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What We Do
| Policies, Requirements, & Guidance |
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We are responsible for establishing clear nuclear and
facility safety requirements and expectations for
the Department's facilities and activities. We accomplish
this by developing and managing a coherent and integrated
set of policies, requirements, and guidance that
address facility and systems safety. These policies,
requirements, and guidance help ensure that the
health and safety of workers, the public, and the
environment are adequately protected from the variety
of hazards (e.g., nuclear, chemical, natural, industrial,
and explosive) that may be present at DOE facilities.
We establish our nuclear and facility safety requirements
through public rulemaking and through our consensus
standards. The rulemaking and consensus standards
processes require us to work with multiple government
and nongovernment organizations that share our interests.
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| Standards |
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The Director of the Office of Nuclear and Facility Safety
Policy performs as the DOE Standards Executive and
serves as the DOE representative on the Interagency
Committee for Standard Policy (ICSP). The ICSP,
chaired by the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST), ensures that Federal
agencies establish policy and processes to adopt
or develop nongovernment or government standards
that are consistent with Federal law and government
policy.
The Office of Nuclear and Facility Safety Policy
also manages the Department's Technical Standards
Program, which coordinates the development,
adoption, and management of the DOE technical standards
and nongovernment standards used for DOE activities.
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| Interfaces & Liaisons |
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We represent the Department's interests before a number of Federal and international organizations. Some of these organizations have oversight or regulatory jurisdiction over DOE activities or share common regulatory issues. These organizations include:
- DNFSB (Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board)
- EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
- IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)
- NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
- OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
We fulfill the responsibilities of the DOE Seismic
Safety Coordinator by establishing the policy and
standards for seismic safety of Federally-owned
or leased buildings consistent with Federal law
and Executive Orders. We also interact with:
- FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) and
- USGS (United States Geological Survey)
We provide regulatory and safety experts as liaisons with other agencies, committees, government bodies, and industry groups actively working on nuclear and facility safety issues. These responsibilities require us to maintain expertise in a wide variety of functional areas.
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| Return to the home page to view our functional areas of expertise or click on our Directives and Interpretations button to review our documents. |
This page was last updated on January 05, 2007
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