Nuclear Security

Safeguards and Security Planning at DOE Facilities Incomplete Gao ID: RCED-93-14 October 30, 1992

High-risk vulnerabilities may be going undetected at Department of Energy (DOE) field facilities because of ineffective safeguards and security planning. Protection plans, many of which have been in the works for years, remain incomplete for a large number of DOE's sensitive facilities and most of its sites. Although DOE has cited various reasons--such as lack of staff or changes in mission--to explain the situation, GAO believes that the underlying problem is DOE's lack of commitment to the planning process. According to DOE officials, the agency's proposal to improve the process by requiring a new overall plan may actually further complicate the process. They believe that the modified planning process could further delay the safeguards and security plans because many plans now being prepared will have to be rewritten and because work required to develop vulnerability assessments will be increased. GAO agrees that implementation of the revised process could increase the amount of vulnerability assessment work, further delaying the completion of plans. In GAO's view, it is important for DOE to complete the remaining sensitive facility plans.

GAO found that: (1) as of September 1992, DOE had not completed safeguards and security plans for 15 of its 27 sensitive facilities; (2) DOE may not complete many of the unfinished sensitive facility plans for some time because field offices have not completed vulnerability assessments for 8 of the 15 facilities; (3) reasons cited for slow progress in completing plans include lack of field office and headquarters staff to adequately support the planning effort and evolving program guidance throughout the planning process; (4) more than three-fourths of the safeguards and security plans for the sites surrounding the sensitive facilities were not complete as of September 1992; and (5) modifications to streamline and improve the DOE safeguards and security planning process include combining sensitive facility and site plans into one overall summary document, issuing a guide to facilitate the preparation of the document, and reorganizing the program offices to better monitor field offices' compliance with safeguards and security requirements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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