Editorial: Falling down on nuclear security

Thursday, Feb. 12, 1998 | 11 a.m.

You would think if you were responsible for handling some of the world's most sought after and dangerous materials, you would take every imaginable precaution to guard against its theft.

You would, that is, unless you happen to be the U.S. Department of Energy.

The federal agency has come under fire for inadequate security at its nuclear weapons plants and labs. But USA Today reported Wednesday that the DOE is overhauling its intelligence programs and giving up some control of its spy-detection operations to the FBI and other national security agencies.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be a corrective measure that the DOE, upon introspection, decided to initiate on its own. The DOE is responding to pressure from the White House, and the changes reflect the Clinton administration's concern about the agency's capability of protecting the nation's nuclear weapons program from spies and terrorists, according to USA Today.

Reports by internal and independent auditors have raised doubts about the security at DOE facilities. The concerns have involved antiquated alarms, diminished guard personnel and faulty vaults.

There have even been reports that suspected foreign agents have found their way into weapons facilities. For example, a naturalized U.S. physicist born in Taiwan pleaded guilty last month to passing weapons information to China while also working for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Although these security lapses are troubling, most Nevadans won't find it too out of character for an agency that has targeted Nevada for a high-level nuclear waste dump, even when reputable science has argued against it.

The DOE's failure to adequately protect nuclear weapons and their components from spies and terrorists is alarming. It shouldn't take prodding by the White House to get an agency to take its job seriously, especially when that agency guards thousands of weapons components and hundreds of tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.