[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 31, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E819-E820]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 NUCLEAR FORENSICS AND ATTRIBUTION ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. RUSH D. HOLT

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 24, 2009

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the House has passed the 
Nuclear Forensics bill.
  This bill seeks to deter terrorists' use of nuclear weapons or 
radiological material by creating international mechanisms for 
identifying and tracking such materials back to their source, ideally 
before they are used.
  We have talked for decades now about the need to secure ``loose 
nukes'' and radiological material, and we have taken some concrete if 
underfunded steps to do so, such as the Cooperative Threat Reduction 
Program. We have not expended a similar effort to widely deploy 
technologies and implement international agreements to make the 
tracking of such material so easy and reliable as to make such measures 
a deterrent themselves.
  As the American Physical Society and the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science noted in a 2008 report on this topic:

       A believable attribution capability may help to discourage 
     behavior that could lead to a nuclear event. The chain of 
     participants in a nuclear terrorist event most likely 
     includes a national government or its agents, since nearly 
     all nuclear weapons usable material is at least notionally 
     the responsibility of governments. A forensics capability 
     that can trace material to the originating reactor or 
     enrichment facility could discourage state cooperation with 
     terrorist elements and encourage better security for nuclear 
     weapon usable materials. In addition, most terrorist 
     organizations will not have members skilled in all aspects of 
     handling nuclear weapons or building an improvised nuclear 
     device. That expertise is found in a small pool of people and 
     a credible attribution capability may deter some who are 
     principally motivated by financial, rather than ideological, 
     concerns.

  This bill would, among other things, establish within the Department 
of Homeland Security a National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center to 
provide centralized stewardship, planning, assessment, gap analysis, 
exercises, improvement, and integration for all federal nuclear 
forensics activities. There is a clear need to centralize this activity 
within the federal government, and this provision is a first step in 
that direction.
  At the international level, the bill encourages the President to 
pursue bilateral and multilateral international agreements to establish 
an international framework for determining the source of any 
confiscated nuclear or radiological material or weapon, as well as the 
source of any detonated weapon and the nuclear or radiological material 
used in such a weapon. U.S. leadership will be essential to the success 
of this program, and I will certainly be looking at the President's 
detailed

[[Page E820]]

Fiscal Year 2010 budget submission to see whether this effort will 
receive the kind of funding it needs to be successful.
  Mr. Speaker, I support this bill and I encourage my colleagues to do 
likewise.

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