A bipartisan group of leaders of two House committees have sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) a letter expressing concerns over reported security vulnerabilities, the House Committee on Energy & Commerce (HCEC)announced recently.
The HCEC and the House Committee on Homeland Security pressed the NRC to immediately take action to mitigate shortcomings in its management of the buying and selling of radioactive materials, the HCEC announced Aug. 23. The letter was in response to a July report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which identified security gaps that terrorists "and other bad actors" could abuse to get materials to build and deploy a dirty bomb.
"As law enforcement has recently been under threats of violence," the members wrote in the letter, "the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security have observed calls for using dirty bombs against law enforcement, including suggesting the placement of one in front of FBI Headquarters.
"Moreover, officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration have assessed that bad actors are showing an increasing interest in making dirty bombs,” the letter states.
Committee members referred to a recent publication by the extremist group Terrorgram Collective which included "rough instructions" on using uranium ore to make a dirty bomb, called the "holy grail of terrorism," according to the letter.
The committee members referenced the undercover operation by the GAO which revealed weaknesses in the NRC's security controls for radioactive materials.
"Troublingly, GAO successfully created fake companies and forgedl icenses to procure Category 3 sources of radioactive material from two domestic vendors," the members wrote in the letter. "Notably, the domestic vendors followed all of NRC’s requirements in selling the radioactive material to GAO."
Corrective actions recommended by the committees include adding additional security features to improve and strengthen the NRC's licensing-verification procedures and processes. Members acknowledged steps taken by the NRC to mitigate the risks but stated also the current approach "will still take too long given the nature of the threat."
"The NRC has the authority to take immediate action to address known security gaps," the committee members wrote, "and we urge you to use this authority to implement GAO’s recommendations without further delay."
Signatories of the letter are Committee on Energy & Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), Committee on Homeland Security Ranking Member John Katko (R-New York), Committee on Homeland Security Vice Chairman Ritchie Torres (D-New York) and Committee on Homeland Security Vice Ranking Member Michael Guest (R-Miss.).
“The possibility of nefarious actors being able to buy such dangerous quantities of radiological material should be a call to immediate action,” the Members wrote in their letter. “The threat is real."
