NRC NEWS

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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E-mail: opa@nrc.gov 

Site: http://www.nrc.gov

No. 08-059 March 18, 2008

INDEPENDENT EXTERNAL REVIEW PANEL RECOMMENDS CHANGES 

TO NRC’S MATERIALS LICENSING PROCESS 

 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Independent External Review Panel has 

recommended several changes to the NRC’s process for granting licenses to possess radioactive 

materials aimed at eliminating vulnerabilities that could be exploited by terrorists or other 

adversaries. 

 The panel was chartered last October as part of the NRC’s response to a Government 

Accountability Office report that identified several vulnerabilities in the agency’s materials 

licensing process. GAO investigators were able to obtain an NRC materials license under 

fraudulent pretexts and then alter the license in order to procure radioactive materials in excess 

of the amounts authorized by the license. 

 The panel’s report and recommendations were presented today to the Commission in a 

public briefing. 

 “Security of radioactive materials is of primary importance to the NRC,” said 

Commission Chairman Dale E. Klein. “We welcome the panel’s recommendations as part of our 

continuing effort to strengthen our licensing process.” 

 The panel’s report contains a series of observations and recommendations for the NRC 

and its 34 Agreement States to improve their process for granting radioactive materials licenses. 

Those recommendations include, but are not limited to, the following: 

• Suspend the “good faith presumption” that new applicants or licensees seeking 

significant increases in their possession limits for radioactive materials are honest, 

perform site visits to a new applicant’s facilities before issuing a license, and conduct 

background checks on key personnel. 

• Review publicly available licensing guidance to identify and remove information that 

might be helpful to an adversary seeking to exploit the process. 

• Integrate the NRC’s Web-Based Licensing System and the National Source Tracking 

System, both now under development, and include a mechanism for licensees and 

vendors to enter real-time information on transfers of radioactive materials. 
• Develop detailed physical security requirements for licensees who possess risksignificant radioactive materials. 

• Give security equal billing to health and safety when training NRC or Agreement State 

licensing officers, so that license reviewers are trained to recognize a malevolent 

applicant. 

The Independent External Review Panel was chaired by Thomas E. Hill, former director 

of the Georgia Radiation Control Program, and included Benjamin Nerud of the Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency and Dr. Michael Ryan, chairman of the NRC’s Advisory Committee on 

Nuclear Waste & Materials. 

 The panel’s report is available through the NRC’s ADAMS document system at 

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html by entering access number 

ML080700957. 

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