Office of Safeguards and Security Efforts to Improve Fissile Material Assurance

In July 1995, the Office of Safeguards and Security (OSS) established the Fissile Material Assurance Working Group. This working group serves as a mechanism for the Department of Energy (DOE) to ensure that vital safeguards requirements such as material measurements, physical inventory verification, and control activities are included in the planning and budgeting of ongoing Departmental initiatives in support of our current mission goals and objectives. Efforts of the working group over the past several years have focussed on supporting Departmental initiatives including: (1) Measurement Assessment Project, (2) stabilization packaging and long-term storage of plutonium metals and oxides, (3) standardization of site accountability systems, and (4) review of existing policy/compliance requirements. This paper will focus on working group efforts in support of the Measurement Assessment Project and identify paths forward for future activities of the working group.