Nuclear Materials: Current and Future Regulatory Challenges

Thank you for the introduction. I am honored to be here today at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management’s 51st Annual Meeting to share my thoughts on some of the important regulatory issues before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). For over half a century, the Institute has been dedicated to advancing safe and secure management practices and promoting professional excellence among materials management professionals. You can justifiably take great pride in the Institute’s past accomplishments. I was pleased to read in the message from your Vice-President - Scott Vance – about this organization’s commitment not to rest on its laurels – to achieve even more in the next fifty years than it did in its first half century. That is exactly the kind of approach that everyone in the nuclear field – regulators, licensees, and stakeholders – should maintain as we to seek to advance our shared safety and security objectives. Since the 9/11 attacks, the NRC and its licensees have made tremendous progress in strengthening our regulatory framework for security. The NRC created a separate new office to focus on security, incident response, and emergency planning issues; significantly increased the budget for security issues; and implemented a large number of physical security upgrades, cyber initiatives, and enhanced materials control and accounting measures. To support this work, the NRC also has coordinated with federal, state, and local agencies, as well as received support from the intelligence and law enforcement communities.