Paul M. Longsworth, Deputy Administrator for Defense
Nuclear Nonproliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration
Panel Chairman:
Ambassador Linton F. Brooks, Administrator,
National Nuclear Security Administration and Under Secretary
of Energy for Nuclear Security
Controlling and Accounting
for Existing Fissile Material, Pre-empting and Preventing
the Creation of Weapons-Grade Fissile Material
LONGSWORTH: Thank you. I am Paul Longsworth and I’m the Deputy
Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration,
which is an entity within the Department of Energy and
as Ambassador Brooks pointed out, I do work for him.
I’m not sure which is worse, actually speaking
on a panel with your boss or speaking on a panel where
your boss has an opportunity to rebut your comments.
But I have been speaking at several conferences like
this recently and I also have to say, following Dr.
Scheinman’s comments, is kind of like following
Warren Buffett at an investment conference. I also feel
kind of inadequate.
You’ve heard a lot
today about President Eisenhower’s seminal 1953
speak and for good reason. You know, his vision was,
in retrospect really quite remarkable. He recognized
that his true legacy would be to help mankind in his
words, “solve the fearful atomic dilemma by finding
the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man,
shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated
to his life.”
What’s interesting
is that today, 50 years later, the fundamental dilemma
that Eisenhower so aptly articulated remains. While
the challenges to the international nuclear nonproliferation
regime have become increasingly complex. The men and
the women and the scientists and the technicians who
work on the programs that we carry out, they confront
this dilemma everyday. They carry out programs to reduce
the global danger of weapons of mass destruction.
And the mission of my
office is, broadly speaking, is to reduce the proliferation
threats and we carry out our work through a broad range
of programs, to secure nuclear material in Russia and
elsewhere, to reduce stockpiles of excess fissile materials
including in the United States, to help transition Russia’s
nuclear weapons resources toward peaceful, commercial
viable endeavors, and to undertake cutting edge research
and development to assess whether other people are following
the rules.
It’s a broad challenge
and it’s a central part of all the work that we
do, particularly the work that we do with the IAEA.
Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech
set forth two principles, which have influenced and
continue to influence our nonproliferation programs.
First, it proposed the peaceful use of atomic energy
should be available to all responsible nations, and
that’s, Dr. Scheinman pointed out in Article Four
and other parts of the NPT treaty.
But it also called for the international community to
establish an organization that could safeguard fissile
material worldwide through the cooperation of its member
states, which he also noted as very clear in Article
Four. These principles have helped shaped the evolution
of nuclear nonproliferation regime over the past 50
years and it is the centerpiece of our nonproliferation
efforts worldwide. It’s also a testament to Eisenhower’s
vision. The agency the he called for, the IAEA, has
played a substantial role in upholding world nuclear
nonproliferation regime and I would note that it actually
makes civilian nuclear energy palatable.
The United States continues
to take steps to make the IAEA even more effective as
a mechanism for confronting today’s complex proliferation
threats. Secretary Abraham and Ambassador Brooks have
played critical roles in supporting this. The Secretary
has had three delegations to the IAEA General Conference.
He is called for and hosted and international conference
on raising awareness on radiological dispersion devices
and I believe he’s the first secretary of energy
to every speak to the IAEA Board of Governors. He’s
invested a lot of time.
But most importantly he’s
invested time in establishing a strong relationship
and working relationship with the IAEA’s Director
General Mohamed ElBaradei. They’ve worked closely
together to ensure that the IAEA has all of the tools
that are necessary to address and stem the evolving
challenges that the IAEA faces.
In the Secretary’s
recent address to the IAEA General Conference, he stated
that, “The benefits of nuclear energy and the
obligations to use it responsibly are linked.”
And he went on to highlight the fact that the international
community must strengthen the Nonproliferation Treaty
if the benefits of peaceful nuclear application are
going to be enjoyed by all. The central challenges to
the nonproliferation regime come from a few rogue states,
as Dr. Scheinman has pointed out, who are seeking weapons
of mass destruction, or at least the capability to produce
weapons of mass destruction.
The threat is exacerbated
by well organized and well funded terrorist organizations
that are determined to wage attacks against the United
States and our friends and our allies. Dealing with
these threats and, in fact, upholding nonproliferation
principles outlined in Eisenhower’s speech is
what the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
does every day.
I’d like to spend
just a few moments walking through some of the things
that we do and some of the successes we’ve had
recently. Our most fundamental programs are to safeguard
nuclear materials. We do this bilaterally and we do
this in conjunction with IAEA. These programs are designed
to ensure that a state cannot divert nuclear materials
from peaceful purpose to a clandestine non-peaceful
purpose. By agreeing to a robust IAEA inspection and
monitoring role, states also are able to enjoy significant
cooperation from the IAEA in pursuing legitimate peaceful
nuclear energy objectives.
We work closely on the
IAEA on implementing these programs and, in fact, our
fiscal year 2004 budget, which we hope Congress will
pass soon, includes a $10 million dollar increase over
last year to support this important work. We recognize
that to help insure the cooperation with the IAEA inspectors
from other states, it’s important that the United
States set and effective example. In that vein we have
recently marked the 100th IAEA inspection of nuclear
materials at two facilities, the Oak Ridge facility
and the Hanford site.
We also provide vital
support to the IAEA’s program for physical protection,
training, developing and issuing technical standards
and assessing he security of nuclear materials through
the IAEA’s International Physical Protection Advisory
Service or IPPAS. We funded and arranged courses for
state systems of accounting and control as well as physical
protection training for over 800 students from more
than 60 countries.
We provide the IAEA with
technical expertise to develop technical guidelines
for their new and more rigorous standards that were
started in 1999 and we’ve participated in virtually
all of the IPPAS’s missions since it was established
in the early 1990s. Similarly, we work closely through
bilateral efforts with our partners throughout the world
to secure nuclear materials and facilities wherever
they are, not just in Russia but principally in Russia.
We’ve led or participated
in over 140 bilateral visits and in more that 40 different
countries to help insure that the security of nuclear
materials in those countries is sufficient. We have
formal safeguards, cooperation agreements with each
of these countries is sufficient. We are also preparing
for, we hope soon, the Senate to begin hearing on a
U.S. additional protocol that we are optimistic that
will happen soon. The additional protocol will greatly
expand the effectiveness of IAEA inspectors, including
states of particular concern.
The President has urged
all countries to conclude and enter into force their
own additional protocols with the IAEA as soon as possible
and has stated publicly that he wants the United States
to lead by example. Improving the security of research
reactors also shows how we support the principles underlying
President Eisenhower’s vision. We need to improve
the security of research reactors and related facilities
where fissile and other radiological material may be
co-located.
These facilities also
support important medical, agricultural, and industrial
research as well as other legitimate, peaceful uses
of nuclear technology. However, under secured, these
facilities could be vulnerable to sabotage, theft or
attack. In September the NNSA initiated an agreement
to provide up to $4 million dollars to support Rumania’s
purchase of low enriched uranium that it will need to
convert its, test a research reactor from highly enriched
fuel to low enriched fuel.
Dealing with this problem
is a particular priority for the Secretary, Ambassador
Brooks, and for me, personally. We want to reduce the
commercial use of highly enriched uranium and thereby
minimize its exposure to terrorists or sabotage. So,
we’ve taken some important steps in the area of
research reactors. We’ve already converted 38
reactors in 22 countries. That’s more than 50%
of the reactors, the known reactors with U.S. origin
HEU fuel outside the United States. We’re developing
a new low enriched uranium fuel, which we hope can replace
the remaining reactor cores, it’s a very high
density molybdenum fuel. And we hope to have that demonstrated
within a year.
And we’re very close
to formalizing and finalizing an agreement with Russia
that will facilitate the return to Russia of Russian
origin HEU fuel. In the area of RDDs, I’m happy
to announce that next week NNSA will create a nuclear
radiological threat task force that will consolidate
and strengthen our ability to address the full spectrum
radiological security threats facing the U.S. both domestically
and abroad. The task force will identify and secure
high-risk radiological materials throughout the world
that could be used in radiological dispersion devices
or RDDs, or dirty bombs.
The taskforce demonstrates
that we are trying to be pro-active in dealing with
today’s security threats. It also represents a
way in which I believe the United States has to continue
to adjust and expand on its Atoms for Peace mission
to meet the emerging threats that face us. So, in closing,
the programs I’ve discussed today reflect the
steps that we are carrying out in our nonproliferation
mission. Yet, as Secretary Abraham has pointed out,
much of the work remains to be done, given the challenges
facing the nonproliferation regime.
I’m proud that our
office is working hard to support the administration’s
efforts to meet these challenges. Creating an enduring
bond between nonproliferation efforts and the benefits
of peaceful uses of nuclear technology is an objective
that President Eisenhower laid out and it’s one
that we must continue to achieve. We kind of believe
that is one of the reasons that we are here. I believe
we can work with our international partners to shape
the nonproliferation regime for the next 50 years. And
in so doing, the Atoms for Peace legacy we hope can
endure and will continue to benefit mankind. Thank you.
Question and Answers:
BROOKS: We now turn to the part of the program where you get
to ask the questions. I’m going to stand for this
because I can’t see that half of the room from
where I’m sitting. I would ask that you identify
yourself and, no matter how piercing you think your
voice is, wait until the microphone gets to you. And
I think we start with a question in the back.
NEFF: I’m
Tom Neff from MIT. I have a question for Larry Scheinman.
First I want to correct one of the things that Phil
Sewell said. ...(Inaudible) receives about $425 million
dollars from USEC for the enrichment services and I
think the company profits by about $100 million dollars
a year. Phil was right. This is money that should go
into pockets of the sensitive nuclear workers that protect
this material.
My question for Larry
was Iran. We have gone from a period of a week ago,
in which we were being very tough on Iran and we’ve
gone now to where three countries are now promising
cooperation in helping Iran with its civil nuclear program.
Larry, could you comment a little bit about this switching
of gears and where you think this comes out in the perspective
of history?
SCHEINMAN: Well,
I think it is enormously comforting to see that Iran
has, in fact stepped away from what looked like a very
conflictual and contentious approach. But I would worry
about what kind of an outcome we get in the following
sense.
If it were true that Iran
would be prepared to completely dismantle its enrichment
activities in exchange for some kind of a guarantee
for long-term fuel supply from outside, presumably the
European Union from what I understand to be the case,
and that this could be done in the context of an additional
protocol with all of the bells and whistles of transparency
that that could bring-- We may need even more. Then
I see this going in a very, very constructive direction
because I think this would be a bell weather for how
other countries would have to try to treat this approach
to their fuel cycle desires in the future.
Iran is a real test case
in this regard. If on the other hand, what looks to
is to take a leaf from Ron’s book, some kind of
a multi-nationalization of an Iranian enrichment program
sitting on Iranian territory, that becomes more problematic
and I would be concerned about that, although I must
say that, if I think about some of the questions that
Ron just raised in his run down of the issues of what
do we mean by this, that, and the other, there’s
no need for us to be uniform in how we approach this.
I think we can take this region by region or country
set by country set as long as we stay within the parameters
of the arrangement that brings about the outcome that
we desire, which is avoidance of further proliferation.
BROOKS: I had a question over here
and then we’ll go over there.
HORNER: Dan Horner from McGraw Hill Nuclear Publications. I
think that you just made a-- I’ll pose this question
as a devil’s advocate question and then ask the
panelists to respond. In Paul Longsworth’s presentation
he mentioned, as part of the U.S. nonproliferation efforts,
the effort with regard to the U.S. supplied research
reactor overseas and converting those reactors and bringing
back the HEU fuel. But wasn’t the supplying of
those reactors a direct outgrowth of the Atoms for Peace
Program and, in that respect, isn’t that a proliferation
downside of the Atoms for Peace Proposal and wouldn’t
your job have been easier if that aspect hadn’t
taken place?
If Paul could respond
to that initially and maybe some of the other panelists
then could jump in. Thanks.
LONGSWORTH: You
know, it’s not, and I’m going to give you
a strange answer here. It’s not, because the original
deal was that the spent fuel from those reactors would
come back to the U.S. and I think, even in 1953 when
they kicked that program off as the-- We realized that
obviously we needed to repatriate the nuclear material.
It is a strange answer because we are going to complete
about half of the fuel that we’ve identified in
an environmental impact statement by-- In the next few
years we will have only addressed about half of the
fuel that, again, we designated to come back to the
United States.
So we are about halfway
there in fulfilling our commitment from 1953. But I
think we are going to continue to work on that and get
that stuff back. But, no. I think it was part of the
original bargain that that stuff would come back to
the U.S.
INDUCI(?): Joseph Induci at the Brookhaven Laboratory. There used
to be something called the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty,
which I thought had potential to bring in a few countries
that aren’t currently covered and now I hear nothing.
Would one of the panel members be willing to enlighten
the group on just what happened there?
BROOKS: Ron?
LEHMAN: The Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty was initially envisioned
as sort of either of two things, one was a universal
treaty open to all parties, the other was something
that one would do, maybe on an interim basis or a regional
basis, but primarily focused on South Asia and perhaps
the Middle East, i.e., the non-parties as well as the
weapon states. Interestingly enough, there was a UN
resolution in the General Assembly co-sponsored by both
the United States and India, supporting a fissile material
cutoff. And all the P-5 have said that they can live
with it.
Having said that, it is
in the conference on disarmament. It’s caught
up on linkages, by and large issues such as Pakistan’s
concern about making sure that it deals with residual
stocks. It is not enough to cut off the production for
weapons purposes; they want to deal with the existing
stocks. There’s linkages to India by the issue
of a time bound framework for disarmament. In short,
there’s been maybe some flexibility on each of
those, at least expressed by the parties. But the process
seems bogged down in the CD.
ElBaradei in his Economist
article raises the question that others have raised
before of whether or not this could be the basis either
for a new restraint regime or an additional restraint
regime. But thus far people have not been able to break
it away from these linkages.
BROOKS: I would like to
just add that as the community thinks about the future,
the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty is a good example
of the limitations of formal multi-lateral arms control.
It’s it’s one of the reasons why we probably
need to spend more time thinking about, as Ron said
in his presentation, whether “international”
means the same sort of thing that it has always meant
or whether there are commercial international agreements
a la the USEC Agreement that are, at least part of the
solution.
We had a question down
here.
__: Question for Mr. Sewell,
I was intrigued by his suggestion with regard to the
government sponsoring a reactor, the intent of which
is to get rid of the, let me call it, surplus nuclear
materials in Russia and, perhaps, even our own defense
programs. We are not only having the problem with uranium
235, we also have a problem with regard to plutonium
239. And if the real objective is to get rid of those
materials-- There have been people said, “Well,
you just bury them.”
But if you really want
to get rid of them and get a new reactor into being,
you would design the reactor core, which initially would
burn straight 235 or straight 239. And if you do that,
in the case of the 235 rather than using low enriched
uranium, you don’t make any more plutonium, which
you would in your scenario, and the people would jump
on that, the anti’s, saying we’re really
not doing what we want to do.
So initially these reactors,
which you are suggesting, could be designed to burn
straight 235 or straight 239 and really get rid of all
this surplus E-2(?). Economically, and for the long
run, it doesn’t make any sense, but at least politically,
if that’s the objective, it would succeed. Thank
you.
BROOKS: Bill,
do you want to respond?
BILL: I can’t correct you at all, I don’t think.
That is a very good suggestion. The only thing I could
say is that most reactors today are designed to use
low enriched uranium and that’s the concept that
we were trying to do so that we wouldn’t have
to be any major investments in a nuclear infrastructure
for commercial basis. But conceptually, the concept,
the idea that you propose is valid.
And the idea that we put
forward, in terms of government support in burning basically,
nuclear materials, is just that. It’s an idea
of the government and industry to grasp and design in
a way that’s optimum, optimum in terms of meeting
policy objectives by the government and the world community
and also in a way that will help provide incentives
to build a new nuclear reactor that will get things
started, with respect to the increased use of nuclear
power that has so many benefits.
That incentive, again,
would be one in which the government doesn’t have
to pay anything in the end. It’s merely a backup
incentive that would be paid back and looking in a way
that several different objectives can be accomplished
at once and that’s the main idea in concept. And
your concept and idea is just as valid and I just applaud
them all. It’s good for mankind, good for the
world. That’s what we’re proposing today.
BROOKS: Let
me just point out a third concept that’s actually
what we’re doing. Some of the defense HEU is,
in fact, being burned in U.S. reactors -- TVA reactors.
In addition, at a galacticly slow pace, we are working
with the Russian Federation to the elimination of 34
tons of weapons plutonium in each country through conversion
into MOX fuel. It doesn’t make any economic sense
either but it does allow us to take advantage of existing
reactors.
We had a question over
there.
KEEN: My name is Linda Keen and I’m President of the
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. My question is for
either Ambassador Lehman or for Mr. Longsworth. Can
you see in the future a safeguard regime for countries
who are committed to peaceful use, who have put in extensive
safeguards but is more risk based than the blanket program
that we see now?
LEHMAN: I’ll go first and buy you some time. The classic
issue is the cookie cutter problem. One size does not
fit all. And there are tremendous inefficiencies and
actually drawbacks in trying to make one size fit all.
The result is that we spend a tremendous amount of money
verifying things that are low risk and many of our arms
control efforts but then can’t apply what is needed
to deal with areas that are of higher risk.
In 1991, our approach
to dealing with North Korea, for example, was not only
to have them be parties to the NPT and have an IAEA
safeguards agreement, but there was the North-South
Denuclearization Agreement, which would have provided
for no processing, no enrichment, North or South, and
for separate bi-lateral inspection regime, the idea
being that North Korea was a greater risk. This was
a way to enhance things.
The problem is that in
many of the international fora, the question of a common
standard and universality of membership drives much
of the debate, much of the question when you deal with
India, for example, it has to do with their desire to
have a common standard for everybody which would be
fine if you could create those conditions but, in fact,
things aren’t the same everywhere.
However, what I have experienced
is, when you get more into the, I’ll use the generic
phrase, cooperative threat reduction and constructive
engagement, you start to deal with practical problems
that inevitably have to deal with the specific differences.
And in many cases, I think the great debate about the
future of arms control, international constraint and
cooperative threat reduction is really the great debate
between how much emphasis you put on standardization
of norms and how much emphasis do you put on engagement,
constructive engagement.
LONGSWORTH: You
know there are so many nuances with how safeguards work
actually gets done at facilities and I’d just
like to parrot what Ambassador Lehman said. Inspections
are the tool to the end not the objective. And I think
everyone would agree that the IAEA probably spends a
lot of money inspecting facilities that are not really
a proliferation risk. For example, in the U.S., I don’t
think anybody has accused the U.S. of selling plutonium
or weapons on the open market. But because inspections
are a tool and because of the universality principle,
I think we allow inspectors to come in and we fully
support that but it is a problem because it does take
limited IAEA resources and the UN is inspecting facilities
that don’t pose a great proliferation risk. But
it is the way you get other countries to open up their
facilities. So it is a tool to the end.
BROOKS: Back
here.
LYMAN: Hi. I’m Ed Lyman with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
I wanted to ask a follow-up question to Dan Horner’s
question on research reactors. With all due respect,
I don’t think you really gave a complete answer
to the question of whether exporting HEU research reactors
all over the world was the best idea or not and, in
fact, the other part of the answer you left out, is
that not only are we taking the spent fuel back but
we are persuading reactors that we had shipped that
only used highly enriched uranium to convert so they
no longer need to use highly enriched uranium but can
use low enriched.
And that was a flaw in
the original regime that we’re trying to play
catch up on. In that respect, I’d just like to
ask you, it would be a terrible legacy, 50 years after
Atoms for Peace, if our own export control law was to
be significantly weakened, yet that’s exactly
what’s going on in Congress right now, where’s
there’s an attempt to modify the U.S. HEU export
control laws to make it easier for certain countries
to receive highly enriched uranium without any obligation
to work with the US to convert.
And I am just wondering
why the administration is not, to my knowledge, going
on record and said anything about this particular question,
which I think is quite important and something that
my organization is fighting very hard for. So, thank
you.
LONGSWORTH: Let me start at the beginning of your question and work
through it. It wasn’t possible to build reactors
at the time with low enriched fuel to achieve what you
needed to do for science, medicine, agriculture and
other purposes. I wouldn’t describe it as a flaw
in the original approach because I think the United
States took the best course available to it at the time
was, we’ll send the fuel out and we’ll take
it back. And it’s taken 50 years to start doing
that but we’re making progress on that.
I do want to point out,
on behalf of Ambassador Brooks, it is not his program
or mine that is responsible for taking those back. It
is another part of DOE, but (laughter) so, for the record--
But now low enriched fuels are becoming available and
it is possible to have the same nucleonics in a reactor
and get the same performance with difference kinds of
fuels, low enriched fuels, and we’re beginning
to do that.
One of the programs that
we carry out is to convert these reactors as I mentioned
in my remarks. With regard to the Burr, Schummer, depending
on which one is being debated in the energy bill, you
know, interestingly enough, we were unaware that that
provision was in there. I believe we are opposed to
it. Frankly, I may get in a lot of trouble here, but
I think we were opposed to the Schummer amendment because
we have all of those authorities that Schummer, which
was the underlying provision that was amended, that
it required us to take a lot of steps that aren’t
necessarily appropriate to have in the statute.
And so I don't know if
we agree with either provision, the underlying Schummer
amendment or the Burr amendment, which you refer to
would weaken the Schummer provision. So I think we are
opposed to the Burr, but we are also opposed to the
underlying Schummer amendment, which was being modified.
BROOKS: There
was a question over here but I lost where it was. Yes,
sir.
POMPER: Miles
Pomper from Arms Control Today. A question for either
Ambassador Brooks or his Deputy-- You mentioned the
additional protocol and that it might come up before
the Senate in the next few weeks, what’s been
holding it up? It’s been held up for close to
a year now and my understanding is that it is infighting
in the administration between the State and Defense
Departments.
LONGSWORTH: President
Bush has sent it to the Senate so it is pending action
by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. While they
are doing that, we are having discussion within the
administration on exactly how we would implement it.
But it think the next step is for the Senate to hold
hearings and provide its advice and consent or not provide
its advice and consent.
BROOKS: The President has made it very clear on wanting to see
the additional Protocol brought into effect. As to what’s
holding up hearings, you’re talking to the wrong
branch of the government when you are talking to Paul
and I.
More questions. Yes, sir.
Down here--
__: I was glad to hear
of Mr. Sewell’s proposals for cost-benefit to
the public of expanding nuclear power to burn up some
of these materials. It doesn’t stretch my imagination
very much to think that the public would also accept
a certain amount of public funds going to try to purchase
this material and keep it out of the hands of terrorists,
if it is only a few billion dollars a year, when the
public supports hundreds of billions for defense, if
the public was just explained the affect of not doing
this compared to the effect of the 9/11 incident on
our country.
Could somebody answer
why we don’t have the government proposing to
spend some taxpayers’ money on this in advance
to get this material and then put it in reactors as
we build them?
BROOKS: Well, I’ll answer it. Secretary Abraham proposed
and his Russian counterpart agreed well over a year
ago to a parallel program that would create a strategic
uranium reserve. We would purchase basically whatever
the Russians would chose to sell us and the quantity
is still being debated. Right now it is only a few tons
a year. Blend it down and make it sort of the uranium
equivalent of the strategic petroleum reserve. It would
just sit there minding it’s own business, but
it would be in a form that would be suitable for energy
us and unsuitable for weapons use.
There is dispute on the
hill as to whether that is good use of public funds
and I’ll let you know when I see the appropriations
act. But the idea is one that the President thought
of a year ago and it’s basically a good idea.
We’re also purchasing, and this is small amounts,
I mean small amounts in the Russian context but large
amounts in anybody else’s, HEU from Russia for
the handful of U.S. research reactors that have not
yet been converted to low enrichment fuel. They’ll
be burning Russian HEU here very shortly, once again,
the will of the funders permitting, and I’m pretty
sure it will.
Did you have a question
down here? [pause] Can we get a microphone down front?
__: Firstly,
I would like to make one historical remark. Indeed,
historically, all technologies have become, as they
were introduced ...(inaudible) technologies, and all
have proliferated in the past. So, what we’re
trying to do here is historically, totally, unprecedented
and, therefore, one should not be surprised that it
is extremely difficult. I mean that is one remark. In
that sense, Administrator Longsworth gave a list of
the program achievement and his note was certainly quite
optimistic. And there are, indeed, many achievements
to be proud of.
But I think it is a matter
of the glass either being half full or half empty, namely,
there have been developing many impediments and the
time scale in which some of these programs have been
proceeding have slipped really extremely badly. I mean
the plutonium disposition has slipped very badly that
one is now talking about 17 years, or whatever the number
is. There have been glitches in the HEU Purchase Agreement.
There are major problems in the MPC&A [Material
Protection, Control and Accounting] improvement in Russia
due to, on the Russian side, them not giving access
sufficiently, on the American side, due to the insistence
on liability protection for the American participants.
These are problems that
we don’t let the Americans to attend various conferences
and so on and so forth. And I was wondering, whether
one of the panelists can give some comments, whether
there are really some major efforts being made to try
to re-accelerate some of the lost time on some of these
programs.
BROOKS: Let
me, because I think that is really a question that is
addressed to those of us who are in government. I can
tell you that Secretary of Energy has been more active,
as far as I’m concerned, than any Secretary in
history in trying to accelerate programs and remove
roadblocks I can tell you that the President has been
active in pushing these. I can tell you that it was
discussed with President Putin at Camp David. And so
we are trying to accelerate but I think the honest answer
is, it is a very slow process and a very difficult process.
I think that is going
to have to be the last question. As I listen to your
comments and the comments of the panel, I came to sort
of three broad conclusions that I will leave with you.
One is that the international regime that grew out of
President Eisenhower’s vision, hasn’t done
everything, but it’s done a lot. The second is
that there are lots of good ideas for the future and
we ought to explore those, but all those good ideas
are going to take time. And, therefore, I guess, the
third is that redoubling our efforts at material protection
is probably pretty important in the near term.
With that, I think what
is next on your schedule is a break until four, but
before you do, I wonder if you would join me in thanking
our panel.