Summary

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) regulation of its program for transporting high-level radioactive materials.

GAO found that: (1) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission identified safety-related concerns with DOE-certified containers for transporting radioactive material, involving structure, containment, shielding, thermal, criticality, and acceptance testing and maintenance conditions; (2) these concerns prompted DOE to revamp container certification procedures, consolidate certification responsibility at national headquarters, and remove many of the containers from the transport program; (3) a DOE contractor's review identified inadequate documentation that the containers complied with safety requirements, the use of nonconservative analyses, and calculation errors; (4) DOE continued to use the containers up to 3 months after the contractor identified these problems; (5) DOE used three containers for several years without ever obtaining certification; (6) DOE used four containers with only 60-day approvals for several years; and (7) DOE regarded inadequate demonstration and certification as documentation problems not affecting container safety.