Title 22, Foreign Relations and IntercourseRelease 119-110

§6322 Iaea Internal Reforms

Title 22 › CHAPTER 72 — NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION PREVENTION › SUBCHAPTER II — INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY › § 6322

Last updated Sep 23, 2026|Official source

Summary

Congress asks the President to work with other countries and groups, including the IAEA Board of Governors and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, to get the IAEA to adopt early reforms that strengthen nuclear safeguards. The changes asked for include better access to sensitive nuclear sites; help for the IAEA to meet detection goals (especially where plutonium is stored) and a public notice if it cannot; authority to fine violators, pay rewards, and run a reporting hotline; safeguards for factories that build special nuclear equipment and for research facilities; special and challenge inspections of undeclared sites; extending safeguards to tritium, uranium concentrates, nuclear waste with fissionable material, and heavier controls on heavy water; lowering the IAEA’s “significant quantity” thresholds and making them national standards; more full-time resident inspectors and near-real-time material accounting; faster visa approvals for inspectors; extra funding, technical help, and political support; and public annual reports plus a public registry of nuclear trade, dual-use goods, and member nations’ control laws and actions.

Full Legal Text

Title 22, §6322

Foreign Relations and Intercourse, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

In order to promote the early adoption of reforms in the implementation of the safeguards responsibilities of the IAEA, the Congress urges the President to negotiate with other nations and groups of nations, including the IAEA Board of Governors and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, to—

(1)improve the access of the IAEA within nuclear facilities that are capable of producing, processing, or fabricating special nuclear material suitable for use in a nuclear explosive device;

(2)(A)facilitate the IAEA’s efforts to meet and to maintain its own goals for detecting the diversion of nuclear materials and equipment, giving particular attention to facilities in which there are bulk quantities of plutonium; and

(B)if it is not technically feasible for the IAEA to meet those detection goals in a particular facility, require the IAEA to declare publicly that it is unable to do so;

(3)enable the IAEA to issue fines for violations of safeguards procedures, to pay rewards for information on possible safeguards violations, and to establish a “hot line” for the reporting of such violations and other illicit uses of weapons-grade nuclear material;

(4)establish safeguards at facilities engaged in the manufacture of equipment or material that is especially designated or prepared for the processing, use, or production of special fissionable material or, in the case of non-nuclear-weapon states, of any nuclear explosive device;

(5)establish safeguards over nuclear research and development activities and facilities;

(6)implement special inspections of undeclared nuclear facilities, as provided for under existing safeguards procedures, and seek authority for the IAEA to conduct challenge inspections on demand at suspected nuclear sites;

(7)expand the scope of safeguards to include tritium, uranium concentrates, and nuclear waste containing special fissionable material, and increase the scope of such safeguards on heavy water;

(8)revise downward the IAEA’s official minimum amounts of nuclear material (“significant quantity”) needed to make a nuclear explosive device and establish these amounts as national rather than facility standards;

(9)expand the use of full-time resident IAEA inspectors at sensitive fuel cycle facilities;

(10)promote the use of near real time material accountancy in the conduct of safeguards at facilities that use, produce, or store significant quantities of special fissionable material;

(11)develop with other IAEA member nations an agreement on procedures to expedite approvals of visa applications by IAEA inspectors;

(12)provide the IAEA the additional funds, technical assistance, and political support necessary to carry out the goals set forth in this subsection; and

(13)make public the annual safeguards implementation report of the IAEA, establishing a public registry of commodities in international nuclear commerce, including dual-use goods, and creating a public repository of current nuclear trade control laws, agreements, regulations, and enforcement and judicial actions by IAEA member nations.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

22 U.S.C. § 6322

Title 22, Foreign Relations and Intercourse

Last Updated

Sep 23, 2026

Release point: 119-110