Impacts of Global Threat Reduction Initiative on Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability

With the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), new impacts to the Nuclear Materials Control and Accountability world are introduced. Reduction of these threats is the right thing to do, but presents new challenges in the reporting and accounting field. Historically, DOE Orders have addressed the current reporting environment. We must be open to change with a changing world and a need for a broadened vision of how best to address new challenges in today’s world. Two elements of nuclear materials accounting are: • Identify the best practices in the nuclear materials accounting arena • Create the policy to put these practices in place for the mutual benefit to fulfill the government’s initiative; provide unified reporting standards for receiving facilities; and a methodology for dealing with accounting issues. We have a vision that accommodates the GTRI and need to take this one step further to make this attractive to the receiving facility rather than a reporting nightmare. This could become a complex-wide issue that needs to be addressed under the GTRI umbrella rather than an import-by-import, facility-by-facility basis. We should consider a much broader application. A broader perspective should be investigated that covers a unique reporting circumstance in a changing environment.