Alert

Due to a lapse in appropriations, the NRC has ceased normal operations. However, excepted and exempted activities necessary to maintain critical health and safety functions—as well as essential progress on designated critical activities, including those specified in Executive Order 14300—will continue, consistent with the OMB-Approved NRC Lapse Plan.

Categories of special nuclear material

The NRC groups special nuclear materials and the facilities that possess them into three categories based upon the materials’ potential for use in nuclear weapons or their “strategic significance”:

Category I: High strategic significance
Category II: Moderate strategic significance
Category III: Low strategic significance

The NRC’s physical security and safeguards requirements differ by category, with Category I facilities subject to more stringent requirements because they pose greater security and safeguards risks.

Page Last Reviewed/Updated Friday, January 20, 2023