May 7, 2004
Remarks prepared for Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham
Good morning and thank you. Let me begin by saying what a pleasure it is being invited to speak to you at the 32nd Annual Security Police Officer Training Competition.
I am really honored to be part of this competition.
In each of my first three years at the head of the Department of Energy, sometime after the annual SPOTC competition wrapped up, the winners would visit the Forrestal Building in Washington. We would have a ceremony where I would present them with the Secretary’s Trophy customarily given to the competition’s champions.
This year, I am very glad to be able to come to the competition itself, and present the winners their trophy on the spot. More than that, I am glad to be with all those participating in this year’s competition.
You are an incredible group.
All of you represent the most skilled and capable elements of the protective forces at your respective DOE sites and other organizations, and I congratulate and commend you for the hard work, dedication and accomplishments that brought you here.
You are the best of an outstanding force that protects the Department of Energy complex. So I thought my appearance here would be a good opportunity to speak about my vision for security at DOE, and throughout the complex, in the 21st century – an era whose beginning was defined by the atrocities visited upon our nation on the morning of September 11, 2001.
The Department of Energy has facilities worth billions of dollars. We have many thousands of employees. Moreover, we are the custodians of national security assets that, simply put, must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.
It is our responsibility to protect all of that. Lives depend on it. Not just the lives of DOE employees, but millions of our fellow citizens.
We have protected the complex in the past; and we are protecting it now.
However, I have become convinced that we must make certain changes … we must improve … we must adapt to a world that changed three Septembers ago, if we are going to successfully protect this complex in the future.
So, today, I don’t intend to list the accomplishments of the last few years, though I am proud of the changes we have made and proud of your service, and that of your colleagues, to our country. Instead, what I would like to do this morning is give you my vision of what the state of security should look like at DOE in the next several decades, and what we need to do now to get started.
Near the end of last year, we created the Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance – SSA. I did this because, while I hold line managers accountable for effectively implementing security programs, I believed that the Department’s efforts to improve protection programs could be accelerated, and could yield more effective results, if relationships and interactions between Headquarters elements and the field were improved.
We created SSA to implement a new approach based on my firm belief that Headquarters security resources, working closely and collegially with the field, could increase the timeliness and effectiveness of protection program upgrades, and could ensure that appropriate security technologies could be deployed where and when needed.
I must say I am pleased by the results so far.
And, by and large, security throughout DOE is excellent.
But it has to be better.
We are all familiar with the reports of poor performance during force-on-force tests, of sleeping on duty, and of repeatedly losing keys.
For the most part, I am convinced they are rare lapses in security.
But frankly, rare or not, they are unacceptable -- and the failure of any and all levels of management to address instances such as these will not be tolerated.
My philosophy on security is quite simple: When it comes to the security of a Department with the responsibilities ours has – of maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile, providing nuclear propulsion for the Navy, and coordinating global nonproliferation efforts – there is no room for error.
To ensure that this philosophy guides our day-to-day security efforts throughout the Department, it is essential we take a number of important, concrete steps.
Let me start with information security.
In an age of computers, the Internet, and other amazing advances, we have to give a 21st century focus to our security apparatus.
Our nation has become increasingly aware of cyber threats in many critical arenas.
Because of this, DOE must take the necessary actions to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all of our information systems to assure that we can continue to perform our missions even while under cyber attack.
So, today, I am announcing several new initiatives. First, I am directing the Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance – or SSA – through its Office of Cyber Security and Special Reviews, to expand its performance testing of DOE information systems, including the use of “red teaming,” no-notice vulnerability scanning and penetration testing of unclassified information systems, and expanded testing of classified systems.
Only through universal and rigorous performance testing can we identify our actual and potential vulnerabilities to existing and emerging cyber threats, and only by knowing of these vulnerabilities can we eliminate them.
Second, I am announcing a Cyber Security Enhancement Initiative that will:
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Ensure instantaneous dissemination of cyber threat information throughout the Department;
- select and deploy expanded intrusion detection systems to rapidly identify potential hostile cyber attacks;
- develop and implement policies and procedures to minimize the exposure of DOE information systems to Internet threats;
- improve cyber security and cyber security awareness through enhanced workforce training;
- and refine policies and implement processes to enhance operational security of publicly available online information, by assuring that inappropriate collections of information are not available on our web sites and servers.
Most of these actions should be completed within the next year. There are also a number of longer term actions included in this initiative, involving the development and deployment of advanced methods and tools associated with such tasks as intrusion detection, malicious mobile code detection, and improved configuration management and vulnerability scanning of desktops, servers, and networks.
Third, we should work toward a more secure approach for classified desktop computing. We have had problems in the past with classified hard drives and classified disks. To permanently eliminate the threat of such problems, I propose an initiative to move to diskless workstations for classified computing over the next five years. Drawing on the unparalleled expertise of our national laboratories, I am directing the Department’s CIO, in partnership with the NNSA, to evaluate and advance the state of the art in high-speed diskless computing technologies, so that in five years desktop weapons design functions can be performed in a diskless environment.
At that point, no insider would be able to transport classified data in electronic form outside the site on physical media. All physical media will be controlled under a two-man rule in central locations. The accidental movement of data would be dramatically reduced, and inventory and accountability of classified information will become simpler. And, in the meantime, we will continue to improve the aggressive accountability programs we have already put in place.
Now let me turn to other technology, and tell you how I think we can better employ it to enhance our protection systems and reduce some of the burden currently borne by the protective forces.
We in DOE pride ourselves on our technology. We are well known worldwide as a source of safeguards and security technology, and we have developed and applied such technologies for use by other Federal agencies and other governments.
It’s high time we take advantage of this technological base, and apply it more frequently to our own security needs. Technology can serve as a force multiplier to save protective force members from unnecessary risk in case of attack, and provide additional response time to meet and defeat an attack. I intend to use technology intelligently, and to our advantage.
Let’s start with something as simple as locks and keys.
We all know that we’ve experienced a number of problems with lost keys and key cards. This is not only unacceptable; it is also unnecessary.
Put simply, I intend to do away with the use of mechanical keys as an element of our protection system.
Keyless access control technology exists, and is currently in use at a small number of locations throughout the Department. These include swipe card/PIN combinations, mechanical and electronic cipher locks, and various types of biometric devices. We have not moved to these technologies on a large scale yet.
Today I am announcing an initiative to research and identify suitable technology alternatives that will enable the Department to transition, in phases over the next five years, to a keyless security environment, where access is not afforded by any physical item or object that can be lost or stolen.
This effort will begin with a pilot program in the National Nuclear Security Administration, and will later be expanded to appropriate facilities throughout the Department. The initiative will identify appropriate technological approaches to access control, identify technology areas that require further development, and provide seed funding for NNSA sites to begin our early transition to a keyless environment.
The fruits of this initiative will not only result in enhanced security but, over time, will bring greater cost effectiveness to our access control programs. The NNSA Office of Nuclear Safeguards and Security Programs will work jointly with the DOE Office of Security to deploy this technology initiative.
Today, the scientific community is developing new security technologies much faster than we can apply them. To allow us to get ahead of the technology curve, I have directed NNSA and SSA to establish a Blue Sky Commission charged with identifying emerging security technologies that we should invest in, or possibly modify for our use. This will be a long term effort to complement the near-term proposals I have just outlined, and will focus on technologies that could alter security over the coming decades.
The NNSA Administrator and the SSA Director have assured me that I will have their recommendations very soon. I look forward to receiving them, and moving on the adoption of promising technologies.
Now I’d like to turn to this Department’s responsibility for safeguarding the nation’s most dangerous nuclear materials at 11 DOE sites around the country – sites that require the highest levels of security.
Let me begin by strongly emphasizing that these materials are often closely tied to ongoing missions that are critical to our national security. But we do have to be mindful of the risks. Thus, we have a responsibility to balance the important work we do at our facilities, which is often critical to the war on terror, with protecting those very same facilities against the threat of terrorist acts.
Ultimately, I believe we need to both reduce the number of sites with Special Nuclear Material to the absolute minimum, consistent with carrying out our missions, and to consolidate the material in each of those sites to better safeguard that material.
We are already moving forward to consolidate nuclear materials. Already, we have accelerated a number of projects to close sites more quickly than previously thought possible.
Examples include the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site, Fernald, K-25, and others. We have a number of other facilities that will be de-inventoried soon in preparation for decontamination and decommissioning. These include the F canyon here at Savannah River, Building 3019 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the 100K basins, the Fast Flux Test Facility, and the Plutonium Finishing Plant at Hanford.
Critical to the consolidation effort is the availability of final storage locations. We have been discussing the shipment and storage of Special Nuclear Material with a number of state governors, Congressional delegations, and concerned citizens.
Based on these efforts, I believe we can achieve agreements that will allow our consolidation efforts to continue and even further accelerate in the future.
We have also included in our 2005 budget request funding to increase the transportation assets of the Office of Secure Transportation. This will enable us to maintain current shipment schedules and accommodate additional future shipments. In the meantime, we are considering other opportunities for consolidation.
For example, after operations of three years or perhaps less, the Sandia Pulsed Reactor will no longer be needed, since computer simulations will be able to assume its mission. This represents an intelligent substitution of advanced technology for brute force, and I applaud it. When its mission is complete, this reactor’s fuel will be removed from Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico, allowing us to reduce security costs at Sandia and further consolidate our nuclear materials.
Another important activity that we have embarked upon is the construction of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. This building is being designed from the beginning to emphasize not only operational needs, but also to provide unparalleled security to the Special Nuclear Materials stored there. This will be one of the best examples of applying security-oriented construction techniques and technology to the problem of securing materials.
In addition to providing enhanced protection for the materials within the HEU Materials Facility, completion of this building will allow us to perform an extensive on-site consolidation of the HEU stored at Y-12. In the next several months, the Department will issue a new RFP for construction of this facility on an expedited basis.
This consolidation will allow us to remove all the Category I and II Special Nuclear Material from two buildings within the Protected Area, allowing us to shrink the Protected Area to about half its present size. Shrinking the Protected Area will save substantial costs when a newly configured Perimeter Intrusion Detection and Assessment System is installed, and should allow us to more intelligently deploy our manpower.
Also, as we announced on March 31st of this year, all Category I and II Special Nuclear Material will be removed from Technical Area-18 at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This effort is proceeding, and the first material movements are expected to begin later this year. Once the material has been moved we will permanently end any use of TA-18 involving Category I or II Special Nuclear Material.
Finally, there have been a number of questions raised about other materials across the complex. I have asked our management team to look at three issues. First, we need to address how to resolve situations where materials are being stored at sites only because they do not meet the acceptance criteria for our longer-term storage sites.
Second, while the requirements of Stockpile Stewardship mean that we must retain nuclear materials at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory today, over the long term we should look for a better solution. I have previously told the Congress that I will conduct a review of the requirements for the weapons complex over the next 20 years. This study, which I expect to be completed early next year, will examine the implications of the President’s decisions on the size of our stockpile, of the new Design Basis Threat, and of the opportunities for consolidation that we are announcing today. As part of that review, we will consider whether certain essential work performed at Livermore could be relocated to allow us to remove the Category I and II material stored there.
Third, we need to explore whether we can down-blend substantial quantities of our HEU holdings. Potentially, this could yield a number of security benefits, but the programmatic impact of a major campaign of down-blending needs to be assessed. I have also directed NNSA to conduct a study to assess the down-blending of large quantities, perhaps as much as 100 tons, of the HEU stored at Y-12 and to assess the programmatic impacts of such a large campaign.
I have asked that each of these inquiries be completed by the end of the year.
Finally, in addition to enhancing technology and consolidating materials, I want to address what we must do to build a modern, efficient, effective guard force able to meet 21st century threats.
Let’s start with the threat. The change that has probably been most visible to you is the revised DOE Design Basis Threat that we issued last year.
This policy requires you to prepare to fight and defeat an adversary force much larger than we had previously thought. This has had a significant impact on you as protective force members, as well as on all other elements of our protection systems. In support of this effort, I have recently submitted to Congress a request for a $55 million reprogramming of NNSA funds for 2004.
However, I intend that we continually review and refine the threat and our responses to it. I have therefore directed the NNSA Administrator and the Directors of the Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance and the Office of Intelligence to re-examine the Design Basis Threat and the intelligence data supporting it in light of recent events and report back to me in 90 days. Moreover, I am directing that such a reassessment take place on an annual basis.
We must also address issues specifically concerning our protective forces.
As you know, we have established a stringent set of common qualification standards for DOE Security Police Officers, and a comprehensive training regimen to ensure that necessary individual and team skills are maintained.
The security personnel with us here today represent the very best, not just in the complex, but in the world. But, across the complex, the actual skill levels and qualifications of protective force members vary widely.
This is, unfortunately, a legacy of 9/11.
To staff up our protective forces to meet the current threat, we are working too much overtime. To keep the burden as low as possible, local managers have made decisions about what training is absolutely necessary to squeeze into everyone’s schedule, and what posts absolutely must be manned.
After two and a half years of this, there is insufficient uniformity in training. Meanwhile, staffing levels across the complex are no longer based on common criteria.
This obviously presents challenges, especially when the protective force at a site needs to be temporarily augmented by protective force members from other sites. At present, we have to depart far from our routine methods of operation to address such needs.
We have taken a number of steps to address these issues.
First, the Office of Security and Safety Performance Assurance has begun a set of changes at the National Training Center that will more closely focus their programs on basic DOE safeguards and security training. I believe this will soon result in training that is better tailored to the post-9/11 environment we are now facing.
Second, since 9/11, I have directed all sites to conduct more frequent force-on-force exercises to provide additional training opportunities for each of you.
Third, we have obtained authority from the Congress to use the Office of Personnel Management to perform some of our background investigations. This should greatly reduce the time required to complete the process of granting security clearances.
Of course, it is not just the protective forces that need to maintain the highest standards. It is their Federal overseers as well. Recently, a commission headed by Admiral Henry Chiles examined the specific needs of the National Nuclear Security Administration regarding the recruitment, development, and maintenance of security expertise.
Based on recommendations made in Admiral Chiles’s report, I have instructed NNSA to take several immediate steps to implement corrective actions. Most notably, we are establishing a safeguards and security Intern Program to focus on the recruitment of highly qualified technical personnel in the areas of cyber security, nuclear material control, and physical security.
I have also asked NNSA to put together a long-term human capital management program based on the report’s findings.
Finally, though the Chiles Report focuses on NNSA, I believe its recommendations can have application for the entire safeguards and security community at the Department of Energy. So I have instructed the top management of the Department to look for ways to extend Admiral Chiles’s recommendations to the entire Department.
Important as they are, these actions are just the beginning. If we are to continue to ensure the protection of our most important national assets, it is vital that we continue to challenge conventional thinking and strive for innovative new ways to enhance our security posture.
In the aftermath of 9-11, we have all admired the elite military units defending our country -- units like the Delta Force, the Rangers, or the SEALS. Today, in this room and in some parts of the Department, we have units that meet this same high level of excellence.
But I foresee a future in which we have transformed all of the protective forces that have direct responsibility for the protection of our most sensitive assets, such as Category I and II Special Nuclear Materials, into a force with that kind of elite mission focus.
The hallmark of this force will be advanced tactical skills, intensive training, and the highest professional and physical fitness standards.
When such a force is created, it will also allow us to address some of the issues that I know concern all of you, such as uniform employment conditions throughout the complex, and allow us to consider new benefits tailored to your important national defense mission – such as a 20 year retirement option, for example – as well as other issues you have raised through your union representatives and protective force management.
Achieving this vision may be a challenge, but we must have a common standard of excellence throughout our protective forces.
There are a number of options we are considering to accomplish this vision. And since the stakes are so high, I have to insist that everything is on the table.
It may mean implementing common contract language for protective force contracts complex-wide, and requiring all field elements to award independent protective force contracts separate from site management and operating contracts.
It may mean awarding a common, complex-wide protective force contract for, at a minimum, those protective force elements that protect Category I and II SNM.
And it may mean establishing a special, elite federal force for protection of Category I and II SNM.
After getting input from various quarters and various experts – including from people here – we will make our decisions and recommendations. I expect that within two years we will have a program that will enable us to improve and build our protective forces into a uniform group capable of fully meeting the immense challenges of an ever changing security environment.
Let me put it into terms I hope everyone here can appreciate: We are here today to honor you, because you are the best our protective services have to offer. You are the exceptional members of our protective forces.
I want all your colleagues to be as well trained and as well motivated as you. And we are committed to ensuring that happens.
Finally, all of these improvements that we seek – in our protective forces, in our cyber security efforts and our application of new technologies, and in how we store nuclear materials – must be accompanied by tangible management improvements that ensure that early warning systems are in place to detect process failures, with accountability and consequences for such failures.
That calls for a change in our management culture.
First, we must be willing to take constructive criticism, analyze it, and respond when appropriate. Too often, I see a reflexive dismissal of all ideas or suggestions not invented at DOE, whether they be from a member of Congress, a government oversight organization like the GAO, or an outside stakeholder organization like POGO. That is not how a first class organization behaves.
Second, as I told a gathering of DOE management two years ago:
I am concerned that too many employees believe that their only recourse to address system failures is to go to the media or the Inspector General.
And that is a result that should concern us all. It tells me that, fairly or unfairly, many of our employees believe that when they raise issues they will either be ignored, or, worse, harmed in terms of their career.
That is a failure of leadership. And starting with me, I expect every manager down the line to make clear that we expect these concerns to be taken seriously and addressed quickly and effectively.
This is a serious – and absolutely necessary – change. My view hasn’t altered a bit since I delivered those words. In my judgment, the system has not changed enough to that effect, but we are working on it.
My goal is this: We need a system where management is more responsive and where people don’t need to find a third party to get a fair hearing for their concerns.
The reason is plain: People should never have to be worried about the perils of doing their jobs honestly, safely, and correctly.
People should not be afraid to bring problems to the attention of management, or worried about facing retribution rather than receptiveness.
That is not a healthy working culture – and it sows the seeds of failure and inefficiency in other areas.
My expectation is that if we are able to implement a system – a culture – where people can legitimately air concerns, then everyone will benefit. Our workforce will be more effective. The public’s confidence in this Department will improve. And America’s security will be greatly enhanced.
That is a goal we should all aim for. It’s one that goes hand in glove with the other improvements we seek in constructing a 21st century security apparatus that is not just effective, but worthy of the fine men and women who make up the Department of Energy.
So, these are the broad directions in which our security apparatus must move in order to meet the challenges the future holds. We are committed to putting them into effect. We are committed to making bold changes where necessary because, ultimately, the Department of Energy complex, our assets, our employees, and our fellow countrymen deserve and require the highest levels of security.
All of the initiatives I have described today are designed to build and support the most robust and motivated protective force in the world. We will therefore do what it takes to recruit, train and appropriately compensate the outstanding men and women who have chosen to assume the responsibility of securing this nation’s strategic deterrence capability.
In closing, I want you to know that I recognize the sacrifices that you have made and the burden you have borne, particularly since 9/11, and that I am deeply gratified by your effort and dedication.
But let us never forget what happened on 9/11. We must understand that the war on terror is likely to last a long time. And we must be vigilant against the possibility that the terrorists will to try to hit us again in our homeland.
I will do everything I can to give you all the tools you need to defeat that threat. I know that if we do so, then our complex and country will be protected because of the quality of talent and commitment you bring to your positions.
Thank you for your service to our nation.