Editorial: Security must have limits, too

Friday, Sept. 17, 1999 | 9:08 a.m.

Congress is considering legislation that would create a semi-autonomous agency to oversee the nation's nuclear weapons labs. Are there any concerns?

Some advocates of the new agency believe any outside oversight would be damaging, but others contend that the environment, health and worker safety could be imperiled under the plan.

In the wake of allegations that China may have stolen nuclear secrets, because of lax security at federal nuclear weapons laboratories, President Clinton in March directed the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to investigate the claims. The report released in June by the independent panel, which was headed by former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., excoriated the Department of Energy for security lapses at the weapons laboratories it oversees. One of the panel's principal recommendations was to increase accountability of the weapons laboratories by creating a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE to manage weapons research and nuclear stockpile management programs.

The overall recommendations by the Rudman panel were excellent, but as Congress prepares to implement some of them a growing chorus of critics have noted that the legislation would leave it up to the new agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, to ensure that the weapons plants and laboratories abide by worker safety, health and environmental laws. As a story in USA Today this week reported, federal and state programs established during the 1980s would lose their jurisdiction over these facilities.

Some members of Congress supporting the creation of a semi-autonomous agency dismiss this unease as being overblown. But this is no idle concern. Weapons laboratories and plants have historically been weak in ensuring that worker safety and environmental laws have been followed. It is estimated that radioactive and toxic contamination of land and groundwater near these sites will take decades to clean up and, as USA Today reported, may cost $200 billion.

This doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing issue. National security must be improved but an abdication of environmental and worker safety laws would be a step backward. Congress should make it crystal clear in the legislation creating the semi-autonomous agency that outside agencies -- not the National Nuclear Security Administration -- will have the final say as to whether the agency is complying with environmental and worker safety laws. One of the unfortunate legacies of the Cold War was this nation's insistence that national security take precedence in too many areas. The United States should not go back down this road again as it tries to improve the security of the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories.