FORMER NNSA OFFICIAL ON BOARD WITH PROPOSED SECURITY CHANGES

Former NNSA official Sandra Finan, the Air Force brigadier general who headed up a review of security in the wake of last year’s Y-12 security breach, suggested this week that the agency is on the right track with a proposed security reorganization that would overhaul security oversight at the agency. Finan, who left the NNSA earlier this year and now serves as the commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center in Albuquerque, urged the agency to streamline its chain of command in an internal report following the high-profile breach, and the agency responded by shifting implementation of security policy from its Chief of Defense Nuclear Security to its Office of Infrastructure and Operations, leaving the CDNS in charge of security policy and assessment. The recent proposed changes would take another step forward, with the Energy Secretary and NNSA Administrator taking over policy decisions and the CDNS regaining control of security operations, where it would directly oversee security at each of the NNSA’s sites. “My understanding is they’re trying to clarify the lines of authority,” Finan told NW&M Monitor on the sidelines of the Air Force Association’s Air and Space conference. “We said that’s the most important thing: to get that line of authority clarified, so it’s a nice, straight chain of command.”