Beef up nuclear employee screening: senator

NRC Nuclear Background Checks highlighted amid calls by Sen. Schumer for stricter vetting, insider-threat monitoring, and NRC inspector general review; FBI probes, Oswego nuclear plants expand, and Obama's clean energy policy advances nuclear generation.

A possible security breach at a nuclear power plant in New Jersey prompted Sen. Charles Schumer, D.N.Y., to come to the Port City, to demand a more thorough, tighter background check system for employees of nuclear facilities across the nation.

Recent reports reveal that a suspected alQaeda member, Sharif Mobley, who was radicalized as early as 2006, maintained his position at the New Jersey plant until 2008, before moving to Yemen.

“We need to take every precaution to ensure that radicalized terrorists are kept away from our country’s nuclear facilities,” Schumer said. “Our facilities in New York have a great safety record, but would benefit greatly from additional federal resources — it’s time to review and revamp the way we handle nuclear safety in this country.”

As part of his energy policy, President Barack Obama has called for an increase in nuclear generation as an ecofriendly means to produce energy. Nuclear energyrich Oswego County, which currently has three nuclear facilities operating within its borders, while a New York task force reviews security measures, is in the running for the construction of a fourth nuclear plant in the future.

According to reports, Mobley, an American who is being held in Yemen as a suspected militant with an alQaedaaffiliated group, worked at the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear reactors, and other reactors in the New Jersey area. He worked as a laborer from 2002 to 2008, mainly during refueling outages, for several weeks at a time. Despite his alleged radicalization in 2006, when a 2006 cybersecurity shutdown underscored vulnerabilities, he satisfied federal background checks as recently as 2008.

At Breitbeck Park, in Oswego, Schumer called for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission NRC inspector general to conduct an immediate and thorough review of the commission’s procedures for background checks on new and transfer employees, and for improved monitoring of current employees in all U.S. plants.

“When Sharif Mobley’s name pops up on a suspected terrorist list while NRC is conducting a background check, we have to connect the dots,” the senator said. “There should be bells, whistles and alarms going off immediately. We have the information we need it’s just an issue of making sure that the information gets into the hands of the people conducting the background checks.”

According to NRC Public Affairs Officer Neil Sheehan, Mobley’s position at the New Jersey facility did not allow him access to securityrelated material.

“The company that owns the plant are sic continuing to check on the kinds of activities he engaged in at the site,” Sheehan said. The FBI is also investigating the potential security breach.

Sheehan said there is a uniform set of requirements, with new safety rules shaping procedures, regarding background checks for all 104 nuclear facilities nationwide. He noted that the checks include psychological assessments, criminal background checks and identity confirmation checks.

“Potential employees cannot have unescorted access to a plant until they have proper clearance, and it is a process that takes some time,” Sheehan said. “Once they are onsite, there are observation programs where plant managers and staff are trained to look for any sort of unusual behavior on the part of plant workers.”

He added that employees must undergo drug and alcohol testing once on site.

“We believe there are a significant amount of checks and balances in place to make sure that workers are properly screened once they come to work at a plant,” Sheehan said.

However, according to Schumer, the NRC delegates the authority to complete background checks, which results in a certain degree of disparity in how checks are carried out, and what information is covered. Also, checks are not required to cover information such as past travel and ties with other countries.

In February, the inspector general released a report critical of the NRC’s personnel security clearance program for the agency’s employees, and a test cheating case highlighted oversight gaps. The report found that the “NRC’s personnel security clearance program lacks sufficient management controls and oversight to measure the program’s efficiency and assign accountability for the program’s performance.”

Schumer said that in addition to increased scrutiny, feds should provide more resources to nuclear power plants, including proposals to federalize plant guards to support background checks.

“We have to make sure that nuclear power plants are as safe as can be, even as safety criticisms persist, and that nuclear materials and nuclear intelligence do not get into the hands of the wrong people,” the senator said.

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