Purpose. The purpose of this Commission is to assess the new challenges facing the Department of Energy (DOE) in operating premier scientific institutions in the 21st century in a manner that fosters scientific excellence and promotes the missions of the Department, while protecting and enhancing national security. The Commission will be asked to make policy recommendations to the Secretary of Energy. COMMISSION ON SCIENCE AND SECURITY
CHARTER
Goal: The Commission will assess:
1. Scientific exchange -
- What benefits the Department derives from collaborations and exchanges among DOE laboratories and universities, research institutes, and private industry?
- What types of collaboration and exchange are best suited to maintaining the preeminence of the laboratories and meeting the Department's mission objectives, both for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratories and remaining DOE laboratories? Whether such collaborations have attendant national security risks and, if so, any measures that should be taken to mitigate such risks.
- How the Department can further exchanges among scientists at the national laboratories and their colleagues at universities and industry in the United States and other countries that are beneficial to the Department and represent a minimal risk to national security interests?
2. Unclassified/Classified research -
- What scientific areas require enhanced communications and collaborations between researchers working directly on classified projects and those working on related open-source, unclassified research?
- How NNSA laboratories can better utilize their university collaborations to build an intellectual pipeline of scientists into both classified and unclassified portions of the laboratories?
- What benefits DOE derives from increased collaboration among national security laboratories and the Science, Environmental Management, and energy laboratories? What can be done to strengthen scientific collaborations between the national security laboratories and the science, environmental management and energy laboratories?
- Whether there are specific areas of unclassified or classified scientific research that require additional protection.
3. Cybersecurity -
- What is needed to enhance the national laboratories' ability to develop and employ state-of-the-art computational and electronic communications tools needed to keep the Department at the forefront of the scientific community while assuring the protection of classified information?
4. DOE Orders and guidance -
- Whether any DOE policies and guidance should be revised to ensure that the Department can respond quickly and effectively to emerging security threats?
- Whether the Department's security rules are consistent with maintaining the U.S. as a credible international scientific partner in the world?
Deliverables:
- The Term of the Commission is 18 months, October 2000 through April 2002.
- An Interim Report will be submitted to Secretary Abraham in September 2001.
- A Final Report will be submitted by April 2002.
- The Final Report will represent the consensus view of all Commission members. If the members of the Commission agree, the Final Report may include any dissenting or alternative views from individual members.