Office of the Secretary December 21, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

DOT proposes to modify an existing system of records under the Privacy Act of 1974. An additional purpose for the system has been added to provide users of the system with investigation information. A routine use has been added to provide for the use and public posting of investigation results.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will hold the second public meeting of the Veterans' Advisory Board on Dose Reconstruction (VBDR). The VBDR was established at the recommendation of the National Research Council report, entitled ``Review of the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.'' The report recommended the need to establish an advisory board that will provide suggestions for improvements in dose reconstruction and claim adjudication procedures. The goal of VBDR is to provide guidance and oversight of the dose reconstruction and claims compensation programs for veterans of U.S.- sponsored atmospheric nuclear weapons tests from 1945-1962; veterans of the 1945-1946 occupation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan; and veterans who were prisoners of war in those regions at the conclusion of World War II. In addition, the advisory board will assist VA and DTRA in communicating with the veterans. Radiation does reconstruction has been carried out by the Department of Defense under the Nuclear Test Personnel Review (NTPR) program since the 1970s. DTRA is the executive agent for the NTPR program which provides participation data and actual or estimated radiation dose information to veterans and the VA. Board members were selected to fulfill the statutory requirements mandated by Congress in Section 601 of Public Law 108-183. The Board was appointed on June 3, 2005, and is comprised of 16 members. Board members were selected to provide expertise in historical dose reconstruction, radiation health matters, risk communications, radiation epidemiology, medicine, quality management, decision analysis and ethics in order to appropriately enable the VBDR to represent and address veterans' concerns. The Board is governed by the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), Public Law 92-463, which sets forth standards for the formation and conduct of government advisory committees.