The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has not yet completed its physical security infrastructure plan, despite a nearly decade-old requirement by Congress for it to do so, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report Friday.
The report said physical security infrastructure, or the protection and accounting of nuclear materials, has been an area of concern particularly since the 2012 incident in which three anti-nuclear activists broke into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. It noted that these programs are especially important for several NNSA sites that host Category I special nuclear material, such as the Nevada National Security Site and Y-12.
Congress has required the NNSA since 2008 to submit an annual plan on its five-year physical security infrastructure plan, the report said, but the NNSA has not yet completed this plan, despite some preliminary efforts. For example, the NNSA asked the Sandia National Laboratories in 2009 to develop a physical security technology management plan that would assess the condition of NNSA site physical infrastructure, but the results were “not sufficiently detailed” and “therefore not useful in developing the required Security Infrastructure Plan,” the GAO said.
The GAO noted that, according to the NNSA’s fiscal 2017 budget request, the agency will use fiscal 2016 funding for physical security improvements to meet urgent needs while it develops a funding plan for future years. The NNSA estimated it would need more than $2 billion over the next 15 years for physical security infrastructure upgrades, according to the budget request. NNSA officials told the GAO that in fiscal 2018 the agency would add more estimates to its annual budget request, and that the fiscal 2019 request would include full details and costs of the required security infrastructure plan. The GAO did not make any recommendations in this report.
