International monitoring of nuclear facilities and fissile materials is at the heart of the nonproliferation regime and is seen as necessary in any nuclear disarmament regime, including the recently adopted nuclear ban treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards system requires non-weapon states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to provide detailed information on facilities and materials. Some weapon states have made Voluntary Offers of facilities and materials for IAEA safeguards, and separate Additional Protocols with the IAEA, but while states have seen fit to share this information with the IAEA, they have not made it public. The United States, which has long been the most transparent of the weapon states shows much greater transparency is possible.

In 2009 the United States declared to the IAEA the nuclear sites and facilities that are available for IAEA safeguards as part of U.S. obligations under its Additional Protocol (INFCIRC/288/Add.1) that entered into force on 6 January 2009. The draft list was submitted by President Obama to Congress on May 5, 2009 as House Document 111-37 and was published by the U.S. Government Printing Office. President Obama in his letter of transmittal determined that the information being released was "sensitive but not classified."

At the time, publication of the document generated some controversy, which resulted in the list being taken down from the GPO web site. The publication became the subject of several investigations, including by the Government Accountability Office). GAO reported that "The public release of the draft declaration of civilian nuclear sites and nuclear facilities does not appear to have damaged national security, according to officials from DOE, NRC, and Commerce... [and] these agencies--plus the Department of Defense--had reviewed the list of civilian nuclear facilities and related activities prior to transmitting it to the White House and Congress to ensure that information of direct national security significance was not included."

The original document, "The List of Sites, Locations, Facilities, and Activities Declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency" is currently available through the Federal Depository Library Program Electronic Collection Archive. [UPDATE 08/30/2017: The list has been removed from the GPO web site. It is, however, still available through a number of web sites, such as governmentattic.org, or in the IPFM Library]

The other nuclear weapon states, and the non-weapon states, should authorize the IAEA to make public their additional protocol lists of facilities, and the detailed annual safeguards findings.