To ensure that nuclear waste assistance projects will proceed in Russia with adequate legal protections, the U.S. has been negotiating the Trilateral AMEC agreement with Norway and Russia for over two years with little progress being made. Concurrently, the U.S. and its European partners (including nine European countries, with Norway playing a leading role, and the European Commission) have been negotiating a multilateral framework agreement with Russia without success. Both the Trilateral AMEC Agreement and the Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Program in the Russian Federation (MNEPR) framework agreement would facilitate radioactive waste management projects in Russia, which, on the U.S. side, are not otherwise within the scope of the CTR agreement and program.

Both sets of negotiations have reached an impasse on the same issues that have often stymied the U.S. in other agreement negotiations with Russia. While negotiations are ongoing, currently there is not agreement on assumption by the Russian Federation of responsibility for liabilities, establishing complete exemption from taxation of assistance, and ensuring the privileges and immunities of U.S. personnel. On the key issue of liability, the U.S. maintains that neither the U.S. Government nor contractors be held liable in the event of damage or injury during the implementation of a nuclear waste project in Russia.

Until a Trilateral AMEC legal agreement is completed, the U.S. will operate the AMEC program using the CTR umbrella agreement. Therefore, all U.S. funded projects must directly support SSBN dismantlement. Because two AMEC projects are not covered by the CTR umbrella agreement, the U.S. has stopped funding these projects. Moreover, because the United States is concerned about significant liability possibly arising from participation in design and construction activities in the Murmansk 80-tonne cask project, the U.S. decided, in January 2001 to partially suspend its involvement in this project.

Pending the resolution of key legal issues, the U.S. will limit the assistance it provides in this area to that associated with CTR programs to dismantle SSBNs. In particular, the U.S. would not want to expose itself, its personnel, or its contractors to significant liability risks under potential new projects. Once legal and other outstanding issues are resolved, the U.S. may consider supporting other projects. Because potential U.S. funding would be limited, such projects would focus mainly on the highest priority environmental security concerns that will attract international contributions. The highest priorities are preventing criticality and other nuclear accidents and ensuring that spent nuclear fuel and associated wastes are properly disposed.

Workshops present opportunities for information exchanges and project planning with Russia without carrying the risk of significant liability exposure. As noted in Section III, the IAEA-CEG is an important forum for engagement at this level. To move forward on this level, the U.S. delegation, in October 2000, proposed organizing Project-Focused Workshops (PFWs). Each PFW will have the broad goal of developing a business plan and multilateral consensus on a specific project. One of the first PFWs is expected to focus on the stabilization and long-term storage of Russian spent nuclear fuel now being held in coastal areas under deficient safety conditions compared to internationally accepted safety standards. Other potential PFWs are:

• Risk analyses for all the sources of radioactivity in the Russian Federation;
• Creation of a repository for radioactive wastes in Northwest Russia (e.g., in Novaya Zemlya or the Kola Peninsula) and possibly also in the Russian Far East;
• Creation of radioactive waste management centers for the conditioning and interim storage of solid and liquid submarine and icebreaker radioactive wastes;
• Remediation of the RADON radioactive waste management centers for institutional radioactive wastes, including, in particular, the Murmansk RADON;
• Remediation of land, lakes, and rivers around the Fuel Cycle Facilities at Mayak, Krasnoyarsk, and Tomsk;
• Remediation of submarines that have suffered severe accidents;
• Management of spent nuclear fuel from liquid-metal-cooled submarine reactors; and
• Management of reactor cores from de-fueled and partially decommissioned submarines.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of International Activities has recently hosted a PFW. This workshop brought interested parties together to address the outstanding problem of Russian submarine reactor compartment disposition. About thirty reactor compartments are floating in Sayda Bay. Unless a permanent location for safe disposal of these compartments is found, there will be some danger of contamination of the water in and around Sayda Bay. Also, the lack of acceptable storage could create a bottleneck to future submarine dismantlement activities.

AMEC’s Technical Guidance Group (TGG) has annually reviewed its focus and priorities. The TGG has developed Concept Level Proposals for a variety of new projects. The TGG has assigned the highest priority to the spent nuclear fuel handling and transfer program, including development of integration and auxiliary equipment. The next highest priorities include installation of an automatic site radiological and security system for a spent nuclear fuel storage pad and a lightweight interim solid-waste storage facility.

A number of reports have addressed environmental security threats arising from decommissioned Russian marine reactors. Of recent note, the Department of Defense funded an extensive report titled, "Environmental Security Implications of Decommissioned Russian Nuclear Submarines, Including Dismantlement: Feasibility Study." The Russian Federation Ministry of Atomic Energy and Ministry of Defense sponsored this report. The Advanced Technology Research Foundation Russia (ATRP-R) led the compilation of this report with participation from the Russian Academy of Sciences. A Department of Energy funded peer review was recently completed and has identified future projects. These potential projects would likely have strong Russian support because of Russia's backing of the report. As an example, AMEC technical experts have lately proposed "a project to develop, demonstrate, and implement automated radiological monitoring at Russian Navy facilities engaged in the dismantlement of nuclear-powered strategic ballistic missile launching submarines. Radiological monitoring is needed at these facilities to help protect workers engaged in the dismantlement program and the public living within the footprint of routine and accidental exposure areas."[20]  This project would support the need to upgrade Russian radiation monitoring activities conducted at sites handling spent nuclear fuel.

Other parties have also considered specific projects in Russia to mitigate environmental hazards. For example, in the mid-1990s, the United States Air Force Academy and the Russian Academy of Sciences explored the formation of the Russian North-Geographic Information Systems Project (RN-GIS)[21]. This project would be intended to help Russia gather, analyze, and display vital statistical information on existing hazards through the use of GIS computer modeling techniques. It would help form an integrated and comprehensive examination of present and future environmental hazards emanating from Russia. Such a project could be a good example of a possible private-public partnership.

In the field of private-public partnerships, one organization that has been strongly active in matters consistent with the intent of the Act is the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), organized by the environmental organization Bellona-USA. The IGWG is a private-public roundtable (network) that brings together elected and administration officials from nations involved in cooperative projects in Northwest Russia, and allows them to interact with each other and contractors tasked with implementation of these projects. Discussions focus on legal requirements for improved project implementation as well as political and financial requirements. In the three meetings held since 1998, a total of 29 Parliamentarians joined almost 300 experts from country administrations and the private sector.

Another non-governmental organization that has focused substantial attention on environmental threats from Russian marine reactors is the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute for International Studies, headquartered in Monterey, California. This U.S.-based non-governmental organization has sponsored several workshops and conferences devoted to this topic. Government officials including those from Russia, the United States, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Japan, and the United Kingdom have participated in these events. These off-the-record settings have encouraged an active exchange of ideas to promote problem solving.
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[20] Paul D. Moskowitz et al., "Automated Radiological Monitoring at a Russian Ministry of Defence Naval Site," January 2001.

[21] Robert L. Dunaway, "Environmental Assistance as National Security Policy: Helping the Former Soviet Union Find Solutions to Its Environmental Problems," INSS Occasional Paper 4, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, November 1995