Transcripts For CSPAN Hudson Institute Discussion On Nuclear Security Policy 20240714

Richard thank you. Lets begin. I want to welcome everyone to hudson. My name is richard price. Today, we are honored to talk about an important report and an important subject, that is congressional efforts to oversee the u. S. Nuclear security efforts. We are specifically going to talk about a report, copies of which are outside, by the partnerships to secure america and the Arms Control Association, blueprints for a new generation. I want to particularly welcome the cspan audience for joining us. To make everything easier, if people could silence any cell phones you have now, that would be helpful. The report and other work we have been doing with partnerships to secure america and the Arms Control Association has been continuing over years. It is an independent project, but we collaborated with these two organizations, doing two events on the hill, congressional briefings on the Nuclear Threat and tools of the trade, how do we encounter the threat, and Global Security architecture . Both the report and the presentations we gave in congress were supportive of the supported by the john and katherine Macarthur Foundation. Weenda for today is will have three presentations that will discuss the importance of congressional Nuclear Oversight in general, the key findings and recommendations of reports summarizing and assessing them and discussions about what more needs to be done, what initiatives we could pursue as we go further. Our first speaker will be the chairman of the board of directors at partnership for secure america, which is a nonprofit founded by former representative lee hamilton. It calls for advance on bipartisanship on Critical National security and Foreign Policy challenges since january 2008. He has also been a private consultant at aks consulting. Before that, he was Deputy Assistant secretary of state for nuclear operations, and has had a lot of impressive positions before that. Kingston reef, the director of disarmament and Threat Reduction policy at the arms control organization. Afterwards, the speakers his work focuses on nuclear disarmament, which prevents Nuclear Terrorism and other issues. It is a Nonpartisan Organization dedicated to effective arms policy. One of his expertises is the legislator progress and congressional actions on this issue. He is very smart, a former marshall scholar and media commentator. Independent of the two organizations that have cowritten the report, we have have a guest with an extensive career on energy policy. She is currently the member of the board of the Defense Nuclear facility safety board, and this is an independent organization in the executive branch that is responsible for Public Health and safety issues in the departments and nuclear facilities. Before that, she worked in various national labs, in the department of energy, and served on the National Security council. Her views are solely her own, no official endorsement by the border the u. S. Government, and in fact, all of us as independent think tanks, we are not taking an institutional position on these issues. We just want to contribute to a discussion today on what we consider to be a really important topic. Thank you, nancy. Do you want to go ahead . I am a little out of breath because we hustled down here, sorry. I got stuck in traffic and apologize for being late. Two things before i Start Talking about the report. I want to introduce, we have two other fellow members of the partnership for america, rachel and jack. Wave your hand. I want to point about for the work that they have done. The second thing i want to mention, in supremely great timing this morning, as some of us know that congressman panetta introduced a piece of legislation that is derivative of our study, one of our ifommendations which would, it is enacted, passed and enacted, would ask and require the gao to give the congressman a report on budget and spending in both nationalized Domestic Nuclear security programs, for greater security. This is one of the recommendations in the report, and both of those members are of the Nuclear Security working group on a bipartisan piece of legislation. What im going to do is just talk about the study that we did, why we did it, how we did it, and what sort of generalization, what principle findings we derive from it. When i say we, i mean the actual survey that we did excuse me among Congressional Staff. Well, the way we started on this issue, we wanted to get some greater clarity about what is Nuclear Security . What is the Nuclear Security issue area . We thought we would see with the whole of congress thinks about this issue, what its Knowledge Base is, how it feels about it, what its priorities are and so forth. The reason we wanted to focus on congress is because congress has a bit of history, bipartisan cases, of coming up with good, interesting initiatives that have not only moved this legislation, but other legislation. The cooperative reduction act and other Bipartisan Legislation that was passed in the early 1990s. So congress is an important player as coequal branch of the government and more. What we did was set out to focus our attention on Congressional Staff. Congressional staff, in part, because Congressional Staff are more accessible, they are more assembleable is that a word . They are willing to produce a paper this more than the members are, and Congressional Staff plane Important Role in the entire legislative process. In terms of advice to members, in terms of writing legislation, coming up with ideas, being on top of legislation and so forth. I think no other country in the world rivals the role, as far as i know, that staff play in our legislative process. I know ive talked to members, legislators around the world marvel at the role they play in our legislative process. Partnership for america, we have sort of a running start on some of this. How did we do this . Our database composed of three different components, and i will give you numbers on them. The first part of the database. We actually did facetoface, personal interviews with about 20 Congressional Staffers. Most of whom are what we call a directly involved or heavily involved on this issue in Nuclear Security. These were personal interviews in their offices, personal interviews have the advantage of being able to get clarity on some of the responses, a followup or things like that. That was one subset of the data that we were able to gather on it. The second was, we did a digital sent out a survey to Congressional Staff and received 107 responses on that. It is not exactly what we call a random sample, but a large sample, giving us some credibility in making inferences from those data. These were directed at staffers who have some broad engagement on Foreign Policy, National Security, Homeland Security, intelligence. That sort of thing. We had two groups of individuals, which is about 127 samples, if you want to call it, 127 data sources. The third part of this methodology was to have a small focus group. Kingston and i were there. We invited another 10 or so staffers, i think it was, to dinner always nice to have dinner and to simply sort of go over them, go over with them what we thought our findings were and have a discussion with these staffers. Most of whom had not participated in the survey itself. Some of them did, some of them didnt. This was a way to enrich our understanding of the data we were able to collect and to give us some more texture, i think. So those three components are key of the core methodology. The data was collected some time ago. I think it was the fall and winter of 20172018, so it was obviously before last years midterm elections, which changed the composition of congress in a remarkable way. It was before the Nuclear Posture review was released, so anyway, before that was released. There are a number of findings that we have in the report, let me talk about four or five of them that were the most interesting to us and hopefully to you. What did we learn . The first thing we learn is probably the most important thing we learned, and the least surprising to those of us who have either been on the hill for i spent 16 years in the backe, some time ago, before the sinking of the battleship maine. Some understanding of the hill and things that take place up there. So this is the first important thing i think we learned. We asked the question to elicit some responses. The question, when someone raises the issue of Nuclear Security in congress or talks about the threat of Nuclear Security, what comes to mind . Our findings provoked a variable scattergram of responses. The single largest response we developed a word cloud for from the report. We take all the words in the responses elicited, according to their frequency, the words would appear larger and so forth. That word cloud, what we saw, basically, in response to this, there was no consensus on what this issue area of Nuclear Security is or was at that point. There was no disagreement, there was no understanding i might point out what this term, what this issue area was. Most of the responses any of the responses, i should say, were that Nuclear Security was statebased threats. That is to say, many staffers pointed to the north Korea Nuclear program. Russia, china, some sprinkling of pakistan and other countries in there. That actors. There was some discussion of Nuclear Terrorism in those responses, and so forth. So basically, Congressional Staffers viewed Nuclear Security as threats enacted by other states. Not as defined by the way, in the questionnaire, both the interviews and in the digital questionnaire that we sent out, iaead this standard definition of Nuclear Security, securing Nuclear Materials and the facilities that house them, basically. The generic definition. I do not know if those responses are an artifact of that time, but the emphasis in that period of time was around the north Korean Nuclear program and others. So there was a disorientation. There wasnt a focus on nuclear iturity as people view it, was more statebased threats. That was not a surprise to me, but it was a very important finding. There was misunderstanding about this particular issue area. The second major finding was derived from the first, and that is that staffers that we interviewed in this sample tended to view the issue of Nuclear Security according to their work requirements. Where you stand depends upon where you sit, that phrase we use often in academic literature. That is to say, many of the staffers who work on defense or defenserelated issues, on defenserelated terms. Armed services, defense appropriations were some of the examples that we had, they focus more on command and control, Weapons Development and the like. Those of the staff who worked on energy or energyrelated issues, the Energy Committees and appropriations, etc. , tended to see the issue along energy terms, as you might expect. Nuclear storage, waste management, sabotage. That sort of Nuclear Energy. Those that focused on the more traditional Foreign Policy areas, the Senate Foreign relations committee, tended to see it more in traditional terms of proliferation, new start, the iaea, things like that. The responses to this question tended to break down along internal institutional lines, depending upon what the work requirements of these individual staffers we talked about. There were Common Concerns about funding the cut across all of the work requirement issue areas. Another finding, very quickly, is that those staff who had more years of experience, and people we describe as more directly engaged on the issue tended to give this issue area a higher priority in the realm of our Foreign Policy and National Security than those with less experience on the hill. Again, not particularly surprising, but now we have an empirical base to say that is true. Our findings suggest, as we come back to this, there needs to be more crosscutting contact and communication, working together on the hill, across these areas, cross committees, caucuses, and so on. Another finding very quickly i want to get through this fast another finding pertains to the sources of information that staff utilize on understanding the Nuclear Security issue. We asked the question, to whom do you look when you want to more fully understand Nuclear Security issues . The crs and nongovernment organizations and think tanks were cited as the most reliable sources for most of the staff. Those staffers who we called more directly engaged more directly on the issue on a much more frequent basis, tending to lean towards think tanks and ngos for insights, while those we described as less directly engaged turned to the crs congressional resource service, or other sources such as executive staff, the media, personal staff, and the like. There was some skepticism about reliance on the executive branch and on the media. Another interesting finding was how staff assessed the role of congress as a whole. Their own Work Environment in which they work as an institution for dealing with the Nuclear Security issue. We asked two questions. The first one was, how much of an impact do you think congress can have on this issue area . Nuclear security . Then we had a followup question, how much impact do you think congress should have on improving u. S. And global Nuclear Security programs . And the issue of Nuclear Security . The results were somewhat intriguing, having worked on the hill. The staff tended to say that congress should have more more staff said congress should have a greater impact and influence on policy and programs on Nuclear Security than they said congress can have. There is some disappointment over what congress can do and there was some hope and expectation of what congress should be doing than they were doing. This might suggest that congress is underperforming on this issue, at least in the sample that we took. So many staffers doubted that congress could take a larger role, despite the fact there are historical examples. We interpret this to the fact that there was a loss of expertise, there has been a loss of expertise among members and staff on the hill, and at the time that we interviewed, there was no Major Nuclear terrorist incident that galvanized interest and attention. And there was very little constituent interest among the constituents of congress. By the way, on these issues, we found, much to our interest, that there were very little differences between democrats and republican staffers. No big significant difference between the house and the senate. Perhaps the size of the sample might be a reason for that. We asked the staffers about constituents very quickly, and we found very quickly that among the constituents, most constituents, this is not a high priority, not a big concern, not of interest to members. There are some exceptions for members who had a car plant in their district or state, or a Nuclear Facility of some sort or some other thing that might engender greater interest. But basically, not much constituent concern. And this issue gets lost in the flood of so many other things, if there is not something to catalyze interest. We also finally asked deciding standpoints for congressional leadership, we wanted to know what knowledge they had about the past as predictors of the present and future, and what they might do legislatively. The staff mentioned a few current members, some members who are part of the Nuclear Security working group and the congress that has been created, response amongt those with longer tenures, more than eight years in service, was the reduction program, which is a bipartisan piece of those two guys have been nominated at least six times for a Nobel Peace Prize but never got it, for their effort. It was the marquee that staff mentioned to us. We also asked whether there were gaps in domestic and Nuclear Security programs given the threat terrorism had posed in virtually all of them said of course, but we cant come to agreement on what steps those might be. We created this word cloud again. In the middle of that big word cloud is not sure. We have some of those word clouds around here. And there was a Virtual World scattergram of responses. We should be doing much more that we are doing but not sure what we should be doing. Get more funding for nsa and so forth. Let me stop at this point. Thank you. I would encourage people to start thinking of i are questions and comments now after the presentations. Thank you, richard. It is a pleasure to be at the hudson. I might follow andys opening comments about the report of the survey we did that talkmed the report and about the policy context in which this is situated, challenges to congressional engagement on the issue area of Nuclear Security, the status check on congressional midgement as we sit here 2019 and then recommended action items we proposed and how some lawmakers have taken up and pursued some of those action items. First, the policy context. The global Nuclear Security enterprise is at a key inflection point. Nuclear Security Summit process and u. S. Security at Threat Reduction programs have played a vital role in reducing the risk of Nuclear Terrorism. A separate report from the Arms Association and working Group Published last year found that as a result of the summit process, states took 935 actions to significantly strengthen global Nuclear Security. This is not a reason to be complacent about the threat of Nuclear Terrorism. Approximately 900 tons of materialely protected remain in countries where there are significant threats. Several regions of the girls world are plagued by access to this material and Nuclear Weapons by terrorist groups, south asia, north korea, and russia. The Nuclear Terrorism threat is not standing still. Advances in new Technology Like additive manufacturing, offensive cyber tools, artificial intelligence, and Machine Learning seen posed to strengthen threats. A report this year warns that highlevel Political Tension to Nuclear Security and overcoming obstacles has largely faded, International Mechanisms for fostering action and cooperation have not managed till the gaps created by the absence of a Security Summit and political disputes to impede efforts to expand cooperation in crucial areas. Consequences of a Nuclear Terrorist attack would be so extreme, intensive action to reduce the risk must be high priority. The good news is this is a preventable problem since without radiological materials, terrorist groups would be unable to perpetuate a nuclear or radiological terrorist attack. The task of plugging the gaps and reducing material stockpiles is likely to be more challenging now that the summit process, the last gathering of which took place in washington in march 20 16 and the highlevel political attention it brought to the issue has come to an end. Much of the low hanging fruit has already been picked. The International Students that inherited the process and action plans they developed to carry on the work has resulted in few deliverables. In addition, russia, which ofsesses the largest cache materials on the planet boycotted the summit and ended most Security Cooperation with the United States in 2014. Cooperation with other countries remains limited. Like its cold war predecessors, the Trump Administration has identified preventing Nuclear Terrorism as a National Security priority, at least in rhetoric. Releasednuclear review in february 2018 states terrorism is one of the most significant threats to the security of the United States. Review devotes less attention to the issue than the previous administrations review did and did not propose any new initiatives to augment Nuclear Material security. In addition, for the third year in a row, the Trump Administration has proposed to reduce funding relative to the congressional appropriation for Nuclear Security and nonproliferation programs at the National Administration which comprises the leading edge of Nuclear Security work. I should note this trend did not begin with the Trump Administration. Declined every year but one in obamas second term. For fiscal year 2020 come of Trump Administration requested 1. 3 billion for core Nuclear Security and nonproliferation a decrease ofa, 100 million from the fiscal year 2019 appropriation. When measured against what the nsa said it would require for the programs during the last year of the Obama Administration, the fiscal year 2020 proposal is more than 200 million less than projected. A recent story published by an Investigative Reporter in the Los Angeles Times found the administration has ended programs at the department of Homeland Security designed to combat chemical, radiological, Nuclear Threats. In our view, the work that remains to be done to secure radiological material and the current and likely future challenges to nonproliferation merit increased funding, not lost for these programs. An absence of highlevel government attention to Nuclear Security and a welldefined and bold vision for these activities, funding for this mission will continue to critical expertise will be lost and our capacity to address the evolving threat will erode. Nsa administrator suggested that the administrations fiscal year is insufficient. She said she would gladly take additional funds to secure Nuclear Materials around the is nuclearse that material less likely to fall into the hands of terrorists or adversaries. What nsa could do with an additional 80 million for international Nuclear Security programs come the administrator said the agency would require additional blood for radiators, additional training around the world, and help other countries with installations. Over the years, bipartisan support has been a critical feature of u. S. Leadership, improving global Nuclear Security. There is a long legacy of bipartisan congressional action to reduce nuclear risk, such as senator sam nunn and the late Richard Lugar in 1991 establishing programs to assist the countries of the former soviet union in eliminating Nuclear Weapons and materials, via the Threat Reduction program. In recent leaders, senators like Dianne Feinstein and marcy kaptur have championed funding increases for programs. During the first years of the companys fishing, congress provided 300 million more than what the administration requested for court and nonproliferation programs and in 2020, the chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee in nsasuse that oversees nonproliferation programs proposed an additional 113 million above the agencys budget request. With the nuclear challenges becoming more complex, there is a need for congress to play and more active role. Remains ar terrorism concern, and few ideas have been put forward to advance the mission. A second oversight has been constrained in recent years by several challenges at our study as our study documents. First, limited Institutional Knowledge and subject matter expertise. Nuclear security security is not a priority for most members of congress or their constituents. Second, skepticism of mission need. In recent years, some members have characterized u. S. Financial assistance to secure and eliminate Nuclear Materials, in russia, as unnecessary. They say recipient countries should pay for Nuclear Security on their own. Rising tensions with russia over the past several years and the difficulty of engaging other countries such as india and pakistan have reduced cooperation and raise doubts on what can the done and a accomplished after two decades of intense effort. And third, competing priorities and funding constraints. The prioritization by both obama and Trump Administrations to sustain and upgrade Nuclear Warheads and their infrastructure has meant less funding has been available for nsas Nuclear Security and nonproliferation programs. Members of congress focus on Nuclear Threats, much has been focused on the north Korean Nuclear challenge. These challenges are reflected in a request that lawmakers make to the Appropriations Committee every year related to Nuclear Security. Despite these challenges, the goal of preventing Nuclear Terrorism enjoys bipartisan support on capitol hill and several initiatives, including ours, have sought to augment congressional engagement. For instance, the congressional security new peers security Congressional Working Group focused on improving awareness and engagement on the threat posed to nuclear engagement. Beginning in 2017, the working group partnered with the George Washington university, john d and Catherine T Macarthur foundation, and the safety board to establish a Nuclear Security fellowship program. The mission of the program is to expand the resources and expertise available to Congress Pursuant to the goal of the working group. Following the release of our report that andy described last july, the arms control ion, and the Hudson Institute addressed Global Nuclear Security Architecture and included a kind of Technology Fair with nsas Incident Response team. We averaged about 80 attendees per event, which is quite high events go,ns nuclear and im sure the chickfila we offered at lunch had nothing to do with that attendance. The task now is to augment leadership and cooperation with russia, competing interests and evolving threat. Past examples offer several lessons to build on. In our report, we recommended several oversight steps. First, requiring the office of management and budget to prepare a report summarizing the u. S. Budget for nonproliferation programs. We consolidated summary recommended should include all funding by agency and department for u. S. Government programs to prevent radiological terrorism, the spread of Nuclear Weapons, implement arms control agreements, transfer of technology, screen cargo at ports, develop tools and strategies to address future nonproliferation strategies and more. Review recommended gao the report. We established a blueribbon to recommend by 2020 strategy to counter and respond to radiological challenges. The fiscal year 2018 National Authorization act mandated that the group conducted similar review, but the jason review, which apparently has been completed, apparently did not focus on a comprehensive strategy of preventing Nuclear Terrorism. A Congressional Commission would carry a higher profile. Thus, be more likely to influence policy. Third, we recommended congress hold more hearings on the go security which have been few and far between and in addition to some of the oversight steps, we urged congress to pursue several larger Strategic Initiatives such as securing the most vulnerable, highest risk radiological material around the world and even establishing a program of activities as part of a potential phase and verifiable dismantling of north Koreas Nuclear arsenal and supporting infrastructure. These recommendations were endorsed earlier this year in a policy statement by 32 highranking government officials representing both political parties. I believe there was an oped published this afternoon by a former representative lee hamilton and former secretary of state George Shultz who sign on signed on to the bipartisan policy statement. Highlighting some of these recommendations for congress we made. In addition to the funding increases i mentioned that were proposed by representative captor, other members have set forth this year with new initiatives. For example, senator joe manchin successfully offered an amendment to the fiscal year a20 that would establish commission at countering and responding to nuclear and radiological terrorism. Today, as andy mentioned, representatives Jimmy Panetta introduced an act that requires the Government Accountability office to provide any reports to congress on international and domestic insecurity programs for the United States. The bill would bring greater clarity in our view to the cost widerangingments Nuclear Reduction activities, allow for better understanding of the alignment between Program Goals and budget estimates, make it easier to better identify program gaps from yeartoyear which ne the exec to extent to which budget estimates line with plans for nuclear efforts. Let me stop there. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. The cspan viewers that nsna remains national Nuclear Security agency. Thank you for inviting me here to review this report and provide comments on it. I would like to thank the partnership of secure america and the Arms Association for the work youve done and the Hudson Institute for hosting today and inviting you to the crowd. We needed a female voice on the panel. Hopefully, there was a reason as well for inviting me, but at any rate, what i wanted to do is is address some of the topics andy raised with regards to the report done in the survey because thought some of those things were quite interesting and deserved teasing out a little more and begged for more investigation later on. I was going to walk through some of the recommendations. Im no lee hamilton. But having worked in both the Bush Administration and Obama Administration on issues specifically like Nuclear Security. I was lucky enough to be involved in creation of the first Nuclear Security summit and i owe my career to senator lugar. I dont think i would have wandered into this field. I want to say that i concur with the overall conclusion of the report. More needs to be done to educate congress and hill staff on Nuclear Security. I think the comments you heard from kingston indicate you have kind of cracked the code. If you put fellows on the hill come up with newd andthey will legislation, and they will convince their congressmen and the congresswomen to put forward od to bills, so just a n the folks who thought it was a good idea to put folks on the hill in these positions in these backgrounds. I want to use the narrow definition of Nuclear Security that and you talked about a little bit, which is security of materials and that which houses them. What we speak about here, an nuclear statebased threats come and as you heard from a lot of the folks in congress does not necessarily make that the distinction, and interestingly, some of the distinctions are not specific to security but also include nonproliferation, which is more threats. Atebased there are some nuances, and when i first came to the work of Nuclear Security, one of the things we talked about is from what and whom did one need to secure Nuclear Material. Earlier on, i worked in an accounting office, which basically worked on two things, assical protection as well tookontrol piece, which care of keeping track of the material, so that it would not be diverted. With the programs were expanding and maturing, we moved specifically to looking at issues of insider threats, where material and counting material accounting became much threat, and cybersecurity was not part of the program that we had initiated in a nonNuclear Program. As we start looking at the programming and taken to the Actual Programs within the departments of state, the form of energy, and department of defense, we have to have the broader view of what Nuclear Security is. Additionally, converting materials is less about reforms also obviously Nuclear Security or removing it from threats entirely. But i also put out my disclaimer at the beginning of the remarks, my remarks are my own and do not reflect the views of the Defense Nuclear facility safety board, so i want to make sure i say that out loud. The safety board where i work oversees the department of the standpoint of nuclear safety, not security. So while i have spent much of my career working on Nuclear Security in the bush and Obama Administration, i have been safety defense board since 2015, so my comments are solely based on reading the works of my colleagues, here seated, and counterparts across the ngo community. I also had a great pleasure to be part of the Nuclear Security working group, which is mentioned in the work, and they are responsible for putting staffers on the hill, and that i thanks to those who would regularly invite me to participate. So i can say they are all those on the hill who think hard and work hard on Nuclear Security, and as mentioned in the report, onre is little daylight Nuclear Security, howard gets done, how publicly it gets done, and who does it with what funding, that is the essence of the debate, not whether or not it is important. So before i get to the individual recommendations, there were points that struck me in the survey that i thought i should comment on. I know that how you frame questions matter, so it was not a surprise to me that the respondents said more must be done, and more money must be spent. If they did not say that, i would be shocked. But kidding, a little bit, that is the nature of the question, if you ask the question, you are going to get that answer. I do know it is telling that the definition of Nuclear Security varies widely in its interpretation, and i think that is because it is easier for the public to wrap their heads around a Nuclear North Korea or a potentially no nuclear iran. It is not hard to figure out there are state actors with nuclear ambition. Should i engage sanctions or kinetic options . And the Nuclear Material in question is already in the hands of what we would consider an adversary. Our Nuclear Facility is a little bit harder to capture, because you cannot really sanction not state actors. But your policy tools and the results are much less come up for lack of a better term, sexy. I would say that with the exception of the summit, the summit is pretty sexy, and i do not say that because i was working on one of them, but when andhave 47 heads of states organizations sitting around the table talking about Nuclear Terrorism, that is a pretty interesting and noteworthy event that captures the imagination and captures the press. Policy options are not the right ones, they just do not capture headlines to dpk would. E the consequently, if youre a senator or congressperson, whether or not you are going to spend your energy doing that, which will not get the same headlines as denuclearization, in whichhe tradeoff you work. I thought it was interesting not surprising that those in congress longer were likely to be involved in Security Issues. I would say we did not do a great job in the Nuclear Summit, 2010. Ically in i think we may have had to events, but i dont remember having that much contact prior with the hill prior to the summit. Clearly, if we had done more to engage, i think the results would have been better, but we were, you know, trying to figure out how to throw a Nuclear Security summit. We had to pick and choose where we were going to spend our time. The discussion about the federal government was familiar and rather sad. If you look at the report, i dont know if andy mentioned it specifically. There was a constant mistrust and there was this comment in there that it was difficult because of the desire to control the message by the administration and the need to keep people informed and understand, on the hill side, who was speaking and with what authority. We need to be able to figure out a balance. Congressional fair offices are often maligned for being an impediments between congress and the executive branch and the relationship is bad anyway, that could actually destroyed that that relationship and that is not a good thing. One of the areas ripe for work is how do we make that Communications Better . How do we bring them into spaces , where they can be to each other and not worry about what is being said . The hill can receive that information without a hearing to cameras and subsequently their constituents. The logical alternative is to present information on the hill on what the executive branch is doing. I have the utmost respect for the community who has done the homework and think about the issues everyday, but they dont always have all of the information that is the executive branch has provided it for whatever reason. While i know my colleagues are objective in their analysis the , question posed might not be that objective, and whoever is funding the work frames the question. So those of us who have the luxury of focusing on one policy priority dont face the challenges than those making a decision with multitude of actions to consider. We need more policy ideas, critical analysis. What im saying is i cannot make up for the hill having full and accurate information, and maybe the challenges they are facing would be important. I can agree that the limitation of the knowledge for a small group of staffers makes it difficult, and that is a key finding of the report. I also agreed that the members personal interests can yield itself. An example is a young congressman who went on a codel to see some of the nonlugar work, and that influenced how he thought about Nuclear Security. And that was obama before he became president. So the more we take people to the facilities with which we are working overseas, the more impact it can have. As far as recommendations go, i will put them into three buckets. The first one is education and communication. As the survey indicates, it is education and communication are necessary. There are three proposals under the category. I would say recommendations two, three and five. Recommendation two is to hold hearings and recommendation three is the call for Security Issues and recommendation five is investing in educational Training Programs on capitol hill. Of those, i would say they are briefings by the hill and the educational Training Programs are the more important and effective of the three initiatives. While im not opposed to hearings, my question is to what end . It can be enlightening, but it is Civil Society ideas, will be the benefit of a hearing versus presenting those ideas directly that it can be ascertained. The importance of the issue would be to invite them to a doubletalk, a National Level exercise as you point out in your paper. A table talk, a National Level exercise, as you point out in your paper. For a variety of reasons members , reacting to an question members for Civil Society may actually entrench them in a position rather than persuade them, if they are doing it in a public forum. I wholeheartedly agree that more discussions should take place between the administration and congress, codels, staff delegations are very important and not just for insights, but domestic insights as well. Additionally, members should be kept abreast of intelligence assessments as well as Nuclear Security. I think this is the gap that cap we have not talked about in the public space. But it is a gap. Equally, Training Programs expose both Staff Members to abroad list of ideas. The second is supports and initiatives and the for the recommendations under this category. When i reviewed this, i did not know that there was actually a hill proposal to do this, although i think it was the gao Government Accountability office. Joyce government cabability office and the comptroller come mother government would be the one who formed it, which is good, because i did not think the office of management and budget would be the place to do this. Honestly, i have seen a number of attempts to map out all programs where Nuclear Security exists throughout the government, and none of the maps were pretty. I think it would be great to see where all the work is being performed and all the funding is going. I say that i dont think the office of management and budget is the right agency to do it. The first report will be the most important, because that is where you will catalog all these activities taking place, and it will be difficult to replicate on a yearly basis. The first one is going to take a lot of work, and i think you have to define the question very carefully. The 2000s, after 9 11, and the National Terrorism center was set up, there was an effort to create a plan for the war on terror. All of the agencies across the government that had a piece of the terrorism portfolio were responsible to populate a huge spreadsheet with all of their activities and coordinate activities across the government. I was in government for the whole time period, and im not sure that document was ever used for anything useful, but i will say it a lot of time and energy and effort to fill out this very detailed report, where you only had a small line to explain what you were doing. Within the realm of counterterrorism. I fear that, if taken to the extreme, a report of this kind could be so unwieldy that it is rendered useless, so definitions are important. I think it is useful to separate the activities undertaken by the United States and taken on internationally. If there is cross pollination between those two, i think you can identify them. But i think it is fundamentally different to take taxpayer dollars and spend them in the United States on Nuclear Security versus cooperative programs with our international counterparts, and we should have an understanding of what is being counted. Also, are we only counting the National Security dollars . Are we including direct bilateral spending, Atomic Energy agencies, other international commitments, such as the Global Partnership and the unitedmmittee at nations . Then again, what about the funds we spend either in the military or the department of energy to protect our facilities . Is that being included as well . I dont know if that breaks down. I am not sure of the wisdom of that. I think it is a very good project. I think the defining scope will be the challenge, and i think it is worth the effort to try to figure out how to do that well. The second recommendation is a blueribbon Bipartisan Commission, a comprehensive strategy, and i know im going to sound like a cynic, but in washington, Blueribbon Commissions are basically where tough issues go to die. That is the nature of them, and usually, a Blueribbon Commission is after an incident happens to determine what happened, or you have an issue that is overlap for the two sides. In this case, i dont see the need for a Blueribbon Commission, because both sides understand this is a priority. It is a matter of what is the funding allocation, how do we go about doing it . I think that is where the difference is. Tooin, i dont mean to be cynical on that. The Nuclear Security cross cut initiative is not new, and it is not a bad idea. It can be revitalized. As we have turnover and staff, memory is lost. Some good things happen in that you have fresh ideas coming in, and the bad thing is we keep making the same mistake again we should be making doing. Joke. We should recognize what has been done in the past and improve upon it because , because sometimes we get into a rut of doing the same thing over and over, but it is important to understand what capabilities we have, and i would also say given the attrition rates in the federal government at this time and in the Technology Sector in particular, we should understand were those capabilities are as well. In terms of a crosscutting initiative to implement activities, we normally use the National Security council for that, and i think youll find that if you scratch the surface of that a little bit, there are crosscutting plans in place. The thing that would be interesting about crosscutting to me, because i dont see a lot of it, it is having a dialogue between the Nuclear Security people and the Nuclear Nonproliferation folks, the Nuclear Waste folks, Nuclear Energy folks. That crosscutting conversation happens too rarely, and i think that when youre talking about engaging with International Partners, Nuclear Security can be hard to crack. But if you have an entryway with nuclear safety, you have an entryway with Nuclear Waste, you can start the relationships and the move on to Nuclear Security. We do a very bad job as the United States government of having cross conversations interdisciplinary amongst those groups. Finally, the last category was action oriented. I will call it programmatic. Nsass to expand the research and development efforts. Yes, yes, yes, i 100 agree with that. Im not going to go down your wish list of the project, but i would say, and i have not looked at this in a while knowing what , the research and Development Area looks like within the nsa, within the National Security administration, within the national labs, within the Defense Department and how those can be applied to the security would be vitally important, and i think more should be done in this area. I think also, as we talk about these new, emerging technologies, cyber Security Issues, artificial intelligence, all of those things will take cuttingedge research and development to understand, and additionally, in the event of a denuclearized north korea, we can and will need new technology. As we deploy new nuclear reactors, next Generation Nuclear reactors, we will need new research and development and technology to address proliferation issues. There was a call to support global strategies, stronger regulations, and increase funding in order to secure the most high risk radiological materials in the world. This sounds similar to president ouryearcall for a f effort to secure all Nuclear Materials, that ma he made in his speech. Personally on the hierarchy of needs, i think radiological material is important. I dont lump it into Nuclear Security as tightly as others do. In fact some of the first Nuclear Security summit, we were conscious not to include it security, because of the different nature of the material, and because we have limited time, frankly. It was later added as the Nuclear Security summit, and i think it is important, but i think we recognize the sources used the commercial industry comes to having that and not involving the resources, i think it is probably not the best strategy for protecting those resources. Sources. There was a call to support the conversion of metal reactors to use leu fuel, lowenriched fuel. Uranium fuel. There are some that believe we should explore switching to lowenriched uranium fuel. My guess is it wont get funded. There are reasons why we use highly enriched uranium in our submarine force. I dont think the demonizing it for the sake of demonizing enriched uranium is a conversation we need to be having at the moment. I know that is controversial , so i will move on to the next one, funding is part of the ingse of denuclearize north koreas arsenal. Again, yes, i believe these conversations are taking part in the government, in think tanks. What i would love to see it and organization that convenes under Chatham House rule or Something Like that. Members, Staff Members from the hill and people from the government and people from think tanks to noodle through what it would look like to dismantle north koreas arsenal and what the followon program look like. The report references nonluger. Nunnlugar. Not sure that is necessarily the model we should look for, gar, we were on the brink of having four new nuclear states. Were going to have to understand what those assurances are on both sides are. What we do need of the colleagues that worked on the program in past, former iraq weapons inspectors, folks in the administration, and gave out some of the scenarios, understand where the pitfalls are, where we should be putting research and development dollars. That i think would be to catholic and if the community focuses on the issues could pull that together, i think that would be a tremendous asset for future generations. Thank you. Very comprehensive and very concrete. I imagine that kingston and andy may want to give your response , and if you could also, the question i was asked, update what has happened . Think about what else. I wont say much. I will say i think i saw that in the context and part of the inort that we focus on, terms of the survey that not is not exactly what you were referencing in that report, but the same issue pertains to date compartmentalization that takes place on the hill. Among those, focusing on issues that are defenserelated spirit positions, that does not take place very often. In the days when i was up there. I suspect that is still pretty much the case. Theres a tendency for communities to look at the responsibilities and cling to them. I know when i was up there, i tried to set up an effort to have some kind of an Informal Group in the Armed Services committee. The deal was issues that both are interested in like to handle issues in war zones. It seems to me something both committees would have interest in. That is an example of the difficulty of the crosshatching of the responsibilities. It is very, very difficult. I would just, again i draw from , my own experience of how congress is structured that does not always help to make progress. And that is the one example i always like to cite. Nlugar itself is a difficult process. The russians came said we have a problem and that helped us. An example i often dont use is preemptive. Without going to a long definition, that piece of listless and leftists in it, at least was carved up among seven different committees. That piece of legislation, at was carvede senate, up among, i think, seven different committees. Seven different pieces took a slice, and it was only because of the willingness of the , joycehip of bob dole mitchell, and im not sure who it was anymore, to be able to take those opponents, stitch them together into a final piece of legislation that made it possible. If you dont have that leadership from the top, it cannot get it done. But it is very difficult, because everybody wants a slice of this legislation and it was a , metaphor in some way about how difficult it is to do complex legislation across committees. I would mention the one thing. We know is true in the executive branch, communication not only across agencies, but certainly within them, as we also know from prior experience. It is difficult. Obviously, i hate to be trite about this some of this can be , resolved by strong leadership. Certainly on the hill. Leadership to pull the pieces together. In the executive branch, it is not always done. I will just make that one comment. Kingston joyce, thank you for those thoughtprovoking comments. Really great and useful. Let me just respond to a few of them. With respect to hearings, joyce mentions she is not as sold on them. It mentioned tabletop exercises, public forms can be tricky. I certainly agree with those latter two points. I think one of the benefits that is sometimes lost is that even if it is not well attended, the hearing on the schedule forces a particular staff to engage on the issue. I think that is important with respect to addressing some of what we found on the survey in terms of a lack of engagement and a lack of knowledge with respect most Congressional Staff. Those who are not focusing on the issues for a committee or a member who really cared. In that respect, i think hearings can be an important tool to enhance understanding and to enhance engagement. Blueribbon commissions is where the place where tough issues go to die. You hear that often in washington. I think there is some truth to that. However, the model we had in mind with respect to the commission idea was the Congressional Commission mandated by congress at the end of the george w. Bush administration, i believe in the 2007 timeframe, which was to create strategic posture on behalf of the United States, which was Bipartisan Commission passed basically identifying the way forward for u. S. Nuclear weapons policy. An event on that commission, not an event commenting on whether someone agrees or disagrees with that commission, but i dont think there could be any doubt that the commission heavily informed the Obama Administrations 2010 nuclear deal and had a Significant Impact on that process. At least that is my view. When there is a controversial issue in congress, what do they often do . They punt it to the commission. I think in this case, there could be real value in particular, because this is an area where there is more bipartisan support and overlap. Joyce mentioned, among the disagreements or among the different perspectives on the it is, what do we spend money, what is the funding allocation . I think those are the questions the commission should be tasked with taking on. In the hierarchy of the areas, clearly an incident of Nuclear Terrorism and Nuclear Explosive device going off the far less devastating than a dirty bomb, but nonetheless it would be detonated and have massive repercussions, perhaps less in terms of the number of people who are killed and injured, but certainly economically would , it would have tremendous implications, implications with respect to the national psyche, and who knows what kind of steps our government would take in an combat a future such attack . The material is prevalent and use more widely for domestic use , which creates challenges, but also opportunities. North korea, your take on north korea i totally agree with that. Someow nci is doing interesting work. Thank you, richard. Richard just released a report on the subject, which i would recommend. I dont want to get too much detail on this, but let me give three reasons why i think this is an area where focusing on. One, we see the amount that is available. It is a good thing but the also reduces the risk of Nuclear Terrorism. Heu, for is less example. Number two, for the United States pursued this effort, i think would give incentive for other countries who have not gone down this road to do so. If you look at the iranians, the high level enrich uranium as a way to produce Naval Nuclear propulsion. And then finally, if you believe , as i do, that the national Nuclear Security administration plans to sustain and upgrade Nuclear Warheads, already, unexecutable, just wait until an Actual Program to develop u. S. Domestic enrichment programs starts to come on the budget books. And i think to the extent we reduce our reliance on heu, i especially for Nuclear Propulsion i think that opens up , an interesting alternative and , relying on our own domestic possibly, line, and and i know this is controversial, looking to the international market. I will stop there. I know you have been really patient. I want to give you guys an opportunity to ask questions and comments. If you could raise your hand, we will probably start on one end of the room and go together. Why dont we start over here . Please identify yourself. After her, go ahead, and move backwards. Thank you for bridging the gap in the conversation. Of thenging in the role legislative branch. I wanted to bring in an idea that my administration lead in the past. Formerroups led by members of congress, a potential idea to bring in current members of congress. In our case, we also brought in International Partners into the conversation. Thing. An additional i had a question about the report, which im looking forward to leading. You mentioned all the Staff Members on statebased tracks, which would normally put in under concerns with proliferation issues. But i was wondering about the discussion of Nuclear Newcomers, again, a discussion we have had here in previous meetings which , brings back the role of an increased need for u. S. Competitiveness in the area. Thank you. We want to break it down into andy, doeading you want to address that one . Andrew the discussion with Staff Members and so forth theres a history of some of , that already. I remember when i was on the hill. Observere arms control group, which the staff for staffing that, and it was a group that was therefore the leadership and provided some resources for that, and this was a group that was focusing mostly on arms control issues during of time,icular period late 1980s, early 1990s, just 1990s, i guess, for part of it. It was not exactly a discussion group, it was something that ought to be revived. Quite frankly. It went through a metamorphosis and morphed into Something Else. But something along that line, where members can get together, focusing on a given issue for or area or so forth. This is a group that [inaudible] let up during negotiations for it, so you had individuals who were invested. If i recall, there was a staff or two. Most staffers were not involved. This was members only. So in the proverbial language members getting in on the , dynamic issue as it was evolving over time, getting in on the take off rather than just coming in late. So very wellinformed people. I remember writing paper on one of these for senator lugar before he went into the discussion. There was a different kind of discussion, which i cannot recall exactly what it was, but something to do with funding issues. Amongst the members themselves. So any time i think you have this interaction, and you can broaden the number of diversity people in that group, i think it is a good thing. [indiscernible] yes, i think it is a very good idea, and one of the locations of the study is that some of the best ideas are not in the executive branch, some of the best ideas are in Civil Society and including longer legislation. Some that were brought to my views. This crossfertilization the extremely enriched question is can somebody pick up the ball and run with it . So yes, and maybe you could take the second question . Richard do you recall it there was a distinction between statebased threats and Nuclear Newcomers . Andrew no, i dont think that popped out of the data that we were able to collect. There was newcomers in the sense iran it was and , high on the agenda. High on the priorities, if thats what you mean by neighboring newcomers. Because that was dominant in the news and headlines, administration and so forth. Beyond that, im not sure there was much. Im a scholar at Columbia University and i wanted to ask, in light of growing interests of middle Eastern Countries of producing Nuclear Programs, how would you suggest congress to keep nonstate actors from using and obtaining Nuclear Materials . Thank you. Joyce thats a very topical question. There is already a goal in that, because in order for the u. S. To trade in nuclear deals, we have to have an agreement with another country, which goes through congressional scrutiny before it is enacted. As it stands, that agreement sits in front of congress for a certain number of days. If they dont act, it is not enacted. A passive agreement at that time. One of the ways that congress can be helpful is to Pay Attention when one of these agreements comes in front of them. Hold hearings. And ask the administration if they have done Due Diligence with the nonproliferation credentials of the country that is seeking to have Nuclear Cooperation with the u. S. That is one way congress can get involved. With regards to that countrys Nuclear Energy ambitions and other countries, its hard for the United States to have influence over that, unless we are competitive in that market, in terms of having our Nuclear Companies competing to sell nuclear technologies. In order to do that, we need the to have that agreement in place. That is how i believe that plays out. Kingston you mentioned the middle east. That has been a topic of much conversation in congress. Particularly the issue of u. S. Cooperation and agreement with and what kind of safetyly there is a component to this. There is a nonproliferation component with this, with respect to what the United States should ask or even demand saudis to do on the nonproliferation front. It is part of any civilian Nuclear Cooperation deal. What kind of leverage do we have to insist on those tough conditions . By that, i mean the protocol, and this is a controversial issue, but the saudis also agreeing not to engage in in making, not engaging in enrichment and the processing. As i said, this is a controversial issue. In terms of Nuclear Security, those challenges become more difficult if the country is actually engaged in making its is nuclear fuel, if it engaging in enrichment, if it is separating plutonium. From my perspective, and i think the United States has a significant amount of leverage. And i do give the Trump Administration credit in this regard, but it does appear that they are holding a line, at least in terms of insisting on additional protocol. But that ought to be the u. S. Position. And another key thing on Nuclear Security, the state department there are new Nuclear Security programs and they are engaging with new entrants, those who want Nuclear Energy, to educate them on the issue of Nuclear Security. So that is something that proactively the administration, administrations in the past and the Current Administration continues to support, is education for a country entering into the Nuclear Energy field. Richard ok. So we have two questions here. First in the back, then the come up toward center. Marianne marianne mcgrail. Im an attorney in d. C. How integrated is the discussion of cybersecurity into your discussion of Nuclear Security . Richard great question. Joyce i would just say not nearly enough. I think it needs to be integrated more. There are people who look at private security from a Nuclear Security standpoint who are engaging in international conversations, and its challenging. When you talk about cybersecurity, you dont want to give away your vulnerabilities. That is always a challenge talking about Nuclear Security. But even the government, on the whole, does not have a good handle on cybersecurity for its own infrastructure and is working hard to do that, but it is kind of siloed at this point in time, from what i can see. And again i am not in this on a , daytoday basis. Kingston i think theres more awareness. Kingston certainly more awareness, there has been several workshops on this particular issue. Congress has certainly been a gave the and interested in it. The executive branch is looking at this, if part of nsas research and potential vulnerabilities. Andrew i would say the obvious, when everyone assesses what needs to be done, and one of the emerging problems, cyber is one of those, and its a high priority. Always at the top of the list. How to address it is the next question. Its one of those somewhat intractable but high priority resourcesf allocating and then how best to do it. Who does it . And there is the risk of revealing information that might otherwise you would want to be protected. It creates a new set of the field. In joyce i think the Nuclear Threat initiative did a report on this, as well as the harvard center. So folks are working on this issue, as i mentioned but i , would recommend those resources to you, if you are interested. Mary ann thank you. Jessica thank you. My name is jessica, and i am with the Nuclear Threat initiative. Thank you for the kind call out. If you have any questions about the products mentioned, im happy to talk more about that. I was curious about the outcomes of the survey that you conducted with hill staffers. I was wondering if there was a generational component to your results . I think one of the challenges to your field is just raising awareness in general of nuclear policy. I was wondering if you thought about the need to raise more awareness for policy issues in addition to Nuclear Security and if anything came out of the survey in those regards. Andrew the only thing i have to say about that is i did make mention my initial remarks that those staffers who have around by the way, the average i dont know what the average age of the staffers in the congress on the whole is. I could probably figure out the average age of those we surveyed. But the average age is young. It is in the 20s. Congressional staff work is often a springboard to Something Else. A throughput,d of and it is a great launching pad for career development. What im saying is that the longevity of members is very short of the staffers is very short on the hill. The memory is based on other things and so forth. I did mention in the report that those who have been on the hill longer, those who were more experienced, that had developed perhaps some expertise on this issue, area, elevate Nuclear Security to a higher priority, because they may have had recollections of what happened in the past. And may be sensitive to the whole Nuclear Summit process. 2010. So they might be more sensitive to that because of recent history. Also, for those of us who were in those were not required the heydays of this legislation working on this legislation in 1990s and the decomposition of the soviet union, these were highpriority issues. These threats were imminent, or seemed to be imminent. But many of the staffers, including myself, are gone on the hill. So that expertise, not only among members, but also among staff, has dissipated over time. Are sortve people who of starting, have to start all over in a postcold war environment. I guess we are now calling it a postcold war environment. But there is not the sense of legacy that i mentioned before. People are aware of the numbers, the legislation. There is not much else. And i think, so the generational problems exist with young staffers the constant turnover in members after elections, new staff comes in starting staff, coming from state and local districts. Then another election comes up, and so forth. And that is why the program we suggested terms of hearings, you ls,n terms of code staffdels, you are right. I know senator lugar encouraged senator obama to take a trip to the states of the former soviet union. He understood what those problems were, and it was a great educational experience. He was the new generation coming in at that point in time. And by the way, these kinds of suggestions we are making and Civil Societies playing an extraordinary role. I should have put a plug in here at the beginning. I might now. It is interesting to note that if one were to trace the interest not just among us, but among funders to think tanks and to ngos, you will find the interesting Nuclear Security is gonegone like that, it has down, and shifting as a reality onto control issues of u. S. China and u. S. Russia relations. For sure. But the plug that i wanted to several years ago, the Macarthur Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of new york put together this extraordinary map, a Great Initiative in which they announced that they were going to put aside hundreds of millions of dollars to encourage groups like ours to Work Together in a collaborative way to do some research, funding, to do some projects on Nuclear Security. Focused just on Nuclear Security. That money pool has dried up, because the issue is not as prominent as it used to be. But kudos to them, and hopefully we do not get to a situation where it is such a prominent issue where we have to find those funders. Because those big funders are not funding anymore. There is also a generational thing among funders. Richard ok lets go to the next , side. Starting in the front and moving backwards. Im a d. C. Based security analyst. My question is, does your study group think that the gravity and urgency of present Nuclear Security risks calls for the establishment of new subcommittees in the house and senate dedicated specifically to Nuclear Security issues . It seems like the specializations of Congressional Staffer primarily determined by the existence of the committees and subcommittees. So i was just wondering whether the urgency and gravity of this calls for new subcommittees that would address the issue of specialization . Andrew well, i think it would be a good idea, yes, i think so. Actually, creating that goes back to a problem that i mentioned when we were trying to meaning there are informal ways of doing this, but they are not as effective, and its difficult to have followthrough other than going back to existing institutional structures. If you had some sort of institutional change, Institutional Innovation in terms of subcommittees. I think if the issue is right for crossfertilization, i think it would be. They would bring together the three sets from defense, Foreign Affairs, energy, and informally bring them together, even if it is informal, going back to one of the questions earlier, would be a good thing. Trying to formalize that in. Creating taskforces not easy. Is not easy. You need leadership. Do i think its a good idea . Yes. It could be helpful. People are asking why this issue, why not Something Else . You dont use the word proliferation, because the committees are very protective of their turf, and they dont want to give it up. It is almost like sovereign territory. But it should happen, could happen. Yes, its a good idea. Board member of the Arms Control Association. I think you were starting to address the question i had, but you had mentioned concerns about compartmentalization, and joyce also mentioned the need for interdisciplinary crosscutting conversations. During my time on the Senate Intelligence committee, i was struck about the barriers to dealing with Foreign Affairs, and on issues that intimately involved all three committees. And i think i would be interested in hearing about anyone elses ideas about how to achieve that, and just giving a couple of examples from my own experience in the Senate Intelligence committee, we were responsible for monitoring the state departments intelligence bureau, along with 16 other intelligence bureaus. We had nothing to do with the authorization for that entity. Likewise, we could do costeffective valuations between diplomatic reporting and , but thene reporting authorizations were handled completely separately. There was no way to rationally use tradeoffs, and it seems like it is a structural problem in congress. And you talked about the value you talked about the value of Senior Leadership from congress. I think you are saying maybe an informal arrangement would be another alternative way to break down some of these barriers between the committees that deal with Nuclear Security and nonproliferation and so forth. Andrew i experience is that when we had these kind of problems of coordination and information sharing, many of us would just get together for toths or maybe afterwards try to share some of this information. That wasnt altogether satisfactory because it wasnt formalized, and it was mostly staff. We had to for example, the authorizing committees worked with the Appropriations Committees. The authorizing committees in Foreign Affairs have trouble getting legislation passed, as we know. That is not true of the National Defense authorization act, but certainly true of the other authorization bills. Because leadership would not want to allocate time for taking , lets say a Foreign Relations , it wasation bill separate, and now it is integrated with the state department. The last Foreign Relations passed,ation bill was was enacted in 1986. I was sitting on the floor next to senator lugar when we did this. Thats, what, three years . Havent past one cents thats, what, 30 years . Since. Nt passed one so the good relations between the two chairman, the two ranking members and good relations with the staff is essential to trying to move that kind of legislation where theres blockage. Those are lots of examples like that. Perhaps there should be at some point in time a review of committee jurisdiction. It is a Monumental Task in terms owneach committee has their bylaws, if you will. Some of them simply, as you suggested, ought to be someplace else. That would be an interesting reorganization, congressional reorganization initiative, for some commission, some group to take a look at that. Difficult. Very it would take a long time to do it. A lot of resistance to it. Is notature, i guess, for any organization to give up what it already has. I think there are probably legions of examples you could cite on this. Its a problem. Compartmentalization makes the whole legislative process far more difficult. There are ways of doing it informally. Whether congress should be restructured, and there were many efforts in the past, that walked up the hill and walked back down. Joyce since we are running out richard since we are running out of time, why dont we take the two questions there . When you talk about congressional hearings, i think pete and i staffed the first hearings on Nuclear Security in the 1990s. A series of classified briefings that led into those hearings. , inbriefings featured particular, the national laboratories. Suffice it to say that when the labs came up and explained to us in great detail what an improvised Nuclear Device would look like and how it would be done, that briefing was so impressive to the members who attended it that we had to do it again couple of years later by popular demand. Members,ped focus the who then, and hearings, were able to sign on about doing more about the problem. Similarly, you mentioned a Technology Fair. Had, was one that d. O. E. 1989, mustve been around reallyr 1991 that was what schooled senator joe biden in the importance of the issue. As a then took it on personal mission to make sure that those programs were funded, and he would go to the floor , andyear with amendments he would i take it back, it was the appropriations bill to get veryk nondescript amendments into the that would tell the conferees, fix this. Then they would use those amendments to get more money for the programs. All of this is to say it can be done if you get even a small number of members to be committed to the success of. Unding efforts im glad to see that theres another fellowship program. Keep in mind that there are also important fellowship programs sponsored by the state department and by the energy department, and all of them have, at one time or another, scientists toul the hill, who then had a major influence on the content and funding of federal programs. So all of those are important to keep up, and between them all, you probably have in any year a dozen or more fellows available to members if they would take advantage of it. About gao reports , as far as it goes, but understand the gao traditionally has had a hard time covering the intelligence community, so to the extent that that is relevant to what you want people to look at, you really have to perhaps look to organizations other than gao to come up with all of the things you want. Academies have also done useful reports in that regard. And staff, iembers would just say my organization has had some success with evening briefings for members where the understanding is that who attended and what they said will be kept secret, and that toes members the opportunity ask dumb questions, as well as smart ones, and to educate themselves without worrying that it will show up in politico a week later. Point aboutjoyces , i big the data set gets tried to do that myself one time. And setll the programs them to the periodic table of the elements. I only sang it once at los alamos, and it was unanimously decided i would not sing it again. [laughter] richard everyone who wants to make a question or comment, raise your hand. If you could get them one after another, i think the woman behind my name is gabriella. Im a washingtonbased scholar in National Security and law. The importance of congressional leadership has been mentioned a lot. To make sure things are implemented with nuclear targety, do you plan to members of congress . I had a quick question. First of all, in your personal interviews, surveys, and small focus groups, was there any discussion about efforts to improve social resilience and governmental resilience in the wake of a radiological or Nuclear Event . The second question is a quick one. With the formal withdrawal from inf treaty and the joint comprehensive plan of action, and i understand your report was issued in july 2018, has there been any shift in infosys as a result in emphasis as a result of that, perhaps with thirdparty transfer or other issues . Gw,m a graduate student at and intern here at the Hudson Institute. Security issues, policy makers view it through the lens of mobility versus consequences. If the consequent is our high but the probability is low, they wont be as inclined to act on them. My question is, of your proposals, which of them do you think best addresses that issue when advocating to policymakers and their staffers . Richard anyone else . Last call. Joyce, do you want to go ahead . I think a lot of the questions are actually addressed to the survey, and i think they are all good questions. I just want to go back to a point. I understand kingstons point about radiological security, and i didnt mean to diminish it in general. What i was addressing was should it raise to the level of having a fouryear effort similar to the one we had on where material. A lot of the work on radiological material was being done, so i didnt want to leave the impression that i didnt think it is a serious problem with serious consequences. It goes to your question about consequence and risk. , think, as a policymaker because i come from the executive branch, when folks come to us with proposals for us to look at, i think there are a lot of things we take into consideration. Waysbenefit, what are the we can address the issues that tre going to be mos successful, how do we manage risk. I think that is key versus the consequent piece of it. Obviously the consequence of a Nuclear Detonation is extraordinary. The consequent of a radiological incident is impactful. But the frequency of a radiological event would probably be more likely than a Nuclear Detonation, yet the consequent is of a Nuclear Detonation are just on acceptable, and that is why policymakers have chosen to act on those things. Theres two ways we can try to prevent Nuclear Terrorism. One, go after the terrorists. They tend to move around a lot, and they pop up in different places. The material is easier to understand, where it is and how it is secured. s point about the intelligence communities, thats one piece that i think is fundamental to our understanding of where the vulnerabilities are because if its true that weve actually hit all the low hanging , the low hanging fruit is the material we knew where it werend where people willing to address it. Material we dont know where it is, and where we have less willing partners cooperating with us. That is the bigger challenge. I dont know that necessarily you get to that without involving the intelligence community, understanding where that material is, and using all the tools of government to put pressure on those individuals who have that material in their possession. Thats why it is very important to work across disciplines to try to get at a diplomatic solution with that individual country or entity that has control of that material to try to figure out how to address it put money to programs that are helpful, but not necessarily as impactful as getting that material, which is the most vulnerable that material which is the most vulnerable and problematic. Kingston the question with respect to the imprecations of withdrawal from the jcpoa and the inf treaty for Nuclear Security, theres bigger applications with respect to the withdrawal from the jcpoa. There were provisions in that ,greement with respect to obviously, cooperating with iran pursuant to the steps iran was taking to address concerns about. Ts Nuclear Program there were some small references to Nuclear Security cooperation. I know had there have been proposals in the nongovernmental the deal told upon enhance conversations about Nuclear Security as well, but with the United States not a party to that. The future of the agreement certainly being in doubt, theres obviously the opportunity for that is much with, and my view, potentially negative consequences. Andrew i have just a scattergram of responses. Ed, you mentioned about senator baden, Vice President biden. Candidate biden. [laughter] andrew s introduction to tech fares and so forth. A tech fair with the nsa several months ago, and staff had a chance to come in and see, touch, feel the actual equipment using for detection purposes and monitoring and so , and have those who know how this equipment is to be used explain it and have demonstrations take place. It was actually very well attended, but i think it was an education for myself. I didnt know much of this equip it other than by name. I think that kind of education is extremely important. You can up your expertise pretty fast if you know these things. The other thing i would mention is, going back to the hill was on the hill, we used to say, who owns this issue . Who owns this issue . Who owns armscontrol . Who owns Environmental Issues . And so forth. Today, i dont know who owns Nuclear Security. I dont know who owns armscontrol. Someone who puts him or herself, im talking about, in a position to take some risk politically by getting out in front on an issue that perhaps constituents are not very concerned about. Someone who is willing to, as biden did in your example, educate his colleagues through letters and gettogethers and so forth. I dont know who owns these issues on the hill. Perhaps im not wellinformed, but i dont think anybody stands out. Theres a scattergram of members that share some of these interests, the Nuclear Security working group and so forth. This gets back to the issue of leadership, someone to step forward and do things such as sending out letters, having informal meetings, and elevating the priority of Nuclear Security or some aspect of Nuclear Security, of which theres many. I know there was another question about what ought to be the priority. I dont know. As someone who worked in the thernational field, we have Nuclear Threat initiative, and called the nuclear Security Architecture. Components, there must have been 25 elements. So the International System of sometimes disconnected agreements and treaties, initiatives, it doesnt always work in the same direction. It doesnt always work in harmony, and conflicts with one another. Theres a lot of things that can be done to fix up the patchwork and try to move this issue area towardsternational side mandatory requirements. Set iaea has probably as good a set of International Standards for , how to secures their materials and house them, other theres also sources, but thats all voluntary. Fixing up the international set of controls, fixing up the Nuclear Suppliers group, theres a lot of things that could be done. Someone interested on the International Side of this issue would try to fix up that, and as difficult as it might be, try to convince the world that some of these standards ought to be mandatory. That there ought to be ample mentation of the standards, enforcement of these standards, and consequences for noncompliance. But that is a huge jump. Im not sure if this aministration, which has negative attitude towards International Corporations and treaties and so forth, would do that. Richard for now, i have a couple of thank yous to give. ,irst of all, to our speakers thinking through some of the occasions of this report and beyond. I also want to thank the hudson team and the cspan team. Theyve been here for three long events in the past 36 hours. And i want to thank the audience for coming. It is mid august. Im sure you have other temptations, so i think we all around of applause o we all owe a round of applause. [applause] [indiscernible] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] announcer cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, we will discuss campaign 2020 and u. S. Immigration policy starting with Washington Post immigration reporter, American Immigration Lawyers Association executive director benjamin johnson, and the center of immigration studies. Watch washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern this morning. Join the discussion. Announcer washington journal cspansavailable at new online store. Spanstore. Org to see all of the products. The u. 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