Changes in Packaging/Transportation: Transitioning From a Government Program to a Corporate Business

The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) was created by the Energy Policy Act of 1992 to ensure a domestic supply of enriched uranium, to manage and operate the Portsmouth and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plants (GDPs) profitably, and to transition to a fully private corporation. The two-step privatization process--first a government corporation, then a private corporation--is expected to be completed within the next year. The GDPs , which have operated under the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies since the mid-1950s, are leased by USEC from the DOE. With the enactment of the Energy Policy Act, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was mandated to develop nuclear safety regulations for the GDPs. The NRC will assume regulatory oversight of the GDPs under the newly promulgated Title I 0 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 76, Cert{ficafion l?{ Gaseous D{ffusion Plants in 1996 (I OCFR 1995). During the transition period, regulatory oversight is being performed by DOE under the terms of the lease agreement between USEC and DOE. Like other parts of the uranium enrichment enterprise, the packaging/transportation program has been undergoing many changes during the privatization process. The purpose of our paper is to discuss the issues associated with transitioning the packaging/transportation activities of a government program--one that is self-regulated and tied to a large government bureaucracy--to those of a corporate business regulated by external groups and challenged with the need to be competitive in a complex international market.