Regulators order stricter screening for access to radioactive materials

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requiring nearly 1,000 licensees of "radioactive materials in quantities of concern" to begin fingerprinting and conducting criminal background checks of personnel with access to the materials.

The order applies to facilities that handle radioactive materials in quantities sufficient to cause permanent injury or death if mishandled. They are equivalent to those defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency as Category I and II, the most dangerous to public health and safety.

The licensees, which NRC declined to name for security reasons, will bear the cost of the new requirements, which were mandated in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, said NRC spokesman David McIntyre. Facilities most likely to be affected by the order will be hospitals and industrial radiography centers.

The order, which has not yet been published in the Federal Register, applies to 16 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. territories where NRC has authority over the materials. The remaining 34 states regulate radioactive materials under agreements with the commission and will be issuing similar requirements within six months.

"We've been consulting with the states all along on this so they know exactly what's going on," said McIntyre. "This grows out of increased controls that we and the agreement states imposed two years ago. There was still a lot of legal groundwork that had to be done before we could impose the fingerprinting."

Barbara Hamrick, chairwoman of the public outreach committee for the Organization of Agreement States, which represents the 34 states that have arrangements with NRC, said states were supportive of the new rule, although some may require legislative changes to address legal issues associated with fingerprinting. States support the goal of the new rule, which is to "increase the trustworthiness and reliability of people who have access to radioactive material," she said.

The order was not prompted by any particular vulnerability, McIntyre said, and he was unaware of past problems that might have been averted had the order been in place. "It's just an additional comprehensive effort to increase the security of radioactive materials in quantities of concern," he said.