By Jeff Beattie
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), responding to radioactive “dirty bomb” concerns, last week announced a proposal to tighten oversight of certain industrial gauges, medical devices and other equipment containing nuclear material that are used by hundreds of companies, hospitals and research institutions.
While the agency already has clamped down on industrial “sources” containing relatively high levels of radioactivity, the new proposal extends such regulation to sources with lesser levels of nuclear materials. However, the commission rejected a proposal by state officials to tighten rules for sources with even smaller amounts of material.
The increased regulation answers recent criticism by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and others that the NRC’s tracking of sealed radioactive “sources” has been too lax in light of increased terrorism concerns.
The proposal would require companies and institutions that currently use certain “generally licensed” devices to–for the first time–obtain “specific licenses” from the NRC or a designated state agency.
A specific license compels the owner to periodically report to NRC on the whereabouts and condition of the equipment and to allow agency staff on-site to inspect the devices.
By contrast, owners of generally licensed devices are required to keep certain records but do not have to seek specific licenses for the equipment or subject it to NRC inspections, except in unusual circumstances.
Generally licensed devices have been seen as a relatively small safety concern because all their radioactive material is contained in sealed housing, and the equipment is designed for use by lay workers and does not require special handling. But in its proposed rule, NRC said it has become concerned that a person could collect a dangerous amount of radioactive material by stockpiling enough generally licensed devices.
With that concern in mind, NRC proposed Wednesday to tighten oversight over some 1,800 devices that currently have general licenses by requiring the owners to obtain a specific license, committing themselves to substantially higher NRC oversight and tracking. Many of the devices are fixed industrial gauges, and also include such equipment as gas chromatographs used in clinical testing and static eliminators.
NRC said the switch would affect about 1,400 device owners, which include hospitals, research institutes and industrial manufacturers of various kinds.
The new requirements apply to owners of sources containing radioactive material equal to or greater than one-tenth of so-called “Category 3” radioactive sources as defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
IAEA ranks radioactive sources in five categories based on how security-sensitive they are, with Category 1 sources seen as the most potentially dangerous and requiring the most oversight, with levels of concern dropping down the scale to Category 5.
NRC already tightly regulates Category 1 and 2 sources and the commission’s new proposal strengthens regulation of all radioactive sources in Category 3 and those with the most radioactive material in Category 4; NRC at times has referred to this hybrid category as “Category 3.5.”
NRC’s proposed rule is part of a series of actions that NRC has taken, often in concert with the IAEA, following the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, to crack down on the possibility of terrorists accumulating enough nuclear material for a so-called “dirty bomb.”
NRC has also been nudged along by the Senate and GAO, the auditing arm of Congress, which has suggested the commission needs to tighten its oversight of radioactive sources.
In a particularly embarrassing episode for the NRC, the GAO in 2007 reported that GAO officials set up a bogus business that succeeded in getting an NRC license for radioactive sources, though the license only covered Category 3 nuclear materials, not the higher-risk Category 1 and 2 sources.
In 2007, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations recommended a variety of changes to licensing procedures for radioactive materials.
At the same time, NRC has enacted a variety of changes to its oversight of radioactive sources, including ordering licensees in 2005 to exercise increased control over Category 1 and 2 sources. Those sources include equipment and material used in radiation therapy, radio-thermal generators and industrial gamma radiography.
In another major move, NRC in 2006 established a National Source Tracking System to keep better account of Category 1 and 2 sources.
In June, however, the commission deadlocked 2-2 on a staff proposal to expand the tracking system to include so-called Category 3 sources, effectively sinking the proposal.
Republican Commissioners Dale Klein and Kristine Svinicki both voted against the proposal, saying it was premature because NRC staff had not done a sufficient assessment of the threat presented by Category 3 sources.
Chairman Gregory Jaczko, a Democrat, and former Commissioner Pete Lyons, a Republican, both voted to add Category 3 sources to the tracking system.
As for the proposed rule this week, the NRC declined a recommendation from state nuclear safety regulators to expand the new specific license requirement beyond Category 3.5 to cover other sources in Categories 4 and 5 as well. That proposal came from the Organization of Agreement States (OAS), a group of 35 states that have assumed from NRC the responsibility for regulating nuclear material inside their borders.
In rejecting the OAS position, NRC said “the relatively low security risk posed by lower Category 4 and Category 5 sources does not justify the significant regulatory resources and impacts on licensees that would result from specifically licensing devices with lower Category 4 and Category 5 sources.”