Nuclear Security

Although it is critical that the nation's stock of nuclear materials be properly secured and safeguarded, routine Department of Energy (DOE) security inspections in 1989 and 1990 uncovered more than 2,100 security deficiencies at 39 of its contractor-run weapons facilities. This report reviews attempts by DOE operating contractors to correct security deficiencies and examines how DOE supervises such contractor efforts. GAO evaluated 20 security deficiency cases at four nuclear weapons facilities and found that contractors are not adequately conducting four of the eight procedures considered necessary to ensure proper correction of deficiencies. The contractors cannot always prove that they have done three critical analyses--root cause, risk assessment, and cost-benefit--and do not always adequately verify that corrective actions are appropriate, effective, and complete. At the same time, DOE oversight has been hampered by computer system incompatibility. DOE reviews of contractors' corrective action plans are sometimes untimely, and DOE cannot always show that it has validated contractors' corrective actions.

GAO found that: (1) contractors could not demonstrate that they had considered risk assessment, root cause, or cost-benefit analyses that DOE required them to conduct for security deficiencies; (2) although there is no explicit requirement that contractors verify corrective actions, the contractors conducted adequate verification in most of the 20 cases reviewed; (3) DOE field offices and contractors had developed or were developing automated systems to track safeguards and security weaknesses, but system incompatibilities prohibited electronic information sharing and retrieval, automated data entry, and pattern and trend analysis; (4) DOE field offices did not always submit quarterly status reports on deficiencies to update tracking systems; (5) DOE field offices did not timely review contractors' proposed corrective action plans for identified deficiencies, citing shortages of skilled personnel; and (6) DOE field offices did not always adequately validate corrective actions or document their validation of corrective actions, citing staff shortages and heavy workloads.

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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