Members Express Shock Over Y-12 Security Breach, Call for Improved
Oversight and Accountability
The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
continued its oversight of the Department of Energy’s management of our
nation’s most sensitive nuclear facilities with a hearing to examine a
range of management and administrative challenges confronting DOE,
including the recent security breakdown at the Y-12 National Security
Complex. Senior officials from DOE - including Deputy Secretary Daniel
Poneman and Inspector General Gregory Friedman - and the GAO provided
testimony.
The Energy and Commerce Committee has a long-standing bipartisan
tradition of conducting oversight of DOE and the National Nuclear
Security Administration’s management of the nuclear weapons complex. As
part of their oversight efforts, committee leaders recently wrote to the
Government Accountability Office requesting assistance in evaluating
oversight of nuclear weapons complex contractors’ self-assessment
programs, expressing concern over the effectiveness of the program and
NNSA’s planned workforce reduction.
“This committee knows, perhaps better than any committee in Congress,
the history of safety and security failures in the nuclear weapons
complex. Over the past two decades, we have worked together in a
bipartisan fashion to spotlight these failings – at the weapons labs and
at the weapons production sites -- and to urge necessary reforms. Strong
safety and security oversight has been a consistent and central theme of
this committee's work and the focus of many of our hearings and related
investigations,” said full Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI).
While NNSA oversight and management appear to have improved in recent
years, events show there continues to be safety, security, and
performance challenges in the weapons complex. These security failures
were highlighted by the recent security breach at the Y-12 National
Security Complex, which is considered to be the “Fort Knox” for highly
enriched uranium. During the early morning hours of July 28, 2012, three
protestors, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security and defaced
the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) - long reputed to
be one of the most secure facilities in the country. Today’s Washington
Post reported that DOE investigators had identified security gaps at the
complex two years before the break-in.
Members expressed shock and frustration over the security lapse at the
Y-12 facility and called for increased federal oversight of our nation’s
nuclear weapons facilities. “When an 82-year-old pacifist nun gets to
the inner sanctum of our weapons complex, you cannot say job well done,”
said Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton (R-TX). “If there is ever a time for
more aggressive oversight, this is it.”
“When government vigilance is not sufficiently rigorous, problems occur.
A case in point is the recent security failure at the Y-12 National
Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, this past July. By all accounts,
contractor and site managers’ failures at Y-12 allowed one of the most
serious security breakdowns in the history of the weapons complex,”
stated Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns
(R-FL).
DOE’s Office of the Inspector General recently issued a report on the
Y-12 incident, which revealed a series of management failures.
Testifying today, DOE IG Gregory Friedman stated, “We found troubling
breakdowns in responding to alarms, failures to maintain critical
security equipment, over reliance on compensatory measures,
misunderstanding of security protocols, poor communications, and
weaknesses in contract and resource management. Especially important in
light of the purpose of today's hearing, contractor governance and
Federal oversight failed to identify and correct early indicators of the
breakdowns. These issues directly contributed to an atmosphere in which
trespassers could gain access to the protected security area directly
adjacent to one of the nation's most critically important and highly
secured weapons-related facilities.”
DOE Deputy Secretary Poneman assured the subcommittee that the
Department and NNSA is taking aggressive actions to remedy the problems
that led to the Y-12 incident and ensure security of our nation’s
nuclear facilities. He stated, “The incident at Y-12 was unacceptable,
and it served as an important wake-up call for our entire complex. As a
result, NNSA will use this event to review the security at all of our
NNSA sites. The Department is taking aggressive actions to ensure the
reliability of our nuclear security programs, and will continue to do
so.”
Recent proposals to reform the approach to oversight at the complex call
for reduced federal oversight over independent contractors. Many members
and witnesses at today’s hearing expressed concern over these proposed
governance changes and believe the Y-12 incident raises further
questions about the prospect of diminished federal supervision.
Summarizing
GAO’s independent review of NNSA, Mark Gaffigan, Managing Director of
GAO’s Natural Resources and Environment Team, stated, “In our view, the
problems we continue to identify in the nuclear security enterprise are
not caused by excessive oversight, but instead result from ineffective
oversight. NNSA has made significant progress - including the
establishment of an effective headquarters security organization -
resolving many of the safety and security weaknesses we have identified,
but, as demonstrated by the recent security incident at Y-12, the agency
faces challenges in ensuring these improvements are fully implemented
and sustained.”
Inspector General Friedman added, “The question of how to provide the
most effective contractor oversight is of vital importance, especially
given the degree to which NNSA relies on contractor support to
accomplish its national security missions. We support efforts to find
better ways to serve the taxpayers' interests. However, based on
currently available information, we concluded that a ‘scalpel rather
than a cleaver’ approach ought to guide this effort.”
