Independent panel recommends tighter access to radioactive materials

An independent review board this week said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should revise its process for granting licenses to possess radioactive materials and suspend its "good faith presumption" that applicants seeking licenses always do so for legitimate reasons.

NRC has a "clear record of success" in protecting public health and safety and the environment, but it needs to devote equal attention to security, the panel found. Specifically, NRC should require licensees who possess radioactive materials in significant quantities to develop detailed physical security plans for protecting those materials.

The panel was established last fall to examine the process for regulating radioactive materials after investigators from the Government Accountability Office set up a bogus company and acquired a radioactive materials license from NRC. The investigators then altered the license using widely available software and demonstrated they could easily acquire enough material to build a dirty bomb.

The GAO investigation set off alarms on Capitol Hill, prompting NRC to immediately suspend its licensing process before reissuing stricter guidelines to regulators.

Thomas Hill, former director of the Georgia Radiation Control Program and chairman of the panel, said in a letter to NRC Chairman Dale Klein that the panel's recommendations "address the concerns and vulnerabilities identified by the [GAO]."

Besides suspending the presumption that applicants and licensees act in good faith, the panel recommended that NRC perform site visits to applicants' facilities and conduct background checks on key personnel before issuing licenses.

Additionally, the panel recommended that a new Web-based licensing system under development by NRC be integrated with the National Source Tracking system, also under development.

"Comprehensive and real-time tracking of radioactive materials transfer would confirm the licensee's compliance with established limits, ensure accountability of radioactive materials during acquisition, and provide an additional means of validating the licensee's legitimacy," the panel reported. "Had this system been in place, up to date and used by the vendors contacted by GAO, the altered license would likely have been detected."

The panel noted that NRC's transparent application process, while designed to be clearly understandable for the many legitimate users of radioactive material, such as hospitals, academic institutions and industrial facilities, also makes it easier for illegitimate users to exploit vulnerabilities. Therefore, the panel recommended NRC review publicly available information about its process with an eye to removing data that would help potentially malevolent applicants.

"The GAO easily obtained an NRC license under false pretense because of their ability to gather all necessary information to produce a credible license application. Once the application was submitted, the GAO team knew all actions the NRC was going to perform when processing the application, because the agency outlined the process in publicly available guidance," the panel reported.

In recent months NRC has taken a number of steps to strengthen the licensing process. In December, the agency began requiring licensees of "radioactive materials in quantities of concern" to begin fingerprinting and conducting criminal background checks of personnel with access to the materials. The designation applies to materials in quantities that could cause permanent injury or death if mishandled.

NRC will consider the panel's recommendations in consultation with the 34 states that regulate radioactive materials under agreements with the commission. The panel's report is available through the NRC's ADAMS documentation system by entering access number ML080700957 in quotation marks during a document search.