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Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Gaps Remain in Nuclear Facility Security

The nation's commercial nuclear power plants are potential targets for terrorists seeking to cause the release of radioactive material. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), an independent agency headed by five commissioners, is responsible for regulating and overseeing security at the plants. In April 2003, in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, NRC revised the design basis threat (DBT), which describes the threat that plants must be prepared to defend against in terms of the number of attackers and their training, weapons, and tactics. NRC has also restructured its program for testing security at the plants through force-on-force inspections, which consist of mock terrorist attacks.

NRC revised the DBT for nuclear power plants using a generally logical and well-defined process in which trained threat assessment staff made recommendations for changes based on an analysis of demonstrated terrorist capabilities. The process resulted in a DBT requiring plants to defend against a larger terrorist threat, including a larger number of attackers, a refined and expanded list of weapons, and an increase in the maximum size of a vehicle bomb. Key elements of the revised DBT, such as the number of attackers, generally correspond to the NRC threat assessment staff's original recommendations, but other important elements do not. For example, the NRC staff made changes to some recommendations after obtaining feedback from stakeholders, including the nuclear industry, which objected to certain proposed changes such as the inclusion of certain weapons. NRC officials said the changes resulted from further analysis of intelligence information. Nevertheless, GAO found that the process used to obtain stakeholder feedback created the appearance that changes were made based on what the industry considered reasonable and feasible to defend against rather than on an assessment of the terrorist threat itself.

Nuclear power plants made substantial security improvements in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks and the revised DBT, including security barriers and detection equipment, new protective strategies, and additional security officers. It is too early, however, to conclude that all sites are capable of defending against the DBT because, as of November 1, 2005, NRC had conducted force-on-force inspections at about one-third of the plants. NRC has improved its force-on-force inspections--for example, by conducting inspections more frequently at each site. Nevertheless, in observing three inspections and discussing the program with NRC, GAO noted potential issues in the inspections that warrant NRC's continued attention. For example, a lapse in the protection of information about the planned scenario for a mock attack GAO observed may have given the plant's security officers knowledge that allowed them to perform better than they otherwise would have. A classified version of this report provides additional details about the DBT and security at nuclear power plants.