Dateline: 01/28/02

Days after the NRC conceded that nuclear power plants could not be adequately protected against airborne terrorist attacks, a U.S. congressman has stated that America's nuclear weapons labs and storage sites are wide open to attack.

At a Jan. 22 press conference U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), criticized the Department of Energy for failing to shore up security gaps he says the agency has been aware of over twenty years. "Unfortunately, security is so lax at some nuclear weapons sites where these [nuclear] materials are kept, that terrorists could find what they needed to launch a nuclear attack right here in the United States of America," said Rep. Markey.

On Jan. 18, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve stated that NRC security advisers were unsure what would happen in the event "a large airliner, loaded with jet fuel crashed into a nuclear power plant." There are 103 nuclear power facilities in the United States. [See: NRC to Test Security at Nuclear Plants]

In his comments, Rep. Markey described a chilling scenario of terrorists gaining access to weapons-grade nuclear material stored at a Department of Energy facility. "It takes about one large soda can’s worth of weapon’s-grade plutonium or a volleyball’s worth of weapons-grade uranium to make a crude nuclear weapon," said the Congressman.

Like the NRC at nuclear power plants, the Department of Energy employs private contractors to provide security guards at the nation's nuclear research labs, like California's Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos in New Mexico. Contractors are provide security at nuclear waste storage facilities, like the infamous Hanford site near Richland, Washington.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Rep. Markey lists cases of security failures by private contractors and demands a complete accounting of security measures at all nuclear facilities under the Department of Energy.

For example, wrote Markey, the Energy Department "uses Army Special Forces and Navy SEAL units to test security through the use of force-on-force exercises. Even though the contractor force knows both the test date and the test design in advance, and even though the tests may not assume a level of terrorist threat that is realistic given the events of Sept. 11, contractor security forces reportedly still fail these exercises more than 50 percent of the time."

Other security weakness cited by Rep. Markey include:

• Weapons-grade uranium and plutonium stored in vaults "constructed out of drywall"
• Retaliation by the Energy Department against private security guards who voluntarily report security problems

Markey accused the Department of Energy's management of having a "long history of ignoring or retaliating against whistleblowers."