force recommendations would be wasted. We believe this is profoundly wrong. No protection system 

can be perfect, but over the course of history, defenses that are far from perfect have 

played vital strategic roles. To deal analytically with the issue of imperfect defense, 

the third level of performance measures—including the overall goals of the defense—must be addressed. . . .

With the best technology we can develop, how effective can prevention/defense be? 

• Much better technology is essential, but not sufficient alone 

• Right—not perfection; rather: attenuate threat, dissuade attempts, thwart some 

attacks, delay successful attack 

—Historically, imperfect defenses often effective 

• Reference point: during late ’70s, early ’80s, the US. . . 

• Best technology can raise defenses above ‘‘the threshold of dauntingness’’, dissuade attempts. 

— Deliberately create uncertainties for attacker 

• Synergies help. Examples: 

— Better defense‰ larger threat operation‰ more signatures 

‰ possible warning‰ surge defenses 

— Concentrate nuc mat’ls control on hardest-to-detect mat’ls 

• Can’t answer with paper studies; can find out only by trying 

The stakes are worth the bet 

The goal that should be set for a national/global system and its DoD elements is 

not perfection. Rather, because clandestine nuclear attack attempts will not be frequent, the goal should be to substantially attenuate the frequency of successful attacks (including significantly delaying the first one). Delay and attenuation could 

provide time to mitigate the threat in other ways, including measures to ameliorate 

the underlying political and cultural factors that stimulate the terrorist threat, writ 

large. 

Many of us believe that a strong case can be made that prevention/protection can 

be developed that will substantially attenuate the frequency of successful attacks, 

by being good enough to (1) dissuade or deter many of those who might consider 
32

attempting attacks and (2) thwart or defeat a good fraction of the (fewer) attacks 

that might be attempted. The deterrent aspect of the protection equation involves 

the often-great differences between how a defender and an attacker will view the 

relative capabilities of the defense. The long history of offense/ defense competitions 

is strongly characterized by both sides taking own-side-conservative views. More 

particularly, the annals of terrorism and counterterrorism are replete with instances 

in which a prospective attacker was deterred by aspects of the defense that may 

have seemed relatively weak and ineffectual to the defender. The terrorist may not 

be afraid to die, but he (or his master) does not want to fail. 

Dissuasion/deterrence by the adversary’s fear of failure might work in a variety 

of ways. One aspect is that an attacker will want to know enough about the defense 

to design a robust, successful attack. If the capabilities of the defense can be improved enough that the attacker must know the details of defensive measures in 

place to understand how to best surmount them, then the attacker may expose himself to discovery during the planning phases of the attack or be altogether dissuaded 

from the attempt. 

Creating uncertainty in the attacker’s mind will be critical to maximizing the success of defenses which, realistically, cannot aspire to perfection. To exploit the effects of uncertainty, the defense should be deliberately designed and deployed to create as much ambiguity for the attacker as possible as to where the ‘‘boundaries’’ of 

defense performance lie. Deliberate deception should be used (carefully) as part of 

an overall perception management effort. 

Data that can be used to be more analytic about these and other deterrence effects should be systematically assembled from the annals of counterterrorism. 

Many kinds of synergies contribute to defense effectiveness. An obvious one is the 

effect of a layered defense, as we propose. With multiple layers, each layer need not 

be highly effective in order for the overall effectiveness to be high. If the layers require different tactics or technologies to penetrate, the attacker’s job is considerably 

more difficult. This indicates a fundamental synergy between a layered defense and 

the capability to detect the threat by intelligence indicators, including from law-enforcement activities. A more capable and varied defense means that the attacker 

must mount a larger operation to penetrate it. A larger operation has more (and 

more observable) signatures. More people with more skills must be recruited and 

trained; more money must be obtained and laundered; the operation takes longer; 

and the attacker must surveil the defense more intensively. By increasing the signature of attack planning, the likelihood of discovery increases commensurately. This, 

in turn, could allow the defenses to be surged, further increasing effectiveness. 

These preliminary thoughts about the effectiveness of a defense have led the Task 

Force and its predecessors to become convinced that reasonable success in mitigating the threat is sufficiently likely that, in light of the seriousness of the threat 

and of the consequences of successful attack, a serious development and deployment 

program is warranted..

Appendix #3: Assuring program effectiveness 

The establishment of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) is an extremely positive step in improving and deploying detection systems, and will provide 

a group which, adequately funded and properly located organizationally, can do 

much to accomplish the objectives cited above. But in light of the stakes involved, 

it is fair to ask whether DNDO will be able to improve deployed detection technology as much and as quickly as possible. DNDO’s charter and authorities, as they 

are expressed in its founding documents, are sound as far as they go, but there are 

intangibles that are crucially important for success and that are difficult to address 

in a charter or authority. These intangibles are what I address here. 

To deal with such a difficult scientific, technological, and operational issue requires innovation, free thinking, continuity of effort, creativity and simultaneous 

risk taking (technology investments that may ultimately prove dead-ended). None 

of these qualities are among those generally attributed to the government’s conventional research and development process—which often discourages even prudent 

risk taking and is at best ponderously slow. 

It has generally been found that truly creative research is best pursued by maintaining close coupling between the researchers and those dealing with day-to-day 

operational challenges. At the same time, it is exactly these latter challenges which 

often usurp the attention, priority, and budgetary resources which would otherwise 

be devoted to longer-term research. 

When facing such challenges in the past the government has generally been most 

successful when it removed the attack on a specific high priority problem from the 

every-day research and development process and established a dedicated, high priority assault on the specific issue at hand. DNDO is intended to catalyze such an 
33

assault, but whether it will be successful will depend on its ability to emulate key 

features of past successes. Examples include the Manhattan Project, the Apollo 

Project, the development of the Polaris submarine system, and the development of 

the U–2, SR–71 and F–117 at the ‘‘skunk Works’’. What is needed is a mini-Manhattan Project which focuses specifically on the detection of nuclear weapons and materials. The development of a weapons detection capability is not an easy task, but 

neither was the development of the nuclear weapon itself.

Key features of many of the past successes mentioned above include: 

• high-risk, high-payoff developments are pursued, hedging against possible 

failure with alternative approaches carried out in parallel; 

• R&D reaches from basic research through to fieldable prototypes; 

• a streamlined management process with minimal ‘‘outside’’ influence; 

• a cooperative and open relationship between government and industrial/academic participants; 

• the role of senior, centralized government leadership is to set broad goals, secure funding, and provide freedom of action for the R&D teams; and 

• the R&D is conducted mainly outside of government by large, integrated, 

multi-disciplinary R&D teams with forceful and experienced leaders, and with: 

• wide latitude to achieve broad, ambitious, mission-level goals, 

• direct, frequent, working-level contact between users and R&D people, 

• freedom to change R&D objectives and approaches quickly and flexibly as 

the R&D proves what is feasible, and 

• the expectation of continued involvement to achieve both near-term milestones and long-term goals. 

To accomplish such a feat would entail waiving many of the existing procurement 

regulations which were designed to conduct the ordinary course of research and development in the government. 

The approach sketched here would be exceptional today—a significant departure 

from the way most government R&D is currently done. Because of this, it will be 

controversial and difficult to implement and will need high level support, including 

from the Congress.

Mr. LINDER. Ms. Rooney. 

STATEMENT OF BETHANN ROONEY, MANAGER, PORT 

SECURITY, PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY 

Ms. ROONEY. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon on the important 

issue of detecting radiation entering the Nation through our U.S. 

ports. 

In early 2003, Customs and Border Protection announced that 

the radiation portal monitor program would be started in the top 

22 ports in the country, including New York and New Jersey. We 

fully support the deployment of radiation detectors in our port and 

believe they serve an important function as the absolute last layer 

of defense in detection strategy. Our experience with the RPM initiative, in particular, the cooperation with the local Customs and 

Border Protection and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory staff, 

has been certainly exceptional. 

To date, a total of 22 RPMs have been deployed in the port. As 

has been indicated, we are not fully covered and there are another 

10 RPMs expected to be deployed later this year. We are now averaging approximately 150 alarms a day from the radiation portal 

monitors that are installed, which is about one in 40 containers 

that moves through our facilities. This high level of innocent or 

nuisance alarms are from commodities such as kitty litter, ceramics, medical isotopes and the like. 

Customs personnel are stationed at the exit gates of the container terminals. In each instance that a container sets off an 

alarm, they are immediately directed to a secondary inspection 
34

area where the containers are scanned with a radiological isotope 

identifier and compared to the manifest. 

CBP follows strict protocols to determine the source of the alarm. 

In the vast majority of the cases, these alarms are solved within 

10 minutes or less causing no undue delays to the flow of commerce. In the 16 months since these RPMs have been operational 

in the ports, only twice have they detected what is believed to be 

a neutron source which would be indicative of either plutonium or 

uranium. In these instances, the container was isolated and CBP 

worked with the Port Authority police and other Federal, State and 

local agencies in order to render the container safe, taking upwards 

of 24 hours to do so. 

Approximately 15 percent of our containerized cargo volume 

moves by rail or barge out of the port. None of that cargo, or virtually none of that cargo, is currently being scanned by the radiation portal monitor deployment. CBP recognizes this shortcoming 

in the program and is working with Pacific Northwest Lab and our 

terminal operators in order to devise options to screen this 

internodal cargo. 

In addition to screening the rail cargo, we also must find a way 

to screen the cargo that transferred by barge, because in many instances these barge movements are going through highly congested 

urban areas and we don’t want these containers to be delivered to 

an inland area without being scanned. 

Also given its heavy focus on containerized cargo since 9/11, we 

remain concerned about the ability to use imported vehicles, busses 

and subway cars to deliver weapons of mass destruction to the 

United States. We import approximately 620,000 automobiles a 

year, and absent any other programs to check the integrity of vehicular cargo and inspect it upon arrival in the United States, we 

believe that steps must also be taken with the auto terminal operators to devise a methodology of screening this cargo with suitable 

technology. 

Under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, 

Science and Technology Directorate, the Port Authority is involved 

in a very productive program of testing radiation sensor technologies at various transportation facilities, including our river 

crossings, airports and seaports. 

Since most of the commercial off-the-shelf radiation detection devices use gross counters, a large number of alarms from innocent 

sources are generated when the detection threshold is set too low. 

Under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security’s 

Environmental Measurement Lab, we have first bench-tested devices with various radiation sources and operating conditions at the 

Brookhaven National Lab before deploying them at our facilities. 

Two devices are now ready for commercialization and could be 

available for use as early as fiscal year 2006. These devices will be 

better at detecting things such as highly enriched uranium and 

plutonium. 

The new Domestic Nuclear Detection Office at the Department of 

Homeland Security provides an opportunity to recommend a comprehensive research agenda that would focus on the marine transportation system. We should take advantage of opportunities to detect, deter and intercept a device well before it passes through a 
35

terminal exit gate. Among the ways to do this is to place radiation 

detection devices on the container entry cranes or other container 

handling equipment. The Federal Government should establish a 

research and development program focusing on identifying a way 

to scan 100 percent of the containers as they are off-loaded from 

the ship or when they are sitting idle in the terminal for upwards 

of 7 days. 

We would also encourage the development of an integrated scanning and detection device that would essentially allow for the RPM 

and the VACIS exam to occur simultaneously. This holistic approach could provide 100 percent screening of international cargo 

for both radiation and density without causing additional delays. 

As screening technology is further developed and tested, we must 

also take into consideration the potential impact that this technology might have on other container security devices, such as electronic seals and the advanced container security device. We have 

experienced in Operation Safe Commerce trials that the VACIS 

exam may have interfered with the radio signals generated by electronic seals, thus rendering them unusable. Therefore, the interference of VACIS and RPM inspection must be considered as these 

technologies are further developed and deployed. 

Of course, detecting a weapon of mass destruction after it arrives 

in our port or anywhere in the U.S. is too late. Since 9/11, the Federal policy has been to push our American borders out, and DHS 

from those very first days has implemented that policy through 

various programs. 

In keeping with that policy and with a layered approach to security, RPMs or other suitable radiation detection devices should be 

installed at foreign ports of export. It would give the U.S. greater 

confidence that cargo headed our way is not likely to contain a 

weapon of mass destruction. 

I hope my comments today have provided you with some helpful 

insight on just one aspect of this complex matter of radiation detection. We at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey are 

prepared to offer any additional assistance that you may require. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Ms. Rooney. 

[The statement of Ms. Rooney follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BETHANN ROONEY

Mr. Chairmen, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the important issue of radiation detection as it relates to our nation’s ports. 

I am Bethann Rooney and I am the Manager of Port Security at the Port Authority 

of New York & New Jersey. 

I appreciate the invitation to speak on the steps that have been taken since 9/

11 to secure our ports and maritime industry from terrorist acts, specifically our 

ability to detect nuclear weapons and radiological materials that may attempt to 

enter the country through our Port. The tragic events of September 11th have focused our collective attention on the need to protect our borders at major international gateways like the Port of New York and New Jersey and small ports alike. 

This morning I would like to briefly discuss the vital nature of ports and the risk 

associated with them; the importance of supply chain security, the status of Radiation Portal Monitor deployment in the Port; our experience with the Department 

of Homeland Security Countermeasure Test Bed and finally some recommended 

next steps.

THE VITAL ROLE OF PORTS 

Ninety-five percent of the international goods that come into the country come in 

through our nation’s 361 ports; twelve percent of that volume is handled in the Port 
36

of New York and New Jersey alone, the third largest port in the country. The Port 

generates 229,000 jobs and $10 billion in wages throughout the region. Additionally, 

the Port contributes $2.1 billion to state and local tax revenues and $24.4 billion 

to the US Gross Domestic Product. Cargo that is handled in the Port serves 80 million people or thirty-five percent of the entire US population. In 2004 the port handled over 5,200 ship calls, 4.478 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), which 

is approximately 7,300 containers each day, 728,720 autos and 80.6 million tons of 

general cargo. Today international trade accounts for 30 percent of the US economy. 

Considering all this, it is easy to see how a terrorist incident in our nation’s ports 

and along the cargo supply chain would have a devastating effect on our country 

and its economy.

THE TERRORIST RISK 

When describing the potential impact of a terrorist event, the words ‘‘risk’’, 

‘‘threat’’ and ‘‘vulnerability’’ have generally been used interchangeably. The fact, 

however, is that in the standard risk equation, risk is a factor of threat, vulnerability and consequence. Therefore, any discussion of the terrorist risk to ports and 

other elements of the marine transportation system (MTS) must include each of 

those three areas. 

The most difficult area to understand is the threat, mostly because it is a moving 

target and we must assume that terrorists are devising new tactics everyday. There 

are a number of threat scenarios however that are believed to be more likely and 

therefore are those that most maritime security programs today are built around. 

These include the use of vessels and ports as a means to smuggle weapons of mass 

destruction or terrorist operatives into the United States, the use of ships as a 

weapon, the scuttling of ships in major shipping channels, and attacks on ships such 

as ferries or oil tankers. Since 9/11, we have seen a number of these tactics used 

around the globe in events such as suicide bombings using containers in the Port 

of Ashdod, small boat attacks on an oil platform in Al Basra and the French oil 

tanker Limberg, and the transportation of suspected terrorist operatives via containers in Italy. 

The maritime transportation system’s vulnerability or the likelihood that the safeguards will fail is complicated by the general nature and openness of ports, with 

hundreds of miles of shorelines and facilities that have historically been public access areas. Additionally, the movement of cargo has been built on the tenets of 

speed, reliability and cost, not security. Therefore, the sheer volume of containers 

that move through US ports on a daily basis makes them potentially attractive as 

a potential Trojan horse . . .62,000 of them. 

The consequences of a terrorist attack by means of the maritime industry could 

have an overwhelming and lasting effect. Not only would there potentially be significant death and destruction but the national and global economies could be devastated. It is estimated that for every day that a port is shut down, it takes seven 

days for full recovery. The West Coast labor strikes last year demonstrated that a 

ten day shut down can cost an estimated one billion dollars a day. 

While our ability to directly influence the threat is limited we can use our understanding of the threat, to make infrastructure improvements, and create policies, 

programs and procedures that can help reduce our vulnerability and the consequences and thereby mitigate our overall risk.

OUR PROGRESS SINCE 9/11

As a result of significant legislative action, capital investments and operational 

improvements on the part of the public and private sectors in the nearly three and 

a half years since 9/11, the Maritime Transportation System (MTS) is more secure 

today than ever before. While significant progress has been made and much has 

been accomplished, work still remains to be done.

A Multifaceted Approach 

Enhancing maritime security is a complex problem which requires a multi-faceted 

and layered approach. Maritime security is so much more than just the physical security of our ports and terminals and the vessels that use them. We must also enhance security of the supply chain and the cargo that moves through our ports.

Cargo and Supply Chain Security 

America’s consumer-driven market now depends upon a very efficient logistics 

chain, of which the nation’s ports are just a single link. US ports provide the platform to transfer imported goods from ships to our national transportation system—

primarily trucks and trains—that ultimately deliver those products to local retail 

outlets or material to manufacturing plants. Historically, that goods movement system has had one overall objective: to move cargo as quickly and cheaply as possible 

from point to point. Today, a new imperative—national security—has imposed itself 
37

onto that system. As such, we know that ports themselves are not the lone point 

of vulnerability. Rather, the potential for terrorist activity stretches from where 

cargo is stuffed into a container overseas to any point along the cargo’s route to its 

ultimate destination.

We believe that through programs like Operation Safe Commerce, a Federally 

supported study of international supply chain security, of which the Port Authority 

of New York & New Jersey is a part, efforts must be taken to verify the contents 

of containers before they are even loaded on a ship destined for a US port. The process must include certification that the container was packed in a secure environment, sealed so that its contents cannot be tampered with, transported under the 

control of responsible parties, and screened for dangerous substances before it is 

loaded on a ship. This will be accomplished through the identification and evaluation of new technology, business processes, policies and procedures that could improve supply chain security, and minimize disruption to commerce. The solutions 

must also be economically and commercially viable.

The many programs that the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security have 

implemented in the last three years—MegaPorts, the 24-Hour Rule, the CustomsTrade Partnership Against Terrorism (C–TPAT), the Container Security Initiative 

(CSI), the increase in VACIS exams, and the deployment of Radiation Portal Monitors (RPMs) at terminals are all valuable elements of a layered security system and 

have gone a long way toward ensuring supply chain security.

RADIATION PORTAL MONITORS 

One of the many layers of cargo security is Radiation Portal Monitors (RPMs). In 

response to a Congressional mandate to preclude nuclear weapons and radiological 

materials from entering the United States, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) 

established a strategy in early 2003 to deploy RPMs at twenty-two ports throughout 

the country, including the Port of New York and New Jersey. RPMs are a passive, 

non-intrusive means to screen containers for the presence of nuclear and radiological materials, including special nuclear material (SNM), naturally occurring radiation and common medical and industrial isotopes. 

We fully support the deployment of radiation detectors in our Port and believe 

they serve an important function as the absolute last layer of the defense in depth 

strategy. Of course, detecting a Weapon of Mass Destruction after it arrives in our 

Port, or anywhere in the US, is too late. The placement of RPMs in US ports must 

be coupled with the installation of RPMs or other suitable radiation detection technology in foreign ports through programs like MegaPorts and the Container Security Initiative. 

Our experience with the RPM initiative has been nothing but positive and the 

level of coordination and cooperation with local CBP officials and staff from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory staff exceptional. In July 2003, CBP brokered 

a meeting with all of our port stakeholders to introduce them to the RPM program, 

describe the technology and the environment in which it works, and address concerns of different stakeholder groups and layout the timeline for deployment. CBP 

later met with each of the individual terminal operators, their executive management, traffic engineers and other employees to discuss each terminal operator’s specific issues, with the goal of integrating the RPMs into each terminal’s operation 

and not creating disruptions to the normal flow of commerce. 

To date, a total of 22 RPMs have been deployed in the Port of New York and New 

Jersey (Global—5, PNCT–5, APM–12), with the first coming on line in February 

2004. Another 8 RPMs (Maher-7. NYCT—1) are expected to be deployed by yearend. We are also expecting to receive 2 mobile RPMs that will be employed during 

the vessel discharge process at one of our smaller terminals. At this time, we do 

not have a confirmed schedule for when these mobile RPMs will be available.

CONCERNS WITH THE RPM PROGRAM 

High Level of False Alarms 

At the outset of this program, we were advised by Pacific Northwest Labs that 

we could expect the alarm rate to be 1 in every 400 containers. In the Port of New 

York and New Jersey, we are now averaging about 150 alarms a day from the 

RPMs, which is approximately 1 in 40 containers, ten times more than was expected. In order to detect nuclear and radiological devices, the RPMs must be calibrated at a low threshold. This results in a high level of innocent or nuisance 

alarms from commodities with naturally occurring radiation such as bananas, kitty 

litter, fire detectors and ceramics that move through the port, even truck drivers 

who not long before had medical tests or treatments with radioactive isotopes. 

Customs personnel are stationed at the exit gates of each of the container terminals. In each instance that a container sets off an alarm, they are immediately di-
38

rected to a secondary inspection point when the container is scanned again, verified 

with a Radiological Isotope Identifier Device (RIID) and compared to the manifest. 

CBP follows strict protocols to determine whether the alarm is a potential terrorist 

threat, a natural source or legitimate medical source of radiation. In the vast majority of the cases, CBP is able to resolve the alarm in approximately ten minutes or 

less and release the truck without causing any undue delays to the flow of commerce. 

In the sixteen months that the RPMs have been operational in New York and 

New Jersey, there only twice have RPMs detected a neutron source, which would 

be indicative of either Plutonium or Uranium. In these instances, the container was 

isolated and CBP worked with the Port Authority Police and various Federal and 

state agencies, under established response protocols, to render the container safe, 

which takes up to 24 hours.

Ability to Screen All Intermodal Cargo 

In the Port of New York and New Jersey, 13 percent of our cargo volume moves 

by rail and another 2 percent moves by barge. We expect these percentages to significantly increase in the next 10–15 years. While the current deployment schedule 

does not include RPMs at our on-dock rail facility (670,000 TEUs), CBP recognizes 

that this area has not yet been fully addressed and discussions are underway to develop a way to effectively screen these containers. CBP, Pacific Northwest Labs and 

the terminal operators are collaborating to devise options to screen intermodal cargo 

in the least disruptive way. This could include the installation of RPMs at choke 

points where containers enter the rail facility from other container terminals or 

screening the entire train as it exits the terminal. One concern would be delaying 

the entire train schedule while an alarm from one or more of the containers on that 

train is resolved. We expect to conduct a trial of scanning the entire train later this 

year. 

A process to screen containers that will be transferred by barge to another US 

port must also be developed. In many instances, these barges traverse congested waterways adjacent to densely populated urban areas. We need the same level of assurance that these containers are free of nuclear or radiological devices as we have 

about the containers that are being delivered to inland destinations by truck.

Ability of CBP to Fully Staff RPM Operations 

In some ports around the country, the RPMs are manned not by CBP but by a 

local law enforcement agency. In theses cases, CBP has committed to responding to 

an alarm within a specified period of time. As ports and terminals across the country move toward expanding their gate hours, we need to ensure that CBP will have 

the adequate resources to staff and monitor all of these devices and analyze the 

high volume of alarms that they will be receiving. Provision must also be made to 

reimburse the local jurisdiction for assuming responsibilities under a federally mandated program.

Ability to Scan Roll On Roll Off Cargo 

Given the heavy focus on containerized cargo since 9/11, we remain concerned 

about the ability to use Roll On / Roll Off (RoRo) cargo, such as automobiles, buses 

and subway cars to deliver weapons of mass destruction to the United States. Absent any other programs and initiatives to ensure the integrity of RoRo cargo and 

inspect it upon arrival in the United States, we believe that steps must be taken 

to work with the auto terminal operators to devise a method of screening all RoRo 

cargo with RPM’s or other suitable technology upon discharge from the vessel.

COUNTER MEASURE TEST BED 

Under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Science and 

Technology Directorate, the Port Authority is involved with a very productive program of testing radiation sensor technologies at various transportation facilities including our river crossings, airports and the seaport, including the New York Container Terminal on Staten Island and the Customs and Border Protection VACIS 

facility in Port Elizabeth. 

Since most commercial off-the-shelf radiation detection devices use gross counters, 

a large number of alarms for innocent sources are generated when the detection 

threshold is set sufficiently low in order to detect nuclear weapons or radiological 

materials. The Countermeasures Test Bed (CMTB) explores operational methodologies and tests advanced radiation sensor systems that have spectroscopic identifiers 

that have been developed at various Department of Energy laboratories in a real 

world environment at fully operational transportation facilities. 

Under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security’s Environmental 

Measurements Laboratory in New York, potential devices are first bench tested with 
39

a variety of radiation sources and under various operating conditions at the 

Brookhaven National Laboratory before being deployed at our facilities. 

As a result of the test bed work in which we participated, the Adaptable Radiation 

Area Monitor (ARAM) and Sensors for the Measurement and Analysis of Radiation 

Transient (SMART) devices are now ready for commercialization and could be available for use as early as FY06. These devices will be better at detecting things such 

as highly enriched uranium and plutonium. 

Through our participation in this important initiative, we hope to improve the Nation’s ability to prevent the illicit entry and movement of nuclear and radiological 

devices and materials, increase radiation sensor coverage of the region’s critical infrastructure and to advance the capacity of technology to be reliable and of practical 

use in the field. We remain committed to making our many facilities and operations 

available to the Department of Homeland Security for this and other important 

demonstrations and test bed projects. 

In the coming year DHS S&T will conduct head-to-head operational testing and 

evaluation of commercially available spectroscopic units at New York Container Terminal (NYCT) to determine operational viability and performance against real cargo 

in the port environment. Additionally, DHS will evaluate how integrated radiation 

monitoring systems at a complex intermodal facility such as NYCT (maritime and 

rail) could improve operational performances of the facility while meeting DHS 

goals.

RECOMMENDATIONS 

With the advent of the new Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) at the Department of Homeland Security there is a unique opportunity to recommend a comprehensive research agenda that would specifically benefit the marine transportation system. 

While the port itself is generally not thought of as a likely terrorist target but 

rather a means of delivering a radiological device to a higher priority target, we believe that we should take advantage of opportunities to detect, deter and intercept 

a radiological or nuclear device well before it passes through a terminal exit gate. 

Among the ways to do this is to place radiation detection devices on the container 

gantry cranes and other container handling equipment. 

On average, an import container sits in a US port terminal for five to seven days 

before it is picked up for delivery to the consignee. Under the current design of the 

RPM program, the nuclear weapon or radiological material could be sitting on the 

dock for an extended period of time before it passes through a RPM at the exit gate 

on its way to the highway system. The Federal government should establish a research and development program focused on identifying a way to scan 100 percent 

of the containers as they are off loaded from the ship and/or when they are sitting 

idle in the terminal. 

Both we and the Virginia Port Authority have each conducted ‘‘proof-of-concept’’ 

projects over the last four years to design, fabricate, install and test radiation detectors placed on the spreader bars of gantry cranes. The device would need to be able 

to be rugged enough to withstand the repeated shock and vibration from handling 

containers, distinguish between the container that was being lifted and other containers around it, and transmit data to a central monitoring location. The state of 

the technology was inadequate for this application however, we do believe that the 

problems can be overcome and should be further evaluated by DNDO. 

Another alternative would be to place radiation detection equipment on straddle 

carriers or rubber tire gantry cranes, which are used to move and stack containers 

at the marine terminal. That would allow for containers that are stacked three high 

to be scanned simultaneously and repeatedly during the normal course of business 

as they dwell on the terminal. 

We would also encourage the development of an integrated scanning and detection 

device that would essentially allow for the RPM and the VACIS exam to occur simultaneously. This approach is a much more holistic solution to provide 100 percent 

screening of international cargo for both radiation and density, without causing additional delays. 

As screening technology is further developed and tested, we must also take into 

consideration the potential impact that this technology might have on container security devices such as electronic seals and the Advanced Container Security Device. 

We experienced in Operation Safe Commerce that the VACIS exam may have 

interfered with the radio signal generated by electronic seals rendering them unusable. Therefore, the interference of VACIS and RPM inspections must be considered 

as these technologies are further developed and deployed. 

Finally, I’d like to make one last point. Since 9/11 the Federal policy has been 

to push our borders out and DHS from those very first days has implemented that 
40

policy though their various programs such as the 24 Hour Rule, CSI, and CTPAT. 

As part of both the layered approach to security that I described earlier and the 

policy to push our borders out, the deployment of RPM’s at ports of export should 

be increased and strengthened so that we can have even greater confidence that the 

cargo destined for the US in not likely to contain weapons of mass destruction.

CHALLENGES THAT REMAIN 

Addressing the issue of port and maritime security is an enormous challenge 

given the complexity of the international transportation network. Devising a system 

that enhances our national security while allowing the continued free flow of legitimate cargo through our ports will not be solved with a single answer, a single piece 

of legislation, or by a single nation. It will require a comprehensive approach with 

coordination across state lines and among agencies of all levels of government and 

the cooperation of the private and public sectors and the international community. 

Importantly, it will require additional resources for the agencies charged with this 

awesome responsibility and for the public and private ports and terminals where the 

nation’s international commerce takes place. 

I hope my comments today have provided with you some helpful insight on just 

one aspect of the complex matter of radiation detection. We at the Port Authority 

of New York & New Jersey are prepared to offer any additional assistance that you 

may require. Thank you.

Mr. LINDER. Dr. Tannenbaum. 

STATEMENT OF DR. BENN TANNENBAUM, AMERICAN 

ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, Congressman 

Langevin, Congressman Pascrell, members of the subcommittees, 

thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today on the 

detection of nuclear weapons and radiological material. 

I am Benn Tannenbaum, Senior Program Associate at the Center 

for Science, Technology and Security Policy within the American 

Association for the Advancement of Science. Founded in 1848, 

AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, with over 

120,000 members and 262 affiliated societies. 

The specific center for which I work seeks to connect policy members, such as the members of these subcommittees, with scientific 

and technical experts in a broad range of science- and security-related topics. In general, we work to identify the experts best suited 

to meet your needs by providing clear, objective, unbiased research. 

We do not perform original research ourselves, but instead act as 

a conduit between the academic research community and the policy 

arena. 

We were approached this spring by Congressmen Markey and 

Thompson, who sought to better understand the capabilities and 

limitation of the radiation portal monitors being deployed to detect 

smuggled radioactive and fissile materials arriving in U.S. ports. 

We consulted two physicists with long experience in this particular 

field, Professor Frank von Hippel of Princeton University and Professor Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland. Based on their 

expert input, we drafted a report that is included within my written testimony and is the basis for my testimony. In addition, I am 

a physicist with experience in the design and construction of detector technology. 

Having made those caveats, I would like to address five main 

points in my remarks. 

First, the isotopes best suited for use in dirty bombs can be detected with passive radiation detectors similar to those being deployed at ports both abroad and in the United States. A passive ra-
41

diation detector is simply one that monitors the rate at which radioactive decays occur near the detector. The very feature that 

makes for a good dirty bomb, namely a strong source of radiation, 

also makes detection easier and shielding more difficult. 

In addition, the properties of plutonium, one of two elements 

used to construct nuclear weapons, are such that it can be detected 

with passive radiation detectors. An active radiation detector, in 

contrast, uses some sort of a probe, such as x-rays or neutrons, to 

determine the contents of a container. 

Second, the physical properties of uranium, including the highly 

enriched uranium that would be used to construct a nuclear weapon, are such that even lightly shielded uranium is very likely to escape detection by passive radiation monitors. While some ports of 

entry have both active and passive detectors, some observers argue 

that they are not being used in the most effective manner. 

Third, there are several ways to improve the capabilities of the 

passive detectors currently in use and to improve future generations of detectors. The current detectors can be improved by increasing the sampling time, decreasing the distance between the 

container and the detector, decreasing the background radiation 

through additional shielding around the detector, and improving algorithms and adding column meters to the detectors. 

In addition, the passive detection of specific energies of radiation, 

coupled with an active method that identifies the location of very 

dense objects, greatly reduces false positives by distinguishing 

harmless radioactive materials, such as kitty litter, from dirty 

bombs and nuclear weapons. 

Fourth, there are several interesting R&D programs exploring 

new techniques to locate radiological and fissile materials. At Los 

Alamos, researchers are using cosmic rays to find very dense materials, such as plutonium and uranium, in kilogram quantities within cargo containers. At Lawrence Livermore, researchers use neutrons to ping a container. These neutrons induce a very characteristic gamma ray response in fissile materials. 

Another proposal uses inexpensive detectors placed in cargo containers during transoceanic shipment. These detectors take advantage of the 10-day or longer transit time to locate HEU. This has 

the additional feature of allowing the interception of dangerous materials before they enter a U.S. port. 

The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of 

Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration have recently 

begun construction of a facility to test portal monitors and expects 

to select the next deployment of technology this year using a temporary test bed. 

Fifth, the best way to protect the United States from smuggled 

nuclear weapons is to use a layered defense. The currently deployed portal monitors in some domestic and foreign ports are an 

important first step. Adding in-transit detectors and active scanners would increase our ability to locate radiological and fissile material. 

The intrinsic difficulties in detecting uranium make it particularly important to secure, control and protect existing supplies of 

HEU around the world. It will always be far easier to monitor a 

lump of uranium at a known location than it will be to detect ura-
42

nium smuggling, and the infrastructure required to make HEU is 

much more substantial than that required to construct a gun-type 

nuclear weapon with existing HEU. 

The comprehensive threat reduction threat program has enabled 

the safeguarding of much of Russia’s HEU, and some of the HEU 

is being converted to fuel for use in nuclear power reactors. This 

program should be expanded to cover more countries and the rate 

of fuel conversion should be increased. In addition, research reactors in many countries use HEU as fuel. These reactors should all 

be converted to use low enriched uranium fuel as soon as possible. 

I thank you for the opportunity to testify here and look forward 

to your questions. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Dr. Tannenbaum. 

[The statement of Mr. Tannenbaum follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BENN TANNENBAUM

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Langevin, Congressman Pascrell, members of the 

Subcommittees, thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today on the detection of nuclear weapons and radiological material. I am Benn Tannenbaum, Senior Program Associate at the Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy 

within the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Founded in 1848, 

AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society with over 120,000 members 

and 262 affiliated societies. The specific Center for which I work seeks to connect 

policy makers, such as the members of this Committee, with scientific and technical 

experts in a broad range of science and security-related topics. In general, we work 

to identify the experts best suited to meet your needs by providing clear, objective, 

unbiased research; we do not perform original research ourselves but instead act as 

a conduit between the academic research community and the policy arena. 

In this case, we were approached by Congressmen Markey and Thompson, who 

sought to better understand the capabilities and limitations of the radiation portal 

monitors being deployed to detect smuggled radioactive and fissile materials arriving in U.S. ports. We consulted two physicists with long experience in this particular field, Professor Frank von Hippel of Princeton University and Professor 

Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland. Based on their expert input, we drafted 

a report for Congressmen Markey and Thompson that is included with my written 

testimony. The testimony I present today is based in large part on their work. In 

addition, I am a physicist with some experience in the design and construction of 

detector technology. 

Having made those caveats, I would like to address five main points in my remarks. 

First, the isotopes best suited for use in dirty bombs, such as cesium-137, cobalt60, or americium-241, can be detected with passive radiation detectors, similar to 

those deployed since 9/11 at ports both in the United States and abroad. A passive 

radiation detector is one that simply monitors the rate at which radioactive decays 

occur near the detector. The very feature that makes for a good dirty bomb—namely, a strong source of radiation—also makes detection easier and shielding more difficult. In addition, the properties of plutonium, one of two elements most useful in 

constructing nuclear weapons, are such that it, too, can be detected with passive radiation detectors. An active radiation detector, in contrast, uses some sort of a probe 

such as x-rays or neutrons to determine the contents of a container. 

Second, the physical properties of uranium, including the highly enriched uranium (HEU) that would be used to construct a nuclear weapon, are such that shielded uranium is very likely to escape detection by passive radiation monitors. While 

some ports of entry have both active and passive detectors, some observers argue 

that they are not being used in the most effective manner. The passive detection 

of specific energies of radiation coupled with an active method that identifies the 

location of very dense objects is a good technique to detect smuggled uranium. 

Third, there are several ways to improve the capabilities of the passive detectors 

currently in use and to improve future generations of detectors. The current detectors can be improved by increasing the sampling time, decreasing the distance between the container and the detector, decreasing the background radiation through 

additional shielding around the detector, and adding collimators to the detectors. In 

addition, future detectors must have better energy resolution. This allows one to distinguish harmless radioactive materials, such as kitty litter, from dirty bombs and 
43

nuclear weapons. There are limits, however, to the space available for these detectors and to the time available for scanning. 

Fourth, there are several interesting R&D programs exploring new techniques to 

locate radiological and fissile materials. At Los Alamos National Lab, researchers 

are using cosmic rays to find very dense materials, such as plutonium and uranium, 

in very small quantities within cargo containers. At Lawrence Livermore National 

Lab, researchers use neutrons to ‘‘ping’’ a container. These neutrons induce a very 

characteristic gamma ray response in fissile materials. An Ohio-based company has 

proposed inexpensive detectors that would be placed in cargo containers during 

transoceanic shipment. These detectors take advantage of the 10-day or longer transit time to locate HEU. This has the additional feature of allowing the interception 

of dangerous materials before they enter a U.S. port. The Department of Homeland 

Security and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration 

have recently begun construction of a facility to test portal monitors and expects to 

select the next generation of technology next year using a temporary test bed. 

Fifth, the best way to protect the United States from smuggled nuclear weapons 

is to use a layered defense. The currently deployed portal monitors in many domestic and foreign ports are an important first step. Adding in-transit detectors and active scanners would increase our ability to locate radiological and fissile material. 

The intrinsic difficulties in detecting uranium make it particularly important to secure, control, and protect existing supplies of HEU and plutonium around the world. 

It will always be far easier to monitor a lump of uranium at a known location than 

it will be to detect uranium smuggling. The Comprehensive Threat Reduction program has enabled the safeguarding much of Russia’s HEU and plutonium, and some 

of the HEU and plutonium is being converted to fuel for use in nuclear power reactors. This program should be expanded to cover more countries and the rate of fuel 

conversion should be increased. In addition, research reactors in many countries use 

HEU as fuel; these reactors should all be converted to use low enriched uranium 

fuel as soon as possible. 

I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and look forward to your questions.
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Aloise, you talked about the troubling problem 

of lack of cooperation and coordination between the various agencies. I presume you studied the proposed DNDO that the department is attempting to stand up. Can this center help? 

Mr. ALOISE. Actually, Mr. Chairman, we have not yet studied 

that proposal. We are doing that as we speak. We have ongoing 

work doing that. But if the agency can get better coordination and 

get the agencies talking to each other on a continuous basis, that 

would help. 

Mr. LINDER. Dr. Wagner, if you were advising the terrorists on 

how to get radioactive material into this country, would you advise 

them to avoid the points of entry that are guarded? 

Dr. WAGNER. Mr. Chairman, that would depend on what we had 

done elsewhere. Certainly today, I think, coming through the 

guarded points of entry might be as good a way of getting in as 

some other way. We can close off those relatively easily because we 

control those. If we have done that and if we have made it easy 

for them to get it to our shores, which we ought to not let it be 

easy for them, then either you or Mr. King, I believe, talked about 

bringing it in a pickup truck. That might be a pretty easy way to 

do it. 

I think, however, that with an aggressive R&D program it would 

be possible to develop sensor technologies that might be able to be 

deployed, even where pickup trucks could come across, to close off 

that route too. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Aloise, you talked about two important things 

that are going to have to be improved—training and intelligence. 

I assume you are aware that the Department’s intelligence portion 

of the budget is about 1 percent, maybe as much as 2, and we are 

sending billions of dollars to local communities to buy things with 

no training and experience tied to it. 

Do you think it would be a good idea for us to find a way to tie 

any of these grants to local States and localities for training issues? 

Mr. ALOISE. Training is vitally important. It doesn’t matter how 

good the equipment is if they don’t know how to use it. It lessens 

the effectiveness of it greatly. I would say that training would be 

a very good thing to invest in. 

Mr. LINDER. How about intelligence? 

Mr. ALOISE. As well as intelligence, of course, yes. 

Mr. LINDER. Should it be more than 1 or 2 percent of the budget? 

Mr. ALOISE. I really couldn’t comment on that at this point. 

Mr. LINDER. Dr. Tannenbaum, how many locations do you think 

there are in this country where you could find cesium-137? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Dozens. 

Mr. LINDER. Unprotected? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Yes. 

Mr. LINDER. Do you think it is fair to say that hospitals spend 

more energy and money disposing of hypodermic needles than they 

do taking care of their cesium? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. I believe so. 

Mr. LINDER. How much would a terrorist have to have to make 

a problem? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. A dirty bomb is a weapon of mass terror; it 

is a weapon of not mass destruction, but of mass disruption. So as 
60

long as they were sufficient to trip radiation detectors, that would 

be enough. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you. I yield to my partner, Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Aloise, you have done a great deal of work on nuclear detection, and one thing that stands out in your testimony is that the 

Federal Government does not have a nuclear detection and interdiction strategy. Such a strategy would define agency responsibilities, ensure that all screening operations are integrated and set 

the framework for our government’s research and development efforts. 

In your work, have you come across such a nuclear detection 

strategy, and if not, do you feel one is needed? 

I would also, of course, be interested in hearing the opinions of 

our other witnesses. 

Mr. ALOISE. When we started our work, none of the agencies we 

looked at actually had plans or strategies, strategic plans. Since 

the issuance of our report, some plans have been developed, but we 

still are hearing of and are aware of problems with coordination. 

That suggests there is still a need for a broader strategy. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Do any other witnesses care to comment? 

Dr. WAGNER. Well, since I already waded into this a minute ago, 

I will wade a little farther, sir. 

Somebody said that plans are nothing, but planning is everything, and I think that is really important. I once read a quotation 

from Winston Churchill where at the beginning of World War II, 

one of his aides said, ‘‘Prime Minister, are we going to plan to win 

this war, or are we just going to muddle through?’’ And Churchill’s 

answer was, ‘‘We are going to plan to muddle through.’’ 

I think the flavor of the way the government approaches this 

problem has to be to ‘‘plan to muddle through.’’ I think it is possible to overplan, to spend so much effort on planning and detail 

that the people doing the work in the field will never get things 

to actually figure out how they work and feed that back into the 

R&D process. 

So, again, it is a question of balance between how much you 

plan, how elaborately you lay out the architecture in advance and 

actually get something in the field that helps a little bit and gets 

some experience to plan the next cycle. 

Ms. ROONEY. As I mentioned in my statement, the coordination 

at the local level is absolutely exceptional. As we have said in other 

testimony on other subjects, there appears to be a greater need for 

a strategy at the Department or at the agency levels. 

The delivery of the product on the local level is very good, but 

we notice a number of gaps and overlaps in the strategy, or lack 

thereof, from department to department. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. There should also be better coordination between domestic and foreign ports. I think the training levels that 

the foreign operators receive are not always sufficient. That would 

be a definite place to start. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. And in your testimony, Mr. Tannenbaum, you 

had suggested that we need as quickly as possible to protect research and medical reactors. 
61

Mr. TANNENBAUM. There are a set of research reactors used at 

universities all over the world. There are also a set of reactors used 

to produce medical isotopes. By and large, these use highly enriched uranium as fuel, typically in several-kilogram quantities. 

These are on university campuses, often with low security, so these 

are prime targets. 

Many of them, since they are being used for research purposes, 

can be converted to low enriched uranium. Those that are being 

used for medical purposes can also be converted to low enriched 

uranium. There is no reason economically or by the laws of physics 

not to convert those. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Is that the standard right now, that those research reactors use high enriched uranium, or is that the exception? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. When research reactors were first deployed I 

believe they all used HEU, and as time has gone on, we have converted more and more to low enriched uranium. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Can you clarify that in terms of percentages? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. I am afraid I cannot. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I would be curious to know if you have the committee follow up with getting an answer to that question. I would 

like to know how much research reactors right now are still using 

highly enriched uranium. I see my time is just about to expire, so 

I just want to thank you very much. I have other questions I will 

submit for the record. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Mr. Langevin. Chairman King. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Rooney, in your testimony, you said that New York has approximately, has 22 of the 30 RPMs that are required. You also 

said that the intermodal cargo is not screened. So obviously, not all 

cargo is being screened. But even assuming that you had 30 out of 

30 and the intermodal cargo was screened, it would seem to me 

that if the terrorists had managed to get these type of devices into 

New York harbor, it would be much more worthwhile for them to 

detonate it right in the harbor rather than go to the trouble of offloading it. Do you have any idea how many of the ships coming in 

have been screened before they get into the harbor, into the port? 

Ms. ROONEY. If there is credible intelligence that CBP or other 

agencies get of a particular device or substance that may be on a 

ship, they do some screening and some preliminary testing out at 

sea. We have a number of ships in the last four years, the Mayview 

Maersk, the Palermo Senator, that have all had suspect cargo on 

board that were screened out at sea. Other than credible intelligence, all of the screening is done after the cargo is discharged, 

after it has sat on the pier for 5 to 7 days, and only on its outbound 

entry, outbound exit of the terminal into the hinterland. 

We maintain that the screening should be done at the port of export so that we have every reasonable assurance when the cargo 

arrives in the United States, that it is in fact clean, and that if we 

are doing screening here in the U.S., it is as an absolute last resort, just to double-check, not as our primary inspection point. 

Mr. KING. There is a practical matter, for instance, with the 

megaport program and the container initiative, do you have any 
62

way of knowing what percentage of ships that would affect right 

now? 

Ms. ROONEY. I am not familiar with the container, as familiar 

with the container security initiative in terms of what equipment 

is deployed in which particular ports. I know other container security issues that are not required to have radiation portal monitors, 

as opposed to having an extra type machine, which perform extremely different functions. So I can’t quantify that at this point. 

Mr. KING. Obviously, I am more familiar with New York and 

New Jersey, but I would just think that Los Angeles, Baltimore, 

Houston would all have the same dilemma that once it arrives, the 

catastrophic damage that could be caused, you know would be incalculable. 

Okay. Let me go to another point. We are talking about containers, but how about the thousands of boats and yachts and other 

non cargo ships that travel in and out of our ports on a daily basis? 

I can open it up to anyone on the panel. They are not subject to 

RPM inspection. How significant a problem is that? Let me just 

add that I agree with Dr. Wagner. We shouldn’t be afraid to fail 

in certain respects here. If we have to overspend, if we have to 

make some mistakes, fine. It is important to go ahead. So when I 

am asking these questions, I am not trying to be overly negative. 

I really like your opinions. What are we doing about non cargo 

ships that are coming into our ports? 

Ms. ROONEY. In terms of passenger vessels or personal, you 

know, vehicles, again, there is little that is being done certainly by 

Customs on those vessels, unless they are arriving from foreign, 

they are reported to Coast Guard. They do need to indicate their 

arrival, their intended arrival to the Coast Guard but there is very 

generally little focus on personal vessels as compared to commercial vessels. And that remains an area of concern, even so much as 

the physical security of marinas, you know, remains a concern of 

ours. 

Mr. KING. Anybody else wish to comment? 

Dr. Wagner. 

Dr. WAGNER. Yes, sir. You keep posing tough problems and that 

is a really tough one. To beat that particular avenue of attack, I 

think the main tool we have is intelligence and law enforcement 

overseas. Now, portal monitors and other means that we have at 

our disposal are not unconnected to intelligence. They are connected to the question of discovering an attack on us and interdicting it by intelligence and police work in the following way. They 

are connected. If we can raise the bar by deploying effective systems where we do control the environment, that means the 

attacker has to mount a larger operation, he has to recruit more 

people, he has to surveil the routes that he will take in. Every one 

of those steps makes him more subject to being discovered by police 

work and intelligence. 

Mr. KING. Thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. LINDER. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pascrell. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question is 

this to the panel, and I have asked you to be brief and I will try 

to be brief with my question. There are very few containers that 
63

are going through radiological inspection now before they hit our 

ports. We have a relationship with about 35 countries that are examining cargo before it goes on foreign ships when they come here. 

It would seem to me we want to cut down the amount—we are 

never going to be able to examine every container, we know that, 

for explosives, for nuclear weapons. But it would seem to me, with 

such a small percentage of those ships, those containers that will 

be inspected for radiological situations, how can we increase appreciably the amount of inspections? Are we trying to guess at this? 

I know we don’t have a seamless, and we will never have a seamless process. I understand that. I heard the Secretary talk about 

that as well. All right. We can accept that. We know this is not a 

perfect world. We are finite beings. But it would seem to me, that 

we—either we haven’t—not only we haven’t created the technology, 

we don’t have enough money to increase the state of the art. What 

am I missing here? Suppose you start us off, Dr. Wagner. 

Dr. WAGNER. Having, being a scientist and having been a technologist my whole career, I believe that research can lead to reductions in costs of even high tech stuff. It will take a while. It will 

take years, although not decades to do that. The Defense Science 

Board task force that I chaired posited procurement and deployment of hundreds of thousands of detectors. We said that such a 

defense might cost a few 10s of billions of dollars. To me that is 

kind of the right—I mean, we are spending many tens of billions 

of dollars on missile defense, so I think the combination of thinking 

big in terms of procuring large numbers of the detectors and driving the cost for those detectors down through R&D is the path to 

success. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Ms. Rooney. 

Ms. ROONEY. I believe that the scientific community needs to 

partner more with the private sector and with the maritime industry in that, you know, making the technology work is only one aspect of the problem. Fitting the technology into the business process is a much more complex issue. And by partnering with the private sector, the—we can inform the scientists on how the technology needs to work within our industry. Just by way of example, 

both the port of Virginia, Norfolk and the port of Newark, New Jersey experimented with radiation detector devices on our cranes. 

The technology works, but the technology was beat up by being, 

you know, the impact of hitting the container. The technology 

needs to be ruggedized in order to withstand our industry, and it 

is something as easy as understanding how we operate that could 

help the science and their research and development community to 

make better devices. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you. Anyone else wish to respond to that? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. I would focus on ports where security is the 

least right now rather than those that have the highest volume. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Well, we are doing an assessment of that. So you 

are saying we should provide resources for those ports that are 

most vulnerable, obviously. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Correct. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Okay. 

Mr. ALOISE. Well the DOE’s megaports program is in two ports. 

And one of the problems they are facing is convincing other ports 
64

to cooperate. So it is not only technology, it is getting the cooperation of other ports overseas to join in on us in this effort. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Yeah. I am not too hopeful about the situation 

from what I am hearing from you. I know that you are telling me 

what you really think. But, I mean, you know, we are going to hear 

from the panel, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, 

Homeland Security, we hope that they are talking to each other. 

We hope the intelligence community, all of these agencies are talking with each other, since we do not have the state of the art to 

find out where this radiation is. If it is out there, hopefully these 

15 agencies are talking with each other, you know. I don’t believe 

they are talking to each other. But let me ask one more question. 

Ms. Rooney, so far only the port of Oakland had fully deployed 

radiation portal monitoring equipment. How far along is the New 

York-New Jersey Port Authority in deploying this equipment, and 

when do you expect to complete the work? 

Ms. ROONEY. Well, we have 22 out of the 30 devices that we are 

going to get. They are not currently installed in our largest volume 

terminal operator. So approximately 45 percent of our cargo volume 

is currently being scanned. We expect that they will be fully implemented by the end of the year, except for the rail and barge cargo. 

Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Simmons, do you wish 

to inquire? 

Mr. SIMMONS. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, I thank both of our 

Chairs and both rankings for a very interesting subject. As I reflect 

on Mr. Tannenbaum’s testimony, point five had to do with a layered defense, and I think there is a lot to be said for a layered defense. I spent some time in Israel a few months ago, and they have 

a very excellent system of layering their defenses against terrorist 

activities, not so much nuclear but terrorist. But it occurs to me 

that a layered system is essentially passive in nature; that portals, 

especially fixed portals, the portals that don’t move around but are 

set in certain locations are essentially passive; that even inspections in ports, unless they are informed by intelligence or tip offs 

are essentially passive. 

And I recall a comment that was made some months ago that if 

you want to find a needle in a haystack, it helps to have a magnet. 

If you want to find a needle in a haystack, it helps to find a magnet. Using a magnet to find a needle is more active, less passive, 

in my opinion. And taking that analogy to the next step, if indeed 

we are going to be successful and if indeed we are going to be able 

to afford what we are doing, it seems to me that we have to be 

more active. We have to rely more on intelligence and law enforcement, both at home and abroad, and that we may even have to rely 

on active measures to draw the terrorists out, perhaps sting operations, things of that nature, where you place a piece of bait out 

into the domain and see who nibbles, and roll them up. Is there 

any value in that? Has anybody in the panel given consideration 

to those types of active measures? 

Dr. WAGNER. I think, sir, that you are just right. The limit 

threat, in some sense, is highly enriched uranium that has as much 

shielding around it as will fit in whatever the container is that car-
65

ries it, whether it is a pickup truck or a cargo container. I don’t 

think you are going to find that without active interrogation. 

Now, I was talking with Ms. Rooney before the hearings began, 

and she tells me that the longshoremen in New York are getting 

comfortable with x-ray radiation and the health and safety concerns that might come along with that. I think that is a fruitful avenue to pursue and it ought to be pursued strongly. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. If it reaches the United States it is too late. 

If it leaves a foreign port it is too late. If it arrives at a foreign port 

it is too late. I think that the best thing to do is to maintain control 

of as much material as possible where it is right now and rather 

than letting it be stolen and converted into a weapon. 

Mr. SIMMONS. So that would be essentially a ‘‘nail it down and 

keep an eye on it’’ strategy, which works except in the case of loss 

or theft. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Yes. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Another alternative, and you made a very interesting remark about whether a nuclear, a dirty bomb would be designed to destroy or designed to disrupt. I believe cesium is available in the United States in hospitals and universities and other 

medical facilities. So in fact, it is resident here in the United 

States. It could be stolen here and could be used for a dirty bomb 

attack on an urban area. How would we address that issue? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Even worse than being stolen or lost is on a 

regular basis we have thousands of sources that are lost in this 

country that are utterly unaccounted for. It depends on how much 

money we want to spend. Do we want to put a radiation detector 

on the underside of every bridge in New York City? Do we want 

to put one on the corner of every building? I think that is the extreme you have to go to if you are absolutely sure that you want 

to get rid of absolutely every possible dirty bomb. 

Mr. SIMMONS. Anybody else? 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes. The question of dirty bomb material is a significant question, and we have reported on this in the past. DOE has 

developed a program to collect some of the worst types of those materials. But again, it is a matter of resources. If they had more 

money they could collect more. But it is an important program that 

they have, and one that we support. 

Ms. ROONEY. Well, I can’t comment on the amount of sources, 

you know, that are available. We are heavily focused on supply 

chain security and needing to know exactly what it is in a container, what is going in a container from its point of origin all the 

way through its final destination. And we believe that development 

of supply chain security standards, so that we know what is going 

in the container, we know the individuals that are stuffing it. 

We can ensure the integrity of the container. We can have sensors in the container that will regularly scan for chemical, biological, radiological devices and send an alert if something happens all 

the way to the final point of delivery is what needs to be developed 

as yet another layer in that overall security system. 

Mr. LINDER. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. Thompson wish to inquire? 

Mr. THOMPSON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. This is a good topic. One of 

the questions, Ms. Rooney, that I hear quite often from the busi-
66

ness community is if we do the inspections, how will this impact 

the movement of goods? Have you all done an analysis of these 

technologies and whether or not they would impair the movement 

of goods? 

Ms. ROONEY. Well, one of the reasons why it is important to get 

the private sector involved in the development phase, is so that we 

don’t impact the movement of goods, we highly encourage the R&D 

community to get the private sector involved at the ground level. 

We have not done a study, per se, but I can tell you that we have 

not had any complaints from the likes of the trucking community 

or the shippers saying that their cargo has been delayed because 

of the radiation portal monitors. Again most of the alarms have 

been resolved within 10, 15 minutes and the truck is sent on its 

way, so it is not a tangible delay that the community is faced with 

right now. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. Dr. Wagner, in your view, has the 

deployment of the portal monitors, resulted in improved coordination between agencies, such as DHS or DOE? Is there enough communication for us not to be repetitious, for us to make sure that 

there is a standard that is employed across the board so that we 

deploy the best possible technology? 

Dr. WAGNER. Mr. Thompson, I have not watched that particular 

program closely enough to know whether the agencies are coordinating well enough or not. My guess is probably not because that 

is often the case. I am more concerned about close coordination between Ms. Rooney’s people and the scientists and engineers in the 

private sector and at the laboratories than I am about coordination 

between the government agencies. That is the short circuit that I 

want to build in, between the people really doing the work in the 

field to develop better technologies and her people who are using 

the current ones so that we can learn and they can learn. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Aloise, do you want to address that? 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes. Coordination was a problem in the beginning. 

It got better, but it is still of concern. And it is not just coordination 

for coordination’s sake. As we reported and it is in my statement, 

one agency, State Department was deploying equipment that 

wasn’t as good as other agencies were deploying, so the countries 

that the State Department were in deploying, their borders were 

more vulnerable because the equipment they were deploying was 

not as good. 

So, you know, coordination was a problem. It got better but it is 

still a concern. We are still concerned that labs are not talking to 

each other as they should. The agencies are not talking to each 

other as they should. And we are looking at that problem again 

right now. 

Mr. THOMPSON. The other question I have speaks to whether or 

not the communication between government and the private sector 

is sufficient enough that we can get the latest technology into the 

ports within a reasonable period of time, or do you feel that DHS, 

for instance, does not move fast enough in its implementation of 

this new technology? Have you had an opportunity to look at any 

of that? 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes, we looked at deployment and it was slow in the 

beginning. It is better now. The question is, a question everyone 
67

faces, I guess at this point, do you wait until the better technology 

comes along or do you deploy what you have now? Originally this 

program was thought of as just another tool for the Customs agent 

or border inspector. It wasn’t an end all or be all. So what we are 

facing now, what is the incremental value we are going to get from 

this new technology against what we have now, because the question is whether you wait or not to deploy more equipment is a vital 

one. 

Mr. THOMPSON. I guess the other issue is, protected regardless 

of the technology, is there a uniform standard so that we are not 

vulnerable at one point of entry, and not vulnerable at another? Or 

is it that the technology is such a state that it would render us 

more vulnerable? I guess that is my point. 

Mr. ALOISE. The present set of equipment has limitations. But 

the bottom line is that with the equipment you have some chance 

of catching this material. Without it you probably have very little 

chance of catching it. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Pearce, do you seek 

to be recognized? 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tannenbaum the 

portal that you mentioned, is that the DTRA attempt to put monitors in all of the Soviet Union sites? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. That is part of it, yes. 

Mr. PEARCE. Are you familiar with the requirement to have that 

completely done by 2007? In other words we have had about 15 

years and it was supposed to be 100 percent finished by 2007. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. That is correct. 

Mr. PEARCE. The reports I have are that it is about 30 percent 

done. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Again, correct. 

Mr. PEARCE. And the reports that I have is the 30 percent that 

is done is very poorly done. In your report you are pretty, you 

have—you have been very supportive of the portals, and yet it 

sounds like the program is not functioning so well. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. It has been, shall we say, a bad few years for 

the installation of portal monitors where a lot of negotiations on liability have been happening. And I am hopeful that we will see 

things change now. 

Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Wagner, you indicate that we need not be too 

concerned about waste. Does this waste that we see here rise to the 

level that you get concerned, or is it part of what you said, we just 

need to, if we try to eliminate all the mistakes, we are not going 

end up with any progress. Are we rising to the level where you are 

concerned? 

Dr. WAGNER. If you are asking, sir, about the DTRA CTR program—

Mr. PEARCE. Yes, that is what I am asking about. 

Dr. WAGNER. I think that no, sir, that particular one, I don’t 

think waste is the right way to characterize it. I agree that the deployments have not been as effective. But I think that the difficulties in doing contract work in Russia and those places are so great 

that—

Mr. PEARCE. Well, I mean we have spent the money. 
68

Dr. WAGNER. I am pleased that we have made the progress we 

have. But I think it ought—I mean, I wish it were a lot faster and 

a lot more—

Mr. PEARCE. I understand. But if we have spent the money and 

we didn’t get—I just can’t envision that it would be as expensive 

to do that here as it is there. And if there are problems getting it 

in, I can understand. But if we go ahead and spend the money and 

we don’t succeed, I don’t understand that. 

Recently the vice president of Los Alamos labs was quoted as 

saying that the future of Los Alamos labs is not nuclear detection 

and security, but instead nanotechnology. Do you agree or disagree 

with his statements? 

Dr. WAGNER. I am not sure I know—I wasn’t aware of that statement. But I would disagree. I think it is both radiation detection, 

nanotechnology and a lot of other technologies that are important 

for national security. 

Mr. PEARCE. Why do you think that he made those comments? 

It makes it very difficult for us to—

Dr. WAGNER. I know it does. The national labs, if I may volunteer, the national labs, which are of crucial, although not—they are 

not sufficient, but are a crucial part of working this problem, have 

institutional issues that they need to deal with. And what I mean 

by that is the following: That the labs for decades have provided 

technology for problems like this one, coming out of the technology 

base, the science understanding that came with the nuclear weapons program, since the Manhattan Project. The labs are concerned 

that programs like the radiation detector program, will suck effort 

out, but not renew that technology base. And I think that is an important question for the labs. 

Mr. PEARCE. Okay. I have got one more question. Mr. Aloise, also 

we have reports that the Department of Commerce is permitting 

technology to be shipped out to accomplish these oversight capabilities. But DOE is requiring certain permits and slowing the process 

down by 6 months. Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. ALOISE. I am not familiar with that, no, sir. 

Mr. PEARCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is my last question. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you. Mr. Etheridge, do you wish to inquire? 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do. Mr. Simmons 

touched on the issue a while ago and several others have. I tend 

to agree that if we could get our hands on this stuff, especially 

through the Nunn-Lugar, we would be a lot better off, and the dollars we spend there probably are the best dollars we can spend. 

But Mr. Aloise, let me ask you a question, if I may, sir. Several 

have raised the issue of movement of goods, the commerce that is 

so critical. People obviously want to get the stuff here and we want 

to ship it out. And one of the issues that has popped its head up 

as we move stuff in and out is this whole issue of a false positive 

pops up with some of the technology as important as technology is. 

As an example, if it pops up in a port, you may just stop one truck. 

But it happened to be at an airport, you know, you have got a 

much bigger problem. Has the GAO done any kind of cost-benefit 

analysis on these issues as the result of an unknown or even if it 

were an unknown issue, or a medical piece, the cost of such issue? 
69

Mr. ALOISE. We have not done a cost benefit analysis, but in our 

work every place we have gone we have asked that question and 

we have observed operations overseas. The nuisance alarms are a 

problem. And we have been at border sites at Russia and around 

the world watching trucks pulled over and gone through secondary 

inspections. No one has really told us that it has impeded commerce to the point that they thought it might at this point, even 

with the nuisance alarms they are getting. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. All right. Let me follow that up. Have you done 

any examination of the cost-benefit or some of the higher performing radiation technologies that may be out, or do you do that? 

Mr. ALOISE. We have not. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Who does? 

Mr. ALOISE. We have not done that. And I am not aware of any 

studies we have had along those lines. However, a lot of the newer 

technologies are not to the point yet where, you know, we would 

have even been there to do that yet. That is what some of these 

new test beds that are developed around the country are designed 

to do in Nevada starting in August. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Rooney, let me ask you 

a question along the same lines, if I may, because as someone said, 

you are right where the rubber meets the road, where the containers come in and out. As it relates to the containers coming in, 

you mentioned earlier that you have had some, but it was a matter 

of minutes, or certainly less than an hour they would move. Do you 

consider such indirect cost when acquiring the detection equipment 

that you buy? 

You did allude to the fact that some of this was really not designed for the heavy impacting it will take when you unload containers, et cetera. 

Ms. ROONEY. We are not the purchaser or the users of technology. It is the—

Mr. LINDER. Is your mike on? 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Turn your mike on, please. 

Ms. ROONEY. The Port Authority is not either the procurer or the 

user of the technology. It is procured by CBP and it is operated by 

CBP. So we have not done any cost-benefit analysis as well. And 

as I mentioned before, we have had no complaints of commerce 

being impeded as a result of these technologies. There was grave 

concern when the program was first announced that commerce 

would be impeded and would be slowed down, but that has not 

come to be. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Let me just read a piece. A recent New York 

Times article reported that at the port of Newark, the ports follow 

system for radiation alarms are handling devices that are supported to or supposed to determine what sets off an alarm as a 

flawed device. The weakness of the devices were apparent in Newark. One recent morning a truck whose records indicated it was 

carrying brakes from Germany triggered the portal alarm, but the 

back-up device could not identify the radiation source. Without 

being inspected, the truck went on its way to Ohio. 

Ms. ROONEY. I can’t speak to the details of that particular incident because I am not familiar with it. My understanding of the 

way that CBP operates the program is if an alarm goes off through 
70

the portal monitor, it then goes to a second inspection where a 

handheld isotope identifier is used in order to identify the actual 

isotope. That is then compared to the manifest and a determination 

is made whether or not it could go on. I would find it hard to believe that until the source was identified and satisfactorily identified that that truck would have been allowed to go on. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Chairman, I only read what I read in the 

paper and I assume that is, but I—I know my time is expired. Is 

there a record kept of those kind of things, someone keeping the 

documented records, because I think that is important? 

Ms. ROONEY. CBP does keep the documented records of all of the 

radiation alarms and their resolution. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. And their disposition? 

Ms. ROONEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Gibbons. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. To our witnesses, thank you today for being here and helping us understand 

this issue greatly. I have just one question because throughout the 

period of the Cold War, we have spent so much time developing a 

strategy that was based on assured mass destruction as a deterrent. What kind of deterrence do you envision to be able to enact 

that would threaten somehow those that are willing to perpetrate 

a disastrous event with one of these radiological or nuclear devices 

in our community? How do you create a deterrence image with—

how would you do such a thing? Dr. Wagner. 

Dr. WAGNER. Having lived through that Cold War, the deterrence 

developed into almost a theology, as you know. Deterrence meant 

in that context, deterrence by fear of punishment. I don’t think 

that is going to work very well against these enemies. But there 

is another meaning, which is deterrence by fear of failure. 

Chairman Linder, I believe it was in his comment, said that the 

terrorist would go to great lengths to be sure that he can penetrate 

the defense. Deterrence by making him unsure that can he penetrate the defense is the kind of deterrence that I think is available 

and crucial for this job. 

Mr. GIBBONS. It seems a bit uncertain to me that those people 

who are so committed to this type of a heinous act, who have gone 

to such great lengths, would be so vulnerable or so casual as to not 

select an avenue or a route that would allow them to achieve their 

goal. They are not stupid people. They are not people that would 

not, or would just take a rather casual approach to this whole 

thing, but one which I believe are very well studied. So I am not 

sure that that is any kind of a deterrence at all. 

Dr. WAGNER. May I respond sir? 

Dr. GIBBONS. Yes, sir. 

Dr. WAGNER. I am not sure either. But no defense is going to be 

absolutely sure. Do I think it is worth the money? If the stakes 

weren’t so high I would say it is not worth the money to try. But 

the stakes are incredibly high, and so I think it is worth the 

money. 

Mr. GIBBONS. One other issue that came to mind was the issue 

about reporting for health issues. In other words, whenever there 

is some kind of a radiation disease that is noticed or recognized by 
71

a hospital or health care facility in an individual, is there a mandatory report that has to be filed with that so that we know somebody 

has been exposed? When you are dealing with this type of material, 

it is a very expensive process to avoid being exposed to this type 

of thing. I would think that one of our first signs of intelligence 

would be some type of a health report on somebody who is exposed, 

received care for some type of radiation treatment. Is there a mandatory report at all in any of the areas that you know about? 

Dr. WAGNER. I don’t know whether there is or not sir, and others 

may want to comment. But some of the, what are called innocent 

alarms in portal monitors and other kind of radiation monitors 

come from, you are quite right, people who have received radiation 

treatment. It is possible to develop, in fact, one can buy them 

today, isotope identification systems that can distinguish the signature of that kind of radiation from the signature of a bomb. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Well, that would be something like a nanolever, 

wouldn’t it, where it is coded to receive a certain molecular or isotope? 

Dr. WAGNER. Some of the biological warfare programs are intending to be molecular identifiers. In the case of radiological treatment, health treatments, it is more detecting the gamma rays, 

which is what we have been talking about here this morning. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LINDER. Gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Markey. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Tannenbaum, first 

of all, excellent study by you and Dr. Neureiter and Dr. Fetter and 

Dr. Von Hippel. As you know, we sent our request to you because 

there was a discrepancy between the views of many experts who 

determined that the radiation portal monitors deployed by the Department of Homeland Security were unable to detect highly enriched uranium and assertions by Department officials who repeatedly claimed that the portal monitor is capable of detecting HEU. 

You, like so many others, came to the conclusion that the laws of 

physics simply do not lend themselves to detecting the very material that represents the easiest pathway for a terrorist to build and 

detonate a homemade nuclear weapon capable of killing tens of 

thousands Americans. 

Your analysis also discusses some cost effective engineering fixes 

the Department could utilize in the short term to approve the sensitivity of its equipment. Could you please elaborate. 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Certainly. We described several ways that you 

could physically modify the terminals, the portal scanners. I have 

since spoken with the current deployment of those monitors and 

they question whether or not our recommendations make sense. 

But we suggested that you decrease the distance between the actual detector and the sample. That increases the likelihood of 

measuring it. We suggest that you increase the sampling time, 

meaning, you drive the truck through the portal slower. This gives 

you more data to work with. 

We suggest that you increase the amount of shielding around the 

detector to decrease the amount of background so you can find a 

real signal and get rid of all the background noise. And finally, the 

algorithms that are being used right now are sort of second genera-
72

tion algorithms, and I believe that there are many ways that those 

can be improved. 

Mr. MARKEY. How long do you think it would take for these 

short-term fixes to be completed before entirely new detection technology is ready? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. I can’t answer that question. 

Mr. MARKEY. Let me ask this. ABC News smuggled kilogram 

quantities of depleted uranium, not once but twice into the United 

States. The Department of Homeland Security says the detection 

problem is fixed. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. I am not convinced that it is, no. 

Mr. MARKEY. No. Dr. Wagner, you, like so many others, came to 

the conclusion that detection of devices containing highly enriched 

uranium is very difficult and varies widely and is limited today to 

short range. Dr. Tannenbaum has said that taking some simple 

short-term engineering measures such as shielding the detector or 

decreasing the distance between the container and the detector 

would help. Do you think the Department of Homeland Security 

should take some of these or all of these measures in the shortterm while recognizing that continued R&D might result in even 

better solutions long term? 

Dr. WAGNER. Yes, I do. 

Mr. MARKEY. Could you elaborate. 

Dr. WAGNER. There is a continuum and the process is to close off 

a larger and larger fraction of that continuum in the threat space. 

My own view is that some of these near-term measures of the sort 

that Dr. Tannenbaum mentioned ought to be deployed, but in a relatively limited way at the highest priority locations. And in parallel 

with that, R&D for even better capability, ought to be done and deployed more widely later. 

Mr. MARKEY. All right. So let us just take that and parse it a 

little bit. Where would those high—where would you deploy these 

short-term fixes waiting for a longer term solution? 

Dr. WAGNER. The DOE has an analysis model that prioritizes the 

risks at various locations. To first order, I think I would follow the 

recommendations of that model. It is not a perfect model. It will 

miss some things. 

Mr. MARKEY. Okay. For the committees purposes could you 

elaborate on where the specifics of those locations are. 

Dr. WAGNER. I don’t know where those locations are. I like New 

York City. 

Mr. MARKEY. New York City would be on the list to have a shortterm solution. 

Dr. WAGNER. If I were calling the shots, yes. 

Mr. MARKEY. Anything else that you would, off the top of your 

head, put on that list? 

Dr. WAGNER. I would rather not give you specifics because I 

haven’t thought through those specifics. 

Mr. MARKEY. Okay. Well, I thank both of you. It is very helpful. 

And I think we do Mr. Chairman have to look from some shortterm solution especially for high priority targets, I think. 

Mr. LINDER. I thank the gentleman. Does Mr. Lungren seek to 

inquire? 
73

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tannenbaum you mentioned in your testimony about an Ohio-based company that has proposed inexpensive detectors that would be placed 

in cargo containers during transoceanic shipment. Obviously, detectors would take advantage of the 10-day or longer time to locate 

it. Can you tell us any more about that? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. Certainly. The notion is that you have a set 

of detectors that are placed in each container right before it is 

shipped off across the ocean. They measure radiation. They communicate with each other and before the ship arrives in the port of 

the United States it communicates its data back to some central location where it is interpreted and decided is this a ship we need 

to intercept or is it one that can go ahead and dock. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Do you have any idea how far along this is in 

terms of development? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. This particular company claims to have a prototype that is working and is ready to start doing some serious 

scale testing. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you. Mr. Aloise, your earlier work—

Mr. LINDER. Will the gentleman yield for 1 minute? 

Mr. LUNGREN. Yes. 

Mr. LINDER. I would just like to ask, do you have any estimate 

on cost on that? 

Mr. TANNENBAUM. No, I don’t, sir. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you. Thank the gentleman. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Anybody else on the panel aware of that? Okay. 

Mr. Aloise your earlier work has identified certain weaknesses in 

the effectiveness of the personal radiation detectors called pagers. 

Mr. ALOISE. Right. 

Mr. LUNGREN. It is my understanding, are Customs agents still 

using these pagers in an attempt to search containers for radiologic 

materials? Is this an effective use of these pagers? 

Mr. ALOISE. As search instruments, no. As we understand it the 

Customs inspectors wear them on their belts as safety devices. It 

is best used in a combination suite of equipment, with the portals, 

with the grids, the isotope identifiers and the pager. Used by itself 

it has limited effectiveness. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Is it being used in concert with these others? 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes, as far as we know it is. But in some cases we 

have seen them misused. 

Mr. LUNGREN. What do you mean? 

Mr. ALOISE. Well, they were used as search instruments. Instead 

of searching a truck with isotope identifier, we have seen them 

search the truck with the pager, and it just does not have the same 

effectiveness and is not designed to do that. 

Mr. LUNGREN. So you are not suggesting that it is a strategy that 

is proved by the Department, are you? You are suggesting it may 

just be a lapse in good work product by the people using them? 

Mr. ALOISE. It is a need for better training of the equipment. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Okay. The Department of Energy has the 

Megaports Program. DHS has the Container Security Initiative. 

Both place radiation monitors at foreign seaports. What is the difference between these programs and why do we need both? 
74

Mr. ALOISE. Well, the Megaports Program is placing the radiation detection equipment at the seaports and they have done two 

so far. They have got five more underway. The CSI program, which 

I am less familiar with, has got agreements with many more ports 

and does a number of other things to target containers for review. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Dr. Wagner, you have been involved in detection 

for many, many years. We have a limited budget. We have admittedly incomplete technology right now. We have to make some decisions. Where would you put the emphasis right now? 

Dr. WAGNER. I would put it on developing detectors that can both 

increase the sensitivity to the wanted—the signal radiation from 

the weapon if it is there, by being larger so that more radiation can 

intercept it, but can also sort out the signal from the noise by doing 

very highly resolved identification of the energies of the gamma 

rays. That is—there are many, many instantiations of that general 

idea, and exactly which one of those instantiations I would choose, 

I can’t say. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Ms. Rooney, if you had one thing that you needed 

from us, what would it be? 

Ms. ROONEY. Well, that is a loaded question. We do, as I mentioned before, need to move to supply chain security standards. 

And as an overall approach to cargo security, the radiation portal 

monitors and the isotope identifiers and Megaports and CSI are all 

parts of that. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Well, let me ask you a question on that. And that 

is with all due respect, you speak as if that is something that can 

be done. Are you telling me we lose no containers at sea, we don’t 

lose track of them, that they are totally secure once they are on an 

ocean-going vessel? 

Ms. ROONEY. We need to have greater assurances that we know 

what is going into the container, that the container’s integrity is 

maintained, that we have indication of its location of the radiation 

signal that is being emitted from the container, all the way along 

in the supply chain, yes. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Reichert. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Rooney, you spoke 

of high level of false alarms, and if there is a hit, the container is 

then scanned again and has a second inspection. And I am just 

wondering if you are able to attach a cost for that second inspection 

and who bears that cost? 

Ms. ROONEY. The entire program is funded and operated and 

maintained by Customs and Border Protection. There is no cost of 

the radiation inspection to the cargo owner or to the trucking company, so we don’t have any quantifiable numbers on that. 

Mr. REICHERT. Additional personnel? 

Ms. ROONEY. It is all borne by Customs. We don’t have any visibility into that cost. 

Mr. REICHERT. So the cost is borne by Customs? 

Ms. ROONEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. REICHERT. Can you describe to me what port security looked 

like before September 11 in your world then? 

Ms. ROONEY. Port security prior to 9/11 was predominantly based 

on theft and pilferage as opposed to national security. We were 
75

more concerned about keeping cargo in a container and on a facility 

until it was legally picked up than we were about keeping bad stuff 

out of a container. So there has been a complete change in our 

focus of container security. 

Mr. REICHERT. What kind of tools did you use then? 

Ms. ROONEY. There were little tools in terms of cargo security or 

facility security. I mean, all of the port facilities were secured. They 

had a perimeter fence. But the threat was different. The threat 

profile, again, was completely different pre-9/11 than it is today. 

Mr. REICHERT. Had you ever heard of RPMs? 

Ms. ROONEY. I personally had not, no. 

Mr. REICHERT. Before September 11? 

Ms. ROONEY. No, sir. 

Mr. REICHERT. I am just asking this question. The point is that 

I am new to Congress and I am sitting in this hearing and I am 

listening to this discussion and I think we would be remiss to point 

out that this world has really changed. Your world has really 

changed, and I appreciate the work that each and every one of you 

are doing. We are in a transition period. And I do agree with Dr. 

Wagner that there will be mistakes made and we will spend some 

money that we wish we didn’t have to spend, but I think we are 

going to be in that process for a while. 

And with research and development that you have spoken about, 

I now just want to ask this one last question, if you can describe 

for me what port security will look like in 5 years or 10 years. Do 

you have a vision of what port security might look like? We know 

where we came from and we know where we are right now. We are 

trying to figure this out and here we are talking about the things 

that we need to do. We might have to place these monitors on corners of buildings as the doctor had indicated earlier, if we really 

carried this thing out further and further and further. What will 

port security look like in this 5 to 10 years from now? 

Ms. ROONEY. Port security, from my perspective, has two components, the physical security of the facility and the vessels, and then 

the security of the cargo. The physical security of the facilities and 

the vessel has been well addressed by the Maritime Transportation 

Security Act. I believe that there are more things that we can do 

in terms of other threats, such as a small boat attack on a vessel, 

you know, a USS Cole-type event. The Coast Guard has the—the 

Coast Guard is trying to address that threat, but it is something 

that is very difficult to get anyone’s arms around, you know, those 

types of threats. 

In terms of cargo security, again, we talk about supply chain security from origin to destination that we know a lot more about the 

cargo. We don’t know a lot more about the people that are doing 

it. There is tremendous value in things like the monitors and C–

TPAT where there is voluntary compliance to new standards. We 

believe that a container will have a lot more security devices on 

board on the container, that it will have electronic seals, that it 

will have tracking and trace devices, that it will have sensors inside the container that will be able to tell us whether there is a 

chemical, biological radiological device, or whether or not a hole 

has been cut inside the container. 
76

We are fairly far along through a program, Operation Safe Commerce, which is federally funded in developing those technologies 

and coming up with the cost-benefit of those, with the ultimate 

goal of not impacting the flow of commerce and providing a costbenefit to the shipper that there is encouragement for the shipper 

to purchase this technology or apply this technology on to their 

container, because there will be some business benefit for doing 

that. 

Mr. REICHERT. Thank you very much. We now know you know 

where you are going and we just have to figure out a way to help 

you. And if anyone else has a comment, that would be appreciated. 

Dr. WAGNER. I just want to comment. I think that was an absolutely wonderful vision. I think radiation detection technology can 

complement that vision, but it is only a complementing function. 

All those things you mentioned are really important to do. I see the 

radiation detection technology part of this as doing triage while the 

container is coming to the port, so that at the port the authorities 

at the port can be fairly sure that certain ships and certain segments on the ships don’t have weapons. The radiation detection at 

the port can then focus on those areas where there might still be 

a problem, where identification, not just sensing, not just getting 

a hit, as you say, but identifying what the hit is, is highly sure and 

can be done very, very quickly. And I think the radiation detection 

technology can be made available with R&D to complement that vision. 

Mr. LINDER. The time of the gentleman has expired. Mr. McCaul. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A bit of a follow-up on 

the technology. I am interested in the technology of today and what 

we are capable of doing. And I see we have votes coming up right 

now. Timing is everything in this game. But I have one of the largest ports in the Nation in my district, in Houston. Representative 

King led a delegation to the New York Port Authority, you may recall that, very insightful. What I have been told is that in 6 

months, we will have radiological sensors in place at the ports. Is 

that still an accurate estimate of time? And this is probably to you, 

Ms. Rooney. 

Ms. ROONEY. My understanding in talking to my colleagues in 

the port of Houston is that that is the current schedule yes, but 

I am only getting that from my colleagues. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Okay. How accurate is the technology of today in 

detecting, and obviously we can’t go through every cargo container, 

which seems to me to be a very pragmatic way of screening cargo. 

How effective is it in screening the containers coming through? 

Ms. ROONEY. It does have the capability of screening 100 percent 

of the cargo when fully deployed. The capabilities of the detection 

technology is something, you know, that Dr. Tannenbaum and Dr. 

Wagner can speak of much better than I can. 

Mr. MCCAUL. Do you care to comment, Dr. Wagner? 

Dr. WAGNER. I think the near-term technologies are going to be 

pretty limited. But they are worth deploying for two reasons. One 

is to give an attacker something more to worry about and be some 

protection, but also to get experience with actual use of even the 

limited technologies and actual operations, which is really impor-
77

tant for guiding the R&D that will give you the better things later 

on. 

Mr. MCCAUL. There is a concept, talking about R&D and the energy windowing process. Are you familiar with that? Will that enhance our ability to detect radiation? 

Dr. WAGNER. It won’t help too much with the actual detection of 

radiation, but it will help to you say, help a lot with saying what 

is the radiation from. Is it a threat object, an innocent alarm or 

natural background? That is really the key to doing this. 

Mr. MCCAUL. The University of Texas is in my district as well. 

They are teaming with Lockheed Martin to bid on the Los Alamos 

research project. What is your assessment in terms of the sharing 

between the research laboratories out there and the United States 

on this very issue? Is it working? 

Dr. WAGNER. I think sharing among the labs is not perfect, but 

it is working pretty well. The government can help to enhance the 

sharing by creating larger programs where the labs aren’t, in a 

sense, acting as contractors seeking small contracts but are challenged with large problems. When they are challenged with large 

problems they can work together. 

Mr. MCCAUL. My final question, because I know we have to go 

vote, and that is, I have the Mexican border in my home state. 

What I have found in my experience at Justice was that you have 

the major ports and we seem to be protecting those pretty well. But 

the cartels can move contraband. They don’t typically move it 

through the ports. They move between the ports. And this is really 

no exception. The movement of a nuclear device the size of, say, a 

bale of marijuana, could be easily transported across the border. 

And I know we can’t be 100 percent safe in everything. Where are 

we with the technology with these sensors to detect between the 

ports of entry where we are most vulnerable to a terrorist threat? 

Where is the technology today with that? 

Dr. WAGNER. I think that within 5 or 6 years it might be possible 

to build a sensor that could be put into a rather large helicopter, 

like a Chinook, which I once flew around in with radiation detectors in northern Canada trying to find pieces of Cosmos 954, but 

much, much better, so that grid patterns could be flown over low 

air grade at low altitude. But certainly man-portable devices that 

would have to be made of plutonium which would be light enough 

to smuggle in easily in that way. 

Mr. MCCAUL. We are moving towards that? 

Dr. WAGNER. Not as fast as we should. 

Mr. MCCAUL. I thank you for your time here today. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LINDER. I want to thank the panel. Your testimony has not 

only been interesting, but it has been helpful. We appreciate it. 

You are excused. Thank you very much. 

We have a 15-minute vote and four 5-minute votes. We will ask 

the next panel to join us at about 4:45. Thank you all. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. LINDER. We will reconvene this hearing. If you could keep 

your statements to 5 minutes, thank you for being here. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Oxford, Acting Director, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, Department of Homeland Security. 
78

STATEMENT OF VAYL OXFORD 

Mr. OXFORD. Good afternoon, Chairman Linder, Chairman King 

and ranking members and members of the subcommittees. Thank 

you for the opportunity to come before you today to show the 

progress we have made in developing and deploying new technology to protect the Nation from a terrorist nuclear or radiological 

threat. 

Today I will discuss several topics related to the use of technology in the detection of nuclear and radiological materials that 

could be used in a terrorist attack. Specifically, I will discuss the 

Department’s formation of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, 

or DNDO, as you have heard referred to it previously, and its nearterm nuclear detection, development and deployment strategy, as 

well as some of the current DHS deployments. I will also address 

the various detection technologies that we are currently developing 

and the technology development and deployment model that we 

hope to use in the future. 

Before describing the Department’s efforts, I would first like to 

point out that protecting the United States from nuclear threats is 

a job that extends beyond DHS. I would like to thank my partners 

who are here today from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy for their contributions in developing and deploying technologies to protect the Nation. 

First, let me address the creation of DNDO. Combating the 

threat of catastrophic destruction and loss of life posed by terrorists 

possessing and using nuclear or radiological weapons is one of the 

most critical priorities of the Nation. In order to integrate the Department’s efforts against this threat under a singular direction, as 

well as to coordinate these efforts with the partners with me today 

and others across the government, the President established the 

DNDO. 

This new office is chartered with developing a global nuclear detection architecture and strategy and acquiring and supporting the 

deployment of the domestic detection system to detect or report attempts to import or transport a nuclear device or fissile or radiological material intended for illicit use. 

Let me say a few words about the detection deployment strategy 

that we have in mind. No single detection layer can prevent a terrorist from importing nuclear or radiological material with intent 

to harm the Nation. Therefore, partnering with other government 

agencies and the private sector, we must create coordinated, robust 

layers of defense. 

While technology is a critical tool to combat nuclear terrorism, 

we recognize that this threat is not one that can effectively be done 

by technology alone. Accordingly, while the DNDO is allocating 

considerable funding to research, development and acquisition, we 

are also dedicating resources to the people and infrastructure required to develop a fully integrated operating environment. 

We will ultimately have the ability to fuse detection data and intelligence assessments in a near real-time environment to maintain 

an overall system and situational awareness. This integrated approach to detection and information analysis will ultimately provide substantial improvement in alarm resolution, threat assess-
79

ments, data trend analysis, and, most importantly, overall probability of mission success. 

Regarding current DHS deployments, even as we develop nextgeneration technologies, we are in the process of deploying several 

commercially available technologies to the field. For example, U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection has made rapid progress with the 

radiation portal monitoring program, which deploys commercially 

available radiation detectors to the Nation’s official ports-of-entry. 

The Coast-Guard also has begun deployments of personal radiation 

detectors and more advanced handheld detectors for use in detection and characterization of radiological materials. 

Technology itself is being pursued in several venues. Recent reports have been published in the media questioning the overall capability of currently deployed detection equipment. Contrary to 

public perception that, that detection equipment is not sensitive 

enough, the actual primary limitation of today’s systems is one of 

discrimination and shielding. Specifically, today’s equipment lacks 

a refined capability to rapidly determine the type of radioactive 

material it detects. Operationally, this leads to higher nuisance 

alarm rates, or those alarms that must be resolved by further inspection. Because false alarm rates are a direct function of probability of detection, the operators must make operationally driven 

decisions when deploying and operating currently available systems. 

To overcome these limitations, we are investing substantial resources in the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal program that is focused on developing detectors that will be able to discriminate between naturally occurring radioactive materials and threat materials. This level of discrimination will allow systems to operate at 

a substantially lower detection threshold, while simultaneously offsetting the subsequent operational constraints associated with the 

current systems. 

However, passive detection systems are ultimately limited by 

physical properties of the radiation they are designed to detect, 

specifically with regard to range of detection. The problem is confounded by the sufficient amounts of high-density shielding materials, such as lead or steel, that can act as effective measures to 

prevent the emissions of detectable amounts of radiation. 

Radiography systems can, however, overcome this limitation by 

providing images of the contents of the container to identify areas 

of high density that are potentially indicative of shielding materials. An integrated passive detection and radiography system 

would, then, be capable of detecting either the unshielded materials that are emitting radiation, or detecting the materials that 

are used to shield the material itself. 

Active interrogation systems can further alleviate detection limitations by probing or interrogating containers to induce additional 

measurable detection signatures. A number of methods are currently under investigation and are currently in a prototype development and demonstration phase, including systems which ‘‘interrogate’’ containers with either neutron or gamma rays. 

Let me talk next about the RDT&E process and model that we 

hope to use. I would like to discuss a little bit more in that context 
80

the ASP Program, the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal program, that 

I mentioned previously. 

The model that DNDO will use was, first of all, initiated based 

on an operational requirement from Customs for a more capable 

portable monitoring system to be deployed at the borders. There 

are currently 10 R&D efforts under way that will culminate late 

this summer with a high-fidelity test and evaluation campaign to 

take place at our new Radiological and Nuclear Countermeasures 

Test and Evaluation Complex at the Nevada Test Site where each 

of these developed systems will be fully evaluated against one another as well as against currently deployed systems. Based on the 

results of these tests, a limited number of vendors will be selected 

to begin initial low-rate production of detection systems to be deployed at the border. Meanwhile, operational testing of these systems will begin taking place at the Countermeasures Test Bed in 

New York and New Jersey. 

This comprehensive technology development program will guarantee that capable radiological portal monitors, with known performance characteristics, are being deployed to implement the 

baseline domestic detection architecture. The bottom line is, only 

after extensive testing is complete and performance is characterized will acquisition and deployment decisions be made. 

In conclusion, the DNDO has taken a comprehensive approach to 

addressing the threats posed by a nuclear attack. This approach, 

which begins with focused research and development and culminates in high-fidelity test and evaluation campaigns, provides 

the basis for the Department to make informed, justifiable acquisition decisions. Equally important, the DNDO recognizes that the 

deployment of these technologies must be done as part of an overall 

larger strategy, one that extends to overseas deployments executed 

by the other agencies. Ultimately, all of these systems must be connected and work within an environment that is responsive to information gained from the intelligence, counterterrorism and law enforcement communities. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I will be glad to answer any further questions. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Mr. Oxford. 

[The statement of Mr. Oxford follows:]

PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF VAYL OXFORD

Introduction 

Good afternoon, Chairmen Linder and King, Ranking Members Langevin and 

Pascrell, and distinguished members of the subcommittees. I thank you for the opportunity to come before you today to share the progress we have made in developing and deploying new technology to protect the Nation from a terrorist nuclear 

or radiological attack. 

My name is Vayl Oxford. I am the Acting Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s newly created Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO). Additionally, I am currently serving as the Acting Director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency within the DHS Science and Technology Directorate. Prior to this, I have also held positions at the National Security Council and 

with the DoD’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency. 

Today, I will discuss several topics related to the use of technology in the detection of nuclear and radiological materials that could be used in a terrorist attack. 

Specifically, I will discuss the Department’s formation of the DNDO and its nuclear 

detection deployment strategy, as well as current DHS deployments. I will also address the various detection technologies that we are currently working to develop 
81

and deploy and the program model that we are following, using the Advanced 

Spectroscopic Portal monitor program as an example. 

Before describing the Department’s efforts, I would first like to point out that protecting the United States from nuclear threats is a job that extends beyond the work 

of DHS, and I would like to thank my partners who are here today from the Departments of Defense and Energy for the contributions that their organizations are also 

making to develop and deploy technologies to protect the Nation.

Creating the DNDO 

Combating the threat of catastrophic destruction and loss of life posed by terrorists possessing nuclear or radiological weapons is one of the most critical priorities 

of DHS. In order to integrate the Department’s efforts against this threat under a 

singular direction, as well as coordinate these efforts with the partners with me 

here today and others across the government, Secretary Chertoff provided notification to the Committee on April 13 of this year, of his intent to establish the DNDO. 

On April 15, 2005, the President signed a joint presidential directive establishing 

the office, NSPD–43/HSPD–14, ‘‘Domestic Nuclear Detection’’. This new office is 

chartered with developing a global nuclear detection architecture and acquiring and 

supporting a deployment of the domestic detection system to detect and report attempts to import or transport a nuclear device or fissile or radiological material intended for illicit use.

DNDO Detection Deployment Strategy 

No single detection layer alone can prevent a terrorist from importing nuclear or 

radiological material with the intent to harm the Nation. Therefore, partnering with 

other government agencies and the private sector, we must create a well coordinated, robust layered defense with built-in redundancies. 

While technology is a critical tool to combat terrorism, we recognize that this 

threat is not one that can be effectively overcome by technology alone. That is why 

we must work hand-in-hand with well trained Federal, State, Tribal, and local law 

enforcement agencies, as well as the larger intelligence and counterterrorism communities. Accordingly, while the DNDO is allocating considerable funding to technology research, development, and acquisition, we are also dedicating significant resources to the people and infrastructure required to develop a fully integrated operating environment. We will ultimately have the ability to fuse detection data and 

intelligence assessments in a near real-time environment to maintain an overall system and situational awareness. While this plan will require the DNDO to interact 

closely with the Intelligence Community as a developer of intelligence requirements 

and consumer of intelligence products, the DNDO will not act as an intelligence collection agency. This integrated approach to detection and information analysis will 

ultimately provide substantial improvement in alarm resolution, threat assessments, data trend analysis, and, most importantly, overall probability of mission 

success.

Current DHS Deployments 

As next-generation technologies are being developed, the Department is already 

in the process of deploying several commercially available technologies to the field 

For example, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has made rapid progress with 

their Radiation Portal Monitor Program, which deploys commercially-available radiation detectors to the Nation’s official Ports-of-Entry (POE). CBP has already deployed detectors to international mail facilities and major POEs along the Northern 

Border. Additionally, CBP officers are equipped with personal radiation detectors, 

pager-like devices that indicate the presence of radioactive materials. The U.S. 

Coast Guard has also begun deployments of these same personal radiation detectors 

and more-advanced handheld detectors for use in the detection and characterization 

of radiological materials.

Technical Approaches to Detecting Nuclear Materials 

Recent reports have been published in the media questioning the overall capability of currently deployed detection equipment. Contrary to public perception that 

detection equipment is not sensitive enough, the actual primary limitation of today’s 

systems is one of discrimination. Specifically, today’s equipment lacks a refined capability to rapidly determine the type of radioactive materials it detects. Operationally, this leads to higher ‘‘nuisance alarm’’ rates—the number of alarms that must 

be resolved by further inspection. Because false alarm rates are a direct function 

of the probability of detection, the operators are being forced to make operationallydriven decisions when deploying and operating the currently available technologies. 

To overcome these limitations, the DNDO is currently investing substantial resources to the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) program, which is focused on 

developing detectors which will be able to discriminate between naturally occurring 
82

radioactive materials and true threat materials. So, rather than alarming when any 

radiation is detected, whether it is emitting from granite tiles or a nuclear weapon, 

these new systems will be able to determine, ‘‘yes, there is radiation present, but 

the radiation signature matches that of naturally occurring radioactive materials 

and not special nuclear materials or radiological threat materials, and, therefore, is 

not a threat.’’ This level of discrimination will allow the systems to operate at a substantially lower detection threshold, while simultaneously offsetting the subsequent 

operational constraints associated with the current-generation systems. 

However, ‘‘passive’’ detection systems are ultimately limited by the physical properties of the radiation that they are designed to detect, specifically with regard to 

range of detection. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that sufficient amounts 

of high-density ‘‘shielding’’ materials, such as lead or steel, can act as an effective 

measure to prevent the emission of detectable amounts of radiation. 

Radiography systems, similar to x-ray machines, can, however, overcome this limitation by providing density images of the contents of a container to identify areas 

of high density that are potentially indicative of shielding materials. An integrated 

passive detection and radiography system would, then, be capable of either directly 

detecting unshielded materials that are emitting radiation, or detecting the materials used to shield materials and prevent radiation emission. 

‘‘Active interrogation systems’’ can further alleviate detection limitations by probing, or ‘‘interrogating,’’ containers to induce additional measurable detection signatures. A number of methods are currently under investigation, including systems 

which ‘‘interrogate’’ containers with either neutrons or gamma rays. However, current systems are still in a prototype development and demonstration phase, and design and performance obstacles must be overcome to substantially reduce the size 

and cost of systems if they are to be widely deployed.

Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation to Advance the State-of-the Art 

I would like to discuss in a little more depth the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal 

(ASP) program, which I mentioned previously, in order to explain the model that 

the DNDO will use for all technology development and acquisition programs. The 

ASP program was initiated in direct response to a CBP requirement for more capable radiation portal monitors to be deployed at the borders. The Homeland Security 

Advanced Research Projects Agency, or HSARPA, then issued two Broad Agency Announcements and awarded contracts to ten private industry participants for the development of these portals; these contracts have subsequently been transferred to 

the DNDO. These efforts will culminate late this summer with an extensive highfidelity test and evaluation campaign to take place at the Radiological and Nuclear 

Countermeasures Test and Evaluation Complex (Rad/NucCTEC) at the Nevada Test 

Site (NTS), where the developed systems will be evaluated against one another, as 

well as currently-deployed systems. Based on the results of these tests, a limited 

number of vendors will be selected to begin initial low-rate production of detection 

systems to be deployed at the border. These first deployments will provide an opportunity for operational test and evaluation of the systems, the results of which will 

be provided to the design and production team for incorporation into subsequent spiral developments. This comprehensive technology development program will guarantee that capable radiation portal monitors with known performance characteristics are being deployed to implement the baseline domestic detection architecture. 

This program highlights a unique DHS asset that I believe is critical to the overall success of the DNDO research and development efforts. The Rad/NucCTEC, currently under construction at NTS, has been developed to ensure a high-fidelity test 

and evaluation cycle for all technologies developed and transitioned to operational 

end-users. The facility is being built in close proximity to the Department of Energy’s Device Assembly Facility, or DAF, to leverage its ability to handle significant 

quantities of special nuclear materials (SNM). The RadNucCTEC will be authorized 

to handle SNM for the purpose of testing developed technologies against actual samples of these materials which provide the greatest threat to the Nation for use in 

a nuclear attack. Until the construction of this facility, no location existed which allowed access to these quantities of materials while maintaining the flexibility to 

place these materials into relevant threat scenarios and cargo configurations. Once 

completed, the complex will provide the Nation with a unique capability that will 

bridge the gap between ‘‘bench-top testing’’ preformed by developers and operational 

field testing conducted during pilot deployments.

Conclusion 

The DNDO has taken an end-to-end approach to systems development and technology improvement. By integrating research and development efforts with a comprehensive test and evaluation program that ultimately leads to an informed systems acquisition and deployment process, the DNDO is working to provide the Na-
83

tion with a continuously improving capability to protect against a terrorist nuclear 

attack. 

The DNDO has taken a comprehensive approach to addressing the threat posed 

by a terrorist nuclear attack. This approach, which begins with focused research and 

development programs that culminate in high fidelity test and evaluation campaigns, provide the basis for the Department to make informed and justifiable acquisition decisions. Equally important, the DNDO recognizes that the deployment 

of these technologies must be done as part of a larger strategy, one that extends 

to overseas deployments executed by other agencies. Ultimately, all of these systems 

must be connected and work within an environment that responds to information 

obtained from intelligence, counterterrorism, and law enforcement communities. 

I am proud to have shared with you today how the Department and its interagency partners will work within the DNDO to continue to make progress against 

this very real threat. I look forward to working with you on these subcommittees 

in a continuing effort to confront this threat to the Nation. 

This concludes my prepared statement. With the committee’s permission, I request my formal statement be submitted for the record. [Chairmen, Congressmen 

Langevin and Pascrell, and Members of the Subcommittees, I thank you for your 

attention and will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Huizenga. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID HUIZENGA, ASSISTANT DEPUTY 

ADMINISTRATOR, INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL PROTECTION 

AND COOPERATION, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY 

ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and other members of 

the committee, for inviting me to testify today. 

I will be discussing the Department of Energy’s role in the interagency effort to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack against this 

country. I will focus on the role of my office, the Office of International Material Protection and Cooperation, as part of this larger, coordinated effort. 

Our mission is to enhance U.S. national security by reducing the 

threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. We pursue 

this mission in two broad areas. 

The first line of defense, our first goal is to secure nuclear weapons and weapons-usable material by upgrading security at vulnerable sites at international locations. We focus on the Russian Federation and other countries of greatest concern to U.S. national security. By working to secure these materials and weapons at the 

point of origin, we are making significant progress toward denying 

terrorists the essential element of a nuclear weapon, the fissile material. Securing the material is a top priority of the Bush administration, and we have now completed security upgrades at over 75 

percent of the sites in Russia and the former Soviet Union. We are 

building a momentum from the recent Bush-Putin Summit and are 

poised to accelerate these critical activities in the upcoming 

months. 

The second line of defense, the second mission, basically, is to 

prevent smuggling of nuclear and radiological material at international seaports, airports and land border crossings. The Second 

Line of Defense, or SLD, program, is dedicated to this program. At 

the committee’s request, the Second Line of Defense program is the 

focus of my testimony today. 

The SLD program has two parts. The Core Program focuses on 

securing material primarily in Russia and other former Soviet 

States, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region; and the sec-
84

ond part, the Megaports Initiative, which we had some discussion 

of earlier today. It is a 2-year-old effort to equip major international seaports with radiation detection equipment to screen 

cargo containers bound for the U.S. 

The implementation of the SLD program involves deploying a 

suite of equipment, including fixed radiation portal monitors and 

associated communications system, as well as handheld equipment 

for secondary searches. This equipment is part of an overall system 

that includes initial site surveys, installation of the equipment followed by acceptance, testing and calibration of these radiological 

detection monitors. We provide extensive training on the use of the 

equipment to assure the long-term reliability. This training is essential since the very best equipment is ineffective if it is ignored, 

incorrectly calibrated, improperly maintained or easily bypassed by 

corrupt or incompetent operators. 

The centerpiece and workhorse of the SLD effort is the radiation 

portal monitor, RPM. Currently, we deploy monitors that use plastic scintillators to detect gamma signatures and helium 3 tubes to 

detect neutrons. The purpose of the technology is to detect special 

nuclear material, in particular plutonium and uranium. These 

monitors will also detect radiological materials suitable for use in 

a radiological dispersal device or a dirty bomb. 

I am aware of and somewhat disappointed in the recent criticism 

of the U.S. efforts to deploy radiation portal monitors both here at 

home and abroad. I want to be clear at the outset, over the last 

several years these portals have proven their value on many locations, and I expect they will continue to do so well into the future. 

The gravity of the potential consequences of elicit trafficking in 

nuclear material requires that we deploy and employ all of the 

tools available to us now, while, of course, seeking to update and 

improve our efforts as new technologies emerge. 

Certainly, as you have heard, there are issues, both domestic and 

international. We face these challenges in deploying this equipment. I have discussed these challenges in some detail in my written statement, and I will briefly summarize here. 

First, certain configurations of shielded HEU are difficult or impossible to detect. Intense R&D work is going on, as Vayl Oxford 

has pointed out. Currently, the best solution is the overlapping use 

of existing RPMs in conjunction with the imaging technology to reveal anomalies within the container’s contents. 

The second challenge is to quickly and effectively distinguish the 

NORM alarms from special nuclear material. Currently, the best 

solution is various types of energy windowing used by both Customs and the Second Line of Defense program to eliminate a significant number of NORM alarms and then do secondary inspections to eliminate the rest. Spectroscopic portal monitors may help 

with this problem. However, the data on the portal monitors is 

being collected, and we await the results. 

The third challenge is transshipment, finding ways to scan the 

container traffic at a port that moves from ship to ship or ship to 

shore and then to ship and doesn’t pass through a checkpoint. As 

the program gains experience, we are finding innovative ways to 

solve this problem. 
85

In the port of Freeport, for example, we are using a straddle carrier, which is a device that is pointed out on the left-hand side of 

the picture over here that is used to carry containers around in the 

port. We put monitors, both spectroscopic and plastic monitors, on 

this straddle carrier; and we are driving this around the port to 

make sure we are screening the cargo that doesn’t actually go 

through an entry and exit gate. 

SLD, the program is working closely with the Department of 

Homeland Security to develop solutions to these issues. We are engaged in cooperative efforts with several offices, including the 

DNDO office and the Customs and Border Protection Office of Field 

Operations and the Office of International Affairs. We routinely exchange information, data and lessons learned with our counterparts at CBP. We are also providing training courses at the Pacific 

Northwest Laboratory facility, the HAMMER facility, for CBP officers and foreign customs officers as well. Finally, we work closely 

with the SNT office to share implementation challenges and seek 

promising solutions. 

I have addressed the effectiveness of the technology but for context need to point out something that our trainers always tell both 

the U.S. and foreign customs officers. Equipment supplements the 

skill of the officers but does not replace it. These officers must use 

all that they have learned about human behavior, suspicious activities and smuggling techniques in order to make the technology 

most effective. Alert and effectively trained officials using the best 

equipment available will always be our strongest protection against 

illicit trafficking. 

I would like to close by reiterating what I stated earlier. While 

we are focused on technological challenges in our hearing today, 

there are a lot these monitors can and are doing. They can detect 

radiological materials. They can detect shielded plutonium and certain configurations of shielded HEU. They have proven to work reliably in a variety of extreme field conditions. 

An example pointed out recently by our Russian Customs Ministry informed us that the second line of defense in Russian monitors deployed along the Russian border recorded 14,000 hits last 

year. Two hundred of these cases involved potential attempts to 

smuggle nuclear or radiological materials. That is 200 cases that 

would not have been discovered and investigated but for the presence of the radiation portal monitors. 

Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions you have. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you, Mr. Huizenga. 

[The statement of Mr. Huizenga follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID HUIZENGA

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I would also like to express my appreciation for the efforts 

of my colleagues from the Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security. 

I will be discussing the role of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in the interagency effort to prevent a nuclear terrorist 

attack against this country. More specifically, I will focus on the role of my office, 

the Office of International Material Protection and Cooperation, as a part of this 

larger, coordinated effort. 

The mission of the NNSA’s Office of International Material Protection and Cooperation is to enhance U.S. national security by reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. We pursue this mission by improving the security 
86

measures protecting weapons-usable material and by enhancing radiation detection 

and proliferation interdiction capabilities at key transit points including international border crossings and large ports of call. My group implements these critical 

programs in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and in other 

countries around the world. 

The first goal of my office is to secure nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials by upgrading security at vulnerable nuclear sites. We focus on efforts in the Russian Federation and other countries of greatest concern to U.S. national security. By working to secure nuclear material and weapons at the point of 

origin, we continue to make important strides toward denying terrorists and states 

of concern the essential element of a nuclear weapon: the fissile material. As you 

know, securing nuclear material is a top priority of the Bush Administration, and 

we have now completed security upgrades at over 75% of the sites containing nuclear materials and nuclear weapons in Russia and the FSU. 

The second goal of my office is to prevent smuggling of nuclear and radiological 

material at international seaports, airports and land border crossings. The Second 

Line of Defense program or SLD is dedicated to this important effort. At the Committee’s request, the SLD program will be the focus of my testimony today. 

The SLD program has two parts. The Core Program focuses on securing border 

crossings in Russia and other former Soviet States, Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean region and other key countries. The second part of our SLD program, the 

Megaports Initiative, equips major international seaports with radiation detection 

equipment to screen cargo containers for dangerous materials. 

Implementation of the SLD program involves deploying a suite of equipment including fixed radiation portal monitors and an associated communications system, 

as well as hand held equipment for secondary searches of shipping containers. 

I would like to emphasize that the nuclear detection technology deployed by the 

SLD program is part of an overall system. This overall system includes site surveys 

to determine the best placement of the monitors at major transit points, and vulnerability assessments to determine the potential efficiency of this technology at the 

particular site. Once the technology has been installed, we perform extensive acceptance testing and calibration of the radiation detection monitors. We also work with 

the host country government to provide extensive training on the most effective use 

of the installed equipment. This training program includes specifics on incident response procedures, requirements for maintenance and technical support, and longterm sustainability planning. This systematic approach recognizes that the effectiveness of the installed equipment is fundamentally determined by how it is used on 

the ground by host country personnel. The very best equipment available is ineffective if it is ignored, incorrectly calibrated, improperly maintained or easily bypassed 

by corrupt or incompetent operators. Therefore, the fundamental objectives of the 

SLD program include ensuring that our equipment is operated properly and effectively by the host country. We seek to ensure that the host country understands 

how to maintain the equipment after U.S. assistance has ended. We also work to 

ensure that the equipment, particularly the communication system, is minimally 

susceptible to corruption at these foreign locations. 

The centerpiece of every Core and Megaport installation is the radiation portal 

monitor or RPM. Currently, we deploy monitors that use plastic scintillators to detect gamma signatures and Helium 3 tubes to detect neutrons. The purpose of this 

technology is to detect special nuclear material (SNM), in particular plutonium and 

uranium enriched to levels of 20% or higher in the isotope U–235. Equipment targeting this SNM will also detect other radioactive materials suitable for use in radiological dispersal devices. 

To understand how the RPMs work, it is important to understand the interface 

between the detector and communication system. Our communications systems will 

graph the gamma or neutron signal detected by the RPM and help the operators 

identify what type of alarm has occurred and where it seems to be located. If the 

RPM signals an alarm, hand held equipment is then used to further localize the 

alarm and to identify the specific radioisotopes that caused the alarm. Determination of the specific isotopes involved and their specific location is important because 

a number of common materials such as ceramic tile and kitty litter, in large quantities, may signal an alarm due to their relatively high concentration of 

radioisotopes. We call these ‘NORM’ alarms, for ‘naturally occurring radioactive material’ alarms. In addition, individuals who have recently had certain medical treatments involving radiation may trigger an alarm. In these cases, secondary inspections allow us to identify the actual nature of the alarm. 

Distinguishing ‘‘NORM’’ and medical alarms from actual instances of illicit trafficking is one of a number of technological challenges facing the operators of this 

equipment, in any location. For this reason, there are a number of critics of U.S. 
87

efforts to deploy radiation portal monitoring both here at home and abroad. I want 

to be clear, however, at the outset that these portals have proven their value on 

many occasions and I expect that they will continue to do so well into the future. 

The gravity of the potential consequences of illicit trafficking in nuclear material requires that we employ all of the tools available to us now, updating and improving 

them as new technologies emerge. 

Now to the challenges we all face in deploying this equipment. Serious concerns 

have been raised about the efficacy of RPMs in three key areas. 

First, certain configurations of shielded highly-enriched uranium (HEU) can be 

very difficult to detect. This issue is of great concern. Intense work is ongoing in 

laboratories and commercial arenas to develop solutions to this challenge. The Bush 

Administration is making substantial investments in an interagency research and 

development (R&D) program in nuclear detection technology coordinated by the recently created Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) at the Department of 

Homeland Security. I am sure my colleague from DHS will discuss these R&D efforts in greater detail. 

Until these R&D efforts improve the detection of well-shielded HEU, the best solution is overlapping the use of existing RPMs in conjunction with imaging technology that reveal anomalies within a container’s contents. A trained operator can 

pinpoint areas of concern within a suspicious shipping container or vehicle using imaging technology and reveal a potential effort to shield HEU. Such imaging equipment is present or will be soon in many U.S. and foreign ports. 

Once imaging technology reveals a potential anomaly within a container, the container can be searched, or an active interrogation device can bombard the specific 

area of concern with a neutron signal revealing more information as to the nature 

of the potential threat. These active interrogation devices currently exist as prototypes, and we believe they will become commercially available within the next few 

years. I would like to note that the combination of imaging equipment and RPMs 

is what DHS’s Container Security Initiative (CSI) and SLD provide cooperatively to 

foreign ports. Put another way, our joint efforts maximize the possibility of the detection of trafficking in nuclear materials. 

The second technological challenge faced by users of portal monitors is finding 

ways to quickly and correctly distinguish ‘NORM’ alarms from actual illicit trafficking in nuclear materials in order to minimize the need for time and resourceconsuming secondary inspections. International port operators and foreign governments as well as our own domestic ports are sensitive to the fact that these nuisance alarms can and do slow down the flow of traffic and commerce. We have developed number of ways to address this particular challenge. Energy windowing 

(EW) is a method that U.S. Customs is using to reduce the number of ‘NORM’ 

alarms so as to allow more effective deployment of RPMs. This approach entails specific algorithms that sort out alarms on the basis of the fact that norm alarms generally have higher gamma signals than special nuclear material. SLD currently uses 

a version of EW that works well on our monitors by which the monitors are configured for increased sensitivity to the low gamma energies of HEU. This approach 

also reduces the number of NORM alarms. We are currently working with Customs 

to compare these two approaches and to ensure the highest possible standards for 

effectiveness. 

Another promising approach for resolving ‘NORM’ alarms is the development and 

use of spectroscopic portals. These portals essentially provide a means to identify 

the presence of nuclear material and to identify the type of radioisotope present by 

means of a fixed monitor. Although these portals will not, unfortunately, have increased ‘‘intrinsic’’ SNM sensitivity, they may be useful for quickly distinguishing 

alarms caused when approved or naturally occurring radioactive materials are found 

in cargo or vehicles. This potential increased operational effectiveness may allow the 

monitors to be set at a lower threshold, thus allowing for greater sensitivity. The 

potential improvement in sensitivity may or may not be significant. Until these 

monitors are completed and tested, it is impossible to know for sure. We are currently studying their use for secondary inspections in cases where a large 

spectroscopic portal will be more effective than the currently available hand-held 

identifiers. 

Such spectroscopic portals are currently under development and will be tested by 

DHS later this summer. If these tests are successful, SLD hopes to work through 

DHS to procure a number of these spectroscopic portals and then put them in secondary inspection locations in selected ports around the world. Operational testing 

under real deployment conditions will help us determine the true effectiveness of 

the monitors in the field. We hope that providing more extensive field-testing for 

this DHS-led effort will be another exemplary example of US interagency cooperation in the area of nuclear detection. It is important to note that these spectroscopic 
88

portals are estimated to be approximately eight times more expensive than the 

RPMs currently deployed by SLD. Unfortunately, scintillation crystals with sufficient sensitivity and sufficient resolution to be effective in these spectroscopic portals are very costly and currently unavailable in large quantities. 

SLD is deploying a specialized version of the spectroscopic detector as part of a 

pilot project in a selected port. In this effort, a straddle carrier stripped of its lifting 

equipment has been outfitted with plastic scintillators, neutron detectors, NaI detector systems (spectroscopic detectors), and other equipment to allow the modified 

straddle carrier to travel through rows of containers for successive screenings. We 

expect to learn more about spectroscopic detector capability from this specialized effort to solve the problem of transshipment, which is containers that don’t come into 

a port through a gate, but rather are moved from ship to ship or ship to shore to 

ship. 

This issue of transshipment leads into the third challenge that impacts the effectiveness of portal monitors—monitor placement. For these monitors to work, they 

must be appropriately spaced, and vehicles of all types must move through them 

within certain specified speeds. This is not generally a problem for gate traffic, but 

large ports may not be configured with choke points where portals can be effectively 

deployed to screen the transshipped cargo, which is moving through the port from 

one ship to another. 

Such difficulties present serious deployment challenges. However, as we gain valuable implementation experience in a variety of environments and as new technology develops, we fully expect that our ability to screen cargo effectively will improve. R&D efforts may contribute to solving the current challenges we face. For example, in addition to the straddle carrier which is being implemented, a cranemounted monitor may eventually be developed to facilitate the screening of transshipped cargo. We are also taking new and creative approaches to strategic deployment of RPMs and the technology that we do have at our disposal right now. For 

example, in addition to the large transshipment hubs, SLD is working to install 

equipment at feeder ports in designated high threat locations, where most of the 

traffic comes through the gate and can be screened entirely before it moves into the 

maritime system. 

In confronting these challenges and developing solutions to them, SLD works 

closely with DHS. We are engaged in active cooperative efforts with several offices 

including DNDO and various components of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) 

including the Office of Field Operations and the Container Security Initiative. We 

routinely exchange information, data, and lessons learned with our counterparts in 

CBP. Additionally, we provide joint training courses at the HAMMER training facility at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for CBP officers and foreign customs officials. Commissioner Bonner and NNSA Deputy Administrator Paul 

Longsworth signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 12 April to formalize this 

relationship. 

Let me address a final concern that has been raised about the portals—the variability in the detection capabilities of the portal monitors that are being deployed in 

domestic and international settings. Although DHS/CBP and SLD are deploying different portal monitor models, they target essentially the same amounts of material. 

Recent comparison tests conducted by DOE and DHS indicate that when SLD and 

CBP radiation detection monitors are set to operate at thresholds that would 

produce acceptable nuisance alarm rates in an operational cargo setting, they demonstrate similar detection capabilities. In other words, in operational settings, the 

two types of monitors are operating at similar levels of effectiveness. 

I have attempted to address the issue of efficiency of technology while still keeping the place of the technology in perspective within the larger system of inspection, 

detection and identification. On that point, I would remind you of something that 

our trainers always remind both the U.S. and foreign customs, border protection, 

and port authority officers during training at DOE facilities. Equipment supplements the skill of the officers but does not replace it. These officers must use all 

that they have learned about human behavior, suspicious activities and smuggling 

techniques and patterns in order to make technology most effective. Alert and effectively-trained officials in foreign and domestic facilities using the best equipment 

available will always be our strongest protection against illicit trafficking in nuclear 

materials. 

I’d like to close by saying that, while we focused on technological challenges today, 

there is a lot these monitors can do: they can detect radiological materials, they can 

detect plutonium, and they can detect HEU. They can also detect shielded plutonium and many configurations of shielded HEU. They are proven to work in a variety of field conditions. 
89

As an example, Nikolai Kravchenko, our counterpart in the Russian Customs 

Ministry, recently informed us that these monitors deployed along the Russian border recorded 14,000 ‘‘hits’’ last year. Some 200 of these cases involve potential attempts to smuggle nuclear or radiological materials. That’s 200 cases they would not 

have discovered nor be investigating without these monitors that the Second Line 

of Defense program has installed. 

Finally, I would like to reiterate the strong and deepening relationship with State, 

DHS, DoD and other agencies participating in this effort to improve our nuclear and 

radiological detection capabilities. We share the common objective of preventing terrorists and states of concern from obtaining and smuggling nuclear materials and 

work closely with other USG agencies in the implementation of the program. The 

unique capabilities of each Department and agency are being leveraged to accomplish this objective. 

Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Evenson. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL K. EVENSON, ACTING DIRECTOR, 

COMBAT SUPPORT DIRECTORATE, DTRA, DEPARTMENT OF 

DEFENSE 

Mr. EVENSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Linder, Congressman Langevin, distinguished members, it is an honor for me to be here this afternoon to discuss the 

effectiveness of radiation portal monitors and other technologies to 

detect smuggled nuclear and radiological materials. I will summarize my statement and ask that it be included in its entirety in the 

record. 

DTRA conducted the Unconventional Nuclear Warfare Defense 

program, UNWD as we refer to it, as directed by Congress in the 

2002 defense appropriations bill, and installed four test beds to 

demonstrate nuclear protection systems at four different U.S. military bases. We used existing technology, as directed. 

For almost any ‘‘bright’’ materials, i.e., medical and industrial, 

those probably used in a radiological dispersal device, the existing 

portal monitors that were installed will detect unshielded material, 

both at fixed and at highway speeds. The detectors were somewhat 

effective against these types of materials even if moderately shielded. However, for special nuclear materials, the detectors are not as 

effective. 

We have also conducted numerous tests at the Technical Evaluation and Assessment Monitoring Site, the TEAMS facility, at 

Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, and conducted red team exercises against all four bases. 

Our observations are that when the concept of operation, or 

CONOPS, is followed rigorously by the personnel at the portals, the 

protection scheme is 100 percent effective against all unshielded 

materials. 

We also developed detectors that detected at highway speeds 

over 55 miles an hour. We developed detectors that detected over 

water on small craft, 35- to 40-foot-size boats. 

Our most successful installation is at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where at the initiative of the base commander and the local 

city and State governments the detectors are located off base. The 

warning and notification network is integrated into the base, city 

and county emergency operations centers, and the local officials developed a plan to respond to detections and prevent the device’s approach to the base. 
90

Our experience with this project and other detector work DTRA 

performs leads us to the conclusion that the concept of protection 

from nuclear devices must be thought about as gaining warning 

time for a proper response and not solely that of radiation detection. That is, we must have an integrated systems approach and 

a well-developed concept of operations. 

Currently, we must depend on an extensive number of sensors to 

gain this warning time. For that reason, we encourage the investigation and research into means to make the detectors themselves 

cheaper. 

We also encourage the committee to look into developing alternative technologies, that is, other than radiation detection, for technologies that detect other physical phenomena, such as weight, 

density, heat and the presence of high explosives. Despite the success of the UNWD program, our conclusion is that much research 

needs to remains to be done. Much of this work is detailed in the 

independent report on UNWD, copies of which I provided the committee. 

I would emphasize my earlier comments that the concept of protection from nuclear devices must be thought about as gaining 

warning time for a proper response and not solely that of radiation 

protection, and we must look for alternative technologies in the integrated system solution. 

I thank the committee for their time and welcome your questions. 

Mr. LINDER. Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Evenson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. MICHAEL K. EVENSON

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittees, it is an honor for me to be 

here today to discuss the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA’s) radiation detection and portal monitoring programs. I will summarize my statement and ask 

that it be included in its entirety in the record. 

The mission of DTRA is to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction 

(WMD). Countering chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons is the 

reason for the agency’s existence. We focus full-time on countering these threats. 

Our mission is guided by the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, and direction provided by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While our primary customers are the Combatant Commanders, DTRA also makes unique contributions to homeland security with its 

dual-use tools, knowledge, expertise, and services. We provide these through the US 

Northern Command, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense, and 

others to address, counter, and mitigate WMD threats. 

DTRA programs and activities support the three components of the national strategy: counterproliferation, consequence management, and nonproliferation. These 

components are synergistic by nature. Our counterproliferation programs provide offensive and defensive means for combating WMD. DTRA nonproliferation programs 

support diplomatic and cooperative international efforts to halt the spread of WMD. 

Our consequence management efforts provide capabilities for responding to actual 

use of WMD. 

We also provide an interface between science and technology and the warfighters 

by integrating current and emerging technologies from many sources—US Government agencies, the DOE National Laboratories, academia, the private sector, and 

from our friends and allies—into products and tools that permit warfighters to 

counter and defend against the threat of WMD, including the nuclear/radiological 

threat. Within the realm of DTRA’s detection technology program, our goals are to 

provide and enhance current detection, identification, and characterization capabilities for nuclear/radiological items, improve equipment survivability during military 

operations, and improve ease of use by the military forces. We also seek to standardize Concepts of Operations, improve data dissemination and networks, and pro-
91

vide reachback. These efforts yielded several tools that have been operationally employed in several missions to include OPERATIONs ENDURING FREEDOM and 

IRAQI FREEDOM. 

One of our recent success stories is the Unconventional Nuclear Warfare Defense 

(UNWD) Program wherein we collaborated with DOE, the National Labs and the 

Services to establish four permanent test beds to develop technologies and concepts 

of operation to counter the threat from stolen nuclear weapons, improvised nuclear 

devices (INDs), or radiological dispersal devices (RDD) delivered by unconventional 

means other than missile or aircraft. Original funding for UNWD was provided by 

Congress under Public Law Number 107–117. The four sites, one for each branch 

of the armed forces, are located at: Kirtland Air Force Base, NM; Submarine Base 

Kings Bay, GA; Camp Lejeune, NC; and Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Successful demonstrations at these sites have also provided a unique venue for critical infrastructure facility protection systems, as well as integrating the system into state/local 

emergency response assets that will augment the facility response and recovery capabilities that could be used for homeland security. 

As an off-shoot of this program, DTRA manages the Technical Evaluation and Assessment Monitor Site (TEAMS) at Kirtland AFB. TEAMS is a flexible, multi-use 

facility that serves as an important test-bed to evaluate DTRA and inter-agency programs and emerging technologies to detect, combat, and defeat the nuclear/radiological threat. 

Under the Cooperative Threat Reduction or CTR program, DTRA is also fielding 

nuclear/radiological portal monitors in Uzbekistan at 11 of that nation’s international ports of entry. We are also planning for a second increment that will add 

six more ports of entry. Additionally, the CTR program will help the Government 

of Uzbekistan develop and implement a comprehensive ‘‘Train the Trainer’’ program 

to support the CTR-provided equipment. Our goal is to provide Uzbekistan with selfsustaining WMD detection and interdiction capabilities. The Department of Defense 

coordinates CTR WMD border security activities closely with the Departments of 

Energy (DOE) and State. In Uzbekistan, the CTR program also will install nuclear/

radiological portal monitors similar to those that DOE is installing in Russia in its 

Second Line of Defense (SLD) program. The Department of Energy will provide follow-on maintenance and sustainment. 

DTRA also executes the DoD International Counterproliferation Program. Congress mandated that the Department of Defense work in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Customs Service (now, the Department 

of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Bureau of Customs and Border Protection and Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to develop and deliver training programs to counter the WMD proliferation threat. The resulting DoD International 

Counterproliferation (ICP) Program provides training, equipment, and technical assistance designed to enhance the detection, identification, interdiction, and investigation capabilities of border, customs and law enforcement officials in vulnerable 

regions. Using a country-specific implementation approach, the ICP Program directly supports the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction as 

the United States continues ‘‘to work with other states to improve their capability 

to prevent unauthorized transfers of WMD.’’ A significant component of the DoD 

ICP Program is delivering equipment necessary to allow officials tasked with interdicting WMD materials, or responding to crimes involving WMD-related materials, 

to perform their duties. The equipment includes radiation pagers, hand-held and 

bench-top isotope identifiers. 

Two promising radiation detection research and development projects are sensitive scintillating glass fibers technology and mechanically cooled high-purity germanium spectrometry. These are particularly applicable to our operational requirements in that the glass fiber supports multi-mode application (land, sea, or air) and 

the mechanically cooled spectrometer provides unequaled resolution and identification capability in a hand-held device. In keeping with the defense in depth concept, 

these technologies allow interrogation of materials at any given point rather than 

in a single material handling area, such as a port or staging area. Both technologies 

are at, or slightly beyond, prototype stage and expect maturation with the year. Our 

technology development process optimizes these and other technologies by integrating their capabilities for a more robust effect including integration with information connectivity, ruggedness, and operator ease-of-use engineering. 

Under the UNWD and other programs, DTRA has performed numerous tests to 

evaluate the performance of current detection technologies. For almost any ‘‘bright’’ 

materials, i.e., medical, and industrial, those probably used in an RDD, the existing 

portal monitors will detect unshielded material, whether fixed or at moderate highway speeds. The detectors were somewhat effective against these types of materials 

even if moderately shielded. However, for Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) the de-
92

tectors are not as effective. However, while shielding reduces the potential for radiation detection, it opens other venues for interdiction such as X-ray for dense materials (or alternative signatures). Additionally, the evaluations demonstrated that if 

portal monitors are placed in tandem, they are more effective and harder to defeat; 

problems with false and nuisance alarms and system interface need further development; and, that Concepts of Operations are key to the system success. 

DTRA’s knowledge, experience, and expertise are available to address the nuclear/

radiological threat and we stand ready to assist other US government agencies in 

addressing their mission requirements. The most recent example of this long-standing commitment is our assignment of two detailees in coordination with OSD to the 

newly-formed Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), one of whom was a key 

player in the Unconventional Nuclear Warfare Defense Program. DTRA stands 

ready to assist DNDO as it performs its critical mission. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks. I would be pleased to respond to your 

questions.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Oxford, Mr. Huizenga and Mr. Evenson, do you 

all talk to each other regularly? 

Mr. OXFORD. Mr. Chairman, at least Mike and I have known 

each other for at least 10 to 15 years, so we have known each other 

well. Dave and I have gotten to know each as part of the transition 

team to stand up DNDO. So we have worked very closely in putting this together. 

Mr. LINDER. Do you think that the DNDO should have statutory 

authority? 

Mr. OXFORD. Mr. Chairman, I guess it would depend on statutory 

authority to do what? I think, right now, the way it is established, 

with the agreements that we have across the participating departments, that we are sufficiently authorized to do what we need to 

do. We have agreed, as I testified before, to jointly develop the 

strategy, because we do think the strategy is critical, with each of 

us then understanding our various implementation paths to make 

sure we are working cooperatively across that and then sharing 

that information with that deployed strategy. 

Mr. LINDER. You heard the previous panel, or one of the members, talk about the lack of coordination in getting these detectors 

out. Some countries have different types of detectors than other 

countries. Some are better. Some are worse. Would DNDO be the 

agency to try to pull those various disparate groups together? 

Mr. OXFORD. Mr. Chairman, I believe it will. The goal, again, 

was to do the joint planning. As the previous panel said, planning 

together is very, very important. We do have overseas hurdles, I 

think Congressman Markey was getting to the point, we will have 

to deal with, and that is some of the technology export control 

issues of advanced technology. There are software and some other 

things we may have to deal with from an export control perspective. 

But understanding systems performance together so that as we 

take these systems to our common test bed I think is our goal, collectively, and the other members can respond to this. I think you 

will ultimately see a narrowing down of the number of test beds 

that are out there, so the one at the Nevada test site will become 

a common test bed for all of us so we fully understand systems performance. Therefore, we will be deploying systems that we all understand how they work. The implementation then becomes a lot 

more simple if we understand that performance. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Huizenga, you note in your testimony that 

14,000 hits—is that radiological hits in Russia? 
93

Mr. HUIZENGA. Yes, it is, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LINDER. What were most of them from? Is it Norm? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Some of it is Norm, some of it is contamination, 

and some of it is the actual illicit movement of material. 

Mr. LINDER. That was 200. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. That is correct. 

Mr. LINDER. Did anyone ever determine, was it weapons grade 

material? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Those are things probably that we would be better off talking about in a separate session. 

Mr. LINDER. Did anybody track down where it came from? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. We worked closely with the intelligence community in that regard. 

Mr. LINDER. Okay. All of you have mentioned Megaports, I think. 

Are we a little bit behind in getting those Megaports stood up? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Well, it is a matter of perspective, I guess. Gene 

Aloise and I talked at length about the report. It did take us a 

while to get going. He is accurate. We have two done, and we are 

working on—he said five—are actually working on six, and we are 

negotiating with another 20 countries, and by the end of 2006 we 

are projecting to have 10 done. So we are, actually, I think ramping 

up and making steady progress right now. 

Mr. LINDER. The radiography you talked about, it pictures 

through the container, but it can’t go through lead, is that correct, 

to get a picture of what you are looking at? 

Mr. OXFORD. Mr. Chairman, that is exactly right. Although we 

do expect with some of the advanced radiography systems to have 

the possibility—again, we have to test this—to actually be able to 

discriminate the HEU as well. We will definitely get the high-density material so we know there is an anomaly in the image. We are 

also hoping to be able to get some of the threat materials. But that 

is what the advanced techniques will give us over what is currently 

fielded. 

Mr. LINDER. How far away are we from that? 

Mr. OXFORD. Again, the design methodology and model that I 

talked about in my opening statement, we are pushing hard for 

that technology that is within hand to be able to fielded within 3-

1/2 years. So we are not proposing a protracted development cycle. 

We are looking at doing an RFP, request for proposal, for advanced 

radiography within the next 4 months. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Evenson, is anybody looking for cesium-137? 

Mr. EVENSON. Well, I think I understand your meaning, but all 

our detectors will detect it. Do you mean are we actively out 

searching for it? 

Mr. LINDER. We have got cesium-137 in virtually every hospital 

in America, unprotected. 

Mr. EVENSON. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LINDER. Is that a problem for us? 

Mr. EVENSON. Yes, sir. Actually, I am part of a Defense Science 

Board that is meeting now, and one of our conclusions is that we 

in this country, at least if you share that board’s view, it is more 

likely a radiological dispersal device. The materials will be gathered inside the United States and not transhipped. We need to get 

control of the materials, yes, sir. 
94

Mr. LINDER. Thank you. 

Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentleman, thank you for being here today. 

Mr. Oxford, I want to welcome you back and begin with you. I 

would like to discuss a couple of things with you, the first being 

the deployment plan for the current version of radiation portal 

monitors. 

You stated in your testimony in April that $71 million of the fiscal year 2006 budget request will go to research and evaluation of 

advanced portal monitors. Now, this will be $54 million for the deployment of current systems. 

The concern that I have is that the deployment plan of the current portal monitors is really funding dependent, and the CBP has 

never received a full allocation to cover seaports, landports and 

other ports of entry. So taking $71 million and putting it towards 

research, while needed, clearly hurts current detection operations. 

So my question is, does the Department intend to reprogram 

funds to cover the balance of the program costs, which are about 

$163 million? And, if not, what is the target completion date for the 

deployment of the current system if your funding level remains unchanged? 

Mr. OXFORD. Out of the $125 million that was requested in fiscal 

year 2006, what we agreed to do was not research with the remaining amount. It really is all going towards deployment activities. 

What we wanted to do was gradually phase in the deployment of 

new systems, the advanced spectroscopic systems. 

Based on a limited available amount of the sodium iodide crystals and the actual source selection process, we felt it was prudent 

to go ahead and continue with the deployment of existing radiation 

portal monitors with Customs. The rationale for that is our design 

methodology for the advanced systems is what I will call a retrofit 

or plug-and-play. So for every location that we have a current radiation portal monitor, we will be able to go back in and replace directly those panels with the new advanced spectroscopic systems. 

About 80 to 90 percent of the cost of the existing installation is 

in the physical installation, as opposed to the current detector 

hardware. So we will be able to benefit by their continuing deployment. But we will be following directly behind them with deployment of the new systems. Roughly $131 million I think is our estimate in fiscal year 2006 of the new advanced spectrographic systems. So we are not diverting R&D money from that $125 million. 

It is all for deployments of different kinds of systems. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The cost that we are talking about here, does that 

also include the training for those individuals that are going to be 

operating? That is one of the Chairman’s concerns, we are spending 

money on equipment, that we may not be paying as much attention 

to adequate training so that the people that are operating this 

equipment are proficient. 

Mr. OXFORD. The total amount of money going into the radiation portal monitoring in fiscal year 2006 is roughly $178 million, $53 

million of which goes into training in the operational support of 

fielded systems. So the $125 million you saw as a direct acquisition 

request in the 2006 budget was for deployment of either the cur-
95

rent systems or the follow-on systems. But there is a separate $53 

million for training and support in the field. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Right now, it is my understanding that the portal 

monitors, they can’t distinguish between special nuclear materials 

and naturally occurring radioactive material. This has resulted in 

I guess numerous nuisance alarms at border crossings and seaports, causing CBP inspectors to reduce the sensitivity of the machines. Obviously, reducing the sensitivity of this equipment diminishes the machine’s effectiveness. Can you comment on that? 

Mr. OXFORD. Again, the sensitivity is not the issue. It is the discrimination, as I mentioned earlier. So one benefit of the new systems is that we will be able to discriminate between the normally 

occurring material and the threat material. 

Again, without going into a lot of vulnerabilities, we still have 

the issue of shielding that I mentioned in my opening statement. 

The new systems—and, again, this is all subject to the tests that 

we will do in August and September—will give us the results. It 

will give us the discrimination capabilities that replaces the currently fielded systems. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. On another topic, both the House and Senate appropriations committees cut about $100 million out of the President’s request for the DNDO. The appropriators, along with the 

members of the committee and Senator Lieberman, have also 

voiced concerns with your office. Congress’ primary concern deals 

with role of DNDO as it relates to other Federal agencies, especially the Departments of Energy and Defense. How do you envision the role of the DNDO? Can you elaborate on that? Can you 

tell us what steps you are taking to address appropriators concerns? 

If I could, I would also like to request Mr. Oxford brief the members on DNDO as soon as possible. 

Mr. LINDER. We will be happy to invite him back. 

Mr. OXFORD. I would welcome that opportunity. Let me address your first question. The extent of the $100 million cut causes great concern, obviously, and we have gone through 

and briefed the Senate in an extensive fashion and will do so with 

the House before the Conference Committee. I believe in some 

cases it is a matter of a new office being stood up and not having 

the ability to execute the resources in 2006. But I will tell you that 

we have active programs in all the areas that I mentioned before, 

the strategy development, the architecture work, the active interrogation, the passive detectors, as well as the radiography systems. 

On top of that, we have an aggressive new start proposed in the 

transformational research. It is in that category that you will find 

us working things like this, what we call the long-dwell transit 

problem, what the previous panel referred to as the time between 

point-of-debarkation to point-of-entry, where we have days to 

weeks to deal with the radiation detection problem versus minutes 

at either the-point-of-departure or point-of-entry. 

We really want to be able to work that, and we think there are 

technologies out there, even though some have mentioned that 

there are industry representatives selling it as a near-term solution. We have to drive the costs and the false alarm rate significantly lower than what we currently expect. So, from that vantage 
96

point, we would really like to start the transformational program 

in 2006, and the $100 million cut would seriously jeopardize that. 

The coordination issue you raised, again, the first priority we put 

within DNDO was to get a team together from DOD, DOE, the FBI 

and DHS to work the strategy and the architecture. That is our 

first priority. We have set a baseline of March of 2006 to have that 

strategy in place so as we go forward collectively we know what we 

want to implement. 

So, again, we are very happy to work with the Congress on resolving those issues as we go forward. 

Mr. LINDER. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

The gentleman from California. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Evenson, in response to the last question asked of you, you 

suggested that a group that you are working with is either coming 

to or has come to the conclusion that it is more likely that we 

would see an attack based on material from within rather than 

transported here. 

Mr. EVENSON. That is correct, Congressman. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Can you tell me a little more about that? 

Mr. EVENSON. We actually think it is much easier to gather the 

material inside this country and make a radiological dispersal device than it is to go through DHS or anybody else’s detectors. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Is that because of our lack of security with hospitals and so forth? 

Mr. EVENSON. The conclusion of the group is we don’t track the 

materials well. It is not unguarded. Certainly you are more aware 

of the problem possibly than I am. It is guarded, but it is not 

tracked. It is not something you regard as a serious weapon in this 

country, so our conclusion was it would be fairly easy for a determined terrorist to gather that material. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Oxford, you mentioned in your testimony that 

the U.S. Coast Guard has deployed some handheld radiation detectors. Are these different than the ones we were talking about with 

the first panel that are used by Customs and Border Patrol now? 

And for what purpose are they used? The suggestion was that they 

are actually used for the protection of the agents, as opposed to actually being able to identify things in a significant way. 

Mr. OXFORD. The current technology that they are using is very 

similar to what Customs has used, at least in the handheld and the 

pagers, but they are used in a much more strict environment, they 

are doing it on a controlled boarding and an interdiction where 

they actually know what they are going after. 

In the R&D program we have some handheld devices, some advanced systems, that we are ruggedizing for maritime application, 

specifically for the Coast Guard, to replace those that should be 

available in the next couple of years. But they are reliant on the 

currently existing systems as well. 

Mr. LUNGREN. I like the word ‘‘ruggedizing’’ because normally 

the word around here is robustness. So ruggedizing is a nice word. 

You were talking about the radiation portal monitor program 

and about the $125 million for fiscal year 2006. As I understand 

it, for you to continue onto that program in the various modes you 
97

wish it to have, you are going to need something like $880 million 

in fiscal year 2007. 

Is it the thinking of your Department that, that is what you are 

going to be asking for, and if you don’t get it, can you really suggest that you are going to complete the installation of the portal 

monitors in 2009 as planned? 

Mr. OXFORD. I was actually scheduled to brief the Deputy Secretary on our 2007 to 2011 program tomorrow, but it got delayed 

for a week or so. 

We will come in with a bigger request than that in 2007. I can’t 

tell you what that means. The $800 million that you heard was a 

Customs number predicated on the existing plastic portal systems 

versus some of the advanced systems. So we are going back and 

looking at a combination of the retrofit and the deployment of the 

new systems. We will be trying to seek an 2007 through 2008 completion at the legitimate ports-of-entry. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Suffice to say, it is going to be a good chunk of 

change? 

Mr. OXFORD. Absolutely. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Mr. Huizenga, you have testified about the usefulness of the energy windowing to improve the performance of the 

RPMs and lower the number of NORM alarms. At least I have 

been informed there is some debate within the scientific community 

regarding the effectiveness of energy windowing. Can you comment 

on that debate and the reasoning behind DOE’s decision to go forward with the deployment? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. Yes. It depends on the cargo, and what you are 

hearing is the noise in the system. Some locations, the energy 

windowing works better than others. So we have adjusted our monitors in general to be focused more on the HEU, because it is harder to detect, and we found this will allow a proper balance between 

the NORM alarm rate and the actual target quantities. So we have 

found it to be successful. It is kind of a crude energy windowing 

we are actually using. It is a little different than the one the CBP 

people are pursuing right now. But if the cargo is right, it actually 

has a benefit. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Do you have anything to say about that? 

Mr. OXFORD. We were asked by the Senate as well as the IG to 

look at energy windowing. They wanted us to convene an expert 

panel to look at the merits of that. What we finally collectively 

agreed to do is we are bringing those systems to the test bed in 

Nevada, so we will fully test those along with a new developmental 

system. So instead of doing this based on theory, we are going to 

actually test them against the various threats and find out how 

well that works. 

Mr. LUNGREN. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Oxford, are you familiar with the GAO recent 

study that said that some of these other nations are reluctant to 

use radioactive detectors in there simply because it will slow down 

commerce? 

Mr. OXFORD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LINDER. What is your response to that? 
98

Mr. OXFORD. I think that I would understand their concerns, but, 

at the same time, I think we have an obligation to work more collectively with them in a variety of ways. That is one of the reasons 

why we brought the State Department into DNDO, where they will 

be working with us, with our other partners, to look at future 

agreements that we would seek. 

In addition to that, for example, we are seeking to expand our 

border protection by working more closely with the governments of 

Mexico and Canada. It extended just beyond the U.S. borders 

themselves, and the agreements look like they will fall into place. 

So we will start to extend that to ports-of-entry in North America, 

as opposed to just within the domestic realm. 

I understand their concerns, but, at the same time, I think it is 

a matter of working with them collectively in the future. 

Mr. LINDER. At the previous panel we had testimony that there 

are very small radiological detectors that can go inside the container and can actually communicate with each other. Would anybody care to tell us a little bit about that? 

Mr. OXFORD. I have looked at three or four different concepts in 

that regard. We think there is a real opportunity there. 

Again, as I mentioned, I want to make sure that we understand 

the cost and false alarm rate. The last thing we want to do is start 

offloading ships based on false alarms. So the same kind of problems we currently face at the borders. We need to work within that 

transit system, and then to have the real-time communications, 

that if we build up a threat basis of radiation during the transit, 

that we have communications and an interdiction, as Mr. Evenson 

said, a response model to get to that ship, knowing that there is 

an actual threat there. We think that is a great opportunity as part 

of layered defense that is fertile ground. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Langevin? 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I would actually like to follow up and build on the 

question the chairman just raised with respect to the portal monitors. 

The GAO report on the Megaports program reports that they installed radiation portal monitors in two foreign ports. One of the 

challenges that the Department of Energy faces is getting a foreign 

government to agree to have the portal monitors installed at their 

seaports, yet the Department of Homeland Security has agreements with 35 countries to allow our Customs inspectors to be deployed to foreign ports. Many of these ports are the same ones that 

the Department of Energy wants to install portal monitors. Why 

doesn’t DOE leverage existing DHS agreements to accelerate the 

installation of portal monitors at foreign ports? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. We actually are very closely partnering now with 

the Department of Homeland Security CSI program. As a matter 

of fact, we have gone to the last several countries with the CSI as 

a package deal, making sure that when we are pursuing the CSI 

initiatives we are pursuing Megaports at the same time. 

We started about 2 years after the CSI program ramped up, and 

I think that we are now catching up with them. But we have to 

install equipment. There was a concern that initially countries had 

that if you were going to put these radiation portal monitors in 
99

their ports that that was going to slow down commerce. There really wasn’t the same sense associated with the CSI program. 

Now that we have demonstrated in Rotterdam and Greece that 

the program works and it really doesn’t slow down commerce, we 

are having a lot more acceptance of the program. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. With the use of Customs inspectors, wouldn’t that 

same argument apply? They could fear they were going to slow 

down commerce when you have Customs inspectors on site? 

Mr. HUIZENGA. If you think about it, the Customs inspectors are 

selecting a certain percentage of containers for secondary inspection. Our goal is to screen all the containers that go in and out of 

these inbound and outbound gates. So the overall sense was you 

are going to potentially impact our commerce in a way that the CSI 

people may not. So we are overcoming this operational concern at 

this point. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I would like just to point out in that case we have 

in these 35 countries—we already have an agreement that is existing. So it would seem to make sense we would want to leverage 

that and build off that. 

Mr. HUIZENGA. We absolutely are. Like I say, we are going with 

the CSI people to the new ports, and we are going back to the ones 

they are already involved, and we are using that leverage and their 

relationships they have already built in-country in order to further 

the Megaports Initiative. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I think that is important. 

Just one other question for Mr. Oxford. When I asked about 

training for and use of the equipment that will be installed, just 

if you could describe for me where the $53 million for training is 

coming from. Is that S&T or CBP or some other source? That is the 

first time I have heard of that. 

Mr. OXFORD. It is in the CBP budget request, $53 million for the 

training and the support of fielded systems. The agreement of 

DNDO was we would do the development and acquisition but not 

the deployment nor the support of the deployment. So that is retained within the Customs’ budget. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The only last comment, Mr. Chairman, if we 

could follow up with Mr. Huizenga, the number of elements of potential nuclear material that had been—

Mr. LINDER. We will follow up on that in closed session. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. That was a striking figure. I would like to have 

more information. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Markey. 

Mr. MARKEY. Yes. Mr. Oxford, you were named acting director in 

February. 

Mr. OXFORD. Actually it was March 16. 

Mr. MARKEY. March 16. When is that going to be a permanent 

director? 

Mr. OXFORD. Actually, sir, that is in Presidential personnel for 

final decision. 

Mr. MARKEY. Is it going to be soon? 

Mr. OXFORD. I hope so. 
100

Mr. MARKEY. For America’s sake, I hope we have a permanent 

nuclear detection head, and I hope you get it, if you want it. But 

I just hope it is permanent. It gives you a lot more authority. 

As you know, ABC News smuggled depleted uranium into the 

U.S. in September, 2003. I sent a letter to DHS to express my concern about the potential for a terrorist to smuggle HEU into the 

country. I also questioned the Department’s technical capabilities 

to detect the importation of these dangerous weapons, usable materials. 

The Department’s response to my letter claimed it is likely that 

the radiation portal monitors could locate and identify highly enriched uranium in cargo. 

On June 3, 2005, DHS issued a press release whose headline 

read ‘‘Nation’s busiest seaports to have complete radiation detection coverage by the end of 2005.’’ 

Today, Mr. Thompson and I released an analysis conducted by 

experts consulted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science who confirm several other experts’ conclusions that 

this is not true. The technology used by DHS is not capable of detecting kilogram quantities of HEU; and, in fact, no usable technology really exists to do that job. Other witnesses made similar 

references to this problem. 

In your testimony today, you state that the problem with the detectors is not that they are not sensitive enough to detect HEU, but 

they are unable to discriminate between naturally occurring radioactive materials and dangerous ones. 

The Department appears not yet willing to concede the limitations of the portal monitors currently being deployed when it comes 

to detecting highly enriched uranium. Why are you the only ones 

not willing to confront this reality? The science seems to be uniformly on the other side. 

Mr. OXFORD. First of all, Congressman Markey, I would agree 

with the technical merits of the argument. I think in some cases, 

especially in open session, we don’t want to talk about 

vulnerabilities, and I think we are somewhat limited by that. 

Again, if you go back to my testimony, the discrimination and 

shielding does pose a problem, and we are working on active systems and radiography systems to supplement existing passive systems, as well as fielding advanced passive systems to get to the discrimination of lightly shielded or unshielded materials. 

So it is going to take a family of systems to do the job. So I am 

not disagreeing with the technical basis of what AAAS did. 

Mr. MARKEY. In September, 2004, the DHS Inspector General 

conducted a review of DHS’s procedures to detect highly enriched 

uranium in light of its failures to do so in the ABC News case. The 

unclassified version of the report stated that the IG made specific 

recommendations to DHS to enhance the sensitivity of its detection 

capabilities. Has the Department implemented all of these recommendations that were in the unclassified version of the report? 

Mr. OXFORD. I don’t think we have implemented those. What we 

are doing is we are replacing the systems starting in fiscal year 

2006 with the advanced systems that give us more discrimination 

capabilities and rapidly producing the advanced systems for active 
101

interrogation radiography to give us the ability to detect a shielded 

material. 

Mr. MARKEY. But you are not adopting the recommendations? 

Mr. OXFORD. I would have to go back to Customs, because they 

would be modifying operations in the field to do that. I would have 

to ask CBP if they are acting upon that at this point. 

Mr. MARKEY. Please report to the committee. 

The AAAS analysis released today indicates that by taking some 

relatively straightforward and short-term engineering measures, 

such as better shielding of the detector, it would help improve the 

ability of the monitors to detect highly enriched uranium. Do you 

plan to examine and implement those recommendations? 

Mr. OXFORD. We will look at that, along with the practicality of 

doing that versus deploying the new systems. We may not want to 

pay for two different approaches. So as we come out of the test bed 

this August and September we will make some determinations as 

to whether that is more prudent or fielding the new systems would 

be more practical. 

Mr. MARKEY. In your testimony, you discuss the use of radiography machines that would be able to show an X-ray image of what 

was inside the containers at the same time as detecting whether 

anything in the container was radioactive. In this way, you could 

determine whether there was a shielded sample of highly enriched 

uranium in the container by looking at the X-ray image, and you 

could also use an X-ray image of what was inside to eliminate concern associated with a shipment of bananas that caused the radiation detectors to go off. 

But this is nothing new. In fact, the company, AS&E, which has 

headquarters in Billerica, Massachusetts, has installed exactly this 

sort of system at the Port of Boston; and it is being used to simultaneously X-ray and detect radiation in every container leaving the 

port. 

If you think that is the way to proceed, why haven’t you explored 

the commercially available options to do so? 

Mr. OXFORD. First of all, Congressman, that is the first I have 

heard of that particular application. We went out with a competitive solicitation on the advanced radiography program. I am not 

sure if they proposed against that or not with our work. I will have 

to go back and look at that. 

Mr. MARKEY. It is already installed in the Port of Boston—installed. 

Finally, in your testimony you also discuss active interrogation 

systems, which would certainly improve the ability to detect radiological materials. But don’t these systems involve the use of neutrons that could harm the people located near the sample? 

Mr. OXFORD. There are a variety of approaches being investigated. One is a neutron source and the other is a photon source. 

We are looking at that. There would have to be some operational 

protocols put into place that would limit the exposure of humans. 

But, again, we have to get through the technology development. 

That is a consideration, obviously. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
102

Mr. LINDER. Thank you all. We are sorry you had to be delayed, 

but from time to time we actually have to vote up here. You are 

excused. Thank you. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 6:10 p.m., the joint meeting of the subcommittees 

was adjourned.]

FOR THE RECORD

QUESTIONS FROM THE HONORABLE NORM DICKS, FOR ACTING DIRECTOR VAYL

OXFORD RESPONSES

You testified that ‘‘the DNDO is currently investing substantial resources to the 

Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) program, which is focused on developing detectors which will be able to discriminate between naturally occurring radioactive materials and true threat materials,’’ and that the new systems can distinguish among 

different radioactive materials. You also told the committee the ASP systems will 

be tested in August and September of this year, and that based on the results of 

these tests, a limited number of vendors will be selected to begin initial low-rate 

production of detection systems. 

• What is DNDO’s assessment of the near-term availability of ASP systems and components (for example sodium iodide crystals)? 

Response: The relative simplicity of portal hardware design requires the need for 

only a small number of (mostly) readily available components. However, as your 

question highlights, there is a potentially significant production capacity issue for 

the thallium doped sodium iodide crystals proposed for use by seven of the ten vendors. Initial market surveys indicate that the currently available production capacity will support the production of 125–150 portals annually. The low-rate initial production (LRIP) that will begin in June 2006 will fall within the current capacity 

thresholds.

• What are DNDO’s plans for encouraging industry to increase the 

availability of such systems and components? 

Response: The DNDO has proposed investing $20M over two years (FY 2006 and 

FY 2007) to increase the industrial production capacity of sodium iodide crystals. 

The DNDO released a Request for Information (RFI) on May 12, 2005 ‘‘to assess 

current manufacturing capacity and to solicit industrial mobilization recommendations and options from industry’’. The DNDO intends to competitively award contracts in early FY 2006 to address the known sodium iodide crystal deficiency.

• What role will risk and cost play in DNDO decisions to move to lowrate production of new detection technology? 

Response: As with all large acquisition programs, risk and cost will be large factors in any decision to proceed through the ASP acquisition cycle, even prior to and 

beyond LRIP. The ASP program has undergone Departmental review to ensure that 

the program addresses Department requirements and to validate the projected investments. In his Decision Memorandum approving ASP through LRIP, pending 

successful testing, Deputy Secretary Jackson stressed the need for a concise plan 

to mitigate cost, schedule, and performance risks. With regards to performance risk, 

in particular, the DNDO is engaging in a robust test and evaluation program, as 

was discussed in the testimony of June 21. The thorough understanding of systems 

performance determined through this testing will significantly decrease the performance risks associated with the program. Additionally, the LRIP process will allow 

for a comprehensive operational test and evaluation opportunity to further characterize system performance prior to a full-rate production award.

Æ