in his current role at gao mr. trimble provides leadership and oversight on nuclear security and cleanup issues. previously he is focused on environmental causes including controlling toxic substances clean water clean air issues and management. before joining gao mr. trimble served at the department of state's political military affairs bureau responsible for export compliance and enforcement issues. those are the introductions. we truly don't do justice but we are delighted that you are here and are willing to help better informed this committee and hopefully the senate with the potential threats that they assess and what we might do about them. ms. harrington please proceed. >> thank you mr. chairman. thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify on the department of energy national nuclear security administration efforts to enhance the security of vulnerable high-risk radioactive sources in the united states. i would like to thank you for your continued interest in the interest of the committee and its leadership

mr. trimble. >> i would just add that previously, gao has done some work in this area. we looked at the issue of orphaned sources and we looked at how they were handling this issue in france and had innovative ideas. we haven't looked at the cross-organizational sharing aspect but we have done some work overseas to look at how other countries have tackled some of these issues. >> i guess it would be understandable that if other states, other nations rather, have these devices, that they have radioactive materials in them, whether they're mobile or stationary and if other countries do not secure them well, and those materials were obtained, they could be used for bad purposes in those countries or maybe anywhere. what do we have to reduce the likelihood if another country did not have -- did not secure these -- their radioactive materials as well, what assurances do we have with the way we protect our own borders and ports of entry, that we'll be able to detect or intercept any of that material coming in? dr. gowadia? >> yes. thank you, senator, for that question. at dhs

mr. trimble said. any other thoughts before i ask a different question? >> i would just say this is the first i've seen of these pictures. i've been made aware of issues that the gao has found within a report. being an organization that always strives to continually improve we have a new security room which i mentioned. we will look at that rule and see if there are things we need to beef up that we as a regulatory body we put regulations in place that our risk informed and performance-based and we do not tip we have a one rule fits all that we leave it to the licensees. it's their responsibility to take requirements and put their program into a place and ensure that they are compliant with the regulations. we do provide with rules guidance that will instruct licensees on how they can construct and operate the program in a manner that will comply with the regulatory requirements. we leave it to the licensees to put their program in place to document a written security plan i have to understand the security zone on some of these pictures to understand completely all the details. i wanted to provide that short perspective. >> is this an honor system that is in place