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58–397 PDF 2011

S. Hrg. 111–1096 

NUCLEAR TERRORISM: STRENGTHENING OUR 

DOMESTIC DEFENSES 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

PART I AND PART II 

JUNE 30 AND SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

and Governmental Affairs 

( 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

SCOTT P. BROWN, Massachusetts 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

F. JAMES MCGEE, Professional Staff Member 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

CHRISTOPHER J. KEACH, Minority Professional Staff Member 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1, 21 

Senator Collins.................................................................................................. 3, 23 

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 35 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Lieberman ......................................................................................... 39, 77 

Senator Collins................................................................................................ 42, 79 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2010 

Eugene E. Aloise, Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Government Accountability Office ............................................................................. 4 

Micah D. Lowenthal, Ph.D., Director, Nuclear Security and Nuclear Facility 

Safety Program, Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, National Research 

Council of the National Academies ..................................................................... 6 

Dana A. Shea, Ph.D., Specialist in Science and Technology Policy, Resources, 

Science, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service, Library 

of Congress ........................................................................................................... 8 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 

Hon. Jane Holl Lute, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ......................................................................................................................... 25 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Aloise, Eugene E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 

Lowenthal, Micah D., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58 

Lute, Hon. Jane Holl: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 82 

Shea, Dana A., Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

APPENDIX 

‘‘Combating Nuclear Smuggling: Inadequate Communication and Oversight 

Hampered DHS Efforts to Develop an Advanced Radiography System to 

Detect Nuclear Materials,’’ Statement for the Record by Eugene E. Aloise, 

Director, Natural Resources and Environment, and Stephen L. Caldwell, 

Director, Homeland Security and Justice, U.S. Government Accountability 

Office, released on September 15, 2010 ............................................................. 99 

Letter from Nelson Peacock, Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, dated 

September 21, 2010 .............................................................................................. 111 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Ms. Lute ............................................................................................................ 113 

Warren M. Stern, Director, Domestic Nuclear Detention Office, U.S. Department of Homeland Security * ................................................................ 119 

* Mr. Stern appeared as a witness during the closed portion of the September 

15, 2010, hearing. 

(1) 

NUCLEAR TERRORISM: STRENGTHENING OUR 

DOMESTIC DEFENSES—PART I 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman and Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good morning and welcome. This is the 

eighth in a series of hearings our Committee has held since 2007 

to discuss how our Nation is confronting the real and dire threats 

posed by nuclear terrorism. And I must say that today it seems to 

me, as I look back and look at where we are now, that the threat 

of a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is growing faster 

than our ability to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on our homeland, and obviously as the Homeland Security Committee this is of 

great and growing concern to us. 

I know that most people would prefer not to think about the unthinkable, but President Barack Obama, to his credit, has clearly 

recognized the threat that brings us together this morning. At the 

47-nation nuclear summit held in April, the President outlined the 

dangers here quite clearly: 

‘‘Nuclear materials that could be sold . . . and fashioned into a 

nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations. Just the smallest 

amount of plutonium—about the size of an apple—could kill and 

injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people. 

‘‘Terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda have tried to acquire the 

material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeeded, they 

would surely use it.’’ These are all continuing quotes from the 

President. 

‘‘Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world— 

causing extraordinary loss of life, and striking a major blow to 

global peace and stability. 

‘‘In short it is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security—to our collective security.’’ 

Then, a month or so later, the National Security Strategy, released by the Administration added: ‘‘The American people face no 

greater or more urgent danger than a terrorist attack with a nuVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:14 Nov 03, 2011 Jkt 058397 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\58397.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
2 

clear weapon. . . . Black markets trade in nuclear secrets and materials. Terrorists are determined to buy, build, or steal a nuclear 

weapon.’’ 

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Illicit Trafficking 

Database, which tracks all reported cases of smuggling, theft, unexplained losses, or black market sales of nuclear materials, reports 

there have been 1,340 confirmed incidents of smuggling since 2007 

that involve materials that could at least be used to make a socalled dirty bomb. And of those cases, 18 involved the smuggling 

of highly enriched uranium or plutonium—the material that is critical to the making of an actual atomic weapon. 

In 2008, our Committee held hearings to examine the office created in our government to counter this threat—the little-known Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), within the Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS). 

At that time, the question was: How do we keep DNDO on track? 

Today, I ask seriously whether DNDO has been on the right 

track and moving rapidly enough to achieve its critical mission. 

Though most Americans have never heard of DNDO, its mission 

is clearly vital to our homeland security in the world in which we 

live in today. 

President George W. Bush established the DNDO in 2005 to coordinate and oversee Federal efforts to protect the United States 

against nuclear terrorism. Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 designated DNDO as the lead organization for domestic nuclear detection and charged it to work with the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State, and others to develop a Global Nuclear 

Detection Architecture (GNDA). 

Though it has never been defined in statute, the GNDA seems 

to consist of programs across numerous agencies designed to stop 

terrorists from getting nuclear materials or weapons, and if they do 

get them, to stop them from bringing them into the United States, 

and if they do bring them into the United States, to stop them from 

successfully detonating them. 

DNDO was given the critical job of coming up with an overall 

plan about how the different departments would work together to 

implement that plan and then to recommend what kind of investments in technology would be needed. 

This was a big mission that they were given, and in fairness I 

should say that there have been some successes. For instance, DHS 

has deployed nearly two-thirds of the more than 2,100 radiation 

portal monitors identified in its deployment plan at established 

ports of entry on the Northern and Southern Borders. 

Today nearly 100 percent of the seaport containerized cargo and 

100 percent of vehicle traffic on the Southern and Northern Borders are scanned for nuclear material. 

But there also have been omissions and failures, and they are serious. Cargo coming by rail from Canada or Mexico is still not 

scanned, only a small percentage of international air cargo is 

scanned, and DNDO apparently has no plans to scan commercial 

aviation aircraft or baggage. 

Five years into its existence, based on its record, it is just inescapable to conclude that DNDO requires real retooling, and quickly. 

3 

It has made too little progress on its major mission, which is the 

development of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. Even 

DNDO seems to have concluded that its approach to this task is 

fundamentally flawed and now seeks an increase of $13 million in 

next year’s budget for a new round of studies to produce yet another overarching strategic plan over the next several years. 

The time for multi-year studies is over; the time for urgent action 

really is now. 

We are going to hear today that DNDO has spent hundreds of 

millions of dollars trying to develop a new radiation detection technology that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concludes 

is only marginally better than we have now. 

Known as the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP), this program 

has clearly drained resources from other programs, including development and deployment of mobile, portable, or hand-held technologies that could screen other types of inbound cargo or bulk 

shipments, like those on international trains and commercial aviation. 

I know that the Administration is reexamining DNDO. We hoped 

that DHS would come and testify today; they said that they were 

not ready. We have set down a hearing for July 21 to hear their 

response to what we are going to hear from this distinguished 

group of independent evaluators of DNDO, and I will say that it 

is certainly my expectation that what we need to hear from DNDO, 

from the Department of Homeland Security, is exactly what they 

intend to do with and to DNDO to make sure it gets its critical 

mission right, and quickly. 

Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Safeguarding our Nation against the threat of nuclear terrorism 

is one of the most important responsibilities of the Department of 

Homeland Security. The Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 

Commission, in its 2008 report, predicted that ‘‘it is more likely 

than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.’’ 

Technological innovation is a critical element in our efforts to 

prevent nuclear terrorism. It is, therefore, troubling that the Department’s efforts to develop a next-generation technology for scanning cargo for nuclear materials at ports of entry have been less 

than successful. As the Chairman has pointed out, the Advanced 

Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) program has repeatedly encountered 

problems since its inception in 2004. 

As a result, the ASP has been relegated to being a potential secondary scanning tool, although that technology has yet to receive 

certification from DHS for even this limited function. 

Given the unwavering ambitions of America’s enemies, our Nation cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. 

The DHS office currently responsible for making decisions about 

the development, testing, evaluation, and acquisition of detection 

equipment is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, as the Chairman pointed out in his remarks. DNDO must make well-informed 

and threat-based investment decisions to meet the challenge of 

4 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Aloise appears in the Appendix on page 43. 

interdicting illicit nuclear material not only at our Nation’s borders 

but also within our country. 

Given our Nation’s significant investment in this critical area, it 

is disappointing that DNDO has not made more progress. DNDO 

must also serve as a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. 

Again, the Department has fallen short in this area as well. As we 

navigate the road forward, the Department must have a clearer 

strategy for developing the next-generation of scanning technologies to detect and identify shielded and unshielded nuclear materials. 

The three organizations represented at our hearing today, the 

Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Research 

Service (CRS), and the National Research Council, have all produced recent reports that have found significant problems with the 

ASP program. They can give us valuable insights into the challenges the Department confronts, and that Congress must consider, 

as we move beyond the ASP program. 

It is surely significant that the Department is not represented 

here today. They are not represented because they are not prepared to give us that strategy forward and to respond to these reports. So the second hearing that the Chairman has announced for 

next month is also going to be extremely important. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Collins. 

We will go right to the witnesses with thanks for the considerable work you did in preparing your reports and your testimony, 

all of which will be entered by consent in the record in addition to 

the testimony you will deliver. 

Our first witness is Gene Aloise, Director of the Natural Resources and Environment Division at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Thanks, Mr. Aloise, and please proceed with 

your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF EUGENE E. ALOISE,1 DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. ALOISE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 

Member Collins. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I am pleased to 

be here today to discuss the progress DHS has made in deploying 

radiation detection equipment to scan cargo and conveyances entering the United States by land, sea, and air for nuclear and radiological materials and the development of a strategic plan for the 

Global Nuclear Detection System. My testimony is based on our 

numerous issued reports as well as current work assessing U.S. 

Government efforts to deploy radiation detection at home and 

abroad. 

On the positive side, and as you have just mentioned, Mr. Chairman, DHS has made progress and reports that it scans nearly 100 

percent of the cargo and conveyances entering the United States 

through land borders and major seaports. On the down side, however, DHS has made little progress in scanning for radiation on rail 

5 

cars entering the United States from Canada and Mexico, international air cargo, and international commercial aircraft, passengers, and baggage. 

Nationwide, about 1,400 radiation detection portal monitors have 

been deployed. That is about two-thirds of the 2,100 monitors 

planned for deployment, and another 700 monitors are needed. 

Scanning for nuclear materials in international rail and air cargo 

are presenting DHS with unique challenges. For example, the 

length of trains presents a huge scanning problem because trains 

can be up to 2 miles long, and separating cars that trigger an 

alarm from other train cars for a closer look is very difficult. 

Air cargo is a problem because, among other things, there is a 

lack of natural choke points in airports where fixed detection 

equipment can be deployed, and until solutions can be found, DHS 

goal of scanning 99 percent of air cargo at 33 international airports 

in the United States by 2014 is on hold. The only scanning for radiation that is now occurring for international rail and air cargo is 

being done with hand-held detectors, not portal monitors. 

In addition, DHS efforts to plug the gaps in the nuclear detection 

system is just at the early stages of development. Current gaps include land borders between U.S. ports of entry, international general aviation, and small maritime craft such as recreational boats 

and fishing vessels. 

It is important to close these gaps because dangerous quantities 

of nuclear materials can be portable enough to be carried across 

borders by vehicles or pedestrians and on most private aircraft or 

small boats. Closing the gaps is a major challenge because the 

United States has over 6,000 miles of land borders with many locations outside of established ports of entry where people and vehicles can enter. Also, according to the Coast Guard, small boats pose 

a greater threat for nuclear smuggling than shipping containers because, among other things, there are at least 13 million pleasure 

craft and 110,000 fishing vessels in the United States. 

DHS is addressing these gaps by, among other things, developing, testing, and deploying radiation detection equipment and developing threat studies, but these efforts are all in the very early 

stages. 

Regarding DHS strategic plan for the Global Nuclear Detection 

System, it has been 2 years since we testified before this Committee and recommended such a plan, but no such plan yet exists. 

DHS officials told us they are working on a plan and hope to complete it by this fall. 

The lack of a strategic plan has limited DHS efforts to complete 

the Global Nuclear Detection System. Without a plan, it has been 

difficult for DHS to address the gaps in the system. Also, DNDO’s 

failed 4-year effort to develop the next-generation portal monitor, 

the ASP, is a consequence of not reaching consensus on a strategic 

plan with other Federal agencies. We believe the proposed deployments of ASP has distracted DNDO from finishing the nuclear detection system and closing the gaps in it. 

In short, Mr. Chairman, because it had no plan to follow, DNDO 

took its eye off the ball. Instead, DNDO focused on replacing current equipment with questionably performing ASPs in areas where 

a detection system was already in place. 

6 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Lowenthal appears in the Appendix on page 58. 

At this moment DHS is at a crossroads. Because of the vast land 

borders, coastlines, and airspace to protect, addressing the gaps in 

the detection system is in many ways more challenging than preventing nuclear smuggling through fixed ports of entry. Now that 

the ports of entry are more secure, it makes the gaps in the system 

more attractive to would-be smugglers or terrorists. 

With increasingly limited Federal resources, it is especially important for DHS to develop a strategic plan which prioritizes how 

it will address the gaps in the detection system and allocate resources accordingly. 

Given the national security implications and urgency attached to 

combat and nuclear smuggling globally and that multiple Federal 

agencies are involved, we continue to stress that a plan needs to 

be developed as soon as possible. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks, and I would be happy 

to address any questions you and the Ranking Member may have. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Aloise. That was 

right to the point. 

Our next witness is Dr. Micah Lowenthal, Director, Nuclear Security and Nuclear Facility Safety Program of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board at the National Research Council of the National Academies. That is a heck of a title. But we appreciate very 

much your expertise and your testimony this morning. 

TESTIMONY OF MICAH D. LOWENTHAL, PH.D.,1 DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR SECURITY AND NUCLEAR FACILITY SAFETY PROGRAM, NUCLEAR AND RADIATION STUDIES BOARD, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. I look forward to having a shorter title someday. 

Good morning, Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins, 

and Members of the Committee. My name is Micah Lowenthal. As 

noted, I am on the staff of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies 

Board of the National Academies of Sciences. I am here to testify 

on a congressionally mandated study on testing and evaluation of 

ASPs for screening cargo as part of the Global Nuclear Detection 

Architecture. I am the study director supporting the Committee 

that wrote the study’s interim report. 

I will begin by providing background on the request for this 

study, and then I will describe the report’s recommendations on 

evaluating costs and benefits. 

Congress directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to request 

advice from the Academy on procuring ASPs, specifically on the 

testing approach, assessing the costs and benefits, and bringing scientific rigor to the procurement process. 

Due to delays in the test and evaluation program, the Academy 

and DHS agreed that the study committee would issue an interim 

report to provide advice on how the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), could complete and make more rigorous its ASP evaluation. The interim report was issued in June 2009 and provided 

advice on the difficult task of analyzing costs and benefits of the 

ASPs. 

7 

To be effective, the Committee found, the cost/benefit analysis 

must include three key elements: One, a clear statement of the objectives of the screening program, including describing the ASP’s 

role in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture; two, an assessment of meaningful alternatives to deploying ASPs; and, three, a 

comprehensive, credible, and transparent analysis of benefits and 

costs. 

Throughout the study, the Committee considered what information the Secretary would need to decide whether to procure ASPs. 

The Committee criticized DHS certification criteria and analyses as 

of June 2009 because even if the criteria were met and the analyses completed, DHS still would not know whether the benefits of 

the ASPs outweigh their additional costs, or whether the funds 

slated for procuring ASPs are more effectively spent on other technologies to meet the same need or on other elements of the Global 

Nuclear Detection Architecture. 

The analyses focused on operational efficiencies but not on the 

security benefits, and the alternatives for cargo screening and the 

opportunity costs in the Global Nuclear Detention Architecture 

were not part of the analysis. 

It is a complex task to evaluate the probability of an adversary 

attempting to smuggle nuclear material into the United States. In 

fact, that probability is impossible to know definitively. And the 

consequences of such smuggling are likewise uncertain for other 

reasons: The range of possible consequences is very broad. These 

uncertainties make it quite difficult to factor the benefits of preventing nuclear smuggling into a cost/benefit analysis. Despite that 

difficulty, however, it is important for analysts to understand what 

they can about the risks and also the benefits of reducing those 

risks. 

The Committee offered several approaches for analyzing security 

benefits of different alternatives. A capability-based planning approach is a structured assessment of the options for how a program 

can meet specific operational goals and of the resources required 

for each option. This approach has been applied in a number of defense applications. It can provide a rich comparison of the security 

benefits emphasizing the circumstances under which each option 

might be preferred. Capability-based planning can, however, quickly lead to a large and complex analysis, and analysts have to balance the complexity against the need for simplicity to draw salient 

insights about the system’s capabilities. 

Game theory could provide insight into the deterrence or deflection benefits from different parts of the Global Nuclear Detention 

Architecture. Studies of other security applications have found that 

the simple presence of security can change criminals’ behavior. For 

example, looking at theft statistics using game theory, Ian Ayres 

and Steven Levitt found that increases in the use of hidden radio 

transmitter devices for tracking stolen cars in a given area resulted 

in overall declines in car thefts. In contrast, use of observable car 

security measures just tended to shift or deflect the risk of theft 

to other vehicles, but not lower the overall theft rates. So having 

an effective defense in some cars, and no way for an adversary to 

determine which cars have it, reduced theft rates. 

8 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Shea appears in the Appendix on page 68. 

Likewise, the existence of some radiation monitoring at seaports 

and land border crossings may deflect adversaries, simply causing 

them to focus on easier paths through the Nation’s security. Efforts 

to improve current screening technology have sometimes been described as fortifying the locks on the front door but leaving the windows open. For those reasons, improving detection for truck-borne 

cargo may have only a modest overall benefit as long as there are 

significant gaps in the Global Nuclear Detention Architecture. Improved detection should have more of an effect as those gaps are 

filled. 

The difficulty with game theory is that analysts have to make assumptions about the adversaries’ goals, resources, and reasoning. 

What constitutes success and what are the costs of being caught? 

But still, it can provide useful insights, including reasoning 

through what fraction of the containers entering the United States 

would need to be scanned or screened to deter smugglers. 

Finally, cost-effectiveness analysis and break-even analysis are 

related approaches that have been used to assess costs and benefits 

when performing a complete cost/benefit analysis is difficult or impossible. 

Because the goals of the ASP program may be difficult to value 

monetarily, comparing program alternatives using cost-effectiveness measures such as dollars per life saved or dollars per attack 

avoided could provide insights into their relative merits. Breakeven analysis seeks the conditions that must be met for benefits to 

exceed costs. In security applications, these conditions could be a 

required reduction in overall risk. In cases where break-even analysis identifies meaningful bounds on decisions, that is, in cases 

where the threshold conditions for a decision clearly exist, this approach can simplify decisionmaking. The downfall of break-even 

analysis is that those conditions do not always exist. 

These and other methods for evaluating security benefits can 

provide different insights based on their approach, and none is likely to provide fully quantitative and definitive results. But most policy decisions are made without fully quantitative and definitive results, so DNDO should provide the most informative cost/benefit 

analysis it can. 

This concludes my testimony. Thank you for the opportunity to 

testify, and I would be happy to elaborate in the question-and-answer period. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Lowenthal. 

Now we will go finally to Dr. Dana Shea, who is a Specialist in 

Science and Technology Policy in the Resources, Science, and Industry Division at the Congressional Research Service. Thank you 

very much for being here. 

TESTIMONY OF DANA A. SHEA, PH.D.,1 SPECIALIST IN SCIENCE 

AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY, RESOURCES, SCIENCE, AND INDUSTRY DIVISION, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Mr. SHEA. Thank you. Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member 

Collins, and other Members of the Committee, thank you for the 

9 

opportunity to testify before the Committee today. My name is 

Dana Shea, and I am a Specialist in Science and Technology Policy 

at the Congressional Research Service. At the Committee’s request, 

I am here today to discuss efforts to strengthen nuclear detection. 

My testimony today will address the Department of Homeland 

Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, its coordination of 

nuclear detection activities, and the January 2010 report to Congress that describes them. 

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 established the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office in 2005. The Security and Accountability For Every (SAFE) Port Act codified the office in 2006. The 

Domestic Nuclear Detection Office became responsible for developing an enhanced Global Nuclear Detection Architecture that multiple Federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, and State, would implement. 

The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office developed an initial Global Nuclear Detection Architecture and reported its first budget 

cross-cut of Federal programs in 2006. Subsequently, Congress enacted the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission 

Act of 2007, which directs the Secretaries of Homeland Security, 

State, Defense, and Energy, the Attorney General, and the Director 

of National Intelligence to conduct a joint annual interagency review of their activities and ensure that each agency assesses and 

evaluates its participation in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. 

Additionally, the Secretary of Homeland Security is required to 

evaluate technologies implemented in the domestic portion of the 

architecture. The results of these reviews are to be reported to Congress by March 31 of each year. The Domestic Nuclear Detection 

Office issued reports in June 2008 and January 2010. 

The January 2010 report has both strengths and weaknesses. 

The report is the most comprehensive and integrated source of information about the programs that make up the Global Nuclear 

Detection Architecture, the activities underway in those programs, 

and how the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office categorizes the 

budgets of the programs by architectural layer. The report discusses agency attempts at strategic planning and developing 

metrics for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. 

The January 2010 report draws heavily on the previous report 

issued in 2008. The report does not address whether agencies have 

shaped the reported budgets to align with the priorities of the 

Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. And, finally, the report is 

retrospective in nature and was submitted after its statutory deadline. As such, the report’s timeliness may be brought into question. 

My analysis of this report and other documents raises a number 

of policy issues. I will highlight three. 

First, a key question for policymakers is: What activities and programs should comprise a nuclear detection architecture? While detection technologies for identifying and interdicting smuggled nuclear materials have been a central focus of the architecture, other 

counterterrorism activities, such as law enforcement and intelligence collection, also impact nuclear smuggling. 

Similarly, while the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland 

Security, and State are the main participants in the Global Nuclear 

10 

Detection Architecture, other entities, such as State and local law 

enforcement and agencies overseeing licensing of radiological materials, also have roles. Greater assessment and inclusion of these investments might lead to increased harmonization of nuclear detection efforts and, thus, a stronger domestic architecture, but might 

also complicate consensus planning activities. 

A second policy issue is the adaptability of the architecture. How 

adaptable is it to new threats and capabilities? Periodic assessment 

of new nuclear detection technologies will likely play an important 

role in the government’s ability to improve the architecture. The 

frequency and formality of such assessments will affect both the 

utility and the costs associated with this process. It is noteworthy 

that the January 2010 report repeated the language of the previous 

report’s technology assessment. 

Finally, a fundamental issue for policymakers is whether Federal 

investments appropriately support the needs of the Global Nuclear 

Detection Architecture. The architecture is a network of interrelated programs, and the ramifications of shifting funding between these programs may be understood best from a holistic architectural perspective. A single Global Nuclear Detection Architecture budget submitted annually as a budget supplement might provide policymakers with a more transparent correlation between 

agency funding and the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. Alternatively, rather than directly increasing or decreasing program 

funding, policymakers might empower the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office Director or another official with the authority to review 

and assess other Department and agency investments in the Global 

Nuclear Detection Architecture and comment on or recommend alternative allocations. 

Detection of nuclear smuggling and prevention of nuclear terrorism are high national and homeland security priorities. This 

multi-agency endeavor is complex and relies heavily on coordination among the participating agencies. The Department of Homeland Security and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office face significant challenges in coordinating these activities. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my prepared statement. I would 

be happy to answer any questions that you or other Members of 

the Committee may have. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Dr. Shea. We will go 

ahead with a 7-minute round of questions. 

I must say overall the reports that the three of you have given 

I think represent a real alarm bell going off about DNDO, and we 

all acknowledge that it has done some things that are important 

to us, particularly with portals, both sea and the established land 

ports. But it has not done a lot that it should have done, and I 

want to explore a bit why. 

Mr. Aloise, I was struck again by your testimony that the development of a strategic plan had been recommended almost 3 years 

ago, and DNDO now says in its congressional budget justification 

for fiscal year 2011 that it expects to complete the strategic plan 

during fiscal year 2010. 

To the best of your knowledge—and then I will ask others if you 

have opinions—what happened here? Why didn’t it do the strategic 

plan more quickly? 

11 

Mr. ALOISE. I am really not quite sure what the true answer is 

on that, but as I mentioned in my statement, almost 4 years ago 

now, they took their eye off the ball of what they were supposed 

to do, and that is, complete the architecture with existing equipment. And, of course, upgrading the equipment is something you 

always want to do, but the urgency of the situation we are facing 

now requires that this detection system be completed first with 

what we have now, and DNDO followed the path of pushing 

through the ASPs. It was an research and development (R&D) program, too early to be deployed, and we issued numerous reports 

and testified numerous times before the Congress and this Committee, warning them that they were falling into a trap, and they 

fell into that trap. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, that is really important because you 

have said in that answer, I think, what is a critical problem here, 

which is that it is not just that we asked them to do a plan and 

were upset that they did not do the plan. What I take from your 

testimony is that there is an absence of a plan and clearly established priorities, particularly the priority to develop an overall architecture—which I take to mean how do you cover in some way 

all the points of vulnerability that we are trying to cover. Am I 

right about that? 

Mr. ALOISE. You are correct, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And so they did not do that, and the absence of a plan certainly facilitated what it sounds to me like what 

you would say was the most significant mistake that DNDO has 

made, which was to focus on spending a lot of money improving 

their capacity to detect nuclear material coming in at ports of 

entry—where they already had some coverage—instead of covering 

areas such as you mentioned in your statement: International rail 

transportation, international cargo, passengers, and baggage. 

Right? 

Mr. ALOISE. That is correct, sir. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Now, I want to ask Dr. Lowenthal and 

Dr. Shea to respond to that, if you agree with what Mr. Aloise has 

said. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Well, our study committee really was looking at 

the testing and evaluation of the ASPs, and not the rest of the 

Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. The reason that the committee said something 

about the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture was because there 

was some ambiguity about the mission of the ASPs and the objectives that they were trying to accomplish with these devices. And 

the committee could not find an articulation of that in the context 

of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. And so, yes, the committee said that the justification has to be there somewhere. The 

committee said we would like to see it probably in the context of 

a cost/benefit analysis for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, some trade-off studies, which would help set priorities, as you 

have described. But because it did not exist there, the committee 

recommended that they do it in the context of the ASP cost/benefit 

analysis. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Dr. Shea. 

12 

Mr. SHEA. To the question about the strategic plan, I would point 

out that the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture is implemented 

by many different agencies. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. SHEA. In DNDO’s coordination role, I think that they are 

challenged to both consider the strategic purposes of those different 

programs in those different agencies and the goals of those programs and also have those programs align with the goals of the architecture. With the development of a strategic plan solely by 

DNDO it might be difficult for the agencies to fully adopt the purposes of that strategic plan, but also the development of a strategic 

plan by an interagency process is often a challenging activity. So 

that may be the source of some of the difficulties with respect 

to—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So is part of this organizational? In other 

words, does DNDO not have adequate authority to coordinate 

across the various departments, even though the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 designated DNDO as the lead organization and charged it to work with the Departments of Defense, 

Energy, State, and others? Has it not been up to the task? And 

should this be raised up either to the departmental level or given 

to some centralized entity such as the White House or the Office 

of Management and Budget (OMB)? 

Mr. SHEA. That certainly would be one approach to increase the 

ability of agencies to come together in an interagency process. I 

think that DNDO, of course, would be in the best position to answer whether or not it believes it has sufficient authority. But I 

would say also that the SAFE Port Act and Homeland Security 

Presidential Directive 14 do provide authority to the implementing 

agencies to establish policies in the areas that they are implementing their programs. So even though the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office does have the responsibility of developing the overarching architecture, those implementing agencies also have their 

own independent policy authorities in the areas where they are implementing programs. 

Another approach might be to provide some authority to the implementing agencies to develop parts of the architecture in conjunction with DNDO, for example, and then give DNDO the responsibility of integrating the different architectural frameworks into one 

more coherent and integrated architecture. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Aloise, let me come back to you just 

to set the predicate here. I am right, is it not so, that the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 14 made clear that DNDO had 

this authority to work with other agencies for the specific purpose 

of developing the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture? 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes, that is correct. GAO has been in this area a 

long time. We had reported in the 1990s that each of the agencies 

had their own programs—Department of Defense, Department of 

Energy, and the State Department—and a major problem was coordination. And DNDO had the role of coordinating all those activities, not managing each of them, but coordinating so everybody is 

headed towards the same goal. 

When we started our work on ASPs, what we found was a major 

management problem. DNDO was not even talking to these agenVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:14 Nov 03, 2011 Jkt 058397 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\58397.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
13 

cies. They were not telling them what they were planning to do 

with the ASP. It was GAO going in there telling them what was 

going on, and it was not a pretty scene. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Your answer to the question really puts 

on the record what we forget, which is that this attempt to set up 

an architecture to prevent a terrorist nuclear attack on the United 

States did not just begin on September 11, 2001. 

Mr. ALOISE. No, it did not. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. There was a lot of background here before. 

Mr. ALOISE. Right. The Department of Energy has been securing 

nuclear material for years, and even the second line of defense program, putting in portal monitors on other countries’ borders, and 

our efforts here in the United States began in the late 1990s. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Just a last question for you. Do you think 

DNDO can do this job based on its record? Or do we need to kick 

it upstairs somehow and give it to OMB or the White House? I hate 

to do that reflexively. We give too much to the White House, really. 

So I want to invite your reaction to the organizational structure 

here. 

Mr. ALOISE. I think our view is DNDO ought to use the powers 

it has been given to coordinate effectively the creation of this plan. 

And what that means is they have to get the buy-in of the other 

Federal agencies, and then it is a consensus plan. You have your 

goal. You can move forward. And we need to move forward. So we 

think it can be done. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. Well, obviously, this is a critical matter of homeland security, and you hate to see either bureaucratic 

turf protection or just bureaucratic inertia standing in the way of 

getting this job done. 

Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Aloise, I want to go back to the issue of the strategic plan 

because, like the Chairman, I think that is a really critical issue 

that you have brought to the Committee. I want to go back to the 

timeline because I actually think that the failure of DHS in this 

area is even more acute than the Chairman put forth. 

It was 2 years ago that GAO last recommended that DNDO complete a strategic plan, but it actually was more than 7 years ago, 

in October 2002, that GAO first established the need for a strategic 

plan. Is that correct? 

Mr. ALOISE. That is correct, Senator, yes, and we were recommending that Customs and Border Protection (CBP), or at that 

time the Customs Service, develop that plan. 

Senator COLLINS. So if the Department issues the strategic plan 

for Global Nuclear Detection Architecture this fall, it will actually 

be about 8 years since GAO first made that recommendation. 

Mr. ALOISE. That is correct. 

Senator COLLINS. That is so troubling to me given what is at 

stake, and I know that it is to the Chairman as well. I am wondering if this is a case where the Department became so entranced 

with upgrading the technology of the radiation portal monitors 

that, as you put it, it dropped the ball; and instead of focusing on 

14 

the gaps in the system, it just became entranced by the technology. 

Is that a fair assessment based on your analysis? 

Mr. ALOISE. I think it is, Senator. I think there was this promise 

from the ASPs—which, by the way, is not new technology. What 

was new was the software. 

Senator COLLINS. Correct. 

Mr. ALOISE. And there was a lot of marketing going around that 

this was the silver bullet. But we had looked at that technology 

and we had looked at the promise it offered, and even our earliest 

review back in 2006 said this will only be a marginal improvement, 

so, CBP, DNDO, and DHS need to do a cost/benefit analysis to see 

if it is going to be worth that marginal improvement, because if you 

are spending money on ASPs, you are taking money away from 

somewhere else. 

Senator COLLINS. And, Mr. Lowenthal, when you looked at the 

ASPs, did you look at how much money was spent by the Department on this technology? And as GAO has pointed out, it was actually a software upgrade. Did you look at the amount of money 

spent? 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. We were focused on the cost of the devices 

going forward, their life cycle costs and whatever benefits they 

might offer. We did not look at the historical investments within 

the ASP program and how they might have been spent otherwise 

because the committee was chartered to look at the testing and 

evaluation rather than whether DNDO is carrying out its larger 

mission properly. 

Senator COLLINS. Correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Aloise, but I think the Department spent in the neighborhood of $2 billion on 

the ASP technology. Do you know if that is correct? 

Mr. ALOISE. Well, that was what was planned to be spent. 

Senator COLLINS. Planned to be spent. 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes. They have spent so far—not counting testing— 

$224 million. We have actually asked for more updated information. We wanted it for this hearing, but they did not provide it to 

us yet. Hopefully they will have it for the next hearing. 

Senator COLLINS. I guess what is so troubling to me is here the Department was prepared to invest $2 billion in one kind of technology when, in fact, it had never worked out a plan for railroads 

or for other means of smuggling nuclear materials into the country; 

and then when the technology did not prove to be as effective as 

hoped, there is this diversion of attention, money, energy, to just 

one kind of technology. And I think you put it so well that then 

what happened is the Department took its eye off the ball and, 

thus, we are faced with the situation that we have now. 

Dr. Shea, you raised a really good point, that there are a number 

of other departments that play a role—Energy, State, Defense, as 

well as Homeland Security. Isn’t that the reason that having a 

strategic plan becomes even more important? How, otherwise, do 

you know the investments that are going to be made by other departments? 

Mr. SHEA. Yes, I agree. The agencies themselves have their programmatic priorities and invest in those programs trying to meet 

the programs’ goals. But absent a strategic plan that lays out what 

the architecture’s goals are and how to measure success towards 

15 

those goals, it could be very difficult for an agency to be investing 

with that purpose in mind, they would not have that information 

to bring into their budgeting process. So I think that a strategic 

plan that lays out the strategic goals of the architecture and provides metrics within that strategic plan for the agencies to align 

their program goals with is key for getting all of the agencies to 

work together in the same direction. 

Senator COLLINS. And it also ensures that resources are going to 

be allocated appropriately. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. 

I have a couple more questions. Let me go back to you, Mr. 

Aloise. At the outset, you talked about the difficulty of dealing with 

some of the areas of the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture that 

DNDO has not dealt with. You mentioned, for instance, the length 

of freight trains coming in from Canada, let us say. Do you have 

any doubt that this is an achievable task that we are giving 

DNDO? In other words, it may be difficult, but am I correct that 

you believe it is doable if they had concentrated on establishing essentially at least baseline defenses all across our country as opposed to focusing on the portals? 

Mr. ALOISE. Actually, we do believe it is doable. We are not going 

to say it is easy, but we have gone around the country and looked 

at train depots, and we have seen where people have set up train 

portal monitors at certain choke points. It is not going to work everywhere, but there are certainly ways, if given the resources and 

analysis, you could do it. 

So, yes, we do believe it can be done. In fact, when DNDO made the push for ASPs and their proposal was to spend $2 billion, they 

said they could do trains. Now they say they cannot, and they have 

to develop a new technology. We are not sure a new technology is 

needed, but it may be. There may be emerging technologies out 

there that would help. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. They said at that point that the ASPs 

could deal with the international rail cargo as well. 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes, the ASPs were to cover almost all forms of 

entry into the United States. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And now they conclude that they cannot. 

Mr. ALOISE. Right. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Give us an overall view on the public 

record here about whether there is any work going on within 

DNDO now in these areas of the architecture that they have at 

least underattended to. 

Mr. ALOISE. There are studies going on. There are discussions 

going on. There is very little that actually has been done. In the 

green borders between ports of entry, they are starting to talk 

about using law enforcement more, which makes sense. They are 

not going to seal the borders, but they are going to have a presence 

at the borders. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And when they say law enforcement, 

what do they mean? 

Mr. ALOISE. Well, have a presence at the borders with customs 

officials. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Customs and Border Protection. 

16 

Mr. ALOISE. Right, which sort of mirrors what the State police 

do in hunting down speeders on your highways. You do not know 

where they are, but you know they are out there, and you could 

be caught if you speed. So it is a deterrent. And we actually think 

that has merit, and they are looking at that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Years ago, when I acquired a burglar 

alarm system for my house, at the end of the installation the man 

doing it gave me the stickers for the windows and the doors and 

said, ‘‘Ninety-five percent of what you are paying for are these 

stickers.’’ And he was an honest man. So I get your point. 

I want to get to the question about whether there ought to be 

some consolidation across governmental departments of budgets 

and authority with regard to nuclear detection and ask each of you 

if you have a thought on that. I know we have said that DNDO 

has the authority under the Presidential Directive. Is there some 

value to the Committee, even by legislation, considering centralizing more of that budget authority for this function as a way to 

basically compel the various departments to work together? 

Mr. ALOISE. I guess I will go first. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Please. 

Mr. ALOISE. I think our position is—and I know I sound like a 

broken record here—we would like to see a plan first on how we 

are going to complete this architecture. And by looking at the plan, 

where our resources will be devoted, what our goal is, and how fast 

we are going to get there, then I think we could see if anything else 

is needed beyond that to get this job done. But until we know what 

the job is, I am not sure what fixes we could put in place. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good enough. Dr. Lowenthal, do you have 

an opinion on that 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Yes, the report did not address this, so I will 

just say a few words. 

First of all, the academy does not tell the Federal Government 

how it should reorganize itself unless sopecifically asked. It highlights problems and maybe some options for how to do it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. You are really different than the rest of 

America in that regard. [Laughter.] 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. But I think that what Mr. Aloise said is very 

consistent with what the Committee said in its report, which is 

that you need to establish what the priorities are in order to make 

trade-off decisions. And without a plan, it is hard to do that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Dr. Shea. 

Mr. SHEA. As I believe all the witnesses have said, there are 

many agencies that are participating in the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, and some of the programs of those agencies, they 

are not solely dedicated to nuclear detection. Bringing all of the 

budgets together into a single authority might pose challenges, especially for the programs that have a shared responsibility between 

nuclear detection and some other role. 

That said, the current budgetary cross-cut for the Global Nuclear 

Detection Architecture is retrospective in nature. It appears in the 

Joint Annual Interagency Review report, and as a consequence, for 

planning purposes, it is not presented to Congress at a time that 

would allow it to influence, for example, budgetary decisions that 

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17 

mittees. If the request from the President’s budget was cast in such 

terms as is used in the Joint Annual Interagency Review, then perhaps that would provide some transparency for congressional policymakers in how the funding at the various agencies is feeding 

into the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Based on what you know about the development of the ASP at this point, would you recommend that DNDO 

just stop any further work on the ASP and really focus on the development of the parts of the nuclear detection architecture that 

are undeveloped, the ones we have been talking about all along, 

the areas essentially outside of the official portals of entry? 

Mr. ALOISE. I think it would be our view that, yes, even if you 

deploy the ASP, it is going to be of marginal value. And what we 

need to do is close the gaps in the architecture first. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Dr. Lowenthal, do you have an opinion on 

that? 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. No, and I will just tell you what the academy 

is doing at this point. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go ahead. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. DNDO has been trying to respond to the recommendations in our report from last year, and so our study committee has been reconvened to evaluate their progress on that. We 

are not going to come out in the end with any kind of conclusion 

as to whether the ASPs should be terminated, continued, or expanded. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Dr. Shea. 

Mr. SHEA. I think that the cost/benefit analysis that the Department is currently performing with respect to the ASP program will 

likely inform the office as to whether or not this investment is a 

good investment for them to continue or not. One of the recommendations out of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 

interim report was that such a cost/benefit analysis be done in the 

greater context of the architecture, and I think that the results of 

such an analysis would inform that question as to whether or not 

continued investment in the ASP would be beneficial. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But at this point, you are not prepared to 

reach a conclusion yourself? 

Mr. SHEA. I do not think that I have the information. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Understood. Thanks. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The Chairman has raised an important issue about whether government is organized correctly to have sufficient coordination, and 

he raised the issue of whether there needs to be a position within 

the White House or OMB. In fact, there already is a position. It 

was created in 2007, and it is within the Executive Office of the 

President, and it is the Coordinator for the Prevention of Weapons 

of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism. 

The reason no one remembers this position is neither the Bush 

Administration nor the Obama Administration has ever filled this 

position, which is a presidentially nominated, Senate-confirmed position. So I do not think the problem is the need for the creation 

of a new position. I think the problem is that this position has not 

been filled. And that is an editorial comment rather than a question for our witnesses. 

18 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I just want to join you in that op-ed. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just have one final question, and it is for our GAO witness. The 

GAO today is releasing a report that assesses DHS management of 

its complex acquisitions. It finds that in almost half of the DHS 

programs reviewed, there were no baseline requirements for the 

program until more than 2 years after the program began. Obviously, it is very difficult to have a successful acquisition if you start 

the acquisition before you establish the requirements. 

Aren’t we seeing some similar things when we look at DNDO’s 

acquisitions in the ASP program and, in general, its failure to 

produce a plan before acquiring the equipment and technology? 

Mr. ALOISE. Yes, Senator, it is very similar. The ASP program 

had no mission needs statement, had no cost/benefit analysis, had 

no life cycle cost analysis, and still does not have a plan. It was 

not until 2007 when the appropriations act said the testing should 

meet a significant increase in operational effectiveness before certification, and it was not until August 2008 that there were even 

any criteria established for that language. So, yes, it is eerily similar. 

Senator COLLINS. It is, and I appreciate your confirming that because this is a problem that seems to permeate several agencies 

within DHS acquisitions, and it causes schedule delays and cost 

overruns and the procurement of the wrong kind of technology. We 

saw it with the puffer detectors that the Transportation Security 

Administraiton (TSA) used at airports that turned out not to work. 

And straightening out that fundamental planning process to me is 

absolutely critical, and I think, unfortunately, the ASP program 

and the failures at DNDO are regrettably additional examples of 

that. And when it comes to DHS, the consequences for the security 

of our Nation are enormous. So we have to get this right. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. Senator, can I add something? 

Senator COLLINS. Yes. 

Mr. LOWENTHAL. I think the academy report endorsed what Mr. 

Aloise was saying and what you have said about articulating what 

the needs are before you procure. The academy report also said 

something more about how they should do this, how they should 

proceed with deployment if they determine that they have promise 

there. And it is not that they should make a single decision that 

then means that they put these everywhere, that they should instead deploy them in a limited number of places, and see how they 

perform. These are complex pieces of equipment, and the software 

is complex as well. And so this should be an incremental deployment with some iterative performance enhancements as they go 

rather than just one big purchase. 

Senator COLLINS. I agree. Dr. Shea, do you have anything to add 

to this? 

Mr. SHEA. I do not have anything to add. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you very much, and I want to thank the 

Chairman for holding this hearing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Collins, for your partnership in this. Thanks to the witnesses. I know that in many ways 

you spend a lot of time and quite hard work, but I really want to 

19 

thank you because that work today has helped inform the Committee, and you have really, from my point of view, focused some 

tough questions. Some might say this has been an indictment of 

past behavior but certainly a critique of past behavior by DNDO 

and the Federal Government generally on this critical question of 

homeland security. But more to the point now, going forward, you 

have focused some questions for the Department of Homeland Security to answer, and, again, we are going to make clear to them— 

I hope somebody is here from the Department; if not, we are going 

to ask them to read the testimony—that they must be prepared to 

come in here on July 21 and answer the questions that your work 

and testimony and the Committee have posed. And hopefully those 

answers will then lead to corrective action so we will not have to 

be back here a year from now with all or some of you telling us 

that they still have not plugged the gaps that we need to have 

plugged. So I thank you. 

Do you want to add anything, Senator Collins? 

Senator COLLINS. I do not. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The record of the hearing will remain 

open for 15 days for submission of additional statements or questions. Again, I thank you very much. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:08 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(21) 

NUCLEAR TERRORISM: STRENGTHENING OUR 

DOMESTIC DEFENSES—PART II 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Akaka, and Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good morning. The hearing will come to 

order. 

This is the second part of the Committee’s investigation of efforts 

by the Department of the Homeland Security (DHS) to strengthen 

our Nation’s defenses against the threat of nuclear terrorism. I 

want to welcome Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Jane Holl 

Lute, who will be our primary witness today, as well as the new 

Director of the Department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, 

Warren Stern, and representatives from other DHS agencies that 

have important roles to play in preventing a nuclear terrorist attack. 

The first thing to say is that this threat is real. In fact, the National Security Strategy released by the Administration in May 

contained the following stark warning, ‘‘The American people face 

no greater or more urgent danger than a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon. Black markets trade in nuclear secrets and materials. Terrorists are determined to buy, build, or steal a nuclear 

weapon.’’ 

At Part I of this hearing on June 30, witnesses from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional Research 

Service (CRS), and the National Academies of Sciences testified 

that one of the key offices assigned to protect us from this threat, 

which is the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), is woefully behind in its planning and implementation efforts, despite $2 

billion in funding since it was created in 2005 as an office within 

the Department of Homeland Security. And since our last hearing, 

DNDO has provided further financial information to GAO that 

shows another $2 billion was spent department-wide by Homeland 

Security in support of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office’s mission. 

22 

And what has that $4 billion bought over 5 years? In part, that 

money has gone to expanding existing programs at Customs and 

Border Protection (CBP), the Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and other DHS agencies that are critical to our defenses against nuclear terrorism. But, unfortunately, 

there is too much evidence that very little progress has been made 

with the funds that have been targeted to enhancing our current 

nuclear detection capabilities. 

Most importantly, the overall nuclear terror defense plan DNDO 

has been working on since it was created now 5 years ago, the 

Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, is still not completed. And, 

in fact, last year, DNDO officials concluded that the plan they were 

developing was too dependent on unproven technologies and did 

not take into consideration the contributions that law enforcement 

and intelligence agencies could make with their existing assets. 

I appreciate that designing a global system of systems and coordinating the activities of agencies and other departments that 

are part of that system is a big challenge. But the threat is enormous here, and the size of the challenge, therefore, cannot explain 

away the failure of DNDO to develop a strategic plan for strengthening parts of the domestic layer of the architecture operated within the Department of Homeland Security and help guide the nuclear detection investments by its fellow DHS agencies. So that will 

be a focus, the primary focus of this hearing. 

In our previous hearing, we also heard that DNDO has spent 

hundreds of millions of dollars trying to develop new radiation detection technology known as the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal 

(ASP), that the GAO concluded is only marginally better than what 

we have now. GAO has also provided the Committee details about 

the failure of a second large DNDO technology investment known 

as the Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System (CAARS). 

According to GAO, the Nuclear Detection Office awarded contracts 

for the CAARS systems without ever determining if the system 

could be used in domestic ports of entry or whether it would meet 

the requirements of the Customs and Border Protection agency, 

which is on the front lines of protecting our borders. 

GAO estimates that DNDO has spent approximately $400 million combined on the ASP and CAARS programs with little or nothing to show for it. GAO also contends that had DHS completed its 

strategic plan before making these investments, it might well have 

considered the security benefits of other mobile or portable detection systems. 

Last year, GAO strongly recommended that DHS ‘‘develop a strategic plan for the domestic part of the Global Nuclear Detection 

Strategy to guide the domestic nuclear detection investments of 

DHS agencies.’’ 

This is sound advice, but it apparently has not been followed by 

DHS or DNDO in making expensive decisions about the investments that they are making here at home. So this morning we 

really need to hear a direct response from DHS to these criticisms, 

and we need to know what corrective actions are being taken now. 

Because our Committee wants to make sure that in carrying out 

our oversight responsibilities we do not cause the revelation of any 

information that could be exploited by our enemies, the hearing 

23 

will adjourn at the appropriate time, to be resumed in closed session in the Senate Security offices. 

Finally, I would say that the problems that are facing the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and the Department of Homeland 

Security in our efforts generally to design and implement the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture are not new, and they have been 

well documented. We held hearings on this topic during the previous Administration, but now this Administration is in charge and 

must step up to the plate and close this gap in our defenses against 

nuclear terrorism. 

Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this second hearing on the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security to prevent nuclear terrorism against our country. 

At our first hearing, we examined the Department’s inexplicable 

failure to complete a much needed strategy to address this growing 

threat. As the Chairman has pointed out, we know that time is not 

on our side. The 2008 report by the Commission on the Prevention 

of Weapons of Mass Destruction predicted that it is more likely 

than not that a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) will be used 

in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013. 

There is no more alarming prospect than that of a nuclear September 11, 2001. 

After all, a nuclear bomb is the ultimate terrorist weapon, causing an unimaginable amount of death, suffering, and horror—precisely the kind of frightening and inhumane outcome that terrorists 

seek. 

Terrorists have made clear their desire to secure a nuclear weapon. Given this stark reality, we must ask: What has the Department done to defend against nuclear terrorism on American soil? 

The answer, unfortunately, is: Not enough . . . not nearly enough. 

Today the Department still lacks a strategic plan for the Global 

Nuclear Detection Architecture, a necessity first identified by the 

Government Accountability Office nearly 8 years ago. We cannot 

wait another 8 years or even another 8 months. The Department 

must complete this plan now. 

As the Chairman has indicated, the office charged with this effort at DHS, the office known as DNDO, has seemed more intent 

in the past on investing in new technology than on the nuts and 

bolts planning that should guide these acquisitions. The office, for 

example, has spent approximately $282 million over nearly 5 years 

on the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal Program, with the goal of developing the next-generation primary cargo scanning technology to 

detect unshielded nuclear and radiological materials. But in February 2010, DNDO announced that the ASP was no longer being 

pursued as a possible primary scanning technology and now was 

only being looked at as a possible secondary scanning technology. 

Unfortunately, the GAO has determined that the technology is only 

slightly better than the existing monitors. 

GAO’s statement for the record today highlights problems with 

another scanning technology mentioned by the Chairman that 

would X-ray the contents of cargo containers. GAO found that 

24 

DNDO failed to adequately communicate with Customs and Border 

Protection about such basic issues as how large the equipment 

could be to still fit within the port of entry inspection lanes. I must 

say this is so frustrating. One of the reasons that we worked so 

hard to bring all of the agencies together under the umbrella of the 

Department of Homeland Security was to enhance communication 

and to ensure that the right hand knows what the left is doing. So 

to have this so basic a communications lapse is really discouraging 

and inexcusable. 

After more than 2 years of work, DNDO has decided to cancel 

the acquisition of this technology and focus on more research and 

development. DHS must be a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. Time and money have been wasted as DNDO has focused almost completely on marginal improvements in technology, rather 

than on identifying gaps in coverage and then determining the appropriate technology to eliminate those gaps. And as the Chairman 

indicates, this problem started in the previous Administration, but 

it is discouraging to not see more progress in this Administration 

which is now in charge. 

Moreover, troubling gaps continue to exist that could be exploited 

by terrorists seeking to smuggle illicit nuclear materials into the 

United States. We know that terrorists are constantly probing and 

testing our vulnerabilities. 

Now, to be sure, the Department deserves credit for deploying 

more than 1,400 radiation portal monitors, allowing nearly 100 

percent of cargo entering our seaports and nearly 100 percent of vehicle traffic on the southern and northern borders to be scanned for 

unshielded nuclear material, and that is significant. But cargo coming into this country by rail from Canada or Mexico is still not 

scanned, and only a small percentage of international air cargo is 

scanned. Effective scanning technology for these shipments would 

form an important part of a layered, risk-based defense to nuclear 

terrorism. 

Let me go back, however, to what I see as the essential issue, 

and that is the lack of a strong strategic plan to establish priorities, identify gaps, and to give our tactics cohesion. Without that, 

we are going to continue to see slow progress in an effective defense against terrorists’ nuclear ambitions. This strategy should 

also include a comprehensive cost/benefit analysis that accounts for 

currently available and potential future technologies as well as the 

personnel, intelligence, and infrastructure needed to combat this 

threat. 

In addition, to improve the coordination across government, 

President Obama must appoint a coordinator for the prevention of 

weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, and terrorism as required by the 2007 Homeland Security Act written by the Chairman and myself. This coordinator would help promote the interagency collaboration needed to develop and implement an effective 

strategy. 

Inadequate planning causes schedule delays, cost overruns, and 

the procurement of the wrong kinds of technology at great cost to 

the taxpayer. And when we are talking about preventing nuclear 

terrorism, those failures can lead to catastrophic consequences for 

our Nation. 

25 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Lute appears in the Appendix on page 82. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. 

Deputy Secretary Lute, thank you for being here. You are in the 

hot seat, I suppose, this morning because you can sense or hear the 

frustration that the Committee has with how this responsibility 

has been advanced over these two Administrations, and that frustration has been deepened, of course, by the independent reports, 

including GAO’s. So I am very anxious to hear your response to 

those critiques and where you are going to lead the effort now. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JANE HOLL LUTE,1 DEPUTY SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Ms. LUTE. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good 

morning. Good morning, Senator Collins. 

Members of the Committee, it is my pleasure actually to be here 

before you today to discuss efforts by the Department of Homeland 

Security to increase our security and reduce the risk, as you both 

have pointed out, of nuclear terrorism. 

Countering threats from terrorism is the Department’s primary 

mission, and preventing nuclear terrorism has been and remains 

among our top-most priorities. The Department’s first Quadrennial 

Homeland Security Review, which we released this year, reaffirms 

this critical mission. DHS cannot meet this challenge alone. Other 

Federal departments and agencies are and must be engaged in this 

effort, as must State and local law enforcement agencies, governments, and other responsible parties around the world, as well as 

international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 

Since the establishment of DNDO in 2005, this Committee has 

engaged with the Department on the full range of issues associated 

with preventing terrorists’ use of nuclear weapons, and we respect 

and appreciate that engagement and understand the frustrations 

that have been expressed this morning. My remarks today will 

focus on the core tasks we believe are inherent in effective detection and interdiction, namely, anticipating the threat and preventing hostile use. 

This is a tough set of issues, as this Committee knows. We believe we now have a better understanding of the challenges that 

are posed by the limitations of technology, by operational constraints, and by issues related to the scale of the challenge of interdicting and detecting illicit nuclear trafficking across or within our 

borders. And we must do more, as you have noted, to synchronize 

and integrate the efforts of all actors to fill gaps and minimize 

vulnerabilities. 

Noting these challenges, however, should not detract from 

progress that we have made in extending the coverage of our domestic nuclear detection capabilities and increasing the capacities 

of technologies and processes that are at the heart of that coverage. 

I will address this progress but also the challenges in greater detail 

when we have an opportunity to meet in closed session. I do want 

to note that we have seen a major expansion, as Senator Collins 

has noted, of monitors at our Nation’s ports of entry and at other 

26 

locations, detectors along our land and maritime borders, and there 

have been sizable increases in the development, testing, and evaluation of new detection systems. We have increased the training of 

qualified detection officials and been continuing to work on the development of new materials for potential future use. 

As you have noted, I am pleased to acknowledge that DNDO has 

a newly appointed Director, Warren Stern, whose expertise and experience is valuable and will be directed and put to great aggressive, vigorous use, as the leadership of DNDO. And I know that the 

Committee is keenly interested in discussing DNDO’s programs 

further with him. 

One of DNDO’s core mandates is to develop the strategic framework for a Global Nuclear Detection Architecture (GNDA), which 

is a risk-informed, multilayered network designed to detect illicit 

radiological and nuclear materials or weapons and is, therefore, a 

key part of our overall effort to prevent nuclear terrorism. I acknowledge the Committee has been expecting this for some time. 

I acknowledge, understand, and, in fact, share the frustration that 

this has not yet been presented. That work is progressing, and we 

expect the strategic plan to be completed by the end of the year, 

as I have already testified before this Committee. 

I know the Committee is also keenly interested in DNDO’s Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitoring program. Again, I will reserve more detailed comments for our closed session regarding 

ASP. 

This program has taken longer than anticipated, and while its 

likely deployment in secondary screening differs from the original 

plan, we believe it will offer a significant contribution to our nuclear detection capabilities. 

Moreover, many of the problematic aspects of ASP have stemmed 

from our immaturity in developing and managing large acquisition 

programs, and I believe that we have built on the progress 

achieved by the leaders who preceded us at DHS and on the work 

that has been ongoing to establish a much more rigorous process 

for establishing requirements at the outset, knowing what we need 

as an operational Department, and ensuring that those requirements are validated through rigorous operational testing. This was 

not the case when ASP was started in 2005. 

The Department has also recently established a Nuclear Terrorism Working Group staffed by the heads of key components in 

the Department. I chair it. We meet weekly. The working group examines the Department’s role and activities, the components’ roles 

and activities, and coordinates those activities with DNDO and also 

with our Science and Technology Directorate, headed up by Under 

Secretary Tara O’Toole, who is also with us today. And we want 

to understand and develop our plan for meeting the operational 

challenges on the ground. 

DHS is now 7 years old, but as I have said to this Committee 

before, it is not 1 year old for the seventh time. A lot of progress 

has been made in those 7 years thanks in large part to the aggressive, continued focus of this Committee and the dialogue between 

us. 

The Department has matured. Our understanding of the threat 

has matured, and we have developed and tested several techVerDate Nov 24 2008 11:14 Nov 03, 2011 Jkt 058397 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\58397.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT
27 

nologies and explored operational requirements to devise solutions 

for the gaps that arise. 

For decades, the United States has led the world in efforts to 

control nuclear weapons and materials and more recently to 

counter the threat of nuclear terrorism. As the President announced in his Prague speech of April 2009, the United States intends to pursue a new international effort to secure all vulnerable 

nuclear material around the world within 4 years. Smuggling of 

nuclear materials has occurred, only in small quantities that we 

know of thus far, and it remains a grave concern. Controlling it is 

a very high priority. 

While the ultimate aim of the United States is to make nuclear 

terrorism near to impossible, our immediate goal is to make it a 

prohibitively difficult undertaking for any adversary. 

But the responsibility to increase security and reduce the overall 

risk of nuclear terrorism is not owned by any one office, department, or even government. It must be a collective effort. 

Thank you again for this opportunity to come and speak with you 

today about the Department’s nuclear terrorism prevention efforts. 

Mr. Chairman, I have submitted my full testimony for the record, 

and I look forward to your questions. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Deputy Secretary Lute. We will 

go ahead with 7-minute rounds of questions. 

I must tell you—and I will go back again over your prepared testimony, which I looked at yesterday—that I am somewhat disappointed because a number of the questions that the Committee 

specifically posed to you in our invitation to testify today have not 

been dealt with, nor have there been specific responses to the GAO, 

CRS, or Academy of Sciences’ critiques. Now, maybe some of those 

you are going to give us in the closed session, but we have a lot 

of work to do. And, again, I come back from this statement that 

the GAO prepared a statement for the record today. Have you had 

a chance to see that? 

Ms. LUTE. No, Senator, I have not. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, I want to ask you to take a look at 

it and then respond in writing. In one case, they added a new— 

I will call it an accusation, that the Department has been misleading Congress with regard to the CAARS program. That is a serious question, and I think it is very important that you respond 

to it as soon as you can. 

They also say in the statement filed for the record of this hearing, and I quote again, ‘‘To date, DHS has spent $4 billion on various aspects of the Nuclear Detection Architecture, but has not developed a strategic plan to guide its efforts to develop and implement this architecture, as we recommended in 2008.’’ 

And I know you expressed your own frustration with that. We 

are now more than a year and a half into this Administration. 

What is holding up that strategic plan? Why hasn’t it been done 

earlier, either by the previous Administration or this one? 

Ms. LUTE. Mr. Chairman, there are probably a number of reasons that account. They may sound like excuses. It is not my inclination to offer excuses. We now have a non-acting, head of DNDO. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

28 

Ms. LUTE. We have established an interagency group at the Assistant Secretary level to guide and complete the implementation 

of the GNDA Strategic Plan. And we now have that strategic plan 

in draft form. So what I can tell you is that, notwithstanding the 

lack of progress made to date, we expect to deliver that plan before 

the end of this calendar year. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, the sooner the better, obviously. I 

wonder if you are in a position to indicate to the Committee in generality what the content of the plan will be. In other words, will 

there be sufficient detail to enable DHS and the Federal Government to accomplish what it set out to do 5 years ago? 

Ms. LUTE. This is going to be a strategic plan, Mr. Chairman, 

and as such, it will outline the vision, the goals, the objectives, and 

the performance metrics. It will necessarily be followed by an implementation plan which will look specifically at the existing architecture that we have in the domestic environment, look more specifically at those gaps, and identify concrete pathways with respect 

to procedures, acquisition, training techniques, and other elements 

necessary to put that plan to full effect. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In the final version of your prepared 

statement for this morning, which we saw later yesterday afternoon, it looked to me like you were saying that DHS wanted to deemphasize the domestic part of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office’s role and to emphasize the global aspects of the role. Did I 

read that correctly? 

Ms. LUTE. That may be due to the inadequacy of my drafting, 

Mr. Chairman. By no means. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is not your intention? 

Ms. LUTE. By no means. There are, points of activity on both 

fronts, both domestically and abroad, but the focus of the domestic 

office begins domestically. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Has to be domestic, of course. I appreciate 

that and am reassured to hear that. 

As I understand it, since 2005, DNDO has spent, as I said, about $400 million researching, developing, and testing the CAARS machines and ASPs. You have had a chance now to look over this, I 

presume, and I want to know what your conclusions are about why 

DNDO put such a large investment into these devices. Maybe, to 

the best of your ability before you answer, you should give us a 

brief lay person’s description of CAARS and ASPs. 

Ms. LUTE. So I will speak to this to a certain degree, Mr. Chairman. I am not an expert. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. If you want to call somebody else up 

for the technical detail. 

Ms. LUTE. But we can also discuss some of this in the closed 

hearing, with your indulgence. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Ms. LUTE. I thank you for that invitation, so if I need to use a 

lifeline, I will. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. 

Ms. LUTE. But ASP essentially is the next generation of detection 

technology to be used at our ports of entry to screen cargo. Why 

did we want it? We wanted it because we bring in between 20 and 

25 million containers of cargo annually, and we need to be able to 

29 

screen that cargo or scan that cargo. And we also need to be able 

to keep commerce moving. We pursued ASP as a fast means to detect reliably dangerous materials and fill gaps that we had. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That was presumably better than the current system? That was the goal. 

Ms. LUTE. That was the goal. We have learned some things. We 

were perhaps too aggressive in trying to field unproven technology. 

We have also known very fundamentally that good programs have 

to be supported by good process, and good process helps in turn 

generate good programs. We now have a solid acquisition system 

in the Department, a management directive that covers it, and that 

takes these large, complex requirements to which we are trying to 

match novel technologies, and walks us through the discipline of 

oversight and engagement at every step of the way. 

The test results of ASP, if we want to go into detail, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, we will wait until the closed session. 

But we did want it there fast in order to reduce false positives and 

improve our capability both for detection and for throughput. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. How about the CAARS program? 

Ms. LUTE. So this was a Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System and, again, part of a multilayered defense that we 

have, and we are not pursuing it. Beyond that, Mr. Chairman, I 

would like to go into closed session. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Do you draw any general lessons from 

these two investments about what should happen going forward? I 

mean, obviously, they had good intentions, but they both sound like 

they represented a considerable waste of money. 

Ms. LUTE. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think there are some lessons 

learned. Hope is not a method. We need to rely on the accuracy of 

our understanding of the operations of this Department. This is an 

operational Department. Technology must work in the field. It 

must solve the problems that we have in the field. We know this 

intuitively. You know it if you are an operator. And now we have 

built our ability to test equipment before it is fielded with field 

testing into our acquisition system. 

We know that, again, good programs have to be supported by 

good processes, and the process itself does begin with a deep understanding of exactly what our requirements are from an operator’s 

point of view. In both of these cases, as Senator Collins has pointed 

out, it is unacceptable that our research and development arm 

would not talk to our operating arms. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I agree. 

Ms. LUTE. It is unacceptable. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So, presumably, that is one thing that is 

not going to happen again. 

Ms. LUTE. No, not if I can help it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. And the Department maintains the 

goal of improving the current monitoring equipment that we have? 

Ms. LUTE. We do. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Am I right that the Department has over 

the last 5 years, and more, increased the number of monitors at 

ports of entry? 

Ms. LUTE. We have. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Significantly. 

30 

1The prepared statement from GAO appears in the Appendix on page 99. 

2The response from DHS appears in the Appendix on page 111. 

Ms. LUTE. We have, and we are prepared to share greater detail 

in closed session. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. My time is up, but I want to indicate to 

you that in the GAO statement for the record today that I referred 

to, the charge of misleading was specifically with regard to the 

CAARS program, and I will quote from it. ‘‘The description of the 

progress of the CAARS program used to support funding requests 

in DNDO’s budget justifications was misleading because it did not 

reflect the actual status of the program. For example, the fiscal 

years 2010 and 2011 DHS budget justifications both cited that an 

ongoing CAARS testing campaign would lead to a cost/benefit analysis. However, DNDO officials told GAO that when they canceled 

the acquisition part of the program in 2007, they also decided not 

to conduct any associated cost/benefit analysis.’’1

So that is a troubling statement. Part of that—it sounds like it 

happened on your watch with regard to the budget, so I hope you 

will take a quick look at that and respond. 

Ms. LUTE. Mr. Chairman, I apologize. Just before walking in, I 

did see that statement. I did not realize it was presented for the 

record of this hearing. I will certainly revert back to the Committee 

with a written answer.2

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK, because it is a serious charge, obviously. 

Ms. LUTE. Absolutely. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In terms of our trust from both branches 

of government. Thank you. 

Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Chairman, I am going to pick up exactly 

on that point with Deputy Secretary Lute because it is extremely 

troubling to read what GAO has written about the Department’s 

annual budget justifications. 

There is no dispute between GAO and the Department that 

DNDO made the decision in December 2007 to end its acquisition 

and deployment plans for the CAARS program. Yet the Department’s last three budget justifications to Congress have cited the 

development and deployment of the CAARS technology as being 

feasible. And, indeed, when GAO looked at the budget justifications 

for fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011, the Department cited an 

ongoing testing campaign that would lead to a cost/benefit analysis 

for the CAARS program. 

It is inconceivable to me that the Department is still putting 

plans and money into its budget justifications for a program that 

it had decided to abandon in December 2007. So how could that 

happen? If DNDO ended its acquisition and deployment plans for 

the CAARS program, for the cargo screening program and as a result had decided not to proceed with a cost/benefit analysis, why 

were they included in the DHS budget documents that were submitted to Congress? 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, CAARS was transitioned in 2007, it is my understanding, into a research and development (R&D) program. I 

31 

only quickly glanced at the statement of GAO this morning. We 

will certainly provide a detailed response to this line of inquiry. 

Senator COLLINS. But that is not what the budget justification 

says. The budget is still citing the development and deployment of 

the CAARS technology, and this is long after DHS decided to cancel the acquisition plans. 

We have to be able to take at face value the information the Department presents to us; otherwise, how can we proceed to evaluate 

the budget justifications? 

Ms. LUTE. I absolutely agree with that basic point, Senator. Absolutely. And, again, I will provide a detailed response to you in 

writing. 

Senator COLLINS. I just want to emphasize that I share the 

Chairman’s view that this is extremely troubling because this 

speaks to the credibility of the budget requests. At a time when we 

are scrutinizing the budget, squeezing every dollar, if we cannot 

rely on the credibility of the information provided by the Department for a program that, nearly 3 years ago was abandoned, that 

is very serious. So I think we need an answer to this question. 

I hope, Mr. Chairman, you will put a time frame on it, that within the next week we get an answer to this question. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Why don’t we just agree that we would 

like to hear back from you by a week from today on that question. 

Ms. LUTE. Yes, absolutely. I would just like to say, Senator, that 

there can be no question—and let me leave no doubt in your 

mind—the Department seeks and works to achieve a standard of 

highest fidelity and integrity in our interactions with Congress and 

our interactions with the American people. I do not accept at this 

point the characterization by GAO that we were misleading Congress, but I will provide a written answer in detail within the time 

frame we just agreed. 

Senator COLLINS. The second issue related to CAARS that I want 

to pursue further with you is the inexplicable lack of communication between DNDO and the client agency that actually was going 

to use the technology. And GAO’s report says it very well in a 

headline: ‘‘DNDO planned for the acquisition and deployment of 

CAARS without fully understanding that it could not feasibly operate in a U.S. port environment.’’ That is just extraordinary. It said 

that when the officials from CBP and DNDO finally met, CBP officials said that they made clear to DNDO that they did not want 

the CAARS machines because they would not fit in primary inspection lanes and would slow down the flow of commerce through 

these lanes and cause significant delays. 

That is an extraordinary statement. That those basic requirements were not identified before a single dollar was spent is something that I just cannot understand. And it clearly led to the waste 

of millions of dollars. How is it that acquisition officials in DNDO 

could be proceeding with a technology that did not meet the needs 

of the end-user agency in a very fundamental way? It is not we 

need to tweak this a little bit or we will need additional training 

for our personnel. This is saying the technology will not fit in the 

primary inspection lanes and would lead to significant delays. How 

much more fundamental a specification is there than whether or 

not it would fit? How can this have happened? 

32 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, if it in fact happened, it is inexcusable. You 

are absolutely right. And even in your description of it, I find myself getting equally frustrated and annoyed. There is no excuse in 

an operating department for the acquisition of material that does 

not meet basic operational purposes like does it fit. There is no excuse. 

I would just offer, in addition to responding to the specific question that you have asked on the transition of CAARS into an R&D 

program, that we give you a full accounting of how CAARS has unfolded to address these concerns. 

What I can tell you, Senator, is that we have fixed that problem. 

We have established an acquisition system that fully integrates the 

needs of the operators with the acquisition system itself. We have 

introduced points along that system for active engagement and 

oversight. We have introduced an operational testing phase as 

well—and that is a field testing phase—to prevent these things 

from happening. 

Senator COLLINS. You said ‘‘if this happened.’’ Do you take issue 

with what GAO has told us in a written statement? 

Ms. LUTE. Again, Senator, I just glanced at the statement before 

I walked in. I would like the opportunity to provide to you in writing, in detail, in a fully transparent way to the Committee the unfolding of this program. 

Senator COLLINS. Let me just ask one final question on this 

round since my time has expired. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is OK. 

Senator COLLINS. And that has to do with the strategic plan, the 

need for which was first identified 8 years ago, a source of huge 

frustration to the Chairman and myself, and a cause of significant 

waste of time and money. 

You have said that there is a draft plan underway. I am going 

to ask you a very basic question. When will it be done? 

Ms. LUTE. Before the end of this calendar year. 

Senator COLLINS. More precisely—I mean, the end of this calendar year is a long ways away. 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, I cannot give you a precise date. I can tell 

you before December 31. 

Senator COLLINS. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would say that December 31 is too long. The need for this plan has been evident for 8 

years, and in the meantime, the Department either has to freeze 

all of its technology acquisitions, because it does not really know 

what it needs—and that puts us at risk—or it has to proceed with 

acquisitions that may end up wasting more millions of dollars. So 

this has to be a priority. 

Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. I agree. This has 

been a long time in coming, and it is September 15 today. Look, 

we cannot compel you by a court or other action to do this by a 

given date, but the fact is it is long overdue. And it would impress 

us at least if you got it done by sometime significantly earlier than 

the end of the year. 

Is this going to be just an overall strategy? We had a little exchange before, but I presume this will be clear enough that it will 

guide action. I understand there may need to be details that follow, 

33 

but I hope this will be a real working strategic plan that will come 

forward. 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, it will be at a strategic level. It will identify 

the vision we are trying to pursue, and it will outline objectives 

and performance metrics. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Ms. LUTE. From that, we will necessarily create an implementation plan which will go into greater detail about programs, technologies, execution, and timelines. 

I think I would just like to offer as well that we are following 

the original impulse of the Department when DNDO was created, 

which was to look at our existing operations in the three main 

areas that we work on to ensure the security of this homeland: Our 

border regions, the interior of this country, as well as abroad. And 

we have looked to reinforce existing processes and procedures with 

the kinds of technologies that give us a stronger hand in the ability 

to detect and interdict the movement of illicit materials. 

So we are not frozen, Senator, and I know that is a concern of 

yours. It would be a concern of mine as well. We are not frozen in 

place. We are continuing to apply those technologies and procedures, to train our personnel in field, to deploy more trained personnel, and to develop our understanding of the threat and 

vulnerabilities. But I equally share your frustration—and certainly 

understand it—that this plan has not yet been produced. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I really urge you to get it to us before the 

end of the year if you possibly can. I think that would be a significant step forward. 

I have just a couple more questions. Incidentally, when you look 

at the statement that GAO filed for the record on this question of 

DNDO misleading the Congress, there is a final sentence in the 

paragraph that says—and this is GAO speaking—‘‘During recent 

discussions with DNDO officials, they agreed that the language in 

the budget justifications lacked clarity, and they have no plans to 

prepare a cost/benefit analysis.’’ 

So there has already been some acknowledgment. It may be a 

difference of terminology. The GAO says it was a kind of intentional act of misleading Congress. DNDO acknowledges that it 

lacked clarity. But I want to ask you from your position as administrative accountability and responsibility at the top of the Department to give us your view of what happened here and how it 

should affect our interactions. 

We have talked some about the unacceptable—I think that is the 

word you used—failure of some of the component agencies of the 

Department of Homeland Security to cooperate and to communicate in the development of some of the nuclear detection systems. 

DNDO, as you know, is also given the responsibility for coordinating nuclear detection activities of the Department of Homeland 

Security with other departments of our Federal Government—Defense, State, Justice, and Energy. 

The question I want to raise is—I do not know whether it is 

under consideration at all. In light of the fact that it is not clear 

to me that DNDO has the authority to tell those agencies what to 

do and, therefore, must rely on cooperation from them, each with 

their own jurisdictions, sovereignties, and perhaps stovepipes, 

34 

whether we ought to be considering giving additional authority to 

DNDO to coordinate this responsibility for a defense against nuclear terrorism or whether we ought to confine DNDO’s responsibility in some sense and have all these agencies accountable to 

someone higher up, in the White House, in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), something of that kind. Is that under 

consideration at all? And if not, do you have any first responses to 

that? 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, the situation is as you described. We do not 

have the authority such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has, and there have been some informal discussions 

about this. The right way forward, I think, remains to be decided. 

We are certainly engaged vigorously with them, for example, on 

the strategic plan for the Global Nuclear Detection Architecture at 

the Assistant Secretary level, so DNDO is moving out aggressively 

to establish the relationships and operating pattern to achieve the 

kind of cooperation that is expected. I think it is certainly a live 

consideration that additional authorities be considered. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, I would welcome your thoughts on 

that. 

The final question I have is really the initial point, and just to 

draw you out on it, I take it that the Department and DNDO are 

operating on an assumption or a conclusion based on intelligence 

that the threat of nuclear terrorism is real and that terrorist 

groups continue to have an active interest in gaining the capability 

to carry out a nuclear terrorist attack, including within the United 

States. 

Ms. LUTE. Yes, Senator. Beyond that, I would like to reserve our 

discussion for—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Understood, but I wanted to clarify that. 

The second may be a little harder but—which is—I know there 

was a relatively recent IAEA report recording some cases of attempts to smuggle quantities of enriched uranium out of the former 

Soviet Union, particularly Russia. I guess I am asking whether you 

have a concern about whether in terms of the thoughts about Global Nuclear Detection Architecture, whether the countries of the 

world, including Russia, are doing enough to protect the nuclear 

material that they have. 

Ms. LUTE. Again, Senator, with respect to a more detailed discussion on that, I would like to reserve it for the closed session. But 

I think it is fair to say that no one should be satisfied with the current state of efforts and that more has to be done. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is my understanding that in preparing the strategy, the Department is using these model guidelines. This is a document for 

nuclear detection architectures that DNDO developed in consultation with the international agencies as well as national domestic 

experts. These model guidelines state that the strategy should include a clear assignment of responsibility to the Federal, State, or 

local agency that is responsible for carrying out the strategies. 

We are told that the draft strategy currently being considered at 

DNDO does not include such basic elements as which agencies are 

responsible for which strategic goals, and that instead Congress is 

35 

going to have to wait for yet another plan to be produced and an 

implementation plan for the strategy to be delivered at a yet unknown future date. 

If the guidelines are recommending that agency responsibilities 

be defined in the national level strategy for the architecture, why 

isn’t the Department doing that, including that critical information 

and assignment of responsibility within the strategy? Or are you 

going to, let me ask? 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, that is why it is still a draft, so we are using 

in part the model guidelines. We are mindful also of getting something delivered. And we are mindful of getting something delivered 

that forms a credible basis for the implementation plan that follows, and we will ensure that it has all the essential elements for 

that purpose. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Collins. 

Senator Akaka, good morning and welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA 

Senator AKAKA. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be 

here with you and our Ranking Member, Senator Collins. Thank 

you so much for holding this hearing, and I would like to thank the 

Deputy Secretary for being here with us today 

Ms. LUTE. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator AKAKA. Nuclear terrorism is among the chief threats facing the United States. The Department’s Global Nuclear Detection 

Architecture is a crucial tool in stopping the illicit movement of nuclear and radiological materials. I have some ongoing concerns 

about the status of the improvements to our nuclear detection capabilities, our international efforts, and our ability to prevent the 

entry of nuclear materials into the United States. I hope to hear 

more about these issues today. 

Deputy Secretary Lute, in 2009, I introduced the Strengthening 

the Oversight of Nuclear Nonproliferation Act, which was included 

as an amendment to this Committee’s WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act. My bill would require U.S. analysis of the IAEA’s 

ability to detect a country’s diversion of nuclear materials that 

could be used as a weapon and recommend ways for the United 

States to further support the IAEA. 

Is DHS incorporating analysis of IAEA’s detection capabilities, 

and ways to further its support of the IAEA, into its nuclear detection efforts? 

Ms. LUTE. We are, Senator, but I am not in a position to give 

you a detailed accounting of how. 

Senator AKAKA. Fine. Madam Secretary, education, training, and 

exercises can better prepare personnel charged with stemming the 

illicit flow of dangerous nuclear materials. What steps has DHS 

taken to put comprehensive training efforts in place for these personnel throughout the United States? 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, DNDO has an aggressive program with respect to education and training, and we can provide details of the 

numbers of programs, numbers of trained individuals as well, to 

you in writing. 

36 

Senator AKAKA. Fine. International efforts to prevent nuclear 

smuggling require information sharing between international partners within a broad nuclear detection framework. To what extent 

has the U.S. Government coordinated with international partners 

to improve information sharing in support of nuclear detection at 

both the strategic and operational levels? 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, as you know, there are a number of international programs that the government participates in on this set 

of issues. Where the Department of Homeland Security fits in, this 

is also part of our engagement as well. We have a number of quite 

specific dialogues with international partners regarding port activities, the issues of cargo movements, and, indeed, the whole question of secure global supply chains incorporates a set of issues that 

the United States is trying to pursue with its international trading 

partners. 

So it is an imprecise answer to your question in terms of under 

which specific programs all of this is being conducted. There are 

other departments—the Department of Energy, for example—that 

have these dialogues as well, and equally there is dialogue with the 

private sector. We can provide those to you in writing. But as I 

mentioned earlier, we view homeland security and the efforts that 

we undertake to ensure the security of this homeland as entailing 

work abroad with the international community. 

Senator AKAKA. Madam Secretary, in the DHS Bottom-Up Review Report, the Department stated that it will increase efforts to 

detect and counter nuclear and other dangerous materials by 

prioritizing nuclear detection research and development and by 

working with the intelligence community to develop new capabilities. 

How is DHS implementing these efforts? And what new technologies and capabilities are being considered in these efforts? 

Ms. LUTE. Senator, I would like to reserve any discussion of technologies for our closed session, if you will, and I would characterize 

at this point in an open setting our efforts on the intelligence front. 

We want to understand the threat fully. We want to understand 

who those individuals might be, or groups, or other institutions, 

agencies, entities that exist that might be trying to acquire illicit 

materials. What are the lines of communication that they might exploit, what are the means they might exploit to advance their 

threat? What are our vulnerabilities? How can we best address 

them? Those are the kinds of things that we are putting into our 

dialogue with the intelligence community to more fully develop our 

understanding of the threat. 

Senator AKAKA. According to the Bottom-Up Review Report, DHS 

plans to enhance its risk assessment and management across its 

mission areas. One related effort that DHS has considered is conducting a homeland security national risk assessment. If conducted, how do you foresee this assessment better informing strategies, investments, and operations related to countering the threat 

of nuclear terrorism? 

Ms. LUTE. As I mentioned in my opening statement, Senator, we 

believe that eventually we would like to make it near to impossible 

for anyone to acquire or attempt to use illicitly nuclear materials 

and weapons. In the meantime, we want to make it prohibitively 

37 

difficult. That depends on creating significant uncertainty in the 

minds of potential adversaries through layered defenses that reduce risk and shore up our ability to defend ourselves. 

We believe this country can defend itself in this area as well as 

others, and so we will use all the tools at our disposal, including 

analyses and understandings of risks, vulnerabilities, and capabilities of technologies, processes, and our operating components to ensure that we keep this country safe. 

Senator AKAKA. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My 

time has expired. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Akaka, for 

being here and for asking those thoughtful questions. I think probably it is best now to adjourn to closed session. Look, bottom line, 

I think you hear us. We are not happy or satisfied with progress 

on the whole nuclear detection architecture and the way that a considerable amount of taxpayer money has been spent up until now 

without any substantial result. So we are counting on you, Deputy 

Secretary Lute, and, of course, Secretary Janet Napolitano, to really step in and take charge of this. 

Short term, we look forward to the response within a week to 

this question of DNDO misleading the Congress on the budget 

question. And then you set the goal, but it is September 15. If you 

can get that strategic plan out sometime in November, that would 

be a great step forward and a sign of encouragement to us that 

things were changing. 

I am tempted to ask Mr. Stern whether after this hearing he 

wants to go forward and take over DNDO. 

Ms. LUTE. Of course he does 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. He does, I know. So I appreciate that you 

do. It needs fresh new leadership, and we look forward to working 

with you on the progress that we all want. 

With that, we will reconvene for the closed portion of the hearing 

as soon as our legs can take us to Room 217 in the Senate Security 

Offices over in the Capitol Visitor Center. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:13 a.m., the Committee proceeded to other 

business.] 

(39) 

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