The members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are considering a staff recommendation to terminate a limited update to regulations on security of special nuclear material.
“The staff conducted a preliminary cost and benefit analysis in which it has identified that the rulemaking is not cost justified,” Margaret Doane, NRC executive director for operations, wrote in an Oct. 1 memo to the commissioners. “If the rulemaking proceeds, both NRC and industry would incur cost without any increase in public health and safety or the common defense and security.”
Special nuclear material contains fissile isotopes – specifically uranium-233, uranium-235, and plutonium-239 – that when concentrated could be used in a nuclear weapon.
The commission in August 2018 approved the rulemaking as a slimmed-down version of a process begun in 2006. The rulemaking as of last year was intended to codify the directives of security orders issued to NRC fuel cycle facility and special nuclear material licensees following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Among the requirements of those orders were augmented security patrols and higher numbers of on-site security posts, physical barriers, and intrusion detection systems. Fuel-cycle operators were also directed to assess their cybersecurity capabilities.
The rulemaking would have applied only to possessors of Category I (strategic) and Category III (low strategic significance) levels of special nuclear material. License holders for Category II, or moderate strategic significance, amounts of special nuclear material were not involved as they were not issued new security ordes after Sept. 11.
The staff recommendation “is pending commission action,” an NRC spokesman said by email Tuesday, without discussing any potential schedule for a decision.
