PNNL

Abstract

With the congressionally mandated January 1, 2013 deadline for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nuclear Material Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC&A) program to complete its transition of MPC&A responsibility to the Russian Federation, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) management directed its MPC&A program managers and team leaders to demonstrate that work in ongoing programs would lead to successful and timely achievement of these milestones. In the spirit of planning for successful project completion, the NNSA review of the Russian regulatory development process confirmed the critical importance of an effective regulatory system to a sustainable nuclear protection regime and called for an analysis of the existing Russian regulatory structure and the identification of a plan to ensure a complete MPC&A regulatory foundation. This paper describes the systematic process used by DOE’s MPC&A Regulatory Development Project (RDP) to develop an effective and sustainable MPC&A regulatory structure in the Russian Federation. This nuclear regulatory system will address all non-military Category I and II nuclear materials at State Corporation for Atomic Energy “Rosatom,” the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological, and Nuclear Oversight (Rostechnadzor), the Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport (FAMRT, within the Ministry of Transportation), and the Ministry of Industry and Trade (Minpromtorg). The approach to ensuring a complete and comprehensive nuclear regulatory structure includes five sequential steps. The approach was adopted from DOE’s project management guidelines and was adapted to the regulatory development task by the RDP. The five steps in the Regulatory Development Process are: 1) Define MPC&A Structural Elements; 2) Analyze the existing regulatory documents using the identified Structural Elements; 3) Validate the analysis with Russian colleagues and define the list of documents to be developed; 4) Prioritize and schedule the development of documents; 5) Identify and develop processes to measure effectiveness of regulations. Utilizing this process is resulting in an effective regulatory process that is understood and is being adopted by the four RF organizations. It is anticipated that the current regulatory development process will continue after U.S. support ends. Utilization of the systematic methodology will ensure regulatory development is based on required MPC&A structural elements and will support the continued maintenance and development of an effective regulatory base.