[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DOE MANAGEMENT AND OVERSIGHT OF ITS
NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX: LESSONS OF THE Y-12 SECURITY FAILURE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 13, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-13
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
energycommerce.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRED UPTON, Michigan
Chairman
RALPH M. HALL, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
JOE BARTON, Texas Ranking Member
Chairman Emeritus JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky Chairman Emeritus
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
GREG WALDEN, Oregon BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
LEE TERRY, Nebraska ANNA G. ESHOO, California
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania GENE GREEN, Texas
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee LOIS CAPPS, California
Vice Chairman MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio JIM MATHESON, Utah
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi JOHN BARROW, Georgia
LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey DORIS O. MATSUI, California
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin
BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky Islands
PETE OLSON, Texas KATHY CASTOR, Florida
DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
CORY GARDNER, Colorado JERRY McNERNEY, California
MIKE POMPEO, Kansas BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois PETER WELCH, Vermont
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida PAUL TONKO, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Missouri
BILLY LONG, Missouri
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania
Chairman
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
Vice Chairman Ranking Member
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
PHIL GINGREY, Georgia BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico
STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
GREGG HARPER, Mississippi JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
PETE OLSON, Texas G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina
CORY GARDNER, Colorado KATHY CASTOR, Florida
H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia PETER WELCH, Vermont
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio PAUL TONKO, New York
BILLY LONG, Missouri GENE GREEN, Texas
RENEE L. ELLMERS, North Carolina JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
JOE BARTON, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex
FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Tim Murphy, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, opening statement................ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 3
Hon. Diana DeGette, a Representative in Congress from the state
of Colorado, opening statement................................. 4
Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the state of
Michigan, opening statement.................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, opening statement.............................. 7
Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California, opening statement............................... 8
Witnesses
Sandra E. Finan, Brigadier General, USAF, Commander, Air Force
Nuclear Weapons Center and Former Acting Chairman of Defense
Nuclear Security, National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA)......................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 11
Daniel B. Poneman, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy,
Accompanied by Neile L. Miller, Acting Undersecretary for
Nuclear Security and Acting Administrator, NNSA................ 27
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Answers to submitted questions............................... 181
Richard A. Meserve, President, Carnegie Institution for Science.. 56
Prepared statement........................................... 58
Answers to submitted questions............................... 191
C. Donald Alston, Major General, USAF (Retired).................. 57
Prepared statement........................................... 58
Answers to submitted questions............................... 191
David C. Trimble, Director, Natural Resources and Environment
Team, Government Accountability Office......................... 83
Prepared statement........................................... 85
Answers to submitted questions............................... 193
Submitted Material
Document binder.................................................. 116
DOE MANAGEMENT AND OVERSIGHT OF ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX: LESSONS OF
THE Y-12 SECURITY FAILURE
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in
room 2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tim Murphy
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Murphy, Burgess, Harper,
Gardner, Johnson, Barton, Upton (ex officio), DeGette, Braley,
Lujan, Tonko, Green, and Waxman (ex officio).
Staff present: Carl Anderson, Counsel, Oversight; Charlotte
Baker, Press Secretary; Mike Bloomquist, General Counsel; Annie
Caputo, Professional Staff Member; Karen Christian, Counsel,
Oversight; Andy Duberstein, Deputy Press Secretary; Kirby
Howard, Legislative Clerk; Peter Kielty, Deputy General
Counsel; Peter Spencer, Professional Staff Member, Oversight;
Tiffany Benjamin, Democratic Senior Counsel; Brian Cohen,
Democratic Staff Director, Oversight and Investigations, and
Senior Policy Advisor; Elizabeth Letter, Democratic Assistant
Press Secretary; and Stephen Salsbury, Democratic Special
Assistant.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TIM MURPHY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Murphy. Good morning. We convene this hearing to
continue the committee's examination of Department of Energy's
management and oversight of its nuclear weapons complex, three
national weapons laboratories and five production and testing
facilities. These eight sites are responsible for the
stewardship of our Nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.
DOE, through its National Nuclear Security Administration,
or NNSA, spends billions of dollars each year performing
hazardous operations to maintain and secure nuclear weapons and
weapons materials. This work is performed by contractors at the
Department's nuclear weapons sites under the supervision of
federal officials and requires strict adherence to strong
safety standards. The supremely sensitive nature of the
materials and technologies also requires the Department to
ensure an extraordinary level of security to safeguard these
nuclear sites and operations.
Our attention today will focus mainly on the lessons for
the Department from the security and oversight failures that
occurred last summer at the Y-12 National Security Complex, in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and what DOE is doing to address these
lessons.
At its hearing this past September, this subcommittee began
to examine preliminary information about the failures at Y-12.
We learned how these failures allowed three protestors at
around 4:20 a.m. one morning last July to penetrate security
fences and detection systems and deface the walls of the
facility storing highly enriched uranium. We learned about
inexcusable maintenance problems and compensatory security
measures to work around broken equipment and chronic false
alarms. We learned about the inadequate response by the
protective guard force. And most to the point of our hearing
today, we learned about the failure of contractor governance
and federal oversight to identify and correct the multiple
early indicators of Y-12's security, maintenance, and
communications systems breakdowns.
The DOE Inspector General's testimony at that hearing
revealed that federal site officials did not do anything to
address security maintenance backlogs because NNSA's contractor
governance system meant ``they could no longer intervene.''
This perhaps is the most incomprehensible aspect of this
troubling situation. It appears that, due to a ``hands off''
federal contracting policy, we had ineffective federal security
oversight at Y-12, and potentially at other sites around the
complex.
Information produced since September confirms that a strong
oversight approach to security has not been paramount at DOE,
particularly since the Department instituted certain reforms to
its oversight in 2009 and 2010. The stated purpose of these
reforms was to give contractors flexibility to tailor and
implement safety and security programs ``without excessive
federal oversight or overly prescriptive departmental
requirements.'' Whatever the intent, the reforms in practice
were interpreted by federal site officials to mean they
couldn't intervene when security problems arose.
We will discuss today the findings of a revealing Task
Force assessment, which was commissioned in response to Y-12
and released to the administrator in November. Led by Air Force
Brigadier General Sandra Finan, who will testify on the first
panel this morning, the Task Force found that issues at Y-12
were part of a larger pattern of deficiencies in NNSA's
security-related functions and activities across board.
Notably, the Task Force found no clear lines of accountability
at NNSA, and broken security policy process, an ``eyes on,
hands off'' governance approach that weakened federal
oversight, and a federal organization ``incapable of performing
effective security performance assessment'' of the contractors
operating the sites.
We will hear testimony from GAO on our second panel that
many of these deficiencies are identical to those identified at
NNSA 10 years ago. It appears the Department instituted reforms
that actually may have exacerbated the deficiencies, turning
``eyes on, hands off'' into eyes closed, hands off.
Deputy Secretary Poneman and acting NNSA Administrator
Miller I trust will explain to us today how and when the agency
will implement the Task Force's recommendations and exactly how
they will communicate clear and appropriate priorities for
safety and security in their governance of the sites. Let me
welcome you both, and General Finan.
Our second panel provides broader perspective on security
culture at the Department. Along with GAO, we will hear from
General Donald Alston and former NRC Chairman Richard Meserve,
two of three contributors to an analysis requested by the
Secretary of Energy about the physical security structure at
the DOE.
The experience and perspective of these witnesses should
help us to put the security deficiencies in the broader context
of the oversight and management challenges confronting DOE. In
the end we should identify a path forward for the Department to
ensure strong oversight and zero tolerance for failures. The
risks to millions of people, and indeed geopolitics are too
important for anything less.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Murphy follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Tim Murphy
Good Morning. We convene this hearing to continue the
Committee's examination of the Department of Energy's
management and oversight of its nuclear weapons complex--three
national weapons laboratories and five production and testing
facilities. These eight sites are responsible for the
stewardship of our nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.
DOE, through its National Nuclear Security Administration
(or NNSA), spends billions of dollars each year performing
hazardous operations to maintain and secure nuclear weapons and
weapons materials. This work is performed by contractors at the
Department's nuclear weapons sites under the supervision of
federal officials and requires strict adherence to strong
safety standards. The supremely sensitive nature of the
materials and technologies also requires the Department to
ensure an extraordinary level of security to safeguard these
nuclear sites and operations.
Our attention today will focus mainly on the lessons for
the Department from the security and oversight failures that
occurred last summer at the Y-12 National Security Complex, in
Oak Ridge Tennessee--and what DOE is doing to address these
lessons.
At its hearing this past September, this Subcommittee began
to examine preliminary information about the failures at Y-12.
We learned how these failures allowed three protestors at
around 4:20 a.m. one morning last July to penetrate security
fences and detection systems and deface the walls of the
facility storing highly enriched uranium.
We learned about inexcusable maintenance problems and
``compensatory'' security measures to work around broken
equipment and chronic false alarms. We learned about the
inadequate response by the protective guard force.
And most to the point of our hearing today, we learned
about the failure of contractor governance and Federal
oversight to identify and correct the multiple early indicators
of Y-12's security, maintenance, and communications systems
breakdowns.
The DOE Inspector General's testimony at that hearing
revealed that federal site officials did not do anything to
address security maintenance backlogs because NNSA's contractor
governance system meant ``they could no longer intervene.''
This perhaps is the most incomprehensible aspect of this
troubling situation. It appears that, due to a ``hands off''
federal contracting policy, we had ineffective federal security
oversight at Y-12--and potentially at other sites around the
complex.
Information produced since September confirms that a strong
oversight approach to security has not been paramount at DOE,
particularly since the Department instituted certain reforms to
its oversight in 2009 and 2010. The stated purpose of these
reforms was to give contractors flexibility to tailor and
implement safety and security programs ``without excessive
federal oversight or overly prescriptive departmental
requirements.'' Whatever the intent, the reforms in practice
were interpreted by federal site officials to mean they
couldn't intervene when security problems arose.
We will discuss today the findings of a revealing Task
Force assessment, which was commissioned in response to Y-12
and released to the Administrator in November. Led by Air Force
Brigadier General Sandra Finan, who will testify on the first
panel this morning, the Task Force found that issues at Y-12
were part of a larger pattern of deficiencies in NNSA's
security-related functions and activities across board.
Notably, the Task Force found no clear lines of
accountability at NNSA, a broken security policy process, an
``eyes on, hands off'' governance approach that weakened
Federal oversight, and a federal organization ``incapable of
performing effective security performance assessment'' of the
contractors operating the sites.
We will hear testimony from GAO on our second panel that
many of these deficiencies are identical to those identified at
NNSA ten years ago. It appears the Department instituted
reforms that actually may have exacerbated the deficiencies--
turning ``eyes on, hands off'' into eyes closed, hands off.
Deputy Secretary Poneman and acting NNSA Administrator
Miller I trust will explain to us today how and when the agency
will implement the Task Force's recommendations and exactly how
they will communicate clear and appropriate priorities for
safety and security in their governance of the sites. Let me
welcome you both, and General Finan.
Our second panel provides broader perspective on security
culture at the Department. Along with GAO, we will hear from
General Donald Alston and former NRC Chairman Richard Meserve,
two of three contributors to an analysis requested by the
Secretary of Energy about the physical security structure at
the DOE.
The experience and perspective of these witnesses should
help us to put the security deficiencies in the broader context
of the oversight and management challenges confronting DOE. In
the end we should identify a path forward for the Department to
ensure strong oversight and zero tolerance for failures. The
risks to millions of people, and indeed geopolitics are too
important for anything less.
# # #
Mr. Murphy. I would now like to recognize Ranking Member
Diana DeGette for her opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DEGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, as you said, a little over 7 months ago, an
82-year-old nun and two middle age men breached the security
perimeter surrounding the highly-enriched uranium facility at
the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In
the wake of that incident, this committee had a hearing toward
exactly how such an absurd and dangerous breach of security
could happen. Today, I want to thank you for having this
follow-up hearing to learn what has happened to address the
security breakdowns that resulted in the breach, and to make
sure that something like that never happens again.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for continuing our
longstanding bipartisan interest in this subcommittee in
ensuring that our nuclear facilities are safe and secure.
Our past oversight over the nuclear complex has made a
significant difference, raising standards for worker safety,
ensuring lab safety, ensuring security standards remain
accountable to those who work within the labs and who live
nearby, and forcing NNSA to make significant changes when
things go awry. But I got to tell you, as I have told you
before, both on and off the record, every few years we go
through this same thing. There is an incident, there is an
aggressive response from NNSA, time passes without an incident,
and everybody begins to relax. Labs start to complain about
overly burdensome paperwork and oversight. In response,
expectations and rules are relaxed, and then, of course,
without fail, another incident occurs. I am tired of this
pattern and we should all be tired of this pattern, because it
really does affect our national security.
Today, I am hoping to hear how NNSA and DOE have responded
to last year's call to action, not just at Y-12, but across the
NNSA complex. But more importantly, I want to hear what they
are doing to ensure that we don't have to have any more
hearings about security breaches or safety incidents at these
sites. I guess my view is, it is time to break this pattern.
I want to commend the agencies for acting promptly to
address the issues exposed at Y-12 in the wake of the July 28
breach. However, I continue to be deeply concerned about
oversight within NNSA. Last month, GAO again released its high
risk list, identifying agencies and program areas that are at
high risk due their vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and
mismanagement. Just as it has been since 1990, contract
management at NNSA is on this list. Assessments conducted after
last year's security breach show that NNSA dubious honor is
well-deserved. A February, 2013, DOE Inspector General report
described a ``eyes on, hands off'' approach to contractor
oversight, meaning federal employees felt they could monitor
but not intervene in contractor activities, even if they
suspected an issue. Recent assessments conducted by DOE's
Office of Health, Safety, and Security showed contractor
communication problems, both between different contractors at
the Y-12 site, and between the contractor and federal employees
at Y-12, and other independent experts observed a Y-12 culture
that completely failed to adequately focus on security.
As terror effects become more real, and as our enemies
become more sophisticated, we just can't afford to take this
``eyes on, hands off'' approach to security. Tens of thousands
of people work at these labs and facilities, and we owe it to
them and to the communities around the facilities and the
American people to ensure that they are safe and secure. To do
that, we have got to closely examine and monitor the nuclear
complex, promote transparency when it comes to how DOE and NNSA
are using their resources, and demand accountability from
everybody involved. We have to insist that standards are simply
never relaxed because people don't like filling out paperwork.
In short, we have to demand more.
There has been no shortage of assessments of what should be
done for the complex, and in the coming months, I am sure we
can expect more of these. As we move forward, we have to
continue to make sure that DOE and NNSA are keeping nuclear
safe sites safe and adapting and responding to the ever-
changing security challenges at the nuclear complex.
So Mr. Chairman, I am happy that you are continuing the
grant tradition of this subcommittee in oversight of DOE and
NNSA, and I look forward to working with you as we move along
in the future. I yield back.
Mr. Murphy. I thank the Congresswoman from Colorado.
I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr.
Upton, for an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRED UPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Upton. Well thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today's hearing represents another important step in this
committee's ongoing oversight to ensure that the Department of
Energy's management of nuclear security enterprise can
successfully protect taxpayer dollars, ensure public health and
worker safety, and in fact, safeguard our national security
assets. We know from our past work, as well as from the recent
and very troubling security failures at Y-12, that management
reform is necessary to ensure safe and secure operations. The
challenge has been learning the right lesson from past
failures, and then successfully implementing the right fixes.
Time and again over the last 14 years, we have witnessed
dramatic failures in safety and security, as well as taxpayer
waste across the nuclear complex. Despite that poor track
record, in '09 DOE proposed increased economy and less
oversight as the appropriate corrective actions. We know,
though, from past experiences and the Y-12 breach that strong
and consistent federal management bolstered by truly
independent oversight is, in fact, necessary. DOE leadership
must be clear that safety and security come first. They go hand
in hand. This is the lesson that we have learned from the
civilian nuclear industry. As safety improves, so does
performance. Absent an imbedded safety culture, there is
erosion of safety practices, leading to outages, delays, and
other operational impacts. The same is true for security.
The Y-12 security breach demonstrated not only a failure at
the site, but also a failure of DOE and NNSA management. We can
trace some of that failure to the initiative launched by DOE
leadership 3 to 4 years ago to rely more on contractor's self-
assessments and define success as productivity gained.
Secretary Chu himself wanted DOE to be viewed as a ``partner
and asset,'' his words for the contractors, sending the signal
that oversight of these contractors would not be a priority.
Members on this committee warned the Secretary in 2010 that
such initiatives, however well-intentioned, were
misinterpreting the lessons and the past and could, in fact,
backfire, and that track record speaks for itself.
As this committee, with oversight responsibility for DOE,
we must ensure that current and future DOE leadership learns
the right lessons. That starts today when we hear about the
plans to fix and sustain improvements in safety and security
oversight.
I yield the balance of my time to Dr. Burgess.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Upton follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Chairman Fred Upton
Today's hearing represents another important step in this
committee's ongoing oversight to ensure the Department of
Energy's management of the nuclear security enterprise can
successfully protect taxpayer dollars, ensure public health and
worker safety, and safeguard our national security assets.
We know from both our past work, as well as from the recent
and very troubling security failures at Y-12, that management
reform is necessary to ensure safe and secure operations. The
challenge has been learning the right lessons from past
failures and then successfully implementing the right fixes.
Time and again over the past 14 years, we have witnessed
dramatic failures in safety, security, and taxpayer waste
across the nuclear complex. Despite this poor track record, in
2009 DOE proposed increased autonomy and less oversight as the
appropriate corrective actions.
We know, though, from past experience and the Y-12 breach
that strong and consistent federal management, bolstered by
truly independent oversight, is necessary. DOE leadership must
be clear that safety and security come first.
Safety and performance go hand-in-hand. This is the lesson
we've learned from the civilian nuclear industry. As safety
improves, so does performance. Absent an embedded safety
culture, there is erosion of safety practices, leading to
outages, delays, and other operational impacts. The same is
true for security.
The Y-12 security breach demonstrated not only a failure at
the site, but also a failure of DOE and NNSA management. We can
trace some of this failure to the initiatives launched by DOE
leadership three and four years ago to rely more on contractor
self-assessments, to reduce ``burdensome'' oversight, and to
define success as productivity gains. Secretary Chu himself
wanted DOE to be viewed as a ``partner and asset'' for the
contractors, sending a signal that oversight of these
contractors would not be a priority.
Members on this committee warned the Secretary in 2010 that
such initiatives--however well-intentioned--were
misinterpreting the lessons of the past and could backfire.
DOE's track record speaks for itself.
As the committee with oversight responsibility for DOE, we
must ensure that current and future DOE leadership learn the
right lessons. This will start today, when DOE/NNSA explains
that it has serious plans for fixing and sustaining improvemes
in safety and security oversight.
# # #
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS
Mr. Burgess. I thank the chairman of the full committee--
chairman of the subcommittee for calling this important
hearing. This is an important follow-up on the committee's work
in the last Congress into the astonishing security lapses that
occurred at one of our most important, and purportedly most
secure nuclear weapons facilities in the country.
You know, you look at the continuum, the range of failure
and it goes from totally unacceptable to an abject failure, and
this is at one of our country's most important facilities that
stores highly enriched uranium for our defenses and for our
national security. At last September's hearing, I voiced my
concern over the lack of accountability. We need to know who at
Department of Energy was held accountable. Who lost their job?
Who lost their job because of this epic failure of security and
oversight?
Now, General Finan's task force, I think, has put it very
succinctly that there is a pervasive culture of tolerating the
intolerable and accepting the unacceptable. I fear that
statement has really become the operational motto of the
Executive Branch, where failure after failure is met with a
shrug and not much more. Had this incident been perpetrated by
someone with more sinister motives, the break-in could have had
catastrophic results for that region and for our Nation. So I
continue to be concerned that our security at our Nation's most
critical facilities is not being given the priority that it
deserves.
Chairman Murphy and I met with General Finan, and I thank
you, General, for taking the time for that meeting--this was a
month ago--to discuss some of the observations that her task
force has made in the security lapses and the oversight
failures at NNSA. So certainly, we look forward to hearing from
you this morning as to where the NNSA stands in its oversight
of these facilities.
This investigation is a prime example of the good work that
this committee can do when it works in a bipartisan manner. The
security of our Nation's weapons facilities is not an issue
that divides or should divide along party lines. We are all in
favor of safe, secure areas where our nuclear stockpiles can be
held, ready to protect our Nation, and safe from predators.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back.
Mr. Murphy. Thank the gentleman. I will now recognize for 5
minutes the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Waxman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing me and
for holding this hearing.
The Y-12 incident was embarrassing for DOE and NNSA, the
National Nuclear Security Administration. It exposed serious
issues within the security organization at NNSA. I appreciate
our witnesses being here today, and I hope they will help us
identify and address these concerns.
The security concerns we will hear about today must be
addressed. We cannot let our nuclear facilities become targets
for our foreign enemies and terrorists. We need to invest in
the safety and security of these facilities, both financially
and by ensuring they have a culture that is focused on keeping
our nuclear legacy materials and the people who work with them
safe and secure.
I appreciate DOE's actions in the wake of the Y-12
incident. The Department has taken this incident seriously and
developed a thoughtful approach to addressing concerns that
have been identified, but there is still more work left to be
done. DOE needs to ensure that it exercises strong oversight
over both its contractors and its federal employees at NNSA
sites, and as noted by General Finan today, DOE needs to ensure
that there is a clear line of authority from the Secretary down
to the contractor, security guards at every site.
Over the years, many people have advocated many different
structures for NNSA, but the assessments made after the Y-12
incident show that the problem is not too much DOE efforts
oversight, it is too little. The problem is that contractors
didn't take their responsibilities to the government or their
workers seriously. The federal employees failed to exercise
appropriate authority over the contractor counterparts, and
that NNSA's culture didn't adequately focus on security.
These problems can be resolved by effective oversight by
DOE by requiring that contractors become accountable and
transparent, and by ensuring that the federal officials who
oversee these contractors take a hands on approach to
oversight.
In the past year, some have suggested that NNSA needs more
autonomy. In fact, last year's House-passed National Defense
Authorization Act included language stripping DOE's authority
over some NNSA sites. Given what we have seen in the last 7
months, that approach makes absolutely no sense. The Y-12
breach made it abundantly clear that NNSA is not doing enough
on its own. All the findings and recommendations that have come
from independent evaluators of the Y-12 breach, including
NNSA's own task force, show that NNSA needs more oversight, not
less. NNSA sites house some of our most dangerous nuclear
assets. We need vigorous oversight by DOE to ensure that these
nuclear materials are appropriately protected.
Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for holding this hearing. I
look forward to more opportunities to check in on NNSA's
progress. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Murphy. The vice chairman yields back, and now we will
go over our witnesses today.
With us today is Brigadier General, United States Air
Force, Sandra Finan. I hope I am pronouncing that right. I
believe I am, right? Thank you for being here. She is the
Commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and former
Acting Chief of Defense Nuclear Security, National Nuclear
Security Administration.
Also joining her is Daniel B. Poneman, Deputy Secretary,
U.S. Department of Energy. Thank you so much for being with us
today, sir, and also accompanied by Neile Miller, the Acting
Administrator of NNSA. I hope I have all the title correct.
As you know, the testimony you are about to give is subject
to Title XVIII, Section 1001 of the United States Code. When
holding an investigative hearing, this committee has a practice
of taking testimony under oath. Do you have any objections to
testifying under oath?
The chair then advises you that under the rules of the
House and rules of the committee, you are entitled to be
advised by counsel, if you desire to be advised by counsel
during your testimony today. OK, they all say no.
Then in that case, if you would please rise and raise your
right hand, and I will swear you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. Noting for the record that all the
witnesses responded in the affirmative, I now call upon each of
them to give a 5-minute summary and their written statement.
Starting off with you, General Finan, thank you for being
here today.
TESTIMONY OF SANDRA E. FINAN, BRIGADIER GENERAL, USAF,
COMMANDER, AIR FORCE NUCLEAR WEAPONS CENTER AND FORMER ACTING
CHAIRMAN OF DEFENSE NUCLEAR SECURITY, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION (NNSA); AND DANIEL B. PONEMAN, DEPUTY SECRETARY,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, ACCOMPANIED BY NEILE L. MILLER,
ACTING UNDERSECRETARY FOR NUCLEAR SECURITY AND ACTING
ADMINISTRATOR, NNSA
TESTIMONY OF SANDRA E. FINAN
General Finan. Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member DeGette,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to discuss the study I conducted on the National
Nuclear Security Administration's federal security
organization----
Mr. Murphy. Could you pull your mike closer to yourself
there, if it is on, too?
General Finan. Is that better?
Mr. Murphy. Yes, much better. Thank you.
General Finan. OK.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the study I
conducted on the National Nuclear Security Administration's
federal security organization and assessment model. Although I
am no longer assigned to the NNSA, I am pleased to share our
observations based on our 90-day study.
In the aftermath of the July 28, 2012, security incident at
the National Nuclear Security Administration's Y-12 National
Security Complex, the leadership of the NNSA and the Department
of Energy took action to address the security failures at Y-12.
The initial information gathered revealed that the issues at Y-
12 were part of a larger pattern of security program management
deficiencies within NNSA. These security issues prompted the
NNSA administrator to commission a task force to analyze the
current federal NNSA security organizational structure and
security oversight model and recommend possible improvements.
The NNSA Administrator directed the Task Force to analyze the
current NNSA security organizational structure and recommend
possible improvements, and to analyze the current NNSA security
oversight model and mechanisms to determine what seams existed
and what structures could be implemented to better ensure that
the issues are found and fixed before they become problems.
While other reviews were aimed at diagnosing the root
causes of the Y-12 event, the NNSA administrator's direction
called for this Task Force to focus on the a path forward
within the federal NNSA organization. Under my leadership, the
task force consisting of NNSA, DOE, and military specialists
conducted extensive document reviews and interviewed federal
managers and staff as well as a selection of contractor
security managers and others across the NNSA security
organization. The task force collected and analyzed
information, identified issues, and suggested a revised
organizational structure and assessment model.
While we highlighted negative aspects of the NNSA security
organization and assessment model, the task force found many
great people on the NNSA security staffs. They are clearly
dedicated, skilled, and hard-working and want to get the
security mission done right. Unfortunately, NNSA security
personnel have seen themselves thwarted by lack of management
support and feel obstructed by some of their peers. Their
difficulties were compounded by the absence of a workforce
strategy to recruit, retain, and develop a cadre of talented,
knowledgeable and experienced security professionals. Thus, it
is all the more encouraging that these personnel, almost
without exception, genuinely care about doing good work. Their
continued strong desire to build a successful security
organization is a hopeful sign for the future.
Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I will submit the
remainder of my testimony for the record. It contains the
findings of the task force.
[The prepared statement of General Finan follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mr. Poneman?
TESTIMONY OF DANIEL B. PONEMAN
Mr. Poneman. Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member DeGette, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the invitation to
appear before you today to provide the subcommittee details on
the actions the Department has taken or will take to strengthen
the security of the Nuclear Weapons Complex in the wake of the
July, 2012, Y-12 incident. We appreciate the interest and
engagement of this committee and recognize the important
oversight role that you fulfill. The Secretary and I recognize
the severity of the problem that led us to this point, and we
have acted swiftly to identify and address the issues it
revealed.
Since the Y-12 incursion, several major actions have taken
place to improve security immediately and for the long term.
Let me tell you about a few of them.
We restructured the contracts at Y-12 to integrate security
into the line of command at the M&O contractor. The protective
force contractor was terminated, and a new M&O contractor has
been selected to manage the Y-12 site, providing an opportunity
for new leadership and to improve the Y-12 security culture. We
held accountable both the senior federal and contractor
management personnel at headquarters and the site, removing
them from their positions. The Department's Chief of Health,
Safety, and Security conducted an independent security
inspection of Y-12 security operations, which include rigorous
force-on-force performance testing, as well as no notice and
short notice limited scope performance testing activities as
directed by the Secretary. HSS will be conducting a follow-up
review in April to examine the status of the implementation of
corrective actions. The Secretary also directed HSS to conduct
immediate extent of condition assessments of all sites in
Category I nuclear materials across the DOE complex, to
identify any immediate security issues and to follow up with a
full security inspection, including force-on-force exercises to
assure effective security measures are being implemented at
those sites.
NNSA conducted an immediate after-action report to identify
causes, issues to be addressed and recommended action, and you
just heard very eloquently summarized the findings of those
reports.
In order to address these institutional problems that have
been revealed, we are continuing to embrace and implement the
findings of General Finan's report, which you just heard her
describe.
Because we believe that we need fresh perspectives from
disinterested parties to consider broader and long-term
responses to this incident, Secretary Chu requested three
independent experts in this area to conduct a strategic review
of the entire DOE security architecture, with a particular
emphasis on Y-12, and I see that you are joined by two of the
three of these eminent experts here today. Each of them
provided thoughtful advice on the DOE's nuclear security
structure, specifically, all Category I nuclear facilities. We
are now reviewing and discussing their advice on how to improve
security at Y-12, and across the nuclear enterprise.
The series of personnel and management changes I have
described today were made to provide effective security at the
Y-12 site, and across the DOE complex. We are also working to
carry out the structural and cultural changes required to
secure all Category I nuclear materials at this and all other
DOE and NNSA facilities, and in this respect, I welcome the
comments of--in your opening remarks from members of this
subcommittee about the need to introduce cultural changes so
that we are not back in the same situation again. That is
absolutely critical, and I think as we get into the discussion,
what you hear in terms of what we are implementing from General
Finan's report will put us in the right direction in that
respect.
Our management principles hold that our mission is vital
and urgent. Nowhere is that more true than here. The security
of our Nation's nuclear material and technology is a core
responsibility of the Department, in support of the President
and in defense of the Nation. The incident at Y-12 was
unacceptable and served as an important wakeup call for our
entire complex. The Department is taking aggressive actions to
ensure the reliability of our nuclear security programs across
the entire DOE enterprise and will continue to do so.
In that effort, the Department looks forward to working
with this subcommittee to ensure the security of the Nation's
nuclear materials. I would be pleased, of course, to answer any
questions from members of this subcommittee, and request the
balance of my statement be submitted for the record.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Poneman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Murphy. And so will the balance of your statement will
be submitted for the record.
We understand, Ms. Miller, you do not have an opening
statement, so we will go right into some questions. I will
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
First of all, let me just say that I appreciate your
candor. Nothing is better for leaders than to step forward and
say mistakes have been made, taking full responsibility, and
taking definitive action. I thank you for that. We are
certainly hoping this never happens again, and we hope that the
report and recommendations are going to be fully implemented
and continue to be reviewed.
So let me start with you, General Finan. Your task force
identified the serious weaknesses in the federal capability to
evaluate contractor performance at the Nuclear Weapons Complex.
The NNSA administrator commissioned your report. I am correct
in that?
General Finan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Murphy. It is also correct that the recommendations are
directed at the administrator, not the Secretary of Energy, am
I correct?
General Finan. That is correct. It was all NNSA-focused.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. I just want to make sure we are
following the right chain here.
Mr. Poneman, as Deputy Secretary of Energy, you and the
Secretary set high level policy direction and safety and
security standards for NNSA's mission, but it is the
responsibility of the NNSA to arrange a structure to accomplish
these goals. That is up to the administrator, am I correct?
Mr. Poneman. It is up to the administrator, of course,
subject to, as you just said, the leadership of the Secretary
and the Deputy Secretary.
Mr. Murphy. And something you will continue to monitor as
well?
Mr. Poneman. Absolutely.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
Ms. Miller, you are now the NNSA Acting Administrator.
Ms. Miller. That is right.
Mr. Murphy. Is it correct that you were Principal Deputy
Administrator at NNSA as it implemented its safety and security
reform efforts in 2010?
Ms. Miller. I became the Principal Deputy Administrator in
August of 2010.
Mr. Murphy. OK. Do you agree with the findings of General
Finan's report?
Ms. Miller. I completely agree with them.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
General Finan states that NNSA must clearly and
consistently emphasize the importance of security. Do you agree
with her statement?
Ms. Miller. I absolutely agree with them.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
Do you believe that NNSA's leadership has been inconsistent
in the message it sends to the field about security emphasis?
Ms. Miller. I believe it has been inconsistently
communicated, yes. Absolutely.
Mr. Murphy. Were you aware of the inconsistent messages on
security prior to Y-12?
Ms. Miller. I would say that I was aware that because the
chief of Defense Nuclear Security, as well as the chief of
Defense Nuclear Safety reported directly to the administrator
and not to me. I would say I was aware of the difficulty and
the inconsistencies in communicating policy and decisions for
security and many other areas from the headquarters
organization to the field offices.
Mr. Murphy. Well yes, and since part of the purpose of this
Committee on Oversight is to make sure that we are
understanding lessons learned, but what you don't measure, you
can't manage. What you don't admit, you can't act on. Were
there some lessons you learned from this, some things that you
should do differently in terms of the process as we move
forward?
Ms. Miller. Mr. Chairman, I would say two things. First of
all, there were lessons I had been learning prior to this
incident that caused us to announce a few weeks before this
incident, the end of July, that we were changing the way we
governed our sites. And that is to say, we took the sites from
within defense programs, our large weapons program, where they
had been reporting for a number of years and had them now
directly report to the administrator through an associate
administrator peer level, the senior management, so that we
could start to drive accountability and consistency across our
sites. So that was a measure that I had come to the conclusion
that organization absolutely had to make to address what I said
before, which was concern about inconsistencies all over the
place.
With regard to post-Y-12 incident, in particular with
security, I was fortunate to be able to draw upon General
Finan's recommendations and work with her, as she was part of
the organization at the time, and others to change the way we
operate security, both at headquarters and in the field.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
Last month on February 5 at NNSA, associate administrator
for management and budget disputed the Inspector General's
report that Y-12 oversight was ineffective because of the
``eyes on, hands off'' oversight approach. The officials said
that the ``eyes on, hands off'' policy never applied to
security matters and that this was a misperception by some
federal officials. Ms. Miller, why is an NNSA senior official
continuing to dispute the impact of the ``eyes on, hands off''
policy?
Ms. Miller. I think the issue is not to dispute the impact.
I think the point is that we certainly did not set out--and
again, this predates me, but no one set out to say that
oversight should not be conducted, that your proper role is not
to be overseeing all aspects of the contractor's performance.
What I would say is that, as you yourself mentioned, driving
that message through a very large organization from the
administrator through every individual in every layer at every
site is the big challenge. It is the challenge in security, it
is the challenge all over the place. It is not a new issue. As
the ranking member mentioned, we need to break the pattern, and
that is definitely what the organization is about right now.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. Hopefully you will communicate that
through solidly, because of the extreme concerns about what
happened.
I recognize each member for 5 minutes as we go through.
Next is Ms. DeGette.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Poneman, I was intrigued when--first of all, let
me say, I am impressed and encouraged by the commitment the
agency has made to not having to come back here next year or
the year after with some new crisis. I am, both in these
hearings and some of our off--our side conversations, I do
believe you have that commitment.
Secretary Poneman, I wanted to ask you, because you just
said in your testimony that you are committed to implementing
some of the aspects of the General's report to make sure that
we are not back here in a year or two. I wonder if you could
briefly tell us--if you could give us the highlights of what
those things are?
Mr. Poneman. Gladly, Congresswoman DeGette.
The critical, I think, finding that General Finan's report
showed was that we had a lack of clarity of line of management
control and accountability. So what we have done is, under her
recommendation implemented by Acting Administrator Miller and
fortunately, before General Finan left us, she was the acting
head of defense nuclear security, to get this started. We have
now made sure that under this organization that Ms. Miller just
introduced of the operations and infrastructure that the
responsibility to direct security at the site flows down from
the administrator through that office to the site. The other
office that had been doing security policy, so-called NA-70,
had been actually exercising some apparent line management
authority, which was creating confusion. That function has been
stripped away. Any line authority has been stripped away from
NA-70.
Ms. DeGette. So you think that is the key, having a clear
chain of--that is the number one? What else?
Mr. Poneman. Number two is the staff function that that new
organization--that NA-70 must perform, they need to promulgate
the policies and perform independent evaluations so it is not
just the site checking itself.
Ms. DeGette. OK, independent evaluations. Those are the two
key things.
Mr. Poneman. Yes, oversight and a line management.
Ms. DeGette. Now, another issue--I don't have--we might do
another round, but--so I want to just go into this other issue
that I care a lot about, which complaints that the committee
has heard about overly burdensome oversight stifling the work
being done at NNSA labs and sites. And what we think--I was
talking to the chairman about this--is that federal officials
need to conduct strict oversight of the contractors, or serious
security problems can fall through the cracks.
So what I wanted to ask you, General Finan, in your review,
did you find that the problems you saw within NNSA were caused
by overly burdensome congressional oversight?
General Finan. The issues that I found were not caused at
all by oversight. It was actually caused by lack of oversight,
and I mean oversight at every level.
Ms. DeGette. Right, right. So what was the----
General Finan. It was impacting everything.
Ms. DeGette. We need to have clear oversight from the top
down, and as Mr. Poneman says, independent oversight, right?
General Finan. The burden was actually--when you--we
created a system that required a whole bunch of paperwork, and
the paperwork is burdensome, but what we lost in security was
the ability to see security performance. It was paperwork.
Ms. DeGette. Yes, there was a bunch of paperwork, but it
was irrelevant to the core task, right?
General Finan. Correct.
Ms. DeGette. Mr. Poneman, do you want to comment on that?
Mr. Poneman. I thought it was a very apt finding, and the
misinterpretation of that 2010 reform is exactly on this point.
We were trying to strip away the excessive paperwork and get to
the performance testing.
Ms. DeGette. Right, but did any of the auditor's
assessments conducted in the wake of the Y-12 incident find
that it was caused by too much congressional oversight of the
Y-12 contractors?
Mr. Poneman. No, ma'am.
Ms. DeGette. OK. The reason I bring this up is because some
people try to say oh, we have too much oversight. It seems to
me when we have these problems over and over again, the problem
is not too much oversight. The problem is too little effective
oversight and accountability. Ms. Miller, you are nodding your
head. Would you agree with that?
Ms. Miller. Yes, I would definitely agree. It is about
effectiveness.
Ms. DeGette. Now, let's see.
General Finan, can you tell us about the findings of the
task force with respect to improved oversight of NNSA security
contractors? You touched on it just very briefly.
General Finan. Right. The recommendation we are making is
that we create an NNSA oversight function, because right now,
in the system as I looked at it a couple of months ago, NNSA
did not have any oversight capability. They depended on onsite
federal personnel to analyze contractor performance. But again,
they were applying the ``eyes on, hands off'' concept and so
that was varied from site to site. And what happened is that
you lacked--there was no sense of criticism in this assessment,
right?
Ms. DeGette. Right.
General Finan. You had onsite people who were your really
only federal ability to look at contractor performance. Well,
those folks onsite grew up there, they lived there, you know,
they spent their whole time. They identified with the mission
and they were really not a very good source of independent
oversight as to contractor performance.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. Poneman and Ms. Miller, do you agree with that?
Mr. Poneman. Absolutely----
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Poneman [continuing]. And the reforms we described I
think reflect that finding.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Ms. Miller, do you agree with that?
Ms. Miller. I do.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. Gentlelady yields back.
I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poneman, in her testimony, General Finan states that
NNSA must clearly and consistently emphasize the importance of
security. Unfortunately, here is the consistent message that
the DOE, NNSA organizations, and contractors were hearing. In
March of 2010, Secretary Chu stated his vision that he wanted
DOE to be viewed as a valued partner and asset to contractors.
He went on to suggest that safety could be ensured with a
skeleton crew of health and safety experts. Also in March of
2010, Mr. Poneman, you wrote in the Department's safety and
security reform plan that success will be measured through
near-term relief from specific low-value burdensome
requirements, as well as longer term streamlining of
requirements that will lead to measurable productivity
improvements. I note that safety and security did not factor
into this definition of success. Would you agree that
statements like these send mixed signals about the Department's
commitment to safety?
Mr. Poneman. Congressman, the portion of the document read
from my document, the genesis of that was to set out a set of
safety and security objectives, so in fact, that particular
sentence is out of documents that are precisely intended to
maximize safety and security. What is unfortunate, what has
happened is the misinterpretation of that. What we were trying
to do, sir, is to get rid of the checkbox mentality, just
looking at paperwork and creating paperwork, get back to
performance testing, so we could be better, safer, and more
secure. That is absolutely our objective.
Mr. Johnson. What are you doing today to ensure consistent
and clear emphasis on safety importance from the headquarters
on down?
Mr. Poneman. Number one, we are, on both safety and
security, assimilating all of the learnings from reports such
as General Finan's. Number two, because we have found safety
culture issues as well as security culture issues, we have
regular meetings where we assemble the top leadership in the
Department to check on a continuing basis that this is being
messaged consistently throughout the complex. One of the major
challenges, Congressman, that we have found is--as you heard
with this talk about ``eyes on, hands off''--is the
misinterpretation, like a kid's game of Telephone, is a
terrible problem. So it is not enough to promulgate a good
policy. You have got to continually stay on it, message it, and
work with your leadership and work with the people in the
field.
Mr. Johnson. OK, thank you.
Ms. Miller, a week or so before the Y-12 incident in July
of 2012, Mr. Don Cook, NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense
Programs, made the following remarks, and I quote, ``With
regard to the relationship that we have and where we are
between NNSA and its labs and plants--I didn't say my labs and
plants, but you can tell I feel that way--getting to the point
where we have oversight on these, which is eyes on, hands off
oversight, has been my aspiration for several years and it
remains so. It was my aspiration when I worked on the lab side
for many years. General Finan completed that ensuring that the
right leadership is in the right position is absolutely
critical to success.'' What are you going to do to make that
happen, ensure that leadership is sending the right message
about the importance of safety and security?
Ms. Miller. Mr. Johnson, sending the right message, in my
view and after many years of looking at the NNSA mostly from
outside of it, is a challenge that is not achieved just by
making sure that people at the top level know what the message
means. But it is difficult to make sure that every single
person in the 10,000 people at a given lab or 30,000 throughout
our complex understand what we are talking about. If we--what
we are doing at NNSA is working to be able to communicate and
train and talk to people at every single level to make sure it
is not going to be misunderstood. We recently changed all of
our M&O contracts. The performance measures in those contracts
are all now connected to safety and security so that it is not
possible to believe that you have performed according to the
terms of a contract in an area like nuclear weapons if you have
not also met the performance plans for safety and security. It
just isn't going to happen.
So this is a step-by-step throughout the organization. It
is not just at the top level.
Mr. Johnson. OK, good.
One final question, General Finan. First of all, as a 26\1/
2\ year veteran of the Air Force myself, thank you for your
service and what you have done here.
A troubling finding in your report is that potentially
critical management information is not being reported clearly
to the appropriate decision makers. Would you elaborate on what
you mean by this?
General Finan. Yes, sir. As we interviewed people and took
a look at what was happening, we found out at the lower levels,
there were people who knew what issues existed out there and
knew the significance of those issues. But as they attempted to
rise those issues up to senior levels, they were being
suppressed. Management at mid levels would suppress it, and so
in many cases, critical decision information was not making its
way to the top of the organization.
Mr. Johnson. OK, thank you for that, and with that, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Murphy. OK, gentleman's time is expired, and I will now
recognize Mr. Tonko for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
General Finan, you state in your testimony that the
findings of this task force were very similar to those numerous
prior reports by other review teams, so my question is, what
happened to the recommendations of the prior review teams? Were
they ever implemented? Was the implementation insufficient, or
is there a larger problem that still needs to be identified?
General Finan. There is a cultural issue. Those findings,
as you look at them, you go back to see what people did, you
will find that there are some actions that were put in place,
but there was a check the box mentality that said we want to
get rid of the findings as fast as we can. So they do whatever
they could to say yes, I have responded to this finding and it
is gone. And so the things that they changed didn't stick. It
was just a matter of taking action, checking the box, closing
the finding, and going on to the next thing. And so what needs
to happen is all those things need to be taken in aggregate, we
need to create a roadmap, and then we need to change the
culture so that we continuously evaluate those things and go
back and make sure that we don't, year after year, make the
same mistake and that we are not interested in checking the box
off, we are interested in changing the way we do business so we
do it the right way.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. There seems to be a theme that runs
through a number of the task force's observations that cost
control was a bigger concern for many of the people managing
the program, the security program, than performance of the
security mission. This implies there is a real or perceived
lack of resources to support the security mission fully. Which
is it, real or perceived?
General Finan. It is a combination of both. What happened
was that management had overwhelmingly started to figure out--
they wanted to reduce the cost of security, and so in doing
that, what they did is they lost sight of the requirements of
security, and because the two were mixed together, the people
who determined requirements and the budget were the same
people. What happened was that they were no longer looking at
the actual requirements for security. They lost sight of what
was required in order to adequately secure these materials and
these sites, and moreover, they lost visibility on the
important aspect of protecting our operational capability and
our people. And those items actually got no visibility at all
and were completely ignored. They thought that if they could do
the big war, if they could fight the terrorists, they could do
all the lesser includeds, therefore, they never needed to look
at lesser includeds. Well, lesser included happened to be a
protest event, and Y-12 proved that lesser includeds do not--
you cannot do lesser includeds just because you can fight the
larger issues. So it was a combination of wanting to reduce the
budget, which is a good thing. We ought to always be efficient,
but when you lose sight of the requirements, what happened is
senior leaders at NNSA did not get to make the decision. Do I
want to fund that requirement or do I want to take the risk?
The risk was being assumed at lower levels by default rather
than being made at the senior decision maker level at NNSA.
Mr. Tonko. Deputy Secretary Poneman--and I thank you for
that answer--but Deputy Secretary, how much of DOE's budget is
spent on contractors, your area of the budget?
Mr. Poneman. The vast majority. I think it is well over 80
percent, and we can get you a precise number. I think it is on
the order of 85 percent.
Mr. Tonko. With that amount, the agency then, is it fair to
say, is relying on private contractors to implement many key
security and safety goals?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, Congressman, going back to the origins of
the Department, back to shortly after World War II, Atomic
Energy Commission, this whole model of the so-called management
and operating contractor, the M&O contractor model puts most of
the programmatic and security burdens in the hands of
contractors who were exercising that authority under federal
oversight.
Mr. Tonko. So do the contractors then have a conflicting
bid of incentives here when carrying out their duties?
Mr. Poneman. There is a risk, Congressman, and in that
respect, again, one of the many fine findings of General
Finan's report, I think, shows the way we need to address that
is the contractor must own and take responsibility for
security, and in the first instance, must evaluate that under
their own self-analysis, but that then needs to have a double
check, first from the headquarters so there is not the onsite
cozy relationship, so there is some difference and the federal
oversight is effective, and secondly, from an independent
organization, the HSS organization, to effectively ensure you
have a disinterested third party look to make sure that that
security is being well executed and there are not conflicts of
interest, and to hold the contractor accountable if they do not
self-disclose problems in security that they, in fact, find in
their own forces.
Mr. Tonko. General Finan, is it possible that contractor
concerns over cutting costs could have been one of the causes
of the Y-12 incident at Oak Ridge?
General Finan. It could have been, and it may have been
that they had cut back some of their maintenance personnel in
order to cut costs, and therefore had misprioritized actions,
so it could be a contributing factor.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. With that, I yield back.
Mr. Murphy. Gentleman's--thank you very much.
The chair recognizes the chairman emeritus of the committee
from Texas, Mr. Barton, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Barton. Thank you, and I appreciate the courtesy of
letting me ask questions out of order, since I wasn't here at
the beginning. I appreciate that of my junior members.
I want to refresh the subcommittee's memory a little bit.
We have had repeated security incidences at the weapons
complexes in the national laboratories over the last 20 years.
We have had tapes lost, we have had materials lost. This latest
incident, which has been sanitized to call the Y-12 incident,
three nuns, I think, one fairly elderly, penetrated to the
deepest security of our weapons complex. A nun, oK, nuns. They
showed up at one of our hearings and they were in the audience,
and these were not ninja warrior, flat belly, skulking people.
These were just ordinary folks who wandered in, so to speak. So
we have, once again, another task force that is going to try to
rectify the problems.
Now, I want to get the players straight. General Finan, you
are not in the normal chain of command at the Department of
Energy, is that correct?
General Finan. I am no longer assigned to the Department of
Energy. I am back in the Air Force. I was always in the Air
Force, but----
Mr. Barton. This report that you have helped to prepare was
done at the request of DOE, at the request of the then
administrator, but you were kind of an outside, fresh look
person, is that correct?
General Finan. Well, I guess I would call myself an inside
outsider. By that time, I had been assigned to NNSA for 18
months, but I was always an Air Force asset. My reporting chain
runs through the Air Force. I was always an Air Force member,
but I was assigned to NNSA for 2 years.
Mr. Barton. OK, now the report that you testified on has
been presented to the Department of Energy, is that correct?
General Finan. Yes, sir.
Mr. Barton. Now I want to go to Deputy Secretary Poneman.
It used to be the Deputy Secretary is the number two person at
DOE. Is that still the case?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Barton. Are you the chief operational officer at DOE?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Barton. OK. So you have read the report----
Mr. Poneman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Barton [continuing]. That has been prepared? I have
read a summary of it. It is fairly damning, but it is pretty
clear cut in its recommendations. So the bottom line question
is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to accept
the recommendations and act on them, or are we going to
pontificate and fiddle faddle around and not do anything?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, sir, it is a fine report. It is
excellent. It is insightful. We embrace it and not only have we
already accepted and put into practice the recommendations, but
while we still had the benefit of General Finan's service in
the Department, we made her Acting Chief of Defense Nuclear
Security to oversee the beginnings of the implementations.
Mr. Barton. So she gets to implement the recommendations?
Mr. Poneman. She had that started, and as she just
indicated, been reassigned and we are carrying forward from
that.
Mr. Barton. One of the recommendations is that you
eliminate this multiple diverse authority. Is that going to be
done, centralizing the one line of authority? That is one of
the primary----
Mr. Poneman. That, sir, already has been done and the
further clarification of the role of the other security
organizations is also underway. We are, as was indicated, also
taking into account more widely the recommendations from what
we call the Three Wise Experts about--from whom you will hear
directly, but the parts that you have heard from General Finan,
we are already putting into effect.
Mr. Barton. OK. Now this concept of ``eyes on, hands off''
oversight, there seems to be some misunderstanding about that.
I don't see how that would work anyway.
Mr. Poneman. I don't either, and I think it is a terrible
thing that anyone ever thought that that made sense or was the
policy of the Department. It is absolutely the wrong way to
think about it.
Mr. Barton. So we can assume, since you are the number two
person, that whatever that concept was, it is no longer in use?
It is gone?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, we have tried and we will continue,
because you can't repeat these messages often enough, to be
very, very clear that the federal oversight is critical and it
needs to be active and performance-based, and it cannot be
``eyes on, hands off.'' That would never work.
Mr. Barton. OK, now my final question, can we be--can you
assure the committee that the actual security of the weapons
complex is a first-degree, primary function and it is not
subject to cost issues? I mean, we want these facilities and
materials and the people that are operating within those
facilities to be secure, period, and not secondary to the cost
of maintaining the security.
Mr. Poneman. Let me be very clear, Congressman. There is
nothing more important than the safety and the security of the
complex. That is our top priority. We will always, as you would
expect, make sure that we are good stewards of the taxpayer
resources and not waste money. I don't think that is the
implication of your question, but we will always make sure that
we never compromise security for any other derivative
objective, and the security of that material is paramount.
Mr. Barton. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman and the
other members. I yield back.
I would love to have a hearing within the next year or two
where we can pat these people on the back and say you have
actually done what you said. Things are working. There are
improvements. Now, I am a skeptic. I doubt we will have that
hearing, but I certainly hope that we can and I especially want
to commend Congresswoman DeGette. She has been fighting these
fights almost as long as I have, and with the same degree of
fervor and intensity, and I am sure that with Dr. Murphy's
added vigilance, we might actually get something done. Thank
you.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. We all share sentiments. Gentleman
yields back.
Now recognize the gentleman from New Mexico, Mr. Lujan, for
5 minutes.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poneman and Ms. Miller, before I ask some questions on
Y-12, I want to speak about something that is very important in
New Mexico. With the concerns in Washington State where tanks
at Hanford are leaking radioactive and hazardous waste, I
understand the Department is considering sending millions of
gallons of highly radioactive waste to New Mexico to be stored
at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP. I would like to
get your commitment here today that you will work closely with
the New Mexico delegation, state and local officials, and
concerned citizens, as you explore whether such a transfer will
take place and under what conditions?
Mr. Poneman. Congressman, I can assure you, A, that we
always take all critical health, safety, environmental issues
into account, certainly with respect to the 54 million gallons
and their disposition at Hanford, and we will gladly continue
to work very closely with this committee and with other members
of the Congress to make sure what we do is in full consultation
with you.
Mr. Lujan. So Mr. Poneman, that is a commitment to work
with the New Mexico delegation on this issue?
Mr. Poneman. We will work with this committee and with all
members of Congress, and any affected state----
Mr. Lujan. I will interpret that as a yes. I appreciate
that, sir.
Has there been discussions that have begun with the State
of New Mexico on this issue?
Mr. Poneman. I will defer to Ms. Miller.
Ms. Miller. The acting Assistant Secretary for
Environmental Management, Dave Huizenga, has ongoing
discussions with representatives from the State of New Mexico.
I recently met with a number of representatives from the State
of New Mexico, local representatives as well as the governor.
We did not discuss this issue because this is a pretty new
development, as you know, but we are in good, close contact
with the delegation, both locally and certainly as Deputy
Secretary Poneman said, very willing to work and look forward
to working with you and the other members of the congressional
delegation.
Mr. Lujan. I appreciate that, Ms. Miller. I am one of the
representatives as well that represents New Mexico, and so I
would appreciate that very much. I appreciate that.
And finally, I hope that this will not happen at the
expense of cleaning up existing sites in New Mexico. I don't
want to see a slowing down or a decrease in funding in
environmental management funding. If anything, it should be
increased to allow more rapid cleanup, especially in Los
Alamos. And you know, with the true waste issue in New Mexico,
it is ready to be cleaned up and ready to go, and I hope that
we can work with you and get a commitment to see what we can do
to plus up those accounts. I know sequestration is hitting us,
but it is something that is very important to us.
Mr. Poneman. Congressman, sequestration is a huge challenge
for all of us. We have legal, contractual, and moral
obligations to the state. We take them very, very seriously. I
have been there several times myself. We will continue to take
that seriously.
Mr. Lujan. I appreciate your commitment, Mr. Poneman.
Mr. Poneman, isn't your head of Health, Safety, and
Security, or HSS, the person you and the Secretary rely on for
developing and coordinating security policy and providing
independent oversight and enforcement?
Mr. Poneman. That is true.
Mr. Lujan. Wasn't this a colossal failure as a part of HSS
in failing to identify and correct the specific security
weaknesses that were obviously present at Y-12?
Mr. Poneman. Sir, there were a number of failures. There
was a January, 2009, report from HSS which, in fact, identified
some of the deficiencies which you have heard later described
which, in fact, facilitated this terrible episode on July 28.
There should have been, as HSS has acknowledged, more rigorous,
vigorous, and repeated follow-up from those findings, and they
have--in the consequences in terms of lessons learned from this
episode, redoubled their commitment under the direction of the
Secretary to make sure that they follow up on all such findings
in future. So when they do identify a problem, they stick with
it until it is resolved.
Mr. Lujan. With that being said, Mr. Poneman, aren't those
on the second panel, including reviewers like General Finan,
who are identifying systemic security problems and recommending
improvements, doing the job that HSS was supposed to have done?
Mr. Poneman. Well, it is always good after an episode like
this to get fresh eyes, and General Finan, because she had this
unique perspective of being in the system but somewhat apart
from these specific events, had a unique and invaluable
perspective. In fact, her own report recommends that in this
three-layer oversight review, that the HSS is, in fact, that
third layer of disinterested third party oversight. We will
hopefully continue to benefit from outside expertise of this
character, but also make sure we maintain some independence
within the Department to ensure you don't have conflict of
interest in overseeing security.
Mr. Lujan. I appreciate that.
Mr. Poneman, in your earlier comments made before similar
hearings, you stated that no federal employees have been
terminated as a result of the Y-12 breach, that such
terminations are subject to due process. Since there were
contract employees that were terminated for cause, the response
seems to suggest that contract employees don't have the same
due process protection under the law. Is there any truth to
that?
Mr. Poneman. This is--I am glad you asked this question,
Congressman. Let me clarify this. There was accountability on
both the federal and the contractor's side. On the federal
side--and we had to act swiftly and effectively to remove
anybody who had an involvement in this episode from the chain
of command. On the federal side, the top three nuclear security
officials in headquarters were removed from those
responsibilities. In addition, three members at the site from
the federal team were either reassigned or removed from their
positions. And then on the contractor's side, we held
accountable by making clear to the contractor that they had
lost our confidence. The three senior--three of the senior
people on the protective force subcontract and three of the
senior people on the M&O contractor, we then folded the
subcontract for security under the M&O contract, made it clear
we lost confidence in the contractor, and that contractor was
terminated full stop.
Now there are additional actions that can be taken with
respect to individuals that are disciplinary in nature. Our
first responsibility, as the chairman and ranking member have
emphasized, is to protect the material, so the first thing we
did is get anybody who had anything to do with this out of the
way of possibly protecting material that we now needed to make
sure we had new people and new processes to effectuate. Other
disciplinary processes have been underway. Some are still
continuing, and those are the processes, sir, that I was
referring to where the due process protections apply to these
individuals who, like any American, are entitled to due process
when it comes to termination.
Mr. Lujan. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, as I yield back, I know
time is expired, but I appreciate the concerns and the
statements associated with new culture and leadership and
changes, and what that means coming forward as we look at the
future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you, Mr. Lujan. I let that go on because
it was a particularly important answer, too. We thank you for
that answer.
Now recognize the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Harper,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Harper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to each of
you on what is a very important topic, not only to you, but to
everyone in Congress. We appreciate the look you are taking at
this, and of course, how do you convey that security is
everybody's concern, and always in that situation where you are
looking, it seems that it was somebody else's responsibility,
so you have to create that culture that everyone is
responsible, regardless of their position, and do you feel like
you are moving things in that direction with NNSA?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, sir, and your comment, I think, ties in
well with when the chairman said at the beginning, if you don't
measure it, you don't manage it. What we have done since the Y-
12 episode is to make sure that in the performance evaluation
plans for all contracts that safety and security is made a
constituent part of every programmatic deliverable. So you are
not actually performing the job if you do it, but you don't do
it safely or you don't do it securely. So that is how we
measure and hold people accountable, and so not only are we
trying to do this through all the cultural teaching that we are
telling you about, but we are trying to build into the
structure of the contracts. That is how we hope to avoid keep
coming back, as Ms. DeGette has suggested, by really building
it into our system.
Mr. Harper. And I guess one of the issues would be how do
you make these security changes or improvements, how do you
sustain those? You know, I will go back, DOE did a major--a
comprehensive study back in 2008, and it looked like that was
great. If those things had perhaps really been sustained, maybe
we wouldn't have had the Y-12 incident. So I guess what
confidence should we have and do you have that these changes,
as a result of this very extensive 90-day evaluation and study,
will be sustained?
Mr. Poneman. Congressman, as General Finan's report makes
clear, even if we have put all the structures in place to be
successful in a way that we have not succeeded so far, absent
leadership, it is not going to succeed. So the first way to
sustain it, sir, is by sustained leadership attention, and I
can commit to you that that is what we are providing.
The second thing I would say is, it is not enough simply to
promulgate this and announce it. We have to continue to work
with people in the complex at the sites and have a continuous
flow of information back and forth.
And the third thing is, people have to feel comfortable
throughout the site. If they actually have concerns, they have
to feel free to step forward without any fear of retribution.
Mr. Harper. Thank you.
Do either of the other witnesses have anything that you
care to add? General, anything that you see of how this study--
how you believe it would be sustained in the future? It looks
great today, and we believe we have done that, but do you see
anything else, other than what Mr. Poneman has added, that you
believe would show that we could sustain it?
General Finan. The key is the leadership, just the Deputy
Secretary stated, and a culture. Everyone in the organization
has to understand that each and every one of them are a part of
security, and that security is a part of the NNSA mission. It
is not a support item, it is essential to the mission. So it is
culture and leadership.
Mr. Harper. Mr. Poneman, the safety and security reform
plan, if I could read this, stated that the Department's
contractors maintain an assurance system that provides reliable
measurement of the effectiveness of their safety management
systems and facilitates timely corrective actions to systems or
performance weaknesses. And the same direction was given for
security systems. The task force found that NNSA relied
overwhelmingly upon contractor-provided data rather than
effectively reviewing performance itself. Given the broken
equipment, security cameras, excessive false alarms at Y-12,
clearly the contractor did not correct performance weaknesses
in a timely fashion. And I know you have gone over this, but I
want to make sure, you believe that relying on contractors to
provide measurements of their effectiveness is still a sound
approach?
Mr. Poneman. I think the system must start because they
have the line management responsibility with contractor
reporting and self correcting, but it then needs exactly the
oversight that General Finan recommended, number one, from the
nuclear security operation inside NNSA, which is not at the
site and therefore it is not prone to the coziness that has
been a source of some concern, and then secondly, with a third
party independent oversight from the HSS organization.
Mr. Harper. Each of you, do you believe that today would
such a breach at Y-12 that occurred in July of 2012, do you
believe that would occur today?
Mr. Poneman. No, sir, I do not, and one thing that we did
immediately, the Secretary directed an extent of condition
review to be done very quickly to ensure that no similar
problems existed at any of the other sites that have Category I
nuclear material in the complex.
Mr. Harper. I yield back.
Mr. Murphy. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Murphy. The gentleman Mr. Green from Texas is
recognized.
Mr. Green. Different member from Texas.
I know there was some contract restructuring in 2007, and I
guess what got my attention on Y-12 and also the Pantex site,
since that is in north Texas, was that contract restructuring
ever completed to have one contractor for both sites?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, sir, we have finished the contract
consolidation. There is another piece that is optional with
respect to folding the tridium operations at Savannah River,
but that part has not----
Mr. Green. I know on a regular occasion, Pantex--there are
protesters up there, but it is a long way to get there from
most urban areas in north Texas, but there has never been any
similar incidents like at Y-12 at Pantex, has it?
Mr. Poneman. Not that I am aware of, sir, and in fact, we
were impressed when we looked after the Y-12 incident at,
frankly, the contrast and we brought some expertise from Pantex
to Y-12 to help instill some best practices. For example, the
practice of repairing cameras very quickly, that was already
institutionalized at Pantex, and now I am happy to say, all the
cameras are fixed and our average time to repair cameras now at
Y-12 is 6.5 hours. So there were some best practices that we
ported over from Pantex.
Mr. Green. OK. I worry about impacts on NNSA due to the
sequester. Deputy Secretary Poneman, can you talk about the
impacts that sequestration may have on federal and contractor
personnel at NNSA?
Mr. Poneman. Yes, I will let Acting Administrator Miller
offer more detail, but top line is it is a significant effect
involving personnel and operations as well, but I can assure
you, Congressman, is that the directive from the President is
to do everything that we can and must do to protect our core
functions. But I will ask Ms. Miller if she has got
elaboration.
Ms. Miller. I would just add to that. It starts with of
course, we will protect the material, of course, we will do
things safely. As long as we are allowed to operate, that is
exactly how we will run things. Having said that, I think
people have a tendency to look at sequestration in terms of
numbers of people who might be furloughed or dollar numbers
that might be missing. It is--what is a deeper concern at this
point is the ongoing disruption to activities that will take
projects and programs and make them difficult, if not
impossible, to actually execute anywhere near to the plan and
to the price and the need that has already been described. It
is that ongoing uncertainty disruption, and then lack of
ability to plan.
Mr. Green. And I know that is impacting your agency, but it
is also impacting----
Ms. Miller. Everybody.
Mr. Green [continuing]. Everybody.
Have you already notified employees or contractors on they
could face personnel actions?
Ms. Miller. Contractors, their own organizations are
responsible for talking directly to their employees, because
they operate in general off of the money they are getting for
us. We have, of course, worked with them to try to plan and
program dollars so that they have some sense of what it is
going to look like going forward month by month, and they are
making plans and doing notifications accordingly, and I know
our contractors have done that.
As far as the federal workers are concerned, I sent a note
out to our federal workers 2 weeks ago, almost 2 weeks ago, to
let them know that we will do everything we can, but I cannot
guarantee that it is not going to affect them either.
Mr. Poneman. And I would only add, Congressman, that I have
notified all the affected governors, and we will also work with
the states in the same vein.
Mr. Green. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Braley. Would the Texas gentleman yield?
Mr. Green. Sure.
Mr. Braley. Mr. Chairman, Ms. Miller, a number of reports
observed a culture within NNSA of prioritizing costs, cutting
costs above the needs of security. As a follow-up to the
question Mr. Barton asked, have M&O contractors throughout the
complex been told to cut their security costs?
Ms. Miller. They certainly have not been told to cut their
security costs as any means of a policy, but I would say there
is definitely messages that get communicated that when money is
tight, people are looking for ways to cut costs and within an
individual organization, a contractor organization are working
with federal people, they may, as General Finan said, start to
make decisions at very low levels on what their interpretation
is of the need to cut costs.
Mr. Braley. So it sounds like they could have been cut, so
as a follow-up, have security funding allocations been reduced
in recent years before the incident?
Ms. Miller. Security allocations have come down over the
last several years, that is right.
Mr. Braley. Mr. Chairman, this is a concern I think that we
had. Mr. Barton asked a similar question, and hopefully it is
something that we can pursue. You know, I would be interested
if security funding has been increased after the incident as
well, but I think we will find that out later.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gardner [presiding]. Thank you. Gentleman yields back.
Gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Burgess. Well on the GAO report that was supplied for
this hearing, there is a table, table one on page nine of the
report, and you know, it is interesting in light of the last
question that was just asked about the funding levels. I mean,
this is a comparison of a GAO study done in May of 2003 and
then the security task force in February, 2013, so essentially
a decade worth of NNSA oversight. And you look at the various
things that are listed there, the last one being allocating
staff. In 2003, the GAO found NNSA had shortfalls in its site
offices in number and expertise of staff, which could make it
more difficult for site offices to effectively oversee security
activities. OK, that sounds like a real problem identified by
the GAO. So what did General Finan find 10 years later? The
NNSA security function is not properly organized or staffed. It
sounds like the same problem to me, stated another way.
So you know, as interesting as this chart is, it really
shows that the General Accountability Office's review of the
NNSA security organization, when you look at it and go down the
list and see the problems with defining clear roles and
responsibilities, assessing site security activities,
overseeing contractor activities, allocating staff in each and
every case.
So General Finan, you know, it begs the question, it is
almost every problem that was identified 10 years ago, you
encountered on your task force 10 years later. So what do you
think? Are these longstanding cultural problems that are
ingrained in the organization, or are these things that can be
corrected?
General Finan. Clearly they are long-term cultural basic
issues that need to be fixed. And what happens over the years,
as we looked at each one of those, reports would come out and
people would check the box and say yes, I took care of the
findings. What happened was people were nibbling around the
edges, you know, they would put a body or two--oK, you have a
shortage, so a body or two would change. You know, that would
just create a shortage someplace else. They didn't ever stop
and take a look at the overall system. How are we going to fix
this long term? So by nibbling around the edges, instead of
getting at the core issues, they just perpetuated the issues
for a decade, and probably even longer than that, but every
report that we looked at had striking similarities to what we
found.
Mr. Burgess. So let me just ask you this. This is a basic
question. How is putting more money into a structurally
deficient system, how is it going to make it better? I mean any
amount of money--I agree that, you know, it is reasonable to
look the funding levels, but for crying out loud, we have known
about this stuff for 10 years and you haven't fixed it.
General Finan. And fundamentally, you know, that is why I
propose a change in the organization and change in the
assessment model. Now I think that there are minor increases in
budget that might be required, but we are not talking about,
you know, hey, let's add a billion dollars to the security
budget, because the issues that surfaced at Y-12 were
structural within the organization and structural within the
assessment model. Now there are other technical aspects of why
the guard didn't respond properly, a whole bunch of things like
that that are training related and things like that, but we
are--when we are talking about the organizational structure, we
are talking about some bodies. Yes, there is a shortage of
security professionals, so you are talking a small number of
additional bodies, and with the assessment model, you are
talking about beefing up and changing the assessment model, but
you are not talking about a massive influx of dollars.
Mr. Burgess. Well, Chairman Upton in his opening statement
said we need to learn the right lessons from past mistakes. I
now certainly thank you for the effort that you have put into
this. I just pray that 10 years from now another Congress is
not having another hearing over the same sorts of failures.
So Secretary Poneman, let me ask you. Back in 2010,
Chairman Emeritus Barton was ranking member. He and I wrote to
the Secretary expressing our concerns that the safety and
security reform initiative would weaken outsource by
outsourcing safety and security. We requested the General
Accountability Office to evaluate--actually Chairman Waxman,
who was chairman at the time and Ranking Member DeGette did
join in that letter, so given the troubled history of safety
and security in the complex, NNSA's problems of implementing
its own security program, what was the Department's
justification for embarking on this project?
Mr. Poneman. It was clear at the time, Congressman, that we
needed to focus, and you know the old saying, ``If you don't
know where you're going, any road will take you there.'' So
when I arrived at the Department, there were many people saying
many different things. We said let's sit down and figure out
what are we doing to be safe, what are we doing to be secure?
That was the genesis of that reform. Our management principles
say we will only succeed by continuous improvement. This was
part of that process so it wouldn't just be mindlessly
continuing to check the box, but being vigorous and aggressive
and saying how do we be safe? I couldn't agree more with you,
Congressman, in your premise that it ain't just throwing
dollars at it, it is a deeply cultural thing, and that reform,
which I know people have had some concerns about, was intended
to be exactly part of the process that you are advocating in
terms of a self-vigorous analytical process to get safe and to
make people wake up, think, and be active about it.
Mr. Burgess. Well, Mr. Chairman, I have got additional
questions. I will submit those in writing. I thank you for the
indulgence, and I will yield back.
Mr. Gardner. Thank you. Gentleman yields back and the chair
recognizes himself now for 5 minutes.
General Finan, a question to you. In your testimony, you
write that the NNSA is structurally inadequate to address
security needs. You have made your recommendations. What
percentage of those recommendations have either been
implemented or on their way to implementation? Just give me a
number, if you could.
General Finan. At the time I left the organization, all of
the recommendations were in process of being implemented.
Mr. Gardner. Thank you.
Additional questions to Ms. Miller, and this question was
referenced earlier. The statement that Mr. Don Cook, NNSA
Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs had made earlier, he
said with regard to the relationship that we have and where we
are between NNSA and its labs and plants, the statement was
made ``eyes on, hands off.'' And I think one of the concerns
that we have is this isn't just about management; this is about
leadership, a culture of safety and security. And I am very
concerned when it comes to the approach that NNSA, when they
talk about ``eyes on, hands off,'' that this is actually a
management style that is failing to provide the kind of
leadership we need in safety and security. Would you agree or
disagree with that?
Ms. Miller. I think what is failing and what has failed is
something I spoke a little bit about earlier, and that is it is
one thing for people at a very senior level to talk at a very
senior level and come out with phrases that they perfectly
understand and they may be able to explain to the seven or
eight people they talk to all the time about it. That is a very
different thing if you are the person six, seven, eight layers
down to understand what does that mean for the job you do every
day?
Mr. Gardner. And so you can see how that kind of creates a
culture, though, that doesn't focus--that focuses more on
management and less on leadership of a culture that is truly
about safety and security.
Ms. Miller. I think what happens is it leads everybody to
focus whatever way they can to cope with what they think the
person at the top is trying to tell them.
Mr. Gardner. So what are you going to do to make that that
is different?
Ms. Miller. So as you know, right now I am acting
administrator. What we have already begun in NNSA is a change
in both the way we talk to staff and our contractors from the
lower levels all the way up through the very top levels to be
able to allow people to understand how they do--how they are
meant to do what they do in a safe and secure way, and to
understand that safety and security is not the job of the
people--it is not just the job of the people in the uniforms or
the guys who can discuss criticality safety in depth, it is
everybody's job. It is what you do every day as part of what
else you do every day.
Mr. Gardner. Recognize it is about the leadership, not just
management.
Ms. Miller. Absolutely.
Mr. Gardner. General Finan, in your testimony, you talked
about tension between security and the conduct of operations,
stating that the events at Y-12 illustrate how far the pendulum
has swung too far in the wrong direction, and that NNSA must
clearly and consistently emphasize the importance of security.
Do you believe the tension between security and operations is
inescapable, or do you think that strong safety and security
culture can facilitate improved operations performance, given
committed leadership?
General Finan. I absolutely believe that safety and
security can make operations better, and depending on how they
are integrated, you will have a better operation. But it is a
cultural change and it is a difficult cultural change.
Mr. Gardner. Is the agency right now on the way to that
cultural change?
General Finan. They are trying to make that cultural
change. Again, it is a long term. It will take years and
constant pressure, constant attention.
Mr. Gardner. Adequate progress, in your mind?
General Finan. They are making early steps. Early steps. It
is going to take a long time.
Mr. Gardner. But adequate process not quite ready to say
that?
General Finan. I am not quite ready to say that.
Mr. Gardner. Ms. Miller, do you agree with General Finan
that there has been a culture of compromise at NNSA?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Gardner. And what are you doing to eliminate that
culture?
Ms. Miller. That is a culture that I think not
intentionally, but definitely effectively, has permeated both
the contractor and the federal side of it, and that is a
question of leadership making clear what the expectations are
for all concerned.
Mr. Gardner. And you believe you have taken the sufficient
steps so that your senior managers understand that there must
be consistent messaging on security?
Ms. Miller. I think through a number of actions that have
been taken, including the shakeup in management of security,
that message has been very clearly communicated as to what is
expected of everyone.
Mr. Gardner. And can you tell the committee today, all of
us on the committee, that the head of defense programs, the
head of the budget, the federal site managers, your managers,
all are now singing from the same hymnal, so to speak?
Ms. Miller. I can tell you that they know they better be. I
can't swear for another person, but I believe it to be the
case.
Mr. Gardner. And have you committed--this information that
you are talking about now, you have communicated it simply--
supply the committee with memoranda or other communications
instituting your policy for emphasizing that security?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Gardner. Thank you. I appreciate your time, and with
that, I don't see any other witnesses, so I will give the gavel
back to the chairman.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
We are going to dismiss this panel and move on to the next
one. I do want to thank you all for your candid and thorough
response, and this is extremely important to see leadership
being honest with us. So we look forward to working with you
more and talking with you more, and General, a special thanks
to you for your report. Good luck over there, keep that Air
Force in line. Thank you, ma'am.
We will wait for the next panel to come forward.
Ms. DeGette. Chairman, maybe we can just put her in charge
of everything.
Mr. Murphy. Well ma'am, I am Navy so we will have to
discuss that.
Well, while this next panel is getting ready, I will start
off by introducing them in the interest of time as we move
forward. We have with us Mr. C. Donald Alston, Major General,
United States Air Force (retired), and former commander of the
20th Air Force Global Strike Command, and Commander Task Force
214 U.S. Strategic Command, Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in
Wyoming. We also have Mr. Richard Meserve--am I pronouncing
that right, sir?
Mr. Meserve. Meserve.
Mr. Murphy. Meserve, thank you, President of the Carnegie
Institution for Science, and former Chairman of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1999 to 2003. We also have
Mr. David Trimble, the Director of Natural Resources and
Environment Team, Government Accountability Office. Welcome
here today.
As you know, the testimony you are about to give is subject
to Title XVIII Section 1001 of the United States Code. When
holding an investigative hearing, this committee has a practice
of taking testimony under oath. Do you have any objection to
testifying under oath?
They all agree to testify. The chair then advises you that
under the rules of the House and rules of the committee, you
are entitled to be advised by counsel. Do you desire to be
advised by counsel during your testimony today?
They all decline counsel.
In that case, if you would please rise, raise your right
hand, and I will swear you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. I note for the record all the
witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
You can now give a 5-minute summary of your written
statement. We will start with you, Dr. Meserve.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD A. MESERVE, PRESIDENT, CARNEGIE
INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE; C. DONALD ALSTON, MAJOR GENERAL, USAF
(RETIRED); AND DAVID C. TRIMBLE, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES
AND ENVIRONMENT TEAM, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD A. MESERVE
Mr. Meserve. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member DeGette, and
members of the subcommittee, I am very pleased to appear before
you this morning to testify of the security at DOE complex.
My involvement with this issue, and I believe General
Alston's as well, arose as the result of a request that was
made by Secretary Chu that we, as well as Dr. Norm Augustine,
undertake an evaluation of basically the structure for the
management of security at DOE. We undertook a study that
involved visiting sites, reviewing documents, interviewing
people, and as a result of all of that effort, we submitted
three separate letters to the Secretary on December 6 of 2012,
and we have submitted copies of those letters for the record as
our testimony.
We did not purport to investigate the factual circumstances
surrounding the Y-12 institute. Our reports focused on
management-related issues, and I hasten to add that our report
was a snapshot in time. I was learning a lot about what has
happened at DOE since we conducted our interview from the very
informative testimony that we have all benefitted from earlier
this morning.
There are a couple of points from my letter that I think I
would like to emphasize that I see as clear issues that DOE
should confront. I believed that on December 6, and I believe
they are confronting them. One, and I think a critical one, is
to make sure you have a management structure in place that
assigns clear authority and responsibility for security. One of
the underlying factors at the Y-12 incident is there was a
division of responsibility and without anyone being truly in
charge until you had a situation with a contractor responsible
for the guards and a different contractor responsible for the
security-related equipment and the cameras, and they weren't
communicating well and a lot of the equipment was out of
service and each could point at the other.
I also came to the conclusion--and I will let General
Alston speak for himself--that the federal oversight needed to
be improved. It was--serious security issues existed before
this episode and no one at DOE that we saw was really on top of
detecting them and correcting them.
There was issues associated with the protective force,
ensuring appropriate training. There was an issue associated
with the, obviously, the behavior of the first responder. There
were many issues associated with the protective force that need
to be addressed. We need to find a clear trajectory for these
people. We need to make sure that they have a sense that they
are an important part of the team and integrated with the team.
I think that all of us came to the view--and this has been
emphasized this morning--that one of the things needs to change
is the culture. There has to be a security culture that places
both safety and security as highest priorities, and that
management by its word and deed reinforces that, and that
everyone at the site realizes that it is their individual
responsibility to assure security, and that clearly is
something that has been failing.
And finally, I think what I would add is a need for
balance. Clearly, this episode reflected issues associated with
physical security, but there are other security issues that
confront the Department, and in order to recognize, you need a
balance. There are cybersecurity issues, there are personnel
security issues, all of which need to be functioning, and one
ought to not, because it was an episode of physical security,
focus solely on that.
My views are explained more fully in the letter that was
submitted as part of the record, and I welcome the opportunity
to talk to you this morning.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. General, I promised you I would have
you go first. I apologize for the confusion there, but you are
recognized now for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF C. DONALD ALSTON
General Alston. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member DeGette,
members of the subcommittee, I would only briefly amplify what
my colleague has so well described as Mr. Augustine's, Dr.
Meserve's, and my efforts on behalf of Dr. Chu and the
Department of Energy. I would only amplify one particular
point, and that would be the culture piece.
We have talked this morning--the first panel engaged you in
conversation using some of the expressions that we found to be
of concern, ``eyes on, hands off'' for example, and that
expression is something that came out of just the last couple
years of policy changes. But as has been reinforced over and
over again, the recurring challenges, the similar recurring
challenges, go beyond the ``eyes on, hands off'' policy
emphasis that had occurred over the last years, and I think
that at the center of the challenge for the Department is the
cultural change. And one aspect of the cultural change that
is--that feeds the cultural challenges is the distributed
management, the way the Department distributes its management
across its labs, and the labs prefer and are very successful in
their pursuit of the distance between the headquarters and the
labs themselves, and the freedom of movement that they have,
and this has great value, I would concede, on the science
piece, but I think that that contributes--the security, in
fact, needs to have more central--management central emphasis,
common standards, and what I have observed is that you see
people talk about mission, which I read as science. People talk
about safety, and there is more of a pervasive safety culture,
if you will. But security is not everybody's responsibility,
and it is as if mission, safety, and security are in a trade
space where when there is an emphasis on security because of an
episodic failure, the other elements of mission and safety see
the focus on safety as to be marginally at the expense of the
other parts of the mission, as opposed to looking at it as an
enterprise challenge, and that, in fact, they don't share trade
space with each other, but in fact, are all essential every day
to mission success.
And with that, I thank the committee for the opportunity to
have dialogue this morning.
[The joint prepared statement of General Alston and Mr.
Meserve follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Murphy. Thank you very much.
Mr. Trimble, you have a chance for an opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID C. TRIMBLE
Mr. Trimble. Thank you, Chairman Murphy, Ranking Member
DeGette, members of the subcommittee. My testimony today
discusses DOE's and NNSA's management of the nuclear security
enterprise, and will focus on security, safety, and project and
contract management.
Multiple investigations into the security breach at Y-12
identified significant deficiencies in NNSA's security
organization, oversight, and culture. In response to the Y-12
security incident and the findings of these reports, DOE and
NNSA have taken a number of actions, including repairing
security equipment, reassigning key security personnel, and
firing the Y-12 protective force contractor. More recently, DOE
and NNSA's leadership committed to additional actions, such as
revamping the security oversight model. We have not evaluated
these recent actions but will examine them as part of our
ongoing review on security reform for this committee.
The key question underlying this work will be whether DOE's
actions to address the security breakdowns at Y-12 will produce
sustained improvements in security across the nuclear security
enterprise.
DOE has a long history of security breakdowns and an
equally long history of instituting responses and remedies to
fix these problems. The recent testimony the leader of the NNSA
security task force examining the Y-12 incident identified
problems at NNSA's federal security organization, including
poorly defined roles and responsibilities for its headquarters
and field staff, inadequate oversight and assessments of
secured activities, problems ensuring that security
improvements are implemented, and failing to ensure adequate
staffing. Notably, in 2003, we reported on these same problems,
problems which have persisted or resurfaced, notwithstanding
numerous DOE initiatives to fix or address them.
In examining the security incident at Y-12, it is also
important to remember that NNSA's security problems have not
been limited to Y-12. In March of 2009, we reported on numerous
and wide-ranging security deficiencies at Livermore,
particularly in the ability of Livermore's protective forces to
ensure the protection of special nuclear material and the
laboratory's protection control of classified material. We also
identified Livermore's physical security systems, such as
alarms and sensors, and its security assurance activities as
areas needing improvement. Weaknesses in Livermore's contractor
self-assessment program and the Livermore site office's
oversight of the contractor contributed to these security
deficiencies at the laboratory.
Los Alamos experienced a number of high profile security
incidents in the '90s that were subject to numerous
congressional hearings, including some held by this committee.
Subsequently, security evaluations through 2007 identified
other persistent systemic security problems, including
weaknesses in controlling protecting classified resources,
inadequate controls over special nuclear matter, inadequate
self-assessment activities, and weaknesses in the process Los
Alamos uses to ensure that corrects identified security
deficiencies. In October of 2009, we found weaknesses at Los
Alamos in protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and
availability of information stored on and transmitted over its
classified computer network.
Regarding safety, in September of 2012, we testified before
this subcommittee, noting that DOE's recent safety reforms may
have actually weakened independent oversight. Notably, since
this recent testimony, reports by DOE and the safety board have
continued to identify safety concerns at Y-12, Pantex, and Los
Alamos.
Regarding project management, DOE has made progress in
managing the costs and scheduled non-major projects, those
costing less than $750 million, and in recognition of this
progress, GAO has narrowed the focus of our high risk
designation to major contracts and projects. Major projects,
however, continue to pose a challenge for DOE and NNSA. In
December of 2012, we reported that the estimated cost to
construct the waste treatment and immobilization plant in
Hanford, Washington, had tripled to $12.3 billion since its
inception in 2000, and the scheduled completion date had
slipped nearly a decade to 2019. Moreover, we found that DOE
had prematurely rewarded the contractor for resolving technical
issues and completing work. We have reported on similar
problems with the CMR facility at Los Alamos, the EPF project
at Y-12, and the MOX project at Savannah River.
In conclusion, over a decade after NNSA was created to
address security issues, the Y-12 security incident has raised
concern that NNSA has still not embraced security as an
essential element of its mission. The numerous actions that DOE
and NNSA are taking to address its security problems will
require effective implementation across the complex. Without
this and strong and sustained leadership, these recent reforms,
like past efforts, may not have a lasting impact on the
security, performance, or culture of the agency.
Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions you
may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Trimble follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. We will go through these quickly.
I want to start off. Dr. Meserve, one of the messages from
your work and General Alston's work is the lack of an embedded
security culture from DOE headquarters on down through the
various nuclear weapons complex facilities. As a former
chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, you have
experience with embedded safety culture. Am I correct on that?
Mr. Meserve. That is correct.
Mr. Murphy. And the lessons--what lessons, from your
experience of NRC regulation of the civilian nuclear industry
can apply to establishing strong security culture at DOE's
facilities and operations? Can you give us an example?
Mr. Meserve. Well, let me say that I think that perspective
of the NRC has been that a safety culture is the critical
foundation for ensuring the safe operations of the plants. That
without that commitment, you have a problem that in regardless
of how detailed the requirements are, ultimately you have to
demand the people fulfill their obligations and take
responsibility, and the safety culture, which is something that
affects everyone in the plant, is the foundation.
So I came to this project with that perspective, and I
think that, as has been mentioned, and General Alston
emphasized this in his remarks, is that culture is the critical
ingredient, and that is something that has to change to have
something that will be sustained over time. People see this as
responsible as their clear responsibility at every level at the
facility and at headquarters.
Mr. Murphy. And that is the same as sustained training for
security personnel, I am assuming?
Mr. Meserve. It means sustained training. It means a
responsibility of everyone in the plant, when they see a
problem, to raise that issue up. If their immediate supervisor
doesn't take it up, it means going above that person. It means
having a system in place so that no one is--faces any
discipline or discrimination as a result of the fact that they
have raised an issue like that. It is people to be rewarded if
they take initiative to respond. And that is the sort of thing
you need in the security area as well.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you.
General Alston, you stated in your report that nuclear
weapons sites leverage their unique missions and geography to
justify a preferred, what you called ``alone and unafraid''
mantra, and that DOE and NNSA headquarters has employed a
largely hands off response. What do you mean by ``alone and
unafraid?''
General Alston. Mr. Chairman, at Y-12 specifically, earlier
in the year, earlier in calendar year 2012, the site security
apparatus had upgraded their security system, and they--there
was a multi-$100 million option, and this was still a very
expensive option of, I can't remember, $60 to $70 million. And
so they went forward with this $60 to $70 million modification
to their overall security capability at the site, but when they
deployed that capability early in the year, it had flaws that
needed to be worked out, and that was widely known, but they
operated anyway, generated hundreds of alarms, false alarms or
nuisance alarms a month, conditioned the force, I would argue,
to not respond with urgency because they were being conditioned
that the alarms are systemic shortcomings. There was--they
moved towards the accounting for the alarms and less running to
the sounds of the guns, which I think was manifested on the
morning of July 28, because of the delayed response, because it
was another false or nuisance alarm, if you will. And in that
whole effort, though, was--from my perspective--was Y-12 saw a
way to improve its security, and in my view, I saw evidence
they conceived, designed, developed, and deployed this
capability at Y-12, defending their unique geographical
challenges to secure that facility, and in making their, if you
will, one off approach to this, to be dominant between the
relationship between Y-12 and the headquarters. And so there
was not evidence of a strong, disciplined, central management
of security modifications so that the field can, soup to nuts,
take a look at what they determined to be shortcomings, and
then worked the solution set on their own without what I think
is more appropriate, a good operational test evaluation program
where someone is accountable in the headquarters for the next
gate you go, and that nobody lives with a sub-optimized system
that is not operating perfectly on day one.
Mr. Murphy. Is this systemic across NNSA?
General Alston. Well, we found a different approach at
Pantex. I can't tell you the current state of this, so maybe
Dr. Meserve can amplify this, but the ARGOS system, and I can't
tell you what the acronym stands for, but it is a comprehensive
security approach that is present at all of their sites. But
depending on how you manipulate part of the overall ARGOS
architecture at your particular site, they may not be precisely
identical at each one of the facilities. So as these folks were
trying to integrate the changes to their security apparatus and
blend in to this ARGOS concept, there is so much freedom of
movement at each one of the sites that I think there is great
opportunity being missed trying to centralize common standards
and force a common approach and making the sites defend being
different than the common approach, as apposed to right now,
which is give them the benefit of the doubt that they need to
support the one off approach and that the common standards get
subordinated to the unique approach. I don't know if I said
that right.
Mr. Murphy. Thank you. That helps a lot, but as this goes
through, I can't help, as I am hearing these stories about
security issues, too, of the people watching the radar on Pearl
Harbor on December 7 said oh, pay no attention to those blips,
that is just probably our planes coming over, or on 9/11. These
things continue on, and hope that the security force is not
going to just look past these things. I mean, to recognize a
situation like this, as Mr. Meserve, you put in your letter
that sometimes training of terrorists is to look
nonthreatening, and you have to be ready for deadly force, and
this could have ended up in a deadly situation, and we are
hoping these things are avoided in the future.
I am out of time. I am going to go Ms. DeGette now from
Colorado.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Trimble, when you were reciting the whole litany of
problems that we have had with the various labs, it was like I
was reliving my congressional career. So I want to ask you,
have you read General Finan's report?
Mr. Trimble. Yes, I have.
Ms. DeGette. And what is your opinion of her
recommendations?
Mr. Trimble. You know, all the recommendations sound sound.
We have not done a full evaluation or anything of that nature.
I think our reaction to the reports, as well as the actions DOE
has already taken is sort of the proof is in the pudding.
Ms. DeGette. Yes, so you think it is a good direction, but
you want to make sure it gets implemented?
Mr. Trimble. Yes, and I think even more than that, it would
be where is the implementation plan?
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Mr. Trimble. So we have got a lot of oK, we are going to do
this, we are going to do that, but where is the DOE summary of
all of these efforts saying hey, this is our assessment of all
this good work these people have done, and here is our plan
with metrics and dates and who is accountable going forward.
Ms. DeGette. OK. And General, have you read General Finan's
report?
General Alston. No, ma'am, I have not.
Ms. DeGette. OK.
General Alston. Her report was in draft while we were
essentially commissioned by Secretary Chu.
Ms. DeGette. Are you familiar with her recommendations?
General Alston. I am familiar with a lot of them. I
couldn't recite them for you.
Ms. DeGette. I am not asking you to. Good news, I only have
5 minutes.
So my question, though, is do you think she is going in the
right direction with her recommendations, based on your
assessments?
General Alston. I do. Where I was encouraged particularly
by her approach was trying to certainly recognize the field
shortcomings, but the headquarters chain----
Ms. DeGette. Right.
General Alston [continuing]. Needs to be fixed, and it
needs a solid focus on it.
Ms. DeGette. It needs to be clarified, right?
General Alston. Absolutely.
Ms. DeGette. Yes, what about you, Dr. Meserve?
Mr. Meserve. My response would be the same.
Ms. DeGette. OK. Now every few years--I alluded to this in
my previous questioning. Every few years, some in Congress
suggest that NNSA should be autonomous. From oversight last
year, the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act
that included a provision providing additional autonomy from
oversight by this committee, for example, for NNSA. Luckily,
this language was not in the final law and part of our job is
to make sure that we have adequate oversight, so we are glad it
wasn't in the final law. I think, and all of us on this
committee think, the Y-12 security breach shows that the NNSA
is simply not ready for that level of autonomy that the
National Defense Authorization Act contemplated.
So General, I want to ask you and Mr. Meserve, were any of
the issues you identified caused by a lack of autonomy for
contractors and those who worked for Y-12? Were they caused by
a lack of autonomy?
General Alston. I would say that the consequence of the
relationship between the semi-autonomous nature of NNSA and the
Department of Energy did cause a conflict in ambiguity for
policy, and so, the NNSA was dependent upon Department of
Energy apparatus for independent inspection by HSS and the
Inspector General properly so.
Ms. DeGette. So what you are saying is the autonomy that
they had actually caused some of the problems?
General Alston. That they didn't have sufficient autonomy
for them to be exclusively accountable for the failure.
Ms. DeGette. OK, and that was because they were partially
reporting to DOE?
General Alston. Because the field would look up the chain
of command, and there were limits to how beholden they were to
the NNSA because certain policy elements were the purview and
domain of organizations in the headquarters that were outside
the----
Ms. DeGette. So it was because it wasn't fish or fowl, they
were semi-autonomous, right?
General Alston. Yes, ma'am, and Dr. Meserve may have a
better way to say this from our perspective.
Ms. DeGette. Dr. Meserve?
Mr. Meserve. I think that part of the problem was not the
autonomy of NNSA but the fact that there is a very confusing
structure.
Ms. DeGette. Within the agency.
Mr. Meserve. If something was simplified and then clear
lines of authority and responsibility is what is necessary.
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Mr. Meserve. That could be done with an autonomous NNSA. It
could be done with the current structure, but having clear
guidelines of who is in charge of what.
Ms. DeGette. The problem wasn't--yes, I got you. The
problem wasn't whether it was autonomous or not, the problem
was there wasn't a chain of command.
I want to ask you very quickly, Mr. Trimble, do you think
that--does the GAO believe that NNSA's issues can be solved
through a simple structural change?
Mr. Trimble. We have previously testified that we do not.
We think the issues that need to be addressed can be done with
the current structure, and again, it is cultural changes,
sustained effort.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. Murphy. The gentlelady yields back.
Now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, thank
you for being with us today.
Dr. Meserve, if the Department of Energy office responsible
for independent oversight is subjected to political retaliation
for conducting that oversight, how would that impact their
ability to remain objective and independent, in your view?
Mr. Meserve. Well I mean, the obvious danger is that if
they are being criticized for doing their job that they will
then back off doing what they are supposed to be doing. And so
I think that that would be unfortunate, that if they didn't
have a clear view of what their obligations were and their
mission is.
Mr. Johnson. OK. General Alston, what is your view of the
importance of independent oversight?
General Alston. I think that it is appropriately integrated
in a mosaic of sensors and indicators to tell you how sturdy
your readiness, or in this case, the quality of the security. I
think that if you move too much towards depending on
independent inspection and evaluation, you are missing great
opportunity to have--to defend yourself against crisis. You are
focused on defending against crisis and ultimate failure, but
you are not taking advantage of building routine relationships
and seeing whether or not your organization has the capacity to
recognize failure when the conditions begin to present
themselves. If you need someone outside to tell you how ready
you are, you may not have the skill yourself to know yourself.
So I believe it needs to be a mosaic of inputs that are
converging at the right level to give the leadership at the
local, intermediate, and the higher levels the competency and
the confidence in just what the quality of the performance of
the unit is.
Mr. Johnson. I couldn't agree with you more, and it is
analogous to--I know in my 26\1/2\ year career in the Air
Force, you have your unit mission, you have standards and
evaluation who are the internal looks, eyes, and ears to make
sure that you are following those rules, but you also have the
Inspector General who takes a look from the outside, and both
are very, very important.
Back to the issue, though, of political retaliation. To
both of you, what impact would political retaliation have on
safety and security, the culture of safety and security? You
mentioned, Dr. Meserve, that people would just stop.
Mr. Meserve. Well, you need to have a system that
reinforces the priority that is to be given for safety and
security, and that anything that interferes with the capacity
for people to have a willingness to confront those issues
honestly and to address them thoroughly is a detriment to
achievement of safety and security. And that could be through
political process, through fear of retaliation by a superior,
there is any number of things that could affect it, but the
point here is to keep your eye on the ball and anything that
distracts you from that is a negative factor.
Mr. Johnson. Sure.
Mr. Meserve. And I couldn't agree more with General Alston
is that one ought not to anticipate that you are counting on
oversight function as your primary means to prevent shortfalls.
That responsibility has to be in the line organization that is
responsible for the job, and they should be held accountable
for it. The oversight is a protective mechanism to make sure
that they are fulfilling their function adequately and
appropriately.
Mr. Johnson. Absolutely.
General Alston. And sir, I would add just one point, and
that is if you don't have at a grass roots level the kind of
environment where the folks will come forward to expose
weakness and challenge, you are not going to get to the self-
critical culture--the level of self-critical culture that you
really need in this business where the stakes are so high.
Mr. Johnson. Yes, I couldn't agree with you more.
General, given the site's, I quote, ``alone and unafraid''
posture, how important, in your opinion, are standardization,
benchmarking, and best practices to achieving and sustaining
high security levels?
General Alston. Sir, clearly they feed every day. When you
can, on a routine level, have the lines of communication
sufficiently open where there is collaborative process, and
standards don't have to be issued from above, there can be
collaboration. It builds trust, it builds flow of information
up and down the chain. Myself and Mr. Augustine came to the
conclusion that the federalization of the correct protective
force should be given serious consideration, and the reason--I
am a unity of command guy, and that creates a seam with the
operator, who is enriching uranium or whatever the other part
of the mission would be, and so it is a little odd for me to
have come down on this side. But for precisely the reasons of
standardization and more centralized control and impact that I
felt that that would be one means by which that could be
achieved.
Mr. Johnson. Well thank you. Mr. Chairman, I actually do
have one more question, if it would please the chair that I
could ask it, otherwise I will yield back.
Mr. Murphy. We will give you an additional minute.
Mr. Johnson. OK.
General Alston, one final question. General Finan's task
force noted a distinct bias against finding and stating
performance criticisms. You stated your belief that one of the
attributes of a security organization is, and I quote, ``an
absolute intolerance for shortfalls, deficiencies, outages 1
minute longer than necessary.'' What must happen for NNSA to
transition from General Finan's assessment to the attribute
that you describe?
General Alston. I played an active role as the Air Force
was recovering from its epic failures. I was required to
produce a road map, and there were a lot--obviously we were on
fire, and there were a lot of activities that had to go on
there. But one of the things that we instituted was to find
structural mechanisms to prove leadership commitment, and so
the Chief and Secretary created a nuclear oversight board that
met quarterly, and it was a forum where everyone with nuclear
equities at the senior level would meet. But it was a forum
where you could expose whatever level of detail that you wanted
to expose, and in the case of the failure that we saw at Y-12,
it wouldn't require so much the senior levels at NNSA, but
there needs to be a process where the connection is reinforced
so that you are tracking outages to the right level, and for
example--or equipment shortages, and that there is a recurring
forum so that routine interaction can fortify commitment to the
security part of the enterprise.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, General.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Murphy. All right, now recognize the gentleman from New
York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The obvious major part of NNSA's work is security, but
equally important is providing their employees with a safe
working environment. The consequences of safety failures are
serious and for example, in October of '07, GAO reported that
nearly 60 serious accidents or near-misses had occurred at
NNSA's national labs since 2000. Just to give one example, GAO
described a 2004 accident where a student working at the NNSA
facility at Los Alamos was blinded in a laser accident.
Mr. Trimble, you had indicated in your testimony that GAO
has been conducting assessments of safety at NNSA for quite
some time, and while I heard some of the results being
mentioned here, I am more--I would like to know, more
importantly, how the agency is fairing. Are they getting better
at addressing safety concerns?
Mr. Trimble. I would like to say yes, but as of now, I
can't say that our work is showing that. I think one of the
things that is relevant to the discussion today that ties into
the safety and security reform initiatives from 2010 is we have
previously reported that those initiatives did not address our
concerns previously expressed regarding the safety culture at
NNSA and specifically, we noted that some of those reforms we
viewed weakened federal independent oversight by making HSS's
role sort of more of a ``Mother, may I'' in terms of being able
to come in and inspect facilities. And I think in our testimony
as well, we note since our last testimony on these matters in
the fall, there have been numerous other safety incidents that
have been reported. So our concerns necessarily continue.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. You also made mention, and I will
quote, that ``they have not demonstrated sustained improvements
in terms of their safety reforms.'' Can you tell us about
NNSA's recent efforts to reform those measures in terms of
safety protocols?
Mr. Trimble. I don't know about protocols, per se. I think
the 2010 safety initiative, the reform initiative, you did a
lot to--there is a lot of good in there in terms of
consolidating or rationalizing directives, et cetera. Again, as
I noted, we saw problems with it, but as with security, the
issue is one of sustainment. You go through these same periods
of an accident happens, it gets attention, you have remedial
measures, and then attention wanes and you go through the same
cycle once again.
Mr. Tonko. So then what should the agency do or be doing to
promote or improve worker's safety?
Mr. Trimble. Well, I think again it is--one, it is a
continued and sustained effort in addressing sort of a cultural
issues that have crept in. I think you see, just as in security
where you have the divide between headquarters and the field
units, there is a divide there in terms of the importance and
differing perceptions, perhaps, of the level of importance this
sort of mission holds.
Mr. Tonko. And in terms of any oversight protections?
Mr. Trimble. In terms of oversight? Well, independent--
clearly, we haven't been on the record in terms of having
robust independent oversight, much like in the security realm,
so bolstering the role of HSS in that regard I think is
essential.
Mr. Tonko. OK. I will yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Murphy. Thank the gentleman, and I want to say that for
all the panelists, I thank you today, both panels. I also want
to note that certainly at times like this when we have hearings
about security issues, security breaches, there are those who
want to see where weaknesses are. They certainly take note of
the comments made, and we recognize a lot of the things are
being done for security remain certainly in the classified
levels. But in a situation like this, I think it gives the
ranking member and I and members of both sides of the Aisle
confidence to know that actions are being taken, because in a
world where terrorists on any level may take action against our
interests at site such as this or other ones, that our Nation
will be strong and stand up and prevent problems in the future
with this. And so we thank you for your comments and good
Americans to help us with that security.
I ask unanimous consent that the contents of the document
binder and all the Majority memos be introduced into the
record, and authorize staff to make appropriate redactions.
Without objection, the documents will be entered into the
record with any redactions the staff determines appropriate.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Murphy. And in conclusion, again, thank you to all the
witnesses. I remind members they have 10 business days to
submit questions for the record, and I ask all the witnesses
agree to respond promptly to the questions.
This committee is now adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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