At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) questioned James J. McConnell, the Acting Principal Deputy Administrator, about agency staffing cuts.
00:00Senator King, you are recognized. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. McConnell, I think one of the most
00:07underappreciated risks that this country faces is the danger of terrorists getting a hold of
00:14nuclear materials. And my frustration is that there, I don't, I can't find where in the whole
00:22federal enterprise somebody's in charge of thinking about that. So I'm going to start with you.
00:30But all of our attention is to our near peer adversaries, and I understand that. But if nuclear materials and a rudimentary explosive device fell into the hands of a terrorist group, deterrence doesn't work. They don't have a capital city to destroy. They don't care about dying. And the damage on a nuclear device in a tramp steamer headed into the port of New York would be incalculable.
01:00And so talk to me about proliferation and how we keep our own materials safe. But how can we think about this in a broader sense, for example, developing technology to sense nuclear materials in a place where they shouldn't be?
01:18Thank you. Thank you for the question, Senator. Your question and your opening remarks, you talked about the deterrent with a T, the safe, secure, and reliable nuclear deterrent that we are responsible for. We are also responsible for many other aspects of deterrents with a C, including our Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation and the Office of Counterterrorism Counterproliferation.
01:41Is that within NNSA?
01:43Those are within NNSA. They are a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee at the same rank and the same position as our Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs.
02:00The Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation mission includes the efforts to figure out how to frustrate and prevent risks posed by non-state actors.
02:15You're absolutely right, sir. The non-state actors are not deterred in the same way as the state actors are.
02:22We have an integrated system between NNSA and the Counterterrorism Counterproliferation folks with the support of the scientists and engineers and capabilities of the defense programs part.
02:36And I would hope also the intelligence community.
02:38And the intelligence community and our Defense Department of Energy Intelligence Group to prevent, counter, and respond to those threats.
02:47Our approach is to make sure that it is extremely difficult, virtually impossible, for those non-state actors to get access to the material
02:58and the technology that is necessary to create a device and to make the penalty they pay for attempting to acquire that material or that knowledge very high
03:12and to make sure that our ability to detect and to counter and prevent any efforts are successful
03:21so that we can maintain safety and security and provide that deterrence as far from the U.S. shores as possible.
03:28I agree, and I appreciate that.
03:30I just hope this will maintain a high level of focus because, as I say, I think it's a somewhat underappreciated risk when we're talking about national security.
03:40I view this as one of the most serious that we face.
03:43Let me talk for a moment about staffing.
03:45As you know, there was a 16 percent cut initially, and people came back.
03:51Now I think we're talking about an 8 percent cut in the staffing of NSA.
03:57But my impression is you were understaffed to start with.
04:01Has any cost-benefit analysis been made about what the cost to the enterprise is of losing people
04:08versus the fairly limited savings from the salary involved?
04:14I'm not aware that we've done an analysis in that parameter space.
04:19We have evaluated the risk to our mission of the recent reductions in staff
04:28and have found them acceptable for now and in the short term to continue to achieve our mission.
04:34That strikes me as implausible given the level of the demands being placed upon the agency
04:40at this particular moment in time where we're modernizing, we're developing new weapons,
04:45we're trying to get back into the pit business.
04:49Downsizing in that situation doesn't strike me as a logical management move.
04:58We believe we are acceptably managing the risk of the status quo.
05:06Our mission is increasing over time, and the speed by which our mission is increasing is also getting more rapid.
05:15It is important as we go forward with the enterprise blueprint, with the program of record,
05:19with all of the work in front of the National Nuclear Security Administration,
05:23that as our output requirements and mission requirements increase,
05:27that our ability to meet those mission requirements and outputs are commensurate.
05:33But we're never going to be able to buy our way to success, and there's limits to that.
05:39So a fundamental part of our ability to receive...
05:43There's something between buying your way to success and staff cuts that diminish the ability of the enterprise to meet its goals.
05:53I agree, Senator, and we are going to need to make sure that our resources are adequate.
05:59We are also going to continuously need to look for those productivity and efficiency enhancements
06:04that will fundamentally allow us to unlock additional output and achieve the mission that the nation
06:13and the Department of Defense and the President expect of us.
06:16Thank you. I'll have some follow-up questions.
