The Role of NMMSS in the Implementation of the US/IAEA Safeguards Agreement

In 1978, the United States passed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act (NNPA) and initiated the requirement to track foreign material in the United States and to track exports from the United States. The Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS) – is the U.S. Government’s information system containing data on the possession and shipment of nuclear materials. The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission rely on NMMSS - to generate reports to fulfill the U. S. Government’s commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Pursuant to the US/IAEA Safeguards Agreement, the United States agrees to report all civilian export/import activity of source and special nuclear material as well as nuclear activities at facilities selected by the IAEA. NMMSS reports document these activities and reports them to the IAEA. This is all done under the auspices of INFCIRC/288 and INFCIRC/207. There are four major report types generated by the NMMSS and supplied to the IAEA. The first two reports are the Inventory Change Report (ICR) and Concise Note Report (CN) which are generated on a monthly basis for all activity meeting the reporting requirements. The other two reports are the Physical Inventory Listing Report (PIL) and Material Balance Report (MBR) which are generated periodically for facilities selected by the IAEA. NMMSS utilizes the standard reporting vehicles for collecting data from Nuclear Facilities and reformats the data received to meet the IAEA requirements as outlined in the Subsidiary Arrangement General Part (Code 10). For each report transmitted to the IAEA, the IAEA provides a Diskette Summary documenting the number of records transmitted, errors with the data and the lapse of time in reporting the data. These values are tracked by NMMSS and the Program Sponsors as a means of performance evaluation. Reporting nuclear material data to the IAEA is a very important function of NMMSS. It is a very visible and vital activity. The reports generated by NMMSS affect many people and many levels of operation. The lack of reporting or the erroneous reporting of data can greatly impact the United States in fulfilling its IAEA reporting commitments.