The Department of Energy (DOE) and other agencies tasked with conducting global nonproliferation operations have not conducted physical security visits to 11 foreign nuclear sites containing over 3,500 kilograms of U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) in more than 20 years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released yesterday.
The DOE cited “political challenges, including access to key sites, and technical concerns” as factors stalling the progress of nonproliferation activities in unidentified sites, according to the report. The GAO also said interagency teams failed to conduct site visits at least every five years to facilities that contain “Category I quantities of U.S.-origin nuclear material” and therefore require “the most stringent set of recommended physical protection measures.” Category I material is defined as at least 2 kilograms of unirradiated plutonium or 5 kilograms of uranium-235 in unirradiated HEU, the report says. Moreover, the GAO’s review of physical protection visit records reveals that U.S. interagency teams did not visit four Category I and seven Category II sites that “hold 2,261 kilograms unirradiated U.S.-origin HEU and 1,327 kilograms of irradiated U.S.-origin HEU” in at least two decades. These visits are meant to verify that the nuclear material is safely and securely stored under international physical security guidelines.
The report notes that as part of President Barack Obama’s 2009 interagency initiative to secure the world’s nuclear materials within four years, for which DOE plays the largest role, the department from April 2009 to December 2013 surpassed its goals for highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium removal and disposal and HEU downblending worldwide, initiatives that cost over $600 million. However, it fell short of its physical protection upgrade and reactor conversion goals, which cost DOE over $50 million. The GAO identified other challenges in future progress: the DOE does not have a global inventory of U.S.-origin plutonium to identify the location of “vulnerable weapons-usable materials” and has not established “a prioritization of nuclear materials” that would “identify the most vulnerable material stocks to focus efforts on” worldwide. The GAO recommended DOE create a list prioritizing the removal or disposition of foreign nuclear inventories and plan site visits in countries that host U.S.-origin material, “particularly those that have not been visited in 20 or more years.” The DOE said it would complete the prioritization list by the end of this month but said it considers the second recommendation closed.
