Material andWaste in the United States;” open-use factsheets on the Blue Ribbon Commission and state involvement in transportation planning; and recommendations for updating DOE’s “Answers to Your Questions” booklet about transporting radioactive waste. 4. Information & Communications: NTSF quarterly e-newsletter. 5. Management Plan: A detailed plan explaining roles and responsibilities of NTSF participants, with guidance for organizing and staffing ad hoc working groups, hosting annual meetings, and conducting webinars. 6. Security Communications Protocol: A written security communication plan for communication and notification of a transportation security incident; also guidance for directing immediate actions to be taken by the shippers and highway carriers of nuclear and other radioactive materials, and by state and tribal security and law enforcement officials in the event of an incident. 7. Transportation Practices: A detailed set of comments from states, Tribes, and DOE on the former “Radioactive Material Transportation Practices Manual” to inform the process of incorporating the manual into DOE’s order on transportation. The NTSF is a welcome improvement over its predecessor the TEC/ WG. The NTSF’s partners all “own” the organization and support its continuing efforts through ad hoc working groups and events. In its 11th year of existence, the NTSF is now a mature organization with a well-defined set of operating practices spelled out in the NTSF Management Plan. To avoid complacency and keep the NTSF relevant and productive, DOE, the Tribes, and the states should commit to periodically assess the NTSF’s performance in achieving the mission spelled out in the charter and identify opportunities to improve any areas of weakness. DOE-NE’S INVOLVEMENT Because of the hiatus in activities, the DOE-NE program did not make an appearance at an NTSF annual meeting until 2013. At the 2013 Annual Meeting — the NTSF’s fourth — the program was present in full force. JeffWilliams, then director of the NFST Planning Project, provided a plenary presentation entitled, “Update on the Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste.”One of the four breakout sessions focused on a variety of NFST Planning Project topics, including National Transportation Plan redevelopment; preliminary route selection for stranded fuel shipments to a pilot consolidated storage facility; and rail transportation issues. The 2013 NTSF Annual Meeting also gave the newly convened Section 180(c) AHWG an opportunity to meet face-to-face after kicking off its work via conference call in December 2012. In addition, the agenda for the Communications AHWG meeting included an opportunity to review a new draft public information brochure —“Partnering for Progress”— developed by DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory for the NTSF Planning Project. As explained during the meeting, the purpose of the brochure was
“to give a clear history of the program, what the BRC said in its report, and how DOE’s ‘Strategy’ document addressed the BRC recommendations” (Communications AHWG 2013a, p. 1). At the time, future plans for DOE-NE included producing additional materials, such as fact sheets and models, all similarly branded as part of the NFST Planning Project’s public information campaign. Unfortunately, the “partnering”did not progress very far. Just three months after the NTSF meeting, it was reported that “DOE-NE was modifying its approach to outreach and communication with program stakeholders, including the working group. Because of the great deal of uncertainty in the future direction of the waste management program, there [would] be no interaction with stakeholders until documents — even draft versions —had been cleared by DOE’s Office of General Counsel and management” (Communications AHWG 2013b, p. 2). As a result of this change in approach, DOE-NE staff and contractors “would no longer participate on the working group” and “the brochure had been put on hold” (ibid.). Although its foray into collaboration with the Communications AHWG did not pan out, DOE-NE took full advantage of the opportunity that the NTSF structure presented for engaging states and Tribes on other subjects. The NFST Planning Project stood up three ad hoc working groups in the three years following its initial participation in the NTSF: Section 180(c), Transportation Planning, and SNF Rail/Routing. In 2016, the Spent Fuel Transportation Materials AHWG became the fourth NE-related AHWG. Two of these groups were highly productive and successful; the other two were less so. Section 180(c) AHWG By far the most productive of the ad hoc working groups organized by DOE-NE was the Section 180(c) AHWG that operated from December 2012 through August 2017, with a brief hiatus in 2013 and 2014 (for more on the hiatus, see the textbox on the 180(c) Interregional Team ). This AHWG had a slight advantage over the other DOE-NE ad hoc working groups in that 1) the work could be regarded as independent of the site selected and 2) a sizeable body of prior work existed upon which to build new products and progress. The signature accomplishment of the AHWG was to conduct a “Section 180(c) Proposed Policy Implementation Exercise that involved eight states and one Tribe deciding on a representative route (many using the Stakeholder Tool for Assessing Radioactive Transportation [START] to evaluate route options), submitting a “mock grant application” for 180(c) assistance, and going through the process of justifying their requests to a “Mock Merit Review Panel.” The exercise was originally intended to be a “six-month paperwork exercise,”however it eventually morphed into an“18-month effort with a more in-depth mock needs assessment and multiple mock grant applications” (Helvey and Rodman 2017, pp. 3-4). This change came about because several of the participants learned that they would need to involve other agencies to complete the needs assessment. They also wanted to“derive more value from conducting a complete, or nearly complete, needs assessment involving members of applicable state and local agencies who
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