U.S. Additional Protocol Ratification Inches Forward

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States is moving toward allowing more expansive international supervision of U.S. nuclear industry sites, but just when those additional inspections will become a reality remains unclear, the State Department said (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2005).

Included in enabling legislation for the U.S.-Indian civil nuclear agreement passed last year was a provision pushing for a U.S version of the Additional Protocol.  The 2006 Hyde Act, the law exempting India from decades-long policies of nuclear export control, calls for the implementation here of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s expanded inspection regime and affirms the president’s authority to put it into place.

Implementation would allow the U.N. nuclear watchdog to visit additional civilian nuclear-related sites, such as uranium mines and enrichment equipment manufacturers.  Existing U.S. safeguards agreements restrict the agency’s access to such sites and technology.

While the Indian deal seems to be stalled, possibly forever (see GSN, Oct. 22), the adoption of the Additional Protocol appears to be progressing, albeit more slowly than originally predicted by some.

A Bush administration official estimated late last year that the first step toward the Additional Protocol, the development of new regulations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and work within the Commerce Department, would be completed sometime this past summer.

According to the State Department, however, the preliminary efforts needed before the president can sign instruments of U.S. ratification are not yet complete.

The United States signed the Additional Protocol in 1998 and the Senate approved the document in 2004, but implementing legislation was not signed until last year.

The State Department said the administration continues to work toward the goal of Additional Protocol ratification but could not predict when that might happen.

The Energy and Commerce departments and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have all made steps to facilitate U.S. ratification, according to the State Department.

The Energy Department has developed software to collect, store and update information for the department’s contribution to the U.S. declaration under the Additional Protocol.

The Commerce Department has developed an Additional Protocol reporting system to collect and process nuclear industry submissions and compile that information for eventual transmission to the International Atomic Energy Agency.  The department also expects to soon circulate a draft regulation for comments from those in the U.S. nuclear sector.

Details regarding the industry submissions and government regulation were not immediately available.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is also working to expand the scope of the NRC regulations that pertain to the reporting and access requirements of certain U.S. nuclear facilities.

The U.S. version of the Additional Protocol is vastly different from those protocols and safeguards applied to non-nuclear-weapon nations.  In those cases, safeguards are intended to detect the diversion of civil nuclear material to secret weapons programs.  The protocols give the agency authority to look for clandestine nuclear activities at any declared or undeclared site.

As a declared nuclear-weapon state, the United States is not required to offer the same transparency.  Any sites of “direct national security significance” to Washington are exempt from inspection, according to the original safeguards agreement and the protocol.  Inspections of U.S. such sites can only take place with the authorization of the U.S. government.

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