To address our objectives, we reviewed relevant NNSA and IAEA policy, guidelines, and planning documents. For NNSA, we examined its Protection and Sustainability Criteria Document, which describes the DBT—the baseline threat for which security measures should be developed at research reactors in the GRRS program. In addition, we reviewed NNSA’s strategic plans for the GRRS program and work schedules for conducting and completing security work activities. We also met with NNSA officials responsible for implementing the GRRS program and with Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) technical experts who provide assistance to NNSA in implementing the program. We also met with IAEA officials from IAEA’s Office of Nuclear Security, Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology, and IAEA’s Department of Safeguards. We reviewed security upgrades at a nonprobability sample of five research reactors in five different countries—Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Romania, and Serbia. This sample cannot be used to generalize findings from these countries to all countries in the program. We selected these reactors based upon whether the reactors still use or store HEU fuel and when NNSA had completed physical protection upgrades. Four of the five reactors had already received security upgrades, while work was ongoing at the fifth reactor. In the course of our work, we visited each of these five reactors to tour the facilities and inspect security upgrades that had been made or were in process. During our visits, we interviewed officials managing the reactors, on-site security officials, police, and other law enforcement officials responsible for responding to security incidents, as well as government officials responsible for regulating security at these reactors. At each of these reactors, we conducted interviews with a standard set of questions concerning the physical protection of the facility, the security upgrades that were being made, and the extent of the facility’s coordination with NNSA and IAEA. We also compared the security systems at the facilities with IAEA guidelines—particularly INFCIRC 225, Rev. 4, Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities. We also reviewed NNSA documents about each reactor, including reactor visit reports and vulnerability assessments. We conducted this performance audit from August 2008 to September 2009 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Research reactors are generally smaller than nuclear power reactors, ranging in size from less than 1 megawatt to as high as 250 megawatts, compared with the 3,000 megawatts found for a typical commercial nuclear power reactor. In addition, unlike power reactors, many research reactors use HEU fuel instead of LEU. Although some research reactors have shut down or converted to LEU fuel and returned their HEU fuel to the United States or Russia, about 165 research reactors throughout the world continue to use HEU. NNSA efforts to convert reactors from HEU to LEU fuel use and return HEU fuel to the United States and Russia has led to the conversion of 57 reactors, the shutdown of 7 reactors, the return of HEU from 59 reactors, and the elimination of all HEU from 46 reactor facilities. NNSA plans to continue converting reactors and returning HEU fuel to its country of origin. However, because it will take several years to convert reactors to LEU fuel use and return the HEU fuel, in the interim security needs to be ensured at these reactors. Figure 1 shows the interior of a research reactor in an Eastern European country that still uses Russian supplied HEU. As NNSA and its predecessor agencies recognized the threat posed by the theft or diversion of nuclear materials—including HEU research reactor fuel—for nuclear weapons’ purposes, it initiated a number of efforts to address this threat. First, since 1974, DOE has supported a program to determine whether nuclear material provided by the United States to other countries for peaceful purposes is adequately protected. Managed by NNSA’s Division of Nonproliferation and International Security, this program prioritizes and selects facilities for physical protection assessment visits, leads such visits to determine if the facility meets IAEA guidelines for security, and, in the cases where the visited facility does not meet IAEA guidelines, makes recommendations to improve security. However, unlike the GRRS program, NNSA’s Office of Nonproliferation and International Security does not fund or install security upgrades at research reactors overseas. Second, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, DOE established the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting program in 1995 to install improved security systems for nuclear material at civilian nuclear sites (including research reactors), naval fuel sites, and nuclear weapons laboratory sites in Russia and nations in the former Soviet Union. Third, prior to the establishment of NNSA, DOE established the GRRS program in 1993 to improve the security of research reactors that are in countries that NNSA considers in need of assistance, as well as research reactors in countries that are not included in other DOE/NNSA programs. As shown in Table 1, the GRRS program has identified 22 research reactors in 16 different countries in need of assistance that are not included in other DOE/NNSA programs. Originally managed by NNSA’s Office of Nonproliferation and International Security, the GRRS program was transferred to the GTRI in 2005. The GRRS program is also beginning to provide security enhancements at research reactors located at universities in the United States, as requested by the Department of Homeland Security and the NRC. NNSA officials told us that they believe the decision to assist in upgrading the security of these reactors was based partly on our January 2008 report, which found potential security weaknesses at domestic research reactors regulated by NRC. As of August 2009, NNSA reports that it had upgraded the security at 18 of the 22 foreign research reactors in the GRRS program at a total cost of approximately $8 million. NNSA plans to complete upgrades or remove all HEU prior to making upgrades at the remaining 4 reactors and to make further upgrades at some reactors where initial upgrades have already been made, spending an additional $6 million before ending physical security upgrades in 2010. For example, at one research reactor we visited, NNSA has already spent $760,000 on security upgrades and plans to spend $650,000 to pay for additional security upgrades, which will enable the facility to meet IAEA guidelines for security. NNSA also plans to spend an additional $378,000 for maintenance and sustainability of the security system at this facility over the next several years. NNSA is planning to complete all physical protection upgrades at GRRS reactors by the end of 2010. NNSA prioritizes its schedule for upgrading the security of research reactors depending on the amount and type of nuclear or radioactive material at the reactor and other threat factors, such as the vulnerability condition of sites, country-level threat, and proximity to strategic assets. To make security upgrades, NNSA works with Sandia security experts to assess security needs at reactor facilities, design security upgrades and systems, assists foreign reactor operators in making improvements, and review security upgrades once they have been made. With NNSA approval, Sandia works with local firms specializing in installing security systems to make security upgrades. Security upgrades we observed during our visits to reactors in the GRRS program included, among other things, construction of new, heavily reinforced vaults to store HEU fuel; installation of motion detector sensors and security cameras to detect unauthorized entry into reactor buildings and provide the ability to remotely monitor activities in those buildings; replacement of glass entry doors with hardened steel doors equipped with magnetic locks and controlled by card readers or keypads; and upgrades or construction of new fortified central alarm stations that allow on-site guards to monitor alarms and security cameras, and communicate with response forces. Figure 2 shows a newly built fortified central alarm station at a HEU research reactor. Figure 3 shows the upgraded alarm display and closed circuit television monitors inside a central alarm station at another HEU reactor. In addition, NNSA works with officials in countries included in the GRRS program to develop emergency plans and training exercises with on-site guard forces as well as local, regional, and national law enforcement agencies. For example, at one facility we visited, NNSA officials had worked with the reactor managers to develop emergency plans, and the managers routinely test these plans with different elements of the national emergency responders including the facility guard force, local police, regional police, and the national–level law enforcement including special assault teams. IAEA guidelines state that coordination between facility guards and off-site response forces should be regularly exercised. In addition, NNSA’s alert and notify strategy relies on off-site response forces to supplement the on-site guard force to contain, locate, and neutralize adversaries before they can successfully steal nuclear material or sabotage the reactor. The focus of NNSA’s program has been on protecting reactors that use or store HEU fuel that could potentially be used in an improvised nuclear device where security does not meet IAEA guidelines. In addition, some research reactors using LEU fuel—which cannot be used to make a nuclear bomb but are potential targets of sabotage to release radioactivity into the area surrounding a reactor—have received security upgrades because of high levels of terrorist activities in regions where the reactors are located or because of their proximity to U.S. installations. The foreign research reactors we visited that have received NNSA assistance generally met IAEA physical protection guidelines; however, in some cases, critical security weaknesses remained. The focus of the GRRS program is to make physical security upgrades in accordance with IAEA guidelines. For example, IAEA guidelines recommend that nuclear facilities possessing the highest-risk nuclear materials have intrusion detection equipment and that all intrusion sensors and alarms should be monitored in a central alarm station that is staffed continuously to initiate appropriate responses to alarms.