Role of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) in Implementing the Additional Protocol to the U.S. - IAEA Safeguards Agreement

The U.S. Additional Protocol (AP) contains declaration and access provisions that expand the scope of impacted industry under the U.S. - International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Agreement to include upstream and downstream nuclear fuel cycle-related activities. BIS will have a lead role in implementing the AP once legislation has been passed by both houses of Congress, and will share the regulatory purview for commercial industry with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). BIS will implement the AP by issuing regulations with reporting requirements for commercial entities that are engaged in equipment manufacturing, assembly and construction activities, uranium hard-rock mining and beneficiation, and fuel cycle-related research and development activities that are not licensed by the NRC. This presentation will provide an overview of the types of activities and commercial entities that will be subject to report, the most recent estimates of the number of entities that may be affected by this anticipated reporting requirement, how BIS plans to minimize the reporting burden for U.S. industry, and information as to which U.S. Government agency companies will be expected to submit information. Those commercial entities subject to BIS’s AP regulations will submit reports in hard copy via U.S. mail or electronically via the Internet through Web-AP. BIS will then aggregate these reports with those reports received from the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to create the official U.S. declaration that will be transmitted to the IAEA. BIS has a successful history of working with industry, and will apply its core principles and methodologies for protecting confidential information and minimizing the burden to industry while demonstrating industry compliance with the AP.