President Joe Biden has signed a new memorandum to combat weapons of mass destruction terrorism and promote nuclear and radioactive material security.
The National Security Memorandum affirms the current administration’s commitment to working with local, state, tribal, private sector and international partners on efforts to prevent and respond to threats related to WMD terrorism and incorporates policies to fight non-state actors’ use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.
For the first line of effort, NSM calls for the prevention of non-state actors from acquiring WMD and related materials; detection and disruption of WMD terrorism threats; and enhancement of capabilities to manage emerging technologies that could enable such threats.
The document outlines measures to improve nuclear material security such as minimizing the production and retention of weapons-usable nuclear materials to only those quantities required to support national security interests, disposing of nuclear material that is in excess to national security or civil needs in a secure and safe manner and promoting safe nuclear material management policies and best practices.
To mitigate the threat of radiological terrorism, the memo calls for maintaining security for all high-activity radioactive sources, encouraging the replacement of source-based devices with non-radioisotopic alternative technologies and coordinating efforts to locate and secure lost or stolen radioactive materials and returning them to regulatory control.