ISPO Home Page

The Program for Technical Assistance to IAEA Safeguards (POTAS)

Procedure for Electronic Country Clearance (eCC) and the Foreign Travel Management System (FTMS) for Laboratory personnel and subcontractors’ travel to Vienna, Austria for work with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Laboratory personnel funded by POTAS to travel to Vienna or other foreign destinations will be required to prepare a 1512 and electronic country clearance (eCC) to obtain travel authorization from the Department of Energy (DOE). This (updated November 2010) explains the various steps to be taken in preparing the eCC.

POTAS (Program for Technical Assistance to IAEA Safeguards) Procedure for Electronic Country Clearance (eCC) and Foreign Travel Management System (FTMS) for Laboratory personnel and subcontractors' travel to Vienna, Austria, for work with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)

Background:

Laboratory personnel funded by POTAS to travel to Vienna or other foreign destinations will be required to prepare the DOE F 551.1, Request for Approval of Foreign Travel and electronic country clearances (eCCs), to obtain travel authorization from the Department of Energy (DOE). This procedure explains the various steps to be taken in preparing the eCC.

ISPO has begun a campaign to educate the USSP Laboratory Coordinators to submit an eCC for POTAS travel properly.

Procedure:

1. Before starting the eCC, the traveler's Laboratory should notify ISPO of the planned travel, so that ISPO can confirm that the travel has been approved by the SSTS. If the travel has not been SSTS, ISPO will have to conduct an e-poll to get approval for the travel. If ISPO determines the travel has been pre-approved, the Laboratory can begin the eCC.
    
2. When the travel has been approved, the traveler's Laboratory will enter the traveler’s trip information into the DOE Foreign Travel Management System (FTMS).
    
   1. In section II, #20, list all the names of other personnel travel on this trip (this should match the names on the eCC).
   2. In section III, #28, include the following statement with the purpose of the trip “Funding for this travel has been approved by the SSTS under POTAS task #______”. (The task number is available from the traveler or ISPO Task Monitor.).
   3. Include in your routing Michele Rabatin and Linda Sinatra (Brookhaven National Laboratory) as notify-local and Bobby Carter (NA24) as Programmatic RPSO-approver.
       
3. The traveler’s Laboratory will prepare the eCC when:
    
   1. The traveler is the only person traveling on this trip.
   2. The traveler is the trip lead for the group.

Note: If an ISPO staff member is traveling on the trip, the cable will be prepared by Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

When creating the eCC:

• Choose the destination country as “Austria, Unvie Vienna".
• Add all the travelers listed in the FTMS on the eCC.
• Include in the purpose of the visit “Funding for this travel has been approved by the SSTS under POTAS task#______”.  (Task number is available from the traveler or ISPO Technical Representative.)
• Choose Agency/Section/Other as IAEA.
• POC at post: Barbara Hoffheins.
• Submit the eCC request and add to the cc multiple email address the following list of carbon-copy (cc) recipients among any others you may have using a semicolon (;) after each email address:
  
  

  Susan Pepper	pepper@bnl.gov
  Michele Rabatin	rabatin@bnl.gov
  Robert Cockerham	cockerhamrs@state.gov
  Jim DeTemple	detempleje@state.gov
  Kevin Veal	kevin.veal@nnsa.doe.gov
  Robin Orth	robin.orth@osd.mil
  Barbara Hoffheins	Barbara Hoffheins
  Sheena Whaley	sheena.whaley@nrc.gov
  Santiago Aguilar	santiago.aguilar@nrc.gov
  Bobby Carter	bobby.carter@hq.doe.gov
  And one of the following ISPO Task Monitors:
  Ray Diaz	diazr@bnl.gov
  Jay Disser	jdisser@bnl.gov
  Jae Jo	jo@bnl.gov
  Josh Tackentien	tackentien@bnl.gov
  Al Queirolo	queirolo@bnl.gov

  This list will distribute the eCC to the Subgroup on Safeguards Technical Support (SSTS), ISPO, and the U.S. Mission Vienna.

4. The approval process will be as follows:

• ISPO will notify the ISPO Liaison Officer, Barbara Hoffheins, that travel has been approved for the traveler(s).
• If the eCC needs to be revised, the Liaison Officer will not approve it and it will be sent back to the originating laboratory.
• The U.S. Mission Vienna will approve or not approve the eCC based on the notification from ISPO. The approval to all will be distributed automatically to all the personnel listed as the carbon copied recipients on the eCC.

Note: It is expected there will be cases where the laboratories will not submit the eCC properly. However, the system is fail-safe in that the U.S. Mission Vienna will not approve the eCC for a traveler unless they have been informed the SSTS has approved the travel. If the SSTS and ISPO personnel are bypassed in the eCC submittal, the ISPO Liaison Officer will not approve the travel.

If an emergency occurs, or there are questions, or the Embassy/Post needs additional information on this eCC, please notify Jan Custer, NNSA, Phone: 202-586-5234; Fax: 202-586-4414; Email: Jan.Custer@nnsa.doe.gov. 

Last Modified: March 25, 2013
Please forward all questions about this site to: Laura Macarthur

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

Privacy and Security Notice  | Contact Web Services for help