ML19120A235

Esarda 2019 Symposium Paper, Bringing IAEA Safeguards in the United States Into the 21st Century

ML19120A235
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Issue date:	04/30/2019
From:	David Hanks, Sastre E NRC/NMSS/DFCSE/MCAB
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Bringing IAEA Safeguards in the United States into the 21st Century David H. Hanks, Eduardo Sastre U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC USA David.hanks@nrc.gov, Eduardo.sastre@nrc.gov Abstract:

The United States (U.S.) has allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to apply safeguards to its civil nuclear facilities since 1980 through its Voluntary Offer Agreement (VOA), and before that through INFCIRC/66 type safeguards., by which time the U.S. had established the necessary infrastructure to support IAEA safeguards implementation. The State System of Accounting for and Control of Nuclear Material (SSAC) included developing the necessary procedures, system of records and reports, equipment, experts and organizational structure to meet IAEA safeguarding requirements.

After nearly four decades following initial implementation, the U.S. is engaged in multiple efforts to bring the SSAC infrastructure into the 21st Century. Beginning in 2011, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has worked with its licensees to update all the required IAEA Design Information Questionnaires (DIQ) and Transitional Facility Attachments (TFA) for selected licensed facilities under the Reporting Protocol to the US-IAEA Voluntary Offer Safeguards Agreement INFCIRC/288. This activity, now nearly complete, entailed extensive revisions as some of the DIQs and TFAs had not been updated in more than three decades. In 2016, the U.S. and the IAEA agreed to apply an amendment to modify the Small Quantities Protocol to the U.S.-IAEA Agreement for the Application of Safeguards in Connection with The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, i.e., the Tlatelolco Safeguards Agreement. Bringing this amendment into force in July 2018 required changes in the U.S.

regulations for possessors of nuclear material in the US Caribbean Territories. Other improvements to U.S. reporting to the IAEA have been made by the Department of Commerce under the Additional Protocol and Department of Energy using the national nuclear material accountancy database with the goal of enhancing its tracking and reporting capabilities. The expected combined outcome of all these projects is a more efficient and modern infrastructure that will facilitate the implementation of safeguards in the U.S. This paper will address the development of these projects, including the challenges encountered and the expected future ones.

Keywords: Safeguards, NRC, Licensees

1. Introduction The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 provides the United States of America (U.S.) Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with the authority to issue regulations implementing The Agreement between the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the applications of Safeguards in the U.S.

(Voluntary Offer Agreement INFCIRC/288), the Protocol Additional to the US-IAEA Safeguards Agreement (US Additional Protocol), and The Agreement between the U.S. and the IAEA for the Application of Safeguards in Connection with the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America (US-IAEA Caribbean Territories Safeguards Agreement) (INFCIRC/366) and its Small Quantities Protocol at NRC licensed facilities, locations, sites, applicants, licensees, any certificate holder, or possessor of nuclear material. Acting as the U.S.s national regulatory authority for the commercial nuclear industry, the NRC is charged with providing oversight for implementation of procedures and practices necessary to facilitate information gathering, timely reporting, and in-field verification.

In an effort to allay concerns during the negotiation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT),1 President Johnson stated that the United States was not asking any country to accept safeguards that it was unwilling to accept, and that,...when such safeguards are applied under the 1 The NPT Is reproduced in IAEA INFCIRC/140; 22 April 1970, Vienna (1970).

Treaty, the United States will permit the IAEA to apply its safeguards to all nuclear activities in the U.S.

-- excluding only those with direct national security significance."2 Guided by this policy, the U.S.

concluded the Voluntary Offer Agreement (INFCIRC/288) with the IAEA as a separate, formal agreement. The VOA provides the IAEA the right, but not obligation, to apply international safeguards on source and special nuclear material (SNM) within the U.S., excluding facilities associated with activities of direct national security significance. Periodically, the U.S. provides the IAEA with an updated list of facilities eligible for the application of IAEA safeguards, adding or removing facilities from that list as necessary (Art. 2(b)). Revisions to this eligible facilities list (EFL) by the NRC and Department of Energy are submitted for a 60-day Congressional review before they are submitted to the IAEA.

The U.S. Additional Protocol (AP), was brought into force in January 2009 and has marked a significant shift in the way safeguards are handled in the United States. The U.S. signed an AP in 1998 and after the necessary implementing legislation was passed by Congress, the U.S. AP entered into force on January 6, 2009. The U.S. AP is identical to the model AP (INFCIRC/540) in all ways, except for the inclusion of a national security exclusion.

The US-IAEA Caribbean Territories Safeguard Agreement (INFCIRC/366), unlike the U.S.-IAEA Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/288), is not a VOA and does not have a national security exclusion currently exercised by all the NWS. INFCIRC/366 and its small quantities protocol entered into force in 1989. The original INFCIRC/366 small quantities protocol that held most of Part II of the Agreement in abeyance was amended by the IAEA in July 2018. The modified SQP (ModSQP), which still holds many requirements in abeyance, also applies to articles in Part II of the US-IAEA Caribbean Territories Agreement. The model SQP for States with only small quantities was amended in 2005 by the IAEA to address proliferation concerns, resulting in removal of abeyance from Articles in Part II of INFCIRC/366; 31-37, 39, 47, 48, 58, 60, 66, 67, 69, 71-75, 81, 83-89, 93, and 94 (slight variation from model). All paragraphs in Part I of the Agreement are in effect for the U.S. territories in the zone of application of the Tlatelolco Treaty.

2. Assessment of IAEA Documents The U.S.s agreement to the VOA in 1979 led to Senate Hearings to discuss NRC activities and facility burden associated with the implementation of the VOA. At hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Director of the NRC Office of International Programs (OIP) made a statement to the described how NRC regulations and oversight activities for nuclear material and other radioactive material at licensed facilities would ensure the U.S. meets its obligations under the U.S.-IAEA Safeguards Agreements. Since those early discussions of the possible burden to facilities, the U.S.

Government and its nuclear industry have experienced the impact of implementation of these Agreements.

Each licensed facilities selected from the EFL for IAEA safeguards under the VOA is required to provide a completed IAEA design information questionnaire (DIQ) to the NRC, in accordance with Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 75 (10 CFR Part 75). Subsidiary Arrangements describing details of the IAEA safeguards approach for each facility are established in a Facility Attachment (FA) or, in the case of selection under the U.S. Reporting Protocol, a Transitional Facility Attachment (TFA). These documents are negotiated by the U.S. Government with the IAEA for each facility selected. The NRC works with the selected facilities to ensure complete and accurate information is provided to the IAEA in both the DIQ and FA/TFA, while evaluating the burden to the facility itself.

Currently there are three NRC licensed low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel fabrication facilities and one gas centrifuge enrichment plant (GCEP) selected for reporting to the IAEA under the U.S. Reporting Protocol, utilizing a TFA for guidance and a completed IAEA DIQ describing essential equipment and routine operations of the facility. These facilities, however, are not subject to IAEA inspections.

Considerations for facility selection in the U.S. by the IAEA usually include opportunities for the IAEA to evaluate performance of a particular safeguards approach or new instrumentation used in strengthening a safeguards approach. Historically, the IAEA has implemented and subsequently withdrew traditional safeguards at several facilities under the U.S.-IAEA Safeguards Agreement. In past years, The list of 13 NRC licensed facilities that have been selected and inspected at various times between 1980 and 2005 2 Remarks of Lyndon B. Johnson to Ceremonies Marking the 25th Anniversary of the First Nuclear Reactor, December 2, 1967, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=28578&st=&st1=.

includes: 6 commercial power reactors, 5 LEU fuel fabrication facilities (one additional selected but not inspected), and two HEU down-blending projects. Several other U.S. facilities have been selected to further a nonproliferation objective (e.g., safeguarding plutonium or high enriched uranium declared in excess to U.S. defense needs).

Fuel fabrication facilities selected for IAEA safeguards soon after the VOA came into force in 1980 utilized technology of the time to provide drafters drawings, rudimentary charts and simple graphs to answer the complicated questions posed by the IAEA in the DIQ forms. Technological advancements designed into various stages of the process have greatly improved SNM handling procedures and practices at these facilities. Many of the original SNM process streams once considered to be very efficient have been replaced with continuously improving state-of-the-art equipment and controls. Along with these conversions of advanced design essential systems, some outdated processes are actually abandoned in placeleaving caches of legacy equipment to be declared in the DIQ.

Although DIQs describing SNM handling and storage at the fuel fabrication facilities have been amended from time-to-time since the early days of providing design information to the IAEA, it became increasingly apparent that continuing to patch the old DIQs is too time consuming and difficult. Advanced software programs being used at each of the three currently selected fuel fabrication facilities could be utilized in order to bring the DIQ/TFA information into the 21st Century. Thus, the NRC commenced working with these facilities in 2011 to anew their DIQs to ensure they contained a holistic and modern description of SNM handling and storage. The process for this endeavor is further discussed in Section 2.2 of this report.

Subsidiary Arrangements were not negotiated for the U.S.-IAEA Caribbean Territories Safeguards Agreement of 1989, but were brought into force in conjunction with the ModSQP to support NRCs implementation of the requirements. Prior to implementation of the ModSQP, federal regulations outlined in 10 CFR Part 75 did not include any conditions related to INFCIRC/366 and needed to be updated to reflect obligations agreed to in the Agreements newly negotiated Subsidiary Arrangements. The U.S.

Government developed and negotiated both a Subsidiary Arrangement document including typical Codes 1-10, in addition to a Locations Outside Facilities Attachment (LOFA) for the overall material balance area that included all nuclear material locations in the U.S. Caribbean Territories. These documents were used to support the required regulation changes to 10 CFR Part 75. On May 4, 2018, the final 10 CFR Part 75 rule was published in the United States Government Federal Register (83 FR 19603). The rule became effective June 3, 2018, 30 days after the publication of the Federal Register Notice. Licensee compliance with the final rule was required by July 3, 2018, 60 days after the publication of the Federal Register Notice. It should be noted here that shipments and receipts between US Caribbean Territories and any of the 50 U.S. states or other U.S. territories outside of the zone of application of the Treaty of Tlatelolco are considered foreign shipments/receipts.

2.2 Updating Existing IAEA Documents The U.S. experienced great success when developing the DIQ and TFA for the most recent gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility built in Eunice, New Mexico, by Louisiana Energy Services/URENCO USA (LES/UUSA). The IAEA selected the LES/UUSA facility under the Reporting Protocol in 2013. Prior to selection, the NRC helped inform the facilitys operators, engineers and designers about the needs and expectations of the IAEA for a completed DIQ and TFA that would be acceptable for submission. In 2011-2012, experienced staff from required disciplines at LES/UUSA worked to bring together the information needed. Enhanced software programs were used in 2012-2014 while building process, handling and storage area drawings, applicable charts, and cross-reference tables for required attachments. The plan and schedule designed for the initial declarations of the LES/UUSA GCEP were used in updating the DIQ/TFA submissions for the selected fuel fabrication facilities.

The three licensed LEU fuel fabrication facilities currently selected for IAEA safeguards under the Reporting Protocol include: Global Nuclear Fuel Americas (GNF-A) Fuel Fabrication Facility, Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (CFFF), and FRAMATOME Fuel Fabrication Facility. The NRC staff held workshops at each of these sites during 2014-2015, using the following training modules and a simulated IAEA design information verification (DIV) visit by a mock IAEA inspector.

On-Site training was provided to improve facility understanding of IAEA Safeguards in these key areas:

Overview of IAEA Safeguards U.S. Voluntary Offer Agreement (INFCIRC/288)

U.S. Additional Protocol Facility Type Safeguards Site Specific Safeguards Mock DIV Subsequent to the workshop at each site, a plan for revising all the DIQ/TFA documents at the three fuel fabrication facilities was provided to the Subgroup on IAEA Safeguards in the U.S. (SISUS). This U.S. interagency subcommittee agreed with the NRC proposal to work with operators to provide the IAEA an updated DIQ/TFA for each facility utilizing the latest available software tools. Priority would be based on availability of knowledgeable staff at each facility and the number of iterations with NRC staff during DIQ/TFA drafting.

3. Outreach to NRC Licensees In order to determine conditions related to the implementation burden at facilities, the NRC staff reached out to facility operators or possessors of nuclear material to determine what issues were most challenging for meeting obligations of the applicable articles of the VOA, AP and US-IAEA Caribbean Territories Agreement. Subsidiary Arrangements for INFCIRC/288 have been in place for over 30 years, but a new Subsidiary Arrangement-had to be negotiated for INFCIRC/366. This in turn required changes to the federal regulations and modifications to the nuclear material management and safeguards system (NMMSS) IAEA reporting modules. Communication with licensees on a routine basis was necessary for achieving a near seamless transition, providing significantly updated information and new reporting regimes while utilizing 21st Century practices and technology.

One good example of modernizing ideas is how outreach to the fuel fabrication facilities led to improved reporting. Upon completion of each workshop provided to the fuel fabrication facilities, discussions were held with the licensees on the status of their specific DIQ and TFA. An effort at each facility site determined what site expertise would be needed to answer the more complex questions of the IAEA DIQ. The NRC worked closely with the facilities to provide feedback on various iterations of the draft DIQ and to request clarification from the IAEA Country Officer for the U.S. and its territories, when needed.

The current IAEA DIQs for all licensed facility types are posted on the NRC public website so that each selected facility is able to read and download the appropriate blank DIQ form. When notified by the NRC, a selected facility is required to submit an initial completed IAEA DIQ for NRC review and final submission to the IAEA. Revisions of the DIQ are cleared through SISUS in order to maintain consistency in declarations from the U.S. Government. Subsidiary Arrangements, FA/TFAs, dictate when the DIQ must be updated or a revision is required. Voluntary revisions to the DIQ are submitted to the IAEA when the facility and U.S. Government mutually agree that a revision would improve clarity of the DIQ.

Licensed fuel fabrications facilities are required to revise their TFAs in order to update IAEA material description codes originally introduced into the early TFAs. Material description codes (MDC) are used in reporting nuclear material inventory and flow, in accordance with specifications of the TFA (Code 4).

A limited number of 4-digit codes were used in the early material control and accounting (MC&A) reports to the IAEA: Physical Inventory Reports, Inventory Change Reports, and Material Balance Reports.

However, as business models for all three currently selected fuel fabrication plants began to change, and new handling methods continue to develop, new MDCs were reported using concise notes to the reports. Tracking of these multiple concise notes became difficult and prone to error.

Feedback from fuel fabrication facilities provided other insights, as well. NMMSS is used by the U.S. to track all domestic SNM movements and facility inventories; subsequently NMMSS captures all transaction data related to IAEA selected facilities for reporting. Alignment of the IAEA 4-digit MDC is modified in the new TFAs, allowing each possible combination of MDCs to be grouped using 4 columns:

physical, chemical, containment, and irradiation. This format expands the possibilities for unique MDCs to be used outside the normal routine transactions during the material balance periodminimizing the need for tracking concise notes.

Communication with all the IAEA selected facilities is vital to ensuring declarations to the IAEA are up-to-date, complete and accurate. The annual NMMSS Users Meeting, attended by operators from licensed facilities, allows the NRC to circulate any new information concerning IAEA safeguards and acquire information about challenges in implementation at the sites. Presentations are usually provided to the participants of the meetings regarding MC&A reporting issues and IAEA nuclear material transit error messages received by the U.S. Government. The Users Meeting also provides one-on-one

opportunities for facilities to raise questions or concerns regarding their reporting, often leading to on-the-spot resolution or encouraging collaborative ongoing discussion with other selected facilities.

Another good example of modernizing ideas is the information outreach to the possessors of nuclear material in the US Caribbean Territories. The NRCs first outreach trip to the US Caribbean Territories, in 2016, was conducted by NRC staff responsible for safeguards implementation in the U.S. and regional NRC inspectors who have inspection oversight of the possessors of nuclear material. The outreach team visited each of the licensees identified as potentially possessing nuclear material. After documenting the quantities and types of nuclear material present during each site visit, staff provided guidance on the upcoming reporting and IAEA inspection access requirements. NRC staff also provided the IAEA Service Series 22 (Safeguards Implementation Guide for States with Small Quantities Protocols). Staff found it especially helpful to provide the Service Series in English and Spanish (the native language used in Puerto Rico). Of vital importance when presenting this new information was the recognition that licensees in the U.S. Caribbean Territories had little knowledge of IAEA international safeguards. To compensate for this, the NRC created a high-level summary guide, in English and Spanish, to explain the concept of the modified SQP and the requirements that must be met by NRC licensees. This guide was also shared with the IAEA.

NRC staff conducted a second outreach visit in 2017 to provide more in-depth instruction on how to complete the domestic nuclear material accountancy forms, which are already used by licensees in the U.S. mainland. The outreach included a workshop that provided an overview of the history of the agreement between the U.S. and the IAEA for the application of safeguards in the U.S. Caribbean Territories. The workshop also provided instructions and examples on completing the forms used to comply with the proposed reporting requirements, such as the initial inventory report, material balance reports, and nuclear material transaction reports. All accountancy forms are submitted by licensees to NMMSS. Staff from the Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Materials Integration, which operates NMMSS, supported the workshop.

4. Continuous Improvement After more than four decades of continuous improvements in implementation of the VOA, the U.S. is engaged in multiple efforts to bring the U.S. State System of Accounting for and Control of Nuclear Material (SSAC) infrastructure into the 21st Century. Albeit in the past, the SSAC has included developing the necessary procedures, system of records and reports, equipment, experts and organizational structure to meet IAEA safeguarding requirements, significant progress has been made in recent years to rejuvenate the SSAC.

Continuous improvement includes knowledge management within the NRC international safeguards team. Recent efforts have been made to strengthen the training and qualification program of the NRC International Safeguards Analysts, Import and Export Analysts, and NMMSS Analysts. The new program provides for well-informed technical support and expertise in the national safeguards implementation infrastructure. Individuals selected for analyst positions are asked to design, develop, and evaluate international safeguards systems and programs in order to improve organizational performance with the goal of achieving mission and performance goals of the NRC. These goals include licensing and regulation of the U.S. civilian use of radioactive material to protect the public health and safety, promote the common defense and security, and protect the environment.

Analysts assigned to the US NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards need the knowledge and expertise to analyze international safeguards issues and other generic studies related to commercial fuel cycle facilities, and recommend NRC positions and policies as they relate to nuclear nonproliferation. Additionally, analysts assess complex safeguards and threat information and evaluate the safeguards significance associated with threats to nuclear facilities, materials, or the transportation of licensed material. Each category of analysts requires a slightly different focus in order to fulfill the position, which requires the qualification program to be flexible. When a new analyst becomes part of the team, the trainees supervisor will decide what parts of the Training Requirements and Qualification Journal for International Safeguards Analysts, Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS) Analysts, and Import/Export Analystsi must be completed for a particular analyst. The journal includes goals and objectives that are broken down into two main parts: 1) training and 2) qualification cards.

Recurring training at IAEA selected facilities is used to continue to improve knowledge of U. S.

obligations under the VOA and AP throughout the U.S. nuclear industry. Modules of the workshops provided to selected NRC licensees prior to the DIQ updates are routinely updated to include changes

in federal regulations and/or reporting requirements to the IAEA. The NRC provides follow-on workshops to some facilities when requested in an effort to maintain continuity of knowledge of U.S. obligations under the US Safeguards Agreements when new employees are moved into affected positions of responsibility at each site. Sessions are also provided at national meetings like the annual NMMSS Users Meeting jointly hosted by the US NRC and Department of Energy to improve licensee knowledge of reporting requirements.

5. Technological Advancements on Reporting and Tracking Other U.S. government agencies are also conducting their own improvements. The U.S. Department of Commerce is planning to roll-out in the near future an advanced domestic web portal to facilitate Additional Protocol reporting by U.S. companies. This online portal would streamline the reporting by letting U.S. companies report their exports and annual declaration through the U.S. Department of Commerce website. The software is being designed with the same specifications as the IAEA Protocol Reporter 3 which will improve the internal process for the U.S. in meeting its international reporting requirements. The online reporting capabilities are expected to be functioning sometime in 2020, and testing and outreach have already started.

With the goal of enhancing U.S. tracking and reporting capabilities, the U. S. Department of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration is working on a substantial upgrade to the U.S. national nuclear material accountancy database. These improvements are focused on upgrading infrastructure, developing new software, and refining the user interface as to facilitate data analysis and accessibility.

Another core aspect of the upgrade is automating the development of reports required under the U.S.-

IAEA Safeguards Agreements, with the analysts concentrating in the quality control functions instead of spending time developing the reports. This would also facilitate the change in reporting scheme to xml format. Furthermore, these enhancements will allow more automated and efficient development of the required notification under the U.S. bilateral Nuclear Cooperation Agreements.

The expected combined outcome of all these projects is a more efficient and modern SSAC that will facilitate the implementation of safeguards in the U.S.

6. Summary When the U.S.-IAEA Safeguards Agreement came into force in 1980, the IAEA applied safeguards to certain U.S. civil nuclear facilities in support of IAEA infrastructure and safeguards implementation. The U.S. SSAC includes the necessary procedures, system of records and reports, equipment, experts and organizational structure to meet IAEA safeguarding requirements. After nearly four decades following initial implementation, the U.S. is engaged in multiple efforts to bring the SSAC infrastructure into the 21st Century. Beginning in 2011, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has worked with its licensees to update all the required IAEA Design Information Questionnaires (DIQ) and Transitional Facility Attachments (TFA) for selected licensed facilities under the Reporting Protocol to the U.S.-IAEA Voluntary Offer Safeguards Agreement INFCIRC/288. In 2016, the U.S. and the IAEA agreed to apply an amendment to modify the Small Quantities Protocol to the U.S.-IAEA Agreement for the Application of Safeguards in Connection with The Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, i.e., the Tlatelolco Safeguards Agreement. The expected combined outcome of all these projects and others has produced a modern infrastructure that will facilitate the implementation of safeguards in the U.S.

iU.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Training Requirements and Qualification Journal for International Safeguards Analysts, Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS) Analysts, and Import/Export Analysts; http://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1603/ML16035A147.pdf; 2016.