Disarmament Documentation

Back to Disarmament Documentation

Budget Boost for Non-Proliferation Spending: Speech by US Energy Secretary, January 29

'The FY 2004 Non-Proliferation Budget: Supporting the Ten Principles for Nuclear and Radiological Materials Security', Speech by Spencer Abraham, US Secretary of Energy, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington, D.C., January 29.

... During the last two years, this Administration has been aggressive on many fronts in its pursuit of effective non-proliferation - unilaterally, bilaterally with Russia, multilaterally with the G-8 and internationally with the IAEA. We have enlarged the scope of our programs, built partnerships and worked to break down bureaucratic and legal barriers that impede our work. We have looked for ways to move beyond the traditional list of participating countries to help us address emerging threats such as radiological dispersal devices.

All of these efforts are important, but to be effective they require resources. And on that front, as well, we intend to be aggressive. Therefore, I am here today to announce that our fiscal year '04 budget submission will contain the largest request for non-proliferation programs in US history - $1.3 billion, a 30% increase over our '03 budget submission. This unprecedented level of funding comes just months after our successful effort to establish the G8's Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, which will add $20 billion over 10 years to a worldwide, cooperative non-proliferation effort. The Global Partnership may well be the single most important achievement in the history of our non-proliferation efforts...

DOE's '04 budget and the Global Partnership demonstrate - better than anything that has come before - how far this nation is prepared to go individually and collectively to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and materials. Our increased funding, and the infusion of funds from our G8 partners, are essential to this work. But success requires more than money. Implementing these programs, even when the funding is available, also requires cooperation and coordination. And I can assure you that all of us at DOE have been doing - and will continue to do - everything we can to ensure that such cooperation and coordination takes place.

On each of the five occasions that I have met with Russia's Minister of Atomic Energy Alexander Rumyantsev over the past 16 months, we have worked hard to accelerate and expand our programs in Russia. We have worked to clear away bureaucratic obstacles to progress on issues such as access rights and taxation concerns. We have also established new initiatives such as our joint work on addressing under-secured radioactive sources. Minister Rumyantsev has been an able partner in these efforts and I want to again publicly acknowledge his effective leadership.

We are also working closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency to both ensure that IAEA can effectively carry out its duties, and to help all nations understand and deal with materials challenges. Together, we are establishing a global action plan to promote nuclear security, ensuring adequate resources for the IAEA's safeguards budget, conducting international training courses to improve physical protection worldwide, and putting issues related to under-secured radiological sources at the top of the international agenda, beginning with our upcoming Vienna Conference on these matters.

Clearly, the resources provided in our '04 budget will allow us to continue exercising the leadership needed to implement these efforts.

Many of you here today also attended the Carnegie Conference last November. You will remember that I introduced my "Ten Principles for Nuclear and Radiological Security" in a speech at that conference. We have designed our '04 budget submission to support those Ten Principles, and today I want to outline how the budget will advance our work.

Principle One: The Threat Continues to Evolve

The international community has long been concerned over rogue states seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Now, we're also focused on threats posed by terrorist networks that seek such weapons and materials. Likewise, much more attention is being paid to the risks associated with the misuse of radiological materials - a possibility hardly considered before September 11. September 11 demonstrated the dispassionate attitude that terrorists take to mass murder and physical destruction. For them, the killing of thousands of innocent people is integral to their strategy for war against the civilized world. If these cold-blooded killers managed to acquire the deadly materials necessary for nuclear or radiological weapons, they would surely find ways to use them.

As I mentioned earlier, the United States is meeting this challenge in many ways - in our work with Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy, in our cooperative efforts with the IAEA, and domestically, through the work being undertaken by the Department of Homeland Security, to name a few.

Our FY'04 budget strongly supports these efforts. It includes more than $110 million for proliferation detection. This money will greatly enhance our ability to detect and deter a violator's Weapons of Mass Destruction activities in their early stages, by developing technologies for long-range detection and attribution of nuclear weapons and materials. This budget will also support an important new effort to prevent export control failures by anticipating where proliferators might go to acquire the technologies needed for weapons of mass destruction.

Under the '04 budget, our Department will also continue to play a key role in the Administration's efforts to strengthen regional security in, for example, the Middle East and Asia. Our ongoing work at Sandia's Cooperative Monitoring Center is aimed at better understanding the evolving threat, and reducing the incentives of states seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And the Department will continue to make significant contributions to our government's response to grave proliferation challenges, as represented currently in North Korea and Iraq.

Principle Two: The Margin of Error is Small

In the past decade alone, the IAEA has reported some 200 attempts at the illicit smuggling of nuclear materials. And the fact is, even a little success in smuggling or theft can have a major impact. Based on IAEA calculations, only a relatively small amount of highly enriched uranium could be enough for a nuclear explosive device. And if the goal is to build a radiological dispersal device, the amount can be even smaller, depending on the material used. So there is no margin for error. We all need to apply the best technologies, the best know-how, experience, and expertise that we can to this problem.

The FY '04 budget will allow us to expand our multi-pronged strategy of expanding materials protection programs, accelerating assistance to other countries under the Second Line of Defense program, and expanding research and development to detect nuclear materials. We will also continue refining our ability to detect illicit trafficking of nuclear materials at our own borders, and be looking at ways to make those borders even more secure.

Principle Three: The Problem Demands a Broad Array of Responses

Nuclear and radiological materials security is a multifaceted problem. Physically securing nuclear materials is critical, but it is only part of the solution. We also need to consolidate nuclear material wherever we can, by reducing the number of sites where it is stored. We must reduce the total amount of excess nuclear material, and end its production. Our FY '04 request will allow us to do these things, with particular emphasis on our close working relationship Russia. Which brings me to my fourth principle.

Principle Four: There is an Extremely Important Reason for Focusing on Russia

As you know, much of the material that needs to be better secured is located in Russia. Thanks to the unprecedented levels of cooperation achieved by presidents Bush and Putin, and with the funding in our '04 budget, we will be able to:

• Begin building the facilities that will make plutonium disposition a reality
• Begin the work to shut down Russia's plutonium reactors
• Implement a modest new program to purchase additional Russian uranium derived from nuclear weapons for use in a US strategic reserve.
• Continue to improve security at critical Russian nuclear sites, including an additional 1200 Russian Navy warheads, and
• Improve Russian border security to reduce the risk of illicit nuclear trafficking.

Further, by the end of FY 2004, security work will have started on nearly all of the 600 estimated metric tons of weapons-attractive materials in Russia. We expect to complete most of the work over the next few years - in many cases ahead of previous schedules.

The United States and Russia have taken major steps to secure Russian materials, but there is much more to be done. Which brings me to my fifth principle.

Principle Five: This is a Worldwide Problem Demanding International Solutions

I'm gratified to see positive steps being taken by many countries. Working with the United States, for example, the Ukrainian government has made significant progress in protecting materials at nuclear facilities. The United States recently completed critical physical protection improvements at the Nuclear Research Institute in Rez, in the Czech Republic. And the United States assisted Uzbekistan in completing security upgrades that reduce the vulnerability of sensitive facilities in that country.

With the help of the IAEA, Georgia recently recovered six Radioisotope Thermo-electric Generators, or RTGs, that had been in that country since the days of the Soviet Union. These Soviet-era portable power sources were radioactive and considered highly vulnerable. DOE played an important role in securing the RTGs, and I'm proud that we're continuing to assist Georgia in improving the security of their radioactive sources.

These are important accomplishments. But they only begin to get at the problem. There is more to be done, and all members of the international community will have to play a role.

I recently initiated a new program to improve our ability to detect nuclear materials or weapons en route to the United States in shipping containers. Under our '04 budget, we will focus on so-called "megaports," such as the one in Rotterdam, which are major transit hubs for approximately 90% of the container traffic received at US ports annually.

Principle Six: The Potential Misuse of Radiological Sources Needs to be Addressed

The problem of undersecured radiological sources that could be used in a radiological dispersion attack is an urgent one, and we need to treat it as such. It is the urgency of this threat that led me to recently propose an international conference to promote greater international appreciation of this potential danger, and to begin mapping out steps to address this problem. As I noted earlier, that conference will take place in March in Vienna. The United States and Russia will co-host the Conference with the IAEA and we look forward to robust international participation.

The FY '04 budget request will be a significant help to the international community as it addresses this threat. It will allow for the securing of an additional 18 sites in Russia where this material is stored, as well as for locating, consolidating, and securing an additional 225 orphan or surplus radioactive sources in the former Soviet Union. Finally, it will permit us to move forward on our bilateral and multilateral programs, including our wide-ranging cooperative work with the IAEA. That leads me to:

Principle Seven: The IAEA's contribution is Essential to the Success of our Programs

The IAEA, of course, is working hard to help nations grasp the extensiveness of nuclear and radiological materials security concerns, and to ensure the continued security of nuclear and radiological materials worldwide. But the IAEA needs resources to do its job. At last September's IAEA General Conference, I urged an increase in the IAEA safeguards budget. I do so again today.

Under this Administration, the Department of Energy has made significant voluntary contributions - totaling millions of dollars - to the IAEA to help it fulfill its mission. And let me be clear: The United States will continue to strongly support the IAEA. In fact, our upcoming budget submission will boost our contributions to international safeguards work carried out through the IAEA and other cooperative programs by 17 percent over 2003 funding levels. The IAEA's collective efforts have great value, but they must be buttressed by the efforts of individual nations, which is the point of:

Principle Eight: Materials Security is Ultimately a National Responsibility

The responsibility for securing nuclear and radiological materials rests, in the end, with each individual member of the international community. The United States has improved materials security since the attacks of September 2001. We will continue to do so, and we will continue to work with other nations, bilaterally or with the IAEA, to assist those countries in also taking comparable steps. For example, we're working with a number of countries to repatriate and consolidate weapons-grade fuel in Russia, and we'll continue our strong level of participation in the IAEA's international physical protection advisory service, which has done important work on a worldwide basis. The FY '04 budget will expand and accelerate these important priorities.

Principle Nine: This is a Long-Term Effort

When I first discussed these principles, I emphasized that securing nuclear and radiological materials will be a long-term effort requiring great commitment from the international community. I want to reemphasize that message today. Many materials security challenges simply do not lend themselves to short-term solutions. Some of these materials have half-lives of tens of thousands of years. To succeed we must simultaneously commit resources, procure equipment, build facilities, and work together to develop solutions that will stand the test of time. Our '04 budget signals our intention to lead as we move ahead with this long, complex and costly process. Which brings me to my tenth and perhaps most important principle, which grows out of the previous nine - and out of two years' experience as Secretary of Energy. It is this:

Principle Ten: Success is Possible

The challenges are enormous but they can be met. Success is possible because of the profound understanding here at home of the seriousness of the challenges facing us, and the growing worldwide understanding of the consequences that will follow if we do not cooperate - and if we do not succeed.

The evidence of the seriousness and the commitment required for success is accumulating and it is impressive. The increased funding and expanded programs in our '04 budget are proof of this Administration's understanding of the tremendous risks posed by proliferating nuclear weapons and materials.

The support we have received from Congress has been gratifying - and our legislators' appreciation of the challenges we face is growing. Based on my meetings with my counterparts from dozens of countries, and on the accounts provided by my Cabinet colleagues of their meetings with foreign government officials, I am convinced that we enjoy the worldwide support of responsible governments for our aggressive approach to preventing proliferation. The Global Partnership is irrefutable evidence that non-proliferation has become a top priority of responsible governments. The work of Non Governmental Organizations here and abroad has been very helpful in increasing public awareness of the dangers of proliferation - and the power of governments acting in concert to prevent it. ...

Years ago, someone coined the slogan, "Failure is not an option" to characterize NASA's manned space flight program. Since then it has been borrowed and debased somewhat by all sorts of people and enterprises - but in our case, the phrase is all too true. Failure really is not an option. We must work together to make the world safer. We owe our children, and their children, nothing less.

And as reflected in our FY '04 budget request, there should be no doubt that the President and this entire Administration are committed to that objective. I look forward to working with you as we move ahead with the work planned under our '04 budget - carrying out our existing and new programs, enlisting greater international support, evaluating our progress, and refining and improving our approaches to this essential work.

Source: Text - Non-Proliferation a Top US Priority, Energy Secretary Says, US Department of State (Washington File), January 30.

Back to the Top of the Page

© 2003 The Acronym Institute.