The Government Accountability Office said Friday the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has yet to implement a set of “priority” recommendations on securing radiological sources that could be weaponized.
“Our April 2019 report, in combination with our previous reports on this topic, demonstrate that there are vulnerabilities in current NRC security requirements such as the risk of theft or misuse of these materials and that the potential consequences of misusing these materials could be significant,” Comptroller General Gene Dodaro wrote in an April 10 letter to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki. “We encourage NRC to take action to implement this recommendation.”
Two of the recommendations date to a July 2016 report from the congressional auditor. In that report, the GAO said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should add Category 3, or dangerous, radioactive sources to the National Source Tracking System, and place Category 3 licenses in the agency’s agreement states to the Web-based Licensing System “as quickly as reasonably possible.” An entity transferring Category 3 quantities of radioactive materials should also be required to confirm that the recipient has a valid radioactive materials license before completing the transaction, the 2016 report says.
Those recommendations were included in last year’s GAO letter on unresolved priority recommendations to the NRC, Dodaro noted.
In an April 2019 report, the GAO said the NRC chairman should mandate increased protection of “high-risk” amounts of Category 3 radioactive material and evaluate whether other materials of this type require additional security. Agency staff should also be told to include socioeconomic consequences and evacuation-related deaths in setting security requirements for materials that could be employed in a radiological “dirty bomb.”
In August 2017, an NRC working group recommended against the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations from the prior year. The commission has not accepted or rejected the third recommendation, and its working group has not issued a finding on the matter. The NRC rejected the fourth recommendation, “maintaining that the current regulatory requirements provide for the safe and secure use of all radioactive materials, regardless of category,” according to the GAO.
