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Past Public Meetings on Transportation of Radioactive Material in Quantities of ConcernOn this page GeneralThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held three public meetings on January 15, 2008, in Lisle, Illinois; January 17, 2008, in Oakland, California; and on January 23, 2008, in Rockville, Maryland, seeking public comments on a proposed policy to enhance security during transportation of Radioactive Materials in Quantities of Concern (RAMQC). (See Transcripts below.) BackgroundPrior to September 11th, 2001, the NRC focus was on the safety and security of people and the environment by protecting from the inadvertent or accidental release of radioactive material. The attacks of 2001 led the NRC to re-think how far a terrorist would go to hurt the public, perhaps using medical and industrial radioactive materials to cause harm. The NRC joined with the international community to look at medical and industrial radioactive materials with this as its main consideration. This effort was lead by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with active participation by the NRC. As part of this process, the NRC reviewed the chemical, physical, and radiological characteristics of each radioactive material for its attractiveness to a terrorist. This effort identified 16 radioactive materials that could pose a serious threat to people and the environment in the wrong hands. This effort further identified the different quantities or “thresholds” of materials that could be useful to a terrorist. The IAEA published these results in a document titled “Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources.” A link to this document is on the NRC website at http://www.nrc.gov/security/byproduct/enhanced-security.html. The NRC refers to these 16 radioactive materials as “Radioactive Materials in Quantities of Concern” or RAMQC. The RAMQC thresholds are provided in Figure 1 below. Once the 16 radioactive materials were identified by the IAEA, the NRC reviewed and revised its own security requirements to prevent unauthorized access to these materials. Several areas where additional requirements could be put in place to improve transportation security were identified and changes were instituted.
Initially, the NRC issued advisories to commercial users of radioactive materials (referred to as licensees) and requested that they implement additional security measures on their shipments of radioactive material. Licensees understood the need for additional security and voluntarily implemented the additional security as requested. However, an NRC advisory doesn’t carry the authority of a regulation or an Order, and the NRC cannot impose penalties if a licensee doesn’t meet the recommendations of an NRC advisory. Because an NRC advisory is a communication tool rather than an enforcement mechanism, the NRC issued two legally binding Orders to licensees transporting RAMQC. One Order requires licensees to put in place additional security measures for the transport of Category 2 quantities of radioactive material. These requirements are part of the increased controls security enhancements for Category 2 quantities of radioactive materials. The second Order requires licensees to implement additional security measures for transporting Category 1 quantities of material. The second Order is not publicly available because it includes detailed security requirements that are designated as Safeguards Information. Although the security Order is legally binding on licensees, the NRC is committed to keeping the public informed and values public involvement in our regulatory process. By its nature, the rulemaking process is deliberative and takes substantial time. The process is now started and the first step in this process is for the staff to prepare a “technical basis.” The “technical basis” is a document that identifies the regulations the staff agrees need to be revised. Once the “technical basis” is complete, the staff will then prepare a “draft proposed rule” using the technical basis to develop the proposed language for the new rule. The “draft proposed rule” will also be published for public comment. After all the public comments are resolved, the final rule is published. PolicyAs mentioned earlier, this is the first step of the process to revise the NRC regulations to improve transportation security for RAMQC. This first step consists of writing the “technical basis” and during this step we have gathered input from stakeholders. Using the security Orders as a basis, the general requirements enhancing security during transportation of RAMQC are provided in Figure 2. The requirements are categorized by their major attributes: (A) licensee verification; (B) planning and coordination; (C) notifications; (D) communications; (E) drivers and accompanying individuals; (F) procedures, training and control of information; and (G) additional requirements for portable and mobile devices.
TranscriptsThe following links on this page are to documents in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). See our Plugins, Viewers, and Other Tools page for more information. For successful viewing of PDF documents on our site please be sure to use the latest version of Adobe.
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