Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal
Mark Holt
Specialist in Energy Policy
August 30, 2011
Congressional Research Service
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www.crs.gov
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Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal

Summary
Management of civilian radioactive waste has posed difficult issues for Congress since the
beginning of the nuclear power industry in the 1950s. Federal policy is based on the premise that
nuclear waste can be disposed of safely, but proposed storage and disposal facilities have
frequently been challenged on safety, health, and environmental grounds. Although civilian
radioactive waste encompasses a wide range of materials, most of the current debate focuses on
highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) calls for disposal of spent nuclear fuel in a deep
geologic repository. NWPA established the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
(OCRWM) in the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop such a repository, which would be
licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The program’s civilian costs were
required to be covered by a fee on nuclear-generated electricity, paid into the Nuclear Waste
Fund. Amendments to NWPA in 1987 restricted DOE’s repository site studies to Yucca Mountain
in Nevada.
DOE submitted a license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository to NRC on June
3, 2008. The NRC license must be based on radiation exposure standards set by the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which issued revised standards September 30, 2008.
The state of Nevada strongly opposes the Yucca Mountain project, disputing DOE’s analysis that
the repository would meet EPA’s standards. Risks cited by repository opponents include excessive
water infiltration, earthquakes, volcanoes, and human intrusion.
The Obama Administration “has determined that developing the Yucca Mountain repository is not
a workable option and the Nation needs a different solution for nuclear waste disposal,”
according to the DOE FY2011 budget justification. As a result, no funding for Yucca Mountain or
OCRWM was requested or provided for FY2011. DOE filed a motion with NRC to withdraw the
Yucca Mountain license application on March 3, 2010. DOE’s withdrawal motion has prompted
legal challenges from states that have defense-related and civilian waste awaiting permanent
disposal. An NRC licensing board denied DOE’s withdrawal motion on June 29, 2010, a decision
that is under review by the NRC commissioners.
Alternatives to Yucca Mountain are being evaluated by the Blue Ribbon Commission on
America’s Nuclear Future. The commission’s draft report, released July 29, 2011, called for a
new, “single-purpose organization” to be established to “expeditiously” develop one or more
nuclear waste repositories with an “assured” source of funding. The draft recommendations also
urged that the roles of various levels of government in siting and regulating nuclear waste
facilities be established through negotiations, that one or more “consolidated interim storage
facilities” be developed, and that long-term research, development, and demonstration be
conducted on technologies that could provide waste disposal benefits.
For FY2012, the Administration again requested no funding for the Yucca Mountain project, but
the House provided $25 million to DOE and $20 million to NRC to continue the Yucca Mountain
licensing process in the FY2012 energy and water development appropriations bill (H.R. 2354).
The House bill specifies that the funds may not be used for closing out licensing activities unless
the NRC commissioners accept DOE’s license withdrawal motion, “or for actions that irrevocably
remove the possibility that Yucca Mountain may be a repository option in the future.”
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Contents
Most Recent Developments ............................................................................................................. 1
Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 2
Spent Nuclear Fuel Program...................................................................................................... 2
Other Programs.......................................................................................................................... 4
Nuclear Waste Litigation ................................................................................................................. 5
Future Liability Estimates ......................................................................................................... 6
License Withdrawal ................................................................................................................... 8
Congressional Action....................................................................................................................... 9
Characteristics and Handling of Nuclear Waste............................................................................. 10
Spent Nuclear Fuel .................................................................................................................. 11
Commercial Low-Level Waste................................................................................................ 13
Current Policy and Regulation....................................................................................................... 13
Spent Nuclear Fuel .................................................................................................................. 14
Current Program................................................................................................................ 14
Private Interim Storage...................................................................................................... 14
Regulatory Requirements.................................................................................................. 15
Alternative Technologies................................................................................................... 17
Funding ............................................................................................................................. 18
Low-Level Radioactive Waste................................................................................................. 19
Current Policy ................................................................................................................... 19
Regulatory Requirements.................................................................................................. 21
Concluding Discussion .................................................................................................................. 21
Legislation ..................................................................................................................................... 22
H.R. 301 (Forbes).............................................................................................................. 22
H.R. 617 (Matheson)......................................................................................................... 22
H.R. 909 (Nunes) .............................................................................................................. 22
H.R. 1023 (Thornberry) .................................................................................................... 22
H.R. 1242 (Markey) .......................................................................................................... 22
H.R. 1710 (Burgess).......................................................................................................... 22
H.R. 2075 (Engel) ............................................................................................................. 23
H.R. 2133 (Matheson)/S. 1220 (Conrad) .......................................................................... 23
S. 1320 (Murkowski)......................................................................................................... 23
For Additional Reading.................................................................................................................. 23

Figures
Figure 1. DOE Estimate of Future Liabilities for Nuclear Waste Delays ........................................ 6

Tables
Table 1. DOE Civilian Spent Fuel Management Funding ............................................................. 19
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Contacts
Author Contact Information........................................................................................................... 24

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Most Recent Developments
The Obama Administration’s nuclear waste policy calls for termination of the Yucca Mountain
repository project and the development of alternative approaches to waste management. Under
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada has been the only
location under consideration by the Department of Energy (DOE) for construction of a national
high-level radioactive waste repository. DOE had submitted a license application for the Yucca
Mountain repository to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on June 3, 2008.
The Administration’s FY2011 budget request called for a complete halt in funding for the Yucca
Mountain project and elimination of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
(OCRWM), the DOE office that had run the program. In line with the request, the FY2011
Continuing Appropriations Act (P.L. 112-10) provided no DOE funding for the program. DOE
shut down the Yucca Mountain project at the end of FY2010 and transferred OCRWM’s
remaining functions to the Office of Nuclear Energy.
DOE filed a motion to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application on March 3, 2010, “with
prejudice,” meaning the application could not be resubmitted to NRC in the future.1 DOE’s
motion to withdraw the license application, filed with NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
(ASLB), received strong support from the state of Nevada but drew opposition from states with
defense-related and civilian radioactive waste that had been expected to go to Yucca Mountain.
State utility regulators also filed a motion to intervene on March 15, 2010, contending that
“dismissal of the Yucca Mountain application will significantly undermine the government’s
ability to fulfill its outstanding obligation to take possession and dispose of the nation’s spent
nuclear fuel and high level nuclear waste.”2
The ASLB denied DOE’s license withdrawal motion June 29, 2010, ruling that the NWPA
prohibits DOE from withdrawing the license application until NRC determines whether the
repository is acceptable.3 The NRC commissioners are reviewing the ASLB decision but have not
released their final vote on the matter. Lawsuits to overturn the Yucca Mountain license
withdrawal on statutory grounds were filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit, which on July 1, 2011, declined to issue a ruling before NRC takes final
action.4
For FY2012, the Administration again requested no funding for the Yucca Mountain project.
However, the House voted July 15, 2011, to provide $25 million to DOE and $20 million to NRC
to continue the Yucca Mountain licensing process in the FY2012 energy and water development
appropriations bill (H.R. 2354). The House voted to increase NRC’s Yucca Mountain licensing
funding from $10 million to $20 million in an amendment approved July 14, 2011, by a 297-130
vote. The House bill specifies that the funds may not be used for closing out licensing activities

1 U.S. Department of Energy’s Motion to Withdraw, NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, Docket No. 63-0001,
March 3, 2010, http://www.energy.gov/news/documents/DOE_Motion_to_Withdraw.pdf.
2 National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, “NARUC Seeks Party Status at NRC, Says Yucca Review
Must Continue,” press release, March 16, 2010, http://www.naruc.org/News/default.cfm?pr=191&pdf=.
3 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, Docket No. 63-001-HLW, Memorandum
and Order, June 29, 2010.
4 In Re: Aiken County, Petitioner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, USCA Case No. 10-1050,
decided July 1, 2011.
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unless the NRC commissioners accept DOE’s license withdrawal motion, “or for actions that
irrevocably remove the possibility that Yucca Mountain may be a repository option in the future.”
The Administration established the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future to
develop alternatives to the Yucca Mountain program. The commission’s draft report, released July
29, 2011, called for a new, “single-purpose organization” to be established to “expeditiously”
develop one or more nuclear waste repositories with an “assured” source of funding. The draft
recommendations also urged that the roles of various levels of government in siting and
regulating nuclear waste facilities be established through negotiations, that one or more
“consolidated interim storage facilities” be developed, and that long-term research, development,
and demonstration be conducted on technologies that could provide waste disposal benefits.5
The March 11, 2011, accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant increased
concern about spent fuel stored in pools of water at nuclear plant sites. The loss of power at the
site, caused by a huge earthquake and tsunami, disabled cooling systems at the plant’s spent fuel
pools. Water in the pools may have boiled or leaked and dropped below the level of the stored
spent fuel, potentially leading to fuel damage and radioactive releases into the atmosphere.
Introduction
Nuclear waste has sometimes been called the Achilles’ heel of the nuclear power industry; much
of the controversy over nuclear power centers on the lack of a disposal system for the highly
radioactive spent fuel that must be regularly removed from operating reactors. Low-level
radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants, industry, hospitals, and other activities is
also a long-standing issue.
Spent Nuclear Fuel Program
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), as amended in 1987, required the Department of
Energy (DOE) to focus on Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the site of a deep underground repository
for spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste. The state of Nevada has strongly
opposed DOE’s efforts on the grounds that the site is unsafe, pointing to potential volcanic
activity, earthquakes, water infiltration, underground flooding, nuclear chain reactions, and fossil
fuel and mineral deposits that might encourage future human intrusion.
Under the George W. Bush Administration, DOE determined that Yucca Mountain was suitable
for a repository and that licensing of the site by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
should proceed, as specified by NWPA. DOE submitted a license application for the repository to
NRC on June 3, 2008, and projected that the repository could begin receiving waste in 2020,
about 22 years later than the 1998 goal established by NWPA.6

5 Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, Draft Report to the Secretary of Energy, July 29, 2011,
http://brc.gov/index.php?q=announcement/brc-releases-their-draft-full-commission-report.
6 Nuclear Energy Institute, Key Issues, Yucca Mountain, http://www.nei.org/keyissues/nuclearwastedisposal/
yuccamountain/, viewed April 11, 2008.
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However, the Obama Administration decided that the Yucca Mountain repository should not be
opened, largely because of Nevada’s continuing opposition, although it requested FY2010
funding to continue the NRC licensing process. But the Administration’s FY2011 budget request
reversed the previous year’s plan to continue licensing the repository and called for a complete
halt in funding and elimination of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Policy (OCRWM),
which had run the program.
In line with that policy, DOE filed a motion to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application
on March 3, 2010, “with prejudice,” meaning the application could not be resubmitted to NRC in
the future. To develop alternative waste disposal strategies, the Administration established the
Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (BRC), which released draft
recommendations on May 13, 2011. The BRC commissioned a series of reports on various
aspects of nuclear waste policy to assist in its deliberations.7 (For a discussion of policy options,
see CRS Report R40202, Nuclear Waste Disposal: Alternatives to Yucca Mountain, by Mark
Holt.)
For FY2012, the Administration again requested no funding for the Yucca Mountain project.
However, the House voted July 15, 2011, to provide $25 million to DOE and $20 million to NRC
to continue the Yucca Mountain licensing process in the FY2012 energy and water development
appropriations bill (H.R. 2354). The House bill specifies that the funds may not be used for
closing out licensing activities unless the NRC commissioners accept DOE’s license withdrawal
motion, “or for actions that irrevocably remove the possibility that Yucca Mountain may be a
repository option in the future.” The House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology issued
a majority staff report in June 2011 that criticized the Administration for not providing a technical
justification for abandoning Yucca Mountain as a repository site.8
The safety of geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste (HLW), as planned in
the United States, depends largely on the characteristics of the rock formations from which a
repository would be excavated. Because many geologic formations are believed to have remained
undisturbed for millions of years, it appeared technically feasible to isolate radioactive materials
from the environment until they decayed to safe levels. “There is strong worldwide consensus
that the best, safest long-term option for dealing with HLW is geologic isolation,” according to
the National Research Council.9
But, as the Yucca Mountain controversy indicates, scientific confidence about the concept of deep
geologic disposal has turned out to be difficult to apply to specific sites. Every high-level waste
site that has been proposed by DOE and its predecessor agencies has faced allegations or
discovery of unacceptable flaws, such as water intrusion or earthquake vulnerability, that could
release radioactivity into the environment. Much of the problem results from the inherent

7 Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, Commissioned Papers, http://brc.gov/index.php?q=library/
documents/commissioned-papers.
8 Report by the Majority Staff of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Yucca Mountain: The
Administration’s Impact on U.S. Nuclear Waste Management Policy, June 2011, http://science.house.gov/sites/
republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/Letters/Yucca%20Mountain%20-
%20The%20Administration%27s%20Impact%20on%20U.S.%20Nuclear%20Waste%20Management%20Policy%20F
ULL.pdf.
9 National Research Council, Board on Radioactive Waste Management, Rethinking High-Level Radioactive Waste
Disposal: A Position Statement of the Board on Radioactive Waste Management (1990), p. 2.
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uncertainty involved in predicting waste site performance for the 1 million years that nuclear
waste is to be isolated under current regulations.
President Obama’s FY2012 budget calls for long-term research on a wide variety of technologies
that could reduce the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste. The Bush Administration had
proposed to demonstrate large-scale facilities to reprocess and recycle spent nuclear fuel by
separating long-lived elements, such as plutonium, that could be made into new fuel and
“transmuted” into shorter-lived radioactive isotopes. Spent fuel reprocessing, however, has long
been controversial because of the potential weapons use of separated plutonium and cost
concerns. The Obama Administration has refocused DOE’s nuclear waste research toward
fundamental science and away from the near-term design and development of reprocessing
facilities.
President Bush had recommended the Yucca Mountain site to Congress on February 15, 2002,
and Nevada Governor Guinn submitted a notice of disapproval, or “state veto,” April 8, 2002, as
allowed by NWPA. The state veto would have blocked further repository development at Yucca
Mountain if a resolution approving the site had not been passed by Congress and signed into law
within 90 days of continuous session. An approval resolution was signed by President Bush July
23, 2002 (P.L. 107-200).10
Other Programs
Other types of civilian radioactive waste have also generated public controversy, particularly low-
level waste, which is produced by nuclear power plants, medical institutions, industrial
operations, and research activities. Civilian low-level waste currently is disposed of in large
trenches at sites in the states of South Carolina and Washington. However, the Washington facility
does not accept waste from outside its region, and the South Carolina site is available only to the
three members of the Atlantic disposal compact (Connecticut, New Jersey, and South Carolina) as
of June 30, 2008. The lowest-concentration class of low-level radioactive waste (class A) is
accepted from any waste generator by a Utah commercial disposal facility.
Threats by states to close their disposal facilities led to congressional authorization of regional
compacts for low-level waste disposal in 1985. No new sites have been opened by any of the 10
approved disposal compacts, although a site in Texas received construction approval on January
7, 2011.11 The Texas Legislature approved legislation in May 2011 to allow up to 30% of the
facility’s capacity to be used by states outside the Texas Compact, which consists of Texas and
Vermont.12

10 Senator Bingaman introduced the approval resolution in the Senate April 9, 2002 (S.J.Res. 34), and Representative
Barton introduced it in the House April 11, 2002 (H.J.Res. 87). The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the
House Committee on Energy and Commerce approved H.J.Res. 87 on April 23 by a 24-2 vote, and the full Committee
approved the measure two days later, 41-6 (H.Rept. 107-425). The resolution was passed by the House May 8, 2002, by
a vote of 306-117. The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources approved S.J.Res. 34 by a 13-10 vote June
5, 2002 (S.Rept. 107-159). Following a 60-39 vote to consider S.J.Res. 34, the Senate passed H.J.Res. 87 by voice vote
July 9, 2002.
11 Low Level Waste Forum, “TCEQ Authorizes Commencement of Construction at WCS,” January 12, 2011,
http://www.texassolution.com/documents/press.LLW%20Forum.TCEQ%20Authorizes%20Construction.1.12.11.pdf.
12 Waste Control Specialists LLC, “Waste Control Specialists Commends Passage of Legislation,” press release, May
31, 2011, http://www.wcstexas.com/PDF_downloads/WCSAnnounceslegislation.pdf?nxd_id=98546.
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Nuclear Waste Litigation
NWPA section 302 authorized DOE to enter into contracts with U.S. generators of spent nuclear
fuel and other highly radioactive waste; under the contracts, DOE was to dispose of the waste in
return for a fee on nuclear power generation. The act prohibited nuclear reactors from being
licensed to operate without a nuclear waste disposal contract with DOE, and all reactor operators
subsequently signed them.13 As required by NWPA, the contracts specified that DOE would begin
disposing of nuclear waste no later than January 31, 1998.
After DOE missed the contractual deadline, nuclear utilities began filing lawsuits to recover their
additional storage costs—costs they would not have incurred had DOE begun accepting waste in
1998 as scheduled. DOE reached its first settlement with a nuclear utility, PECO Energy
Company (now part of Exelon), on July 19, 2000. The agreement allowed PECO to keep up to
$80 million in nuclear waste fee revenues during the subsequent 10 years. However, other utilities
sued DOE to block the settlement, contending that nuclear waste fees may be used only for the
DOE waste program and not as compensation for missing the disposal deadline. The U.S. Court
of Appeals for the 11th Circuit agreed, ruling September 24, 2002, that any compensation would
have to come from general revenues or other sources than the waste fund.
Through January 2011, the Department of Justice had negotiated 12 settlements of the 74 lawsuits
filed against DOE for missing the waste disposal deadline. Under the settlements, utilities submit
annual reimbursement claims to DOE for any delay-related nuclear waste storage costs they
incurred during that year. Any disagreements over reimbursable claims between DOE and a utility
would go to arbitration. Through January 2011, the federal government had paid about $956
million under the settlements and for two court judgments.14 The payments are made from the
U.S. Treasury’s Judgment Fund, a permanent account that is used to cover damage claims against
the U.S. government.15
Other nuclear utilities have not reached settlements, but have continued pursuing their damage
claims through the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Unlike the settlements, which cover all past and
future damages resulting from DOE’s nuclear waste delays, awards by the Court of Claims can
cover only damages that have already been incurred; therefore, utilities must continue filing
claims as they accrue additional delay-related costs. About 30 cases involving initial damage
claims have been decided in the Court of Claims so far, and about 30 more are pending.16
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal government’s current liability
for settlements, final judgments, and entered judgments under appeal stood at $1.8 billion in July
2010.17

13 The Standard Contract for Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and/or High-Level Radioactive Waste can be found at 10
CFR 961.11.
14 Statement of Michael F. Hertz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, before the Blue Ribbon
Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, February 2, 2011, p. 6.
15 Telephone conversation with David K. Zabransky, Nuclear Utility Specialist, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management, U.S. Department of Energy, March 25, 2009.
16 Hertz, op. cit.
17 Statement of Kim Cawley, Chief, Natural and Physical Resources Costs Estimates Unit, Congressional Budget
Office, before the House Committee on the Budget, July 27, 2010, p. 5, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11728/
07-27-NuclearWaste_Testimony.pdf.
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Future Liability Estimates
DOE estimated in July 2008 that its potential liabilities for waste program delays would total $11
billion through 2056 (in current dollars) if the department were able to begin taking spent nuclear
fuel from plant sites by 2020, which had been the most recent goal under the previous
Administration. (That estimate has since been raised to at least $13 billion.18) DOE’s
methodology for this estimate is shown in Figure 1. The yellow line shows DOE’s estimate of
how much spent fuel would have been removed from nuclear plant sites had shipments begun on
the NWPA deadline of January 1998. The rate of waste acceptance under that scenario is 900
metric tons per year from 1998 through 2015 and 2,100 tons/year thereafter. That assumed
acceptance rate was negotiated by DOE as part of the settlements discussed above. The annual
costs reimbursed by DOE under the settlements cover utilities’ expenses for storing waste that
would have already been taken away under the assumed acceptance rate (the yellow line).
Figure 1. DOE Estimate of Future Liabilities for Nuclear Waste Delays

Source: Christopher A. Kouts, Principal Deputy Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,
U.S. Department of Energy, “Yucca Mountain Program Status Update,” July 22, 2008, p. 18.

The green and red lines in Figure 1 show DOE’s planned waste acceptance rate if waste
shipments begin by 2017 or 2020. Under those scenarios, DOE would take away 400 metric tons
the first year, 600 the second year, 1,200 the third year, 2,000 the fourth year, and 3,000 per year
thereafter. This is the rate assumed by DOE’s Total System Life Cycle Cost Report.19 At that
higher acceptance rate, DOE would be able to eventually catch up with the amount of waste that
it was assumed to take under the settlements (the yellow line). If waste acceptance began by 2017

18 Ibid.
19 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Analysis of the Total System Life
Cycle Cost of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program, Fiscal Year 2007, DOE/RW-0591, Washington,
DC, July 2008, p. 20, http://ocrwm.doe.gov/about/budget/pdf/TSLCC_2007_8_05_08.pdf.
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(the green line), the backlog would be eliminated by 2046, and if acceptance began by 2020 (the
red line) the backlog would be gone by 2056. Under the settlements, therefore, there would be no
further annual damage payments after those years, if DOE were able to achieve the 2017 or 2020
acceptance scenario.
DOE bases its estimate of the total damage payments that would be paid through 2046 or 2056 on
the amounts paid to date under the settlement claims. As noted above, estimates of future
payments have already risen substantially since the 2008 estimates shown in Figure 1. If damage
awards by the Court of Claims (currently involving about two-thirds of U.S. reactors) exceed the
rates paid under the settlements, then future payments could further exceed those estimates.
Further delays in the start of waste acceptance would delay the point at which DOE would catch
up to the cumulative waste shipments assumed under the settlement scenario (yellow line) and
would no longer have to make annual damage payments. DOE estimates that each year’s delay in
the startup date would increase the total eventual damage payments by as much as $500 million.
DOE filed a license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the proposed
Yucca Mountain repository in June 2008, and has estimated that annual program spending would
have to increase to nearly $2 billion (from around $300 million in FY2009) to allow waste
shipments to begin by 2020 if the license were approved.20 However, President Obama’s FY2011
budget request eliminated Yucca Mountain funding, as noted above. As a result, it appears
unlikely that spent nuclear fuel shipments to Yucca Mountain could begin by 2020, even if full
funding for the project were to be restored in the future. Waste acceptance by 2020 might be
possible if Congress were to authorize one or more temporary storage sites within the next few
years, although previous efforts to develop such facilities have been blocked by state and local
opposition.
Delays in the federal waste disposal program could also lead to future environmental enforcement
action over DOE’s own high-level waste and spent fuel, mostly resulting from defense and
research activities. Some of the DOE-owned waste is currently being stored in non-compliance
with state and federal environmental laws, making DOE potentially subject to fines and penalties
if the waste is not removed according to previously negotiated compliance schedules.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), representing state
utility regulators, and the Nuclear Energy Institute, representing the nuclear industry, filed
petitions with the U.S. Court of Appeals on April 2 and April 5, 2010, to halt the federal
government’s collection of fees on nuclear power under the NWPA contracts. The suits argue that
the fees, totaling about $800 million per year, should not be collected while the federal
government’s nuclear waste disposal program has been halted.21 DOE responded that the federal
government still intends to dispose of the nation’s nuclear waste and that the fees must continue
to be collected to cover future disposal costs.22

20 Ibid., p. B-2.
21 NARUC, “State Regulators Go to Court with DOE over Nuclear Waste Fees, news release, April 2, 2010,
http://www.naruc.org/News/default.cfm?pr=193; Nuclear Energy Institute et al. v. U.S. DOE, Joint Petition for
Review, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, April 5, 2010.
22 Jeff Beattie, “NARUC, Utilities Sue DOE Over Nuke Waste Fee,” Energy Daily, April 6, 2010, p. 1.
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License Withdrawal
DOE’s motion to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application “with prejudice,” meaning
that it could not be resubmitted in the future, was filed with NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board (ASLB) on March 3, 2010. DOE’s motion argued that the licensing process should be
terminated because “the Secretary of Energy has decided that a geologic repository at Yucca
Mountain is not a workable option” for long-term nuclear waste disposal. Subsequent DOE
statements have reiterated that the license withdrawal motion was not based on scientific or
technical findings. Instead, the policy change was prompted by the perceived difficulty in
overcoming continued opposition from the state of Nevada and a desire to find a waste solution
with greater public acceptance, according to DOE.23 DOE contended that the license application
should be withdrawn “with prejudice” because of the need to “provide finality in ending the
Yucca Mountain project.”24
The state of Nevada strongly endorsed DOE’s motion to withdraw the license application with
prejudice25 and has moved to intervene in a court challenge to the license withdrawal.26 Nevada
has long contended that the geology of the site is unsuitable for long-term nuclear waste disposal.
However, DOE’s withdrawal motion has drawn opposition from states and localities with
defense-related and civilian nuclear waste that had been expected to go to Yucca Mountain. The
state of South Carolina, which has large amounts of high-level radioactive waste at DOE’s
Savannah River Site, and the state of Washington, which hosts extensive nuclear waste storage
facilities at DOE’s Hanford Site, filed motions to intervene in the Yucca Mountain licensing
proceeding to oppose the license application withdrawal.
NARUC also filed a motion to intervene in the Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings,
contending that “dismissal of the Yucca Mountain application will significantly undermine the
government’s ability to fulfill its outstanding obligation to take possession and dispose of the
nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high level nuclear waste.” NARUC’s motion also contends that
$17 billion collected from utility ratepayers for the nuclear waste program will be wasted if the
Yucca Mountain license application is withdrawn.27 Also seeking to intervene were Aiken County,
SC, and the Prairie Island Indian Community in Minnesota.
The ASLB denied DOE’s license withdrawal motion June 29, 2010, ruling that NWPA prohibits
DOE from withdrawing the license application until NRC determines whether the repository is
acceptable. According to the board, “Surely Congress did not contemplate that, by withdrawing
the Application, DOE might unilaterally terminate the Yucca Mountain review process in favor of
DOE’s independent policy determination that ‘alternatives will better serve the public interest.’”28

23 Statement of Peter B. Lyons, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, before the
Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, June 1, 2011.
24 DOE Motion to Withdraw, op. cit.
25 Nicole E. Matthews, “DOE Withdraws Application for Yucca Nuke Dump,” Fox5Vegas.com, March 3, 2010,
http://www.fox5vegas.com/news/22734591/detail.html.
26 Motion for the State of Nevada for Leave to Intervene as Intervenor-Respondent, U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit, Case No. 10-1229, March 19, 2010, http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/licensing/nv100319motion3.pdf.
27 National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, “NARUC Seeks Party Status at NRC, Says Yucca
Review Must Continue,” press release, March 16, 2010, http://www.naruc.org/News/default.cfm?pr=191&pdf=.
28 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, Docket No. 63-001-HLW, Memorandum
(continued...)
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The next day, the NRC commissioners invited briefs on whether it should review the ASLB
decision, and DOE filed a brief on July 9, 2010, urging that the ruling be reversed. DOE argued in
its brief that the Secretary of Energy has broad authority under the Atomic Energy Act and
Department of Energy Organization Act “to make policy decisions regarding disposal of nuclear
waste and spent nuclear fuel.” DOE contended that such authority includes “the authority to
discontinue the Yucca Mountain project” and that NRC rules provide “that applicants in NRC
licensing proceedings may withdraw their applications.”29 The NRC commissioners have not
released a decision on the matter.
South Carolina and Aiken County filed challenges to the Yucca Mountain license withdrawal in
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, contending that NWPA requires
the licensing process to proceed. The Court on July 1, 2011, declined to rule on the issue before
NRC has taken final action. However, the Court noted that NWPA’s three-year deadline for NRC
to issue a final decision on the Yucca Mountain license application occurs during 2011 (either in
June or September, depending on whether the clock started when the application was filed or
when it was docketed) and that further NRC delay might draw Court intervention on those
grounds.30
(For more details about nuclear waste legal proceedings, see CRS Report R40996, Contract
Liability Arising from the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) of 1982, by Todd Garvey.)
Congressional Action
President Obama’s proposal to terminate the Yucca Mountain project and search for disposal
alternatives has prompted substantial congressional debate and a number of legislative proposals.
Debate over nuclear waste policy has also been affected by the March 11 Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear accident in Japan. The loss of power at the Fukushima site, caused by a huge earthquake
and tsunami, disabled cooling systems at the plant’s spent fuel pools. Water in the pools may have
boiled or leaked and dropped below the level of the stored spent fuel, potentially leading to fuel
damage and radioactive releases into the atmosphere. Concerns have been raised in Congress
about the risk posed by stored spent fuel, particularly that cancellation of the Yucca Mountain
repository would leave growing amounts of spent fuel indefinitely stored at nuclear plant sites
throughout the country.
Representative Markey introduced legislation March 29, 2011, that would require spent fuel to be
transferred from pools to dry casks, which are cooled by natural air circulation, within one year
after it has sufficiently cooled (H.R. 1242). A bill by Representative Engel includes the same dry
cask storage requirement but allows costs to be offset by lower payments into the Nuclear Waste
Fund (H.R. 2075). Senator Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on
Energy and Water, urged in an April 8, 2011, letter to NRC that spent fuel be moved more rapidly

(...continued)
and Order, June 29, 2010.
29 U.S. Department of Energy’s Brief in Support of Review and Reversal of the Board’s Ruling on the Motion to
Withdraw, Docket No. 63-001-HLW, July 9, 2010.
30 In Re: Aiken County, Petitioner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, USCA Case No. 10-
1050, decided July 1, 2011.
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from spent fuel pools to dry casks than under current policy.31 Other bills would encourage
recycling of spent nuclear fuel, develop nuclear waste disposal capacity, provide incentives for
local governments to host privately owned nuclear waste storage facilities, and remove statutory
limits on waste disposal at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository (see “Legislation” at the end
of this report).
Nuclear waste policy has been the subject of numerous hearings in the 112th Congress, in both
appropriations and authorizing committees. In a hearing June 1, 2011, Representative Shimkus,
chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy of the House Committee on
Energy and Commerce, criticized DOE for halting the Yucca Mountain project without citing a
technical basis for the decision. “Politics, not science, is driving the debate,” he said in his
opening statement.32 At a June 14, 2011, hearing, the subcommittee questioned NRC Chairman
Gregory Jaczko’s decision to terminate the Yucca Mountain license review during FY2011,
including a nearly completed safety review of the repository.33 After examining NRC’s unreleased
draft safety review, the majority staff of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
reported in June 2011 that NRC staff had “made over 1500 findings related to the scientific and
technical research efforts of the Department of Energy” and that 98.5% of those findings had
been in agreement with DOE’s conclusions.34
Characteristics and Handling of Nuclear Waste
Radioactive waste is a term that encompasses a broad range of material with widely varying
characteristics. Some waste has relatively slight radioactivity and is safe to handle in unshielded
containers, while other types are intensely hot in both temperature and radioactivity. Some decays
to safe levels of radioactivity in a matter of days or weeks, while other types will remain
dangerous for thousands of years. Major types of radioactive waste are described below:35
Spent nuclear fuel. Fuel rods that have been withdrawn from a nuclear reactor after irradiation,
usually because they can no longer efficiently sustain a nuclear chain reaction. (The term “spent
nuclear fuel” is defined in NWPA. The nuclear industry typically refers to spent fuel as “used
nuclear fuel,” because it contains uranium and plutonium that could be extracted through

31 Senator Dianne Feinstein, “Feinstein Urges Reform of U.S. Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage,” press release, April 11,
2011, http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=
46244216-5056-8059-76e0-3d5a15d5d570.
32 Opening Statement, Chairman John Shimkus, Environment Subcommittee Hearing, “DOE’s Role in Managing
Civilian Radioactive Waste,” June 1, 2011, http://republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/Media/file/Hearings/
Environment/060111/Shimkus.pdf.
33 House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, “Bipartisan Concern Over
Administration’s Haste to Terminate Permanent Nuclear Repository,” press release, June 15, 2011,
http://energycommerce.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=8710.
34 Yucca Mountain: The Administration’s Impact on U.S. Nuclear Waste Management Policy, Report by the Majority
Staff of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, June 2011, p. 34, http://science.house.gov/press-
release/committee-releases-report-outlining-administration%E2%80%99s-actions-undermine-us-nuclear.
35 Statutory definitions for “spent nuclear fuel,” “high-level radioactive waste,” and “low-level radioactive waste” can
be found in Section 2 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (42 U.S.C. 10101). “Transuranic waste” is defined in
Section 11ee. of the Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. 2014); Section 11e.(2) of the Act includes uranium mill tailings in
the definition of “byproduct material.” “Mixed waste” consists of chemically hazardous waste as defined by EPA
regulations (40 CFR Part 261, Subparts C and D) that contains radioactive materials as defined by the Atomic Energy
Act.
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reprocessing to make new fuel.) By far the most radioactive type of civilian nuclear waste, spent
fuel contains extremely hot but relatively short-lived fission products (fragments of the nuclei of
uranium and other fissile elements) as well as long-lived radionuclides (radioactive atoms) such
as plutonium, which remains dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years or more.
High-level waste. Highly radioactive residue created by spent fuel reprocessing (almost entirely
for defense purposes in the United States). High-level waste contains most of the radioactive
fission products of spent fuel, but most of the uranium and plutonium usually has been removed
for re-use. Enough long-lived radioactive elements typically remain, however, to require isolation
for 10,000 years or more.
Transuranic (TRU) waste. Relatively low-activity waste that contains more than a certain level of
long-lived elements heavier than uranium (primarily plutonium). Shielding may be required for
handling of some types of TRU waste. In the United States, transuranic waste is generated almost
entirely by nuclear weapons production processes. Because of the plutonium, long-term isolation
is required. TRU waste is being sent to a deep underground repository, the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant (WIPP), near Carlsbad, NM.
Low-level waste. Radioactive waste not classified as spent fuel, high-level waste, TRU waste, or
byproduct material such as uranium mill tailings (below). Four classes of low-level waste have
been established by NRC, ranging from least radioactive and shortest-lived to the longest-lived
and most radioactive. Although some types of low-level waste can be more radioactive than some
types of high-level waste, in general low-level waste contains relatively low amounts of
radioactivity that decays relatively quickly. Low-level waste disposal facilities cannot accept
material that exceeds NRC concentration limits.
Uranium mill tailings. Sand-like residues remaining from the processing of uranium ore. Such
tailings have very low radioactivity but extremely large volumes that can pose a hazard,
particularly from radon emissions or groundwater contamination.
Mixed waste. Chemically hazardous waste that includes radioactive material. High-level, low-
level, and TRU waste, and radioactive byproduct material, often falls under the designation of
mixed waste. Such waste poses complicated institutional problems, because the radioactive
portion is regulated by DOE or NRC under the Atomic Energy Act, while the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and states regulate the non-radioactive elements under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
Spent Nuclear Fuel
When spent nuclear fuel is removed from a reactor, usually after several years of power
production, it is thermally hot and highly radioactive. The spent fuel is in the form of fuel
assemblies, which consist of arrays of metal-clad fuel rods 12-15 feet long.
A fresh fuel rod, which emits relatively little radioactivity, contains uranium that has been
enriched in the isotope U-235 (usually 3%-5%). But after nuclear fission has taken place in the
reactor, most of the U-235 nuclei in the fuel rods have been split into a variety of highly
radioactive fission products. Some of the nuclei of the dominant isotope U-238 have absorbed
neutrons to become radioactive plutonium, some of which has also split into fission products.
Radioactive gases are also contained in the spent fuel rods. Newly withdrawn spent fuel
assemblies are stored in deep pools of water adjacent to the reactors to keep them from
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overheating and to protect workers from radiation. To prevent the pools from filling up, older,
cooler spent fuel often is sealed in dry canisters and transferred to radiation-shielded storage
facilities elsewhere at reactor sites.
Spent fuel discharged from U.S. commercial nuclear reactors is currently stored at 64 operating
nuclear plant sites, 10 shutdown plant sites, and the Idaho National Laboratory.36 A typical large
commercial nuclear reactor discharges an average of 20-30 metric tons of spent fuel per year—an
average of about 2,150 metric tons annually for the entire U.S. nuclear power industry. The
nuclear industry estimated that the total amount of commercial spent fuel was 65,193 metric tons
at the end of 2010, including 16,113 metric tons in dry storage and other separate storage
facilities.37 Counting 7,000 metric tons of DOE spent fuel and high-level waste that had also been
planned for disposal at Yucca Mountain, the total amount of existing waste would exceed
NWPA’s 70,000-metric-ton limit for the repository.
As long as nuclear power continues to be generated, the amounts stored at plant sites will
continue to grow until an interim storage facility or a permanent repository can be opened—or
until alternative treatment and disposal technology is developed. DOE’s most recent estimates of
the total amount of U.S. commercial spent fuel that may eventually require disposal range from
105,000 metric tons38 to 130,000 metric tons.39
New storage capacity at operating nuclear plant sites or other locations will be required if DOE is
unable to begin accepting waste into its disposal system for an indefinite period. Most utilities are
expected to construct new dry storage capacity at reactor sites. Fifty-three licensed dry storage
facilities are currently operating in the United States.40 NRC has determined that spent fuel could
be stored safely at reactor sites for at least 60 years after a site’s reactors cease operation (for a
total of 120 years, assuming reactors are licensed for 60 years).41
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, heightened concerns about the vulnerability of stored
spent fuel. Concerns have been raised that an aircraft crash into a reactor’s pool area or acts of
sabotage could drain the pool and cause the spent fuel inside to overheat. A report released by
NRC January 17, 2001, found that overheating could cause the zirconium alloy cladding of spent
fuel to catch fire and release hazardous amounts of radioactivity, although it characterized the
probability of such a fire as low.
In a report released April 6, 2005, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) found that
“successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible.” To reduce the
likelihood of spent fuel cladding fires, the NAS study recommended that hotter and cooler spent

36 Gutherman Technical Services, 2010 Used Fuel Data, January 18, 2011. This includes General Electric’s spent fuel
storage facility at Morris, IL, located adjacent to the Dresden nuclear plant. Also, the Hope Creek and Salem nuclear
plants in New Jersey are counted as a single site.
37 Gutherman Technical Services, op. cit.
38 DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, OCRWM Annual Report to Congress, Fiscal Year 2002,
DOE/RW-0560, October 2003, Appendix C.
39 DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a
Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain,
Nye County, Nevada, Summary, DOE/EIS-0250F-S1D, October 2007, p. S-47.
40 Gutherman Technical Services, op. cit. In addition, GE operates an independent pool storage facility near Morris, IL.
41 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Waste Confidence Decision Update, 75 Federal Register 81037, December 23,
2010, http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2010/12/23/2010-31637/waste-confidence-decision-update#p-372.
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fuel assemblies be interspersed throughout spent fuel pools, that spray systems be installed above
the pools, and that more fuel be transferred from pools to dry cask storage.42 NRC has agreed to
consider some of the recommendations, although it contends that current security measures would
prevent successful attacks. The nuclear industry contends that the several hours required for
uncovered spent fuel to heat up enough to catch fire would allow ample time for alternative
measures to cool the fuel.
As noted above, the Fukushima accident demonstrated that spent fuel pools could be vulnerable
to accidental damage resulting from the loss of cooling systems. The safety of spent fuel pools is
one of the areas examined by an NRC task force that identified near-term lessons that the
Fukushima accident may hold for U.S. nuclear power plant regulation. The task force
recommended that assured sources of electrical power as well as water spray systems be available
for spent fuel pools.43
Commercial Low-Level Waste
More than 2.1 million cubic feet of low-level waste with about 60,000 curies of radioactivity was
shipped to commercial disposal sites in 2010, according to DOE.44 Volumes and radioactivity can
vary widely from year to year, based on the status of nuclear decommissioning projects and
cleanup activities that can generate especially large quantities.
Low-level radioactive waste is divided into three major categories for handling and disposal:
Class A, B, and C. Classes B and C have constituted less than 1% of the volume of U.S. low-level
waste disposal during the past five years but contain most of its radioactivity. As discussed below,
most of the nation’s Class B and C waste has been stored where it has been generated since June
2008 for lack of a permanent disposal site. For more background on radioactive waste
characteristics, see CRS Report RL32163, Radioactive Waste Streams: Waste Classification for
Disposal, by Anthony Andrews.
Current Policy and Regulation
Disposal of spent fuel and high-level waste is a federal responsibility, while states are authorized
to develop disposal facilities for commercial low-level waste. In general, disposal requirements
have grown more stringent over the years, in line with overall national environmental policy and
heightened concerns about the hazards of radioactivity.

42 National Academy of Sciences, Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage: Public Report,
released April 6, 2005, p. 2.
43 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Near-Term Task Force Review of Insights from the Fukushima Dai-ichi
Accident, Recommendations for Enhancing Reactor Safety in the 21st Century, p. 46, http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/
ML1118/ML111861807.pdf.
44 U.S. Department of Energy, Management Information Manifest System, http://mims.apps.em.doe.gov/mims.asp#.
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Spent Nuclear Fuel
Current Program
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA, P.L. 97-425) established a system for selecting a
geologic repository for the permanent disposal of up to 70,000 metric tons (77,000 tons) of spent
nuclear fuel and high-level waste. DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
(OCRWM) was created to carry out the program. The Nuclear Waste Fund, holding receipts from
a fee on commercial nuclear power and federal contributions for emplacement of high-level
defense waste, was established to pay for the program. DOE was required to select three
candidate sites for the first national high-level waste repository.
After much controversy over DOE’s implementation of NWPA, the act was substantially
modified by the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1987 (Title IV, Subtitle A of P.L. 100-
203, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987). Under the amendments, the only candidate
site DOE may consider for a permanent high-level waste repository is at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. If that site cannot be licensed, DOE must return to Congress for further instructions.
The 1987 amendments also authorized construction of a monitored retrievable storage (MRS)
facility to store spent fuel and prepare it for delivery to the repository. But because of fears that
the MRS would reduce the need to open the permanent repository and become a de facto
repository itself, the law forbids DOE from selecting an MRS site until recommending to the
President that a permanent repository be constructed. The repository recommendation occurred in
February 2002, but DOE has not announced any plans for an MRS.
Along with halting all funding for the Yucca Mountain project, the Obama Administration
terminated OCRWM at the end of FY2010 and transferred its remaining functions to DOE’s
Office of Nuclear Energy. The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future issued its
draft report on a new nuclear waste strategy July 29, 2011.
Private Interim Storage
In response to delays in the federal nuclear waste program, a utility consortium signed an
agreement with the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indians in Utah on December 27, 1996, to
develop a private spent fuel storage facility on tribal land. The Private Fuel Storage (PFS)
consortium submitted a license application to NRC on June 25, 1997, and an NRC licensing
board recommended approval on February 24, 2005. On September 9, 2005, NRC denied the
state of Utah’s final appeals and authorized the NRC staff to issue the license. The 20-year license
for storing up to 44,000 tons of spent fuel in dry casks was issued on February 21, 2006, although
NRC noted that Interior Department approval would also be required.
On September 7, 2006, the Department of the Interior issued two decisions against the PFS
project. The Bureau of Indian Affairs disapproved a proposed lease of tribal trust lands to PFS,
concluding there was too much risk that the waste could remain at the site indefinitely.45 The

45 Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record of Decision for the Construction and Operation of an Independent Spent Fuel
Storage Installation (ISFSI) on the Reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians (Band) in Tooele County,
Utah, September 7, 2006.
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Bureau of Land Management rejected the necessary rights-of-way to transport waste to the
facility, concluding that a proposed rail line would be incompatible with the Cedar Mountain
Wilderness Area and that existing roads would be inadequate.46
In reaction to the Interior Department decisions, Senator Hatch, a staunch opponent of the PFS
proposal, declared the project “stone cold dead.”47 However, the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes
and PFS filed a federal lawsuit July 17, 2007, to overturn the Interior decisions on the grounds
that they were politically motivated.48 A federal district court judge on July 26, 2010, ordered the
Department of the Interior to reconsider its decisions on the PFS permits.49
Regulatory Requirements
NWPA requires that high-level waste facilities be licensed by the NRC in accordance with
general standards issued by EPA. Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-486), EPA was
required to write new standards specifically for Yucca Mountain. NWPA also requires the
repository to meet general siting guidelines prepared by DOE and approved by NRC.
Transportation of waste to storage and disposal sites is regulated by NRC and the Department of
Transportation (DOT). Under NWPA, DOE shipments to Yucca Mountain would have to use
NRC-certified casks and comply with NRC requirements for notifying state and local
governments. Yucca Mountain shipments would also have to follow DOT regulations on routing,
placarding, and safety.
NRC’s licensing requirements for Yucca Mountain, at 10 C.F.R. 63, require compliance with
EPA’s standards (described below) and establish procedures that DOE must follow in seeking a
repository license. For example, DOE is required to conduct a repository performance
confirmation program that would indicate whether natural and man-made systems were
functioning as intended and assure that other assumptions about repository conditions were
accurate.
The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-486) made a number of changes in the nuclear waste
regulatory system, particularly that EPA was required to issue new environmental standards
specifically for the Yucca Mountain repository site. General EPA repository standards previously
issued and subsequently revised no longer apply to Yucca Mountain. DOE and NRC had raised
concern that some of EPA’s general standards might be impossible or impractical to meet at Yucca
Mountain.50
The new standards, which limit the radiation dose that the repository could impose on individual
members of the public, were required to be consistent with the findings of a study by the National

46 Bureau of Land Management, Record of Decision Addressing Right-of-Way Applications U 76985 and U 76986 to
Transport Spent Nuclear Fuel to the Reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, September 7, 2006.
47 Senator Orrin Hatch, Utahns Deliver Killing Blow to Skull Valley Nuke Waste Plan, News Release, September 7,
2006.
48 Winslow, Ben, “Goshutes, PFS Sue Interior,” Deseret Morning News, July 18, 2007.
49 U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and Private Fuel Storage v. United
States Department of the Interior, Civil Action No. 07-cv-0526-DME-DON, July 26, 2010, http://64.38.12.138/docs/
court/goshute/order072610.pdf.
50 See, for example: NRC, “Analysis of Energy Policy Act of 1992 Issues Related to High-Level Waste Disposal
Standards, SECY-93-013, January 25, 1993, attachment p. 4.
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Academy of Sciences (NAS), which was issued August 1, 1995.51 The NAS study recommended
that the Yucca Mountain environmental standards establish a limit on risk to individuals near the
repository, rather than setting specific limits for the releases of radioactive material or on
radioactive doses, as under previous EPA standards. The NAS study also examined the potential
for human intrusion into the repository and found no scientific basis for predicting human
behavior thousands of years into the future.
Pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 1992, EPA published its proposed Yucca Mountain radiation
protection standards on August 27, 1999. The proposal would have limited annual radiation doses
to 15 millirems for the “reasonably maximally exposed individual,” and to 4 millirems from
groundwater exposure, for the first 10,000 years of repository operation. EPA calculated that its
standard would result in an annual risk of fatal cancer for the maximally exposed individual of
seven chances in a million. The nuclear industry criticized the EPA proposal as being
unnecessarily stringent, particularly the groundwater standard. On the other hand, environmental
groups contended that the 10,000-year standard proposed by EPA was too short, because DOE
had projected that radioactive releases from the repository would peak after about 400,000 years.
EPA issued its final Yucca Mountain standards on June 6, 2001. The final standards included most
of the major provisions of the proposed version, including the 15 millirem overall exposure limit
and the 4 millirem groundwater limit. Despite the department’s opposition to the EPA standards,
DOE’s site suitability evaluation determined that the Yucca Mountain site would be able to meet
them. NRC revised its repository regulations September 7, 2001, to conform to the EPA
standards.
A three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel on July 9, 2004, struck down the 10,000-year
regulatory compliance period in the EPA and NRC Yucca Mountain standards.52 The court ruled
that the 10,000-year period was inconsistent with the NAS study on which the Energy Policy Act
required the Yucca Mountain regulations to be based. In fact, the court found, the NAS study had
specifically rejected a 10,000-year compliance period because of analysis that showed peak
radioactive exposures from the repository would take place several hundred thousand years in the
future.
In response to the court decision, EPA proposed a new version of the Yucca Mountain standards
on August 9, 2005. The proposal would have retained the dose limits of the previous standard for
the first 10,000 years but allowed a higher annual dose of 350 millirems for the period of 10,000
years through 1 million years. EPA also proposed to base the post-10,000-year Yucca Mountain
standard on the median dose, rather than the mean, potentially making it easier to meet.53 Nevada
state officials called EPA’s proposed standard far too lenient and charged that it was “unlawful
and arbitrary.”54

51 National Research Council. Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards. National Academy Press. 1995.
52 Nuclear Energy Institute v. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit, No. 01-1258, July 9, 2004.
53 Especially high doses at the upper end of the exposure range would raise the mean, or average, more than the
median, or the halfway point in the data set.
54 Office of the Governor, Agency for Nuclear Projects. Comments by the State of Nevada on EPA’s Proposed New
Radiation Protection Rule for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. November 2005.
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EPA issued its final rule to amend the Yucca Mountain standards on September 30, 2008. The
final rule reduced the annual dose limit during the period of 10,000 through 1 million years from
the proposed 350 millirems to 100 millirems, which the agency contended was consistent with
international standards. Under the final rule, compliance with the post-10,000-year standard will
be based on the arithmetic mean of projected doses, rather than the median as proposed. The 4
millirem groundwater standard will continue to apply only to the first 10,000 years.55 NRC
revised its repository licensing regulations to conform to the new EPA standards on April 13,
2009.56 (For more information, see CRS Report RL34698, EPA’s Final Health and Safety
Standard for Yucca Mountain, by Bonnie C. Gitlin.)
DOE estimated in its June 2008 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) for
the Yucca Mountain repository that the maximum mean annual individual dose after 10,000 years
would be 2 millirems. That is substantially below the level estimated by the 2002 Final
Environmental Impact Statement, which calculated that the peak doses—occurring after 400,000
years—would be about 150 millirems (Volume 1, Chapter 5). The FSEIS attributed the reduction
to changes in DOE’s computer model and in the assumptions used, noting that “various elements
of DOE’s modeling approach may be challenged as part of the NRC licensing process.”57
Alternative Technologies
Several alternatives to the geologic disposal of spent fuel have been studied by DOE and its
predecessor agencies, as well as technologies that might reduce waste disposal risks. However,
most of these technologies involve large technical obstacles, uncertain costs, and potential public
opposition.
Among the primary long-term disposal alternatives to geologic repositories are disposal below the
seabed and transport into space, neither of which is currently being studied by DOE. Other
technologies have been studied that, while probably not replacing geologic disposal, might make
geologic disposal safer and more predictable. Chief among these is the reprocessing or
“recycling” of spent fuel so that plutonium, uranium, and other long-lived radionuclides could be
converted to faster-decaying fission products in special nuclear reactors or particle accelerators.
Emplacing waste in deep boreholes, at much greater depths than most proposed repositories, has
also been suggested.
DOE’s Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program conducts “long-term, science-based”
research on a wide variety of technologies for improving the management of spent nuclear fuel,
according to the DOE budget justification. The total FY2012 funding request for this program is
$155 million.
Under the Obama Administration, the program has been redirected toward development of
technology options for a wide range of nuclear fuel cycle approaches, including direct disposal of
spent fuel (the “once through” cycle) and partial and full recycling, according to the justification.
“Specifically, the program will research and develop a suite of technology options that will enable

55 Posted on the EPA website at http://www.epa.gov/radiation/yucca.
56 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Implementation of a Dose Standard After 10,000 Years,” 74 Federal Register
10811, March 13, 2009.
57 FSEIS, p. S-42. Posted on the DOE website at http://www.rw.doe.gov/ym_repository/seis/docs/002_Summary.pdf.
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future decision-makers to make informed decisions about how best to manage nuclear waste and
used fuel from reactors,” the justification says.
Funding
The Obama Administration’s FY2011 budget request called for a complete halt in funding for the
Yucca Mountain project and elimination of OCRWM. In line with the request, the FY2011
Continuing Appropriations Act (P.L. 112-10) provided no DOE funding for the program. DOE
shut down the Yucca Mountain project at the end of FY2010 and transferred OCRWM’s
remaining functions to the Office of Nuclear Energy.
NRC requested $10 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund in FY2011 for the Yucca Mountain
licensing process. In light of DOE’s motion to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application,
the NRC funding request would cover the costs of adjudicating the license withdrawal motion as
well as “work related to an orderly closure of the agency’s Yucca Mountain licensing support
activities such as archiving material, knowledge capture and management, and maintenance of
certain electronic systems,” according to NRC’s budget presentation. The NRC funding request
was approved by P.L. 112-10.
For FY2012, the Administration again requested no funding for the Yucca Mountain project, but
the House voted July 15, 2011, to provide $25 million to DOE and $20 million to NRC to
continue the Yucca Mountain licensing process. The House-passed bill specifies that the funds
may not be used for closing out licensing activities unless the NRC commissioners accept DOE’s
license withdrawal motion, “or for actions that irrevocably remove the possibility that Yucca
Mountain may be a repository option in the future.”
During consideration of the FY2010 budget request, the House Appropriations Committee had
stipulated that the Blue Ribbon Commission consider the continuation of the Yucca Mountain
project under current law as one of the future waste management alternatives, and the Senate
Appropriations Committee had called for the Secretary of Energy to suspend the Nuclear Waste
Fee on nuclear power generation, which pays for the waste program. However, both provisions
were dropped in conference.
Funding for the nuclear waste program has historically been provided under two appropriations
accounts, as shown in Table 1. These accounts are, first, appropriations from the Nuclear Waste
Fund, which holds fees paid by nuclear utilities, and, second, the Defense Nuclear Waste Disposal
account, which pays for disposal of high-level waste from the nuclear weapons program.
Although nuclear utilities pay fees to the Nuclear Waste Fund to cover the disposal costs of
civilian nuclear spent fuel, DOE cannot spend the money in the fund until it is appropriated by
Congress. Through January 31, 2010, utility nuclear waste fees and interest totaled $31.69 billion,
of which $7.41 billion had been disbursed to the waste disposal program, according to DOE’s
program summary report, leaving a balance of $24.276 billion in the Nuclear Waste Fund. In
addition to the disbursements from the Nuclear Waste Fund, the waste disposal program received
defense waste disposal appropriations totaling $3.974 billion through FY2010, according to
DOE.58

58 DOE, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, Office of Program Management, Monthly Summary of
Program Financial and Budget Information, as of July 1, 2009, available at http://www.rw.doe.gov/about//
(continued...)
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Table 1. DOE Civilian Spent Fuel Management Funding
(in millions of current dollars)
FY2009
FY2010
FY2011
FY2012
FY2012
Program
Approp. Approp. Approp.
Request
House.
Yucca Mountain
183.3
116.1
0
0
20.0
Transportation 2.1
0 0 0 0
Management and
26.2 10.7 0
0
0
Integration
Program Direction
76.8 70.0 0
0
5.0
and Other
Total 288.4
196.8
0
0
25.0
Source of

Funding




Nuclear Waste
145.4 98.4 0
0
25.0
Fund appropriations
Defense waste
143.0 98.4 0
0
0
appropriations
Sources: DOE congressional budget requests, H.Rept. 111-203, S.Rept. 111-45.

DOE’s most recent update of its Analysis of the Total System Life Cycle Cost of the Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management Program was released on August 5, 2008.59 According to that
estimate, the Yucca Mountain program as then planned would cost $96.2 billion in 2007 dollars
from the beginning of the program in 1983 to repository closure in 2133. DOE’s previous
estimate, issued in 2001, was $57.5 billion in 2000 dollars. Major factors in the increase are
inflation and a higher estimate of spent fuel to be generated by existing reactors. Spent fuel from
proposed new reactors is not included in the cost estimate.
Low-Level Radioactive Waste
Current Policy
Selecting disposal sites for low-level radioactive waste, which generally consists of low
concentrations of relatively short-lived radionuclides, is authorized to be conducted by states
under the 1980 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act and 1985 amendments. Most states have
joined congressionally approved interstate compacts to handle low-level waste disposal. Under
the 1985 amendments, the nation’s three (at that time) operating commercial low-level waste
disposal facilities could start refusing to accept waste from outside their regional interstate
compacts after the end of 1992. One of the three sites, near Beatty, NV, closed. The remaining

(...continued)
Monthly_Financial_and_Budget_Summary.shtml. The report notes that some figures may not add due to independent
rounding.
59 Available on the OCRWM website at http://www.rw.doe.gov/about/budget/pdf/TSLCC_2007_8_05_08.pdf.
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two—at Barnwell, SC, and Hanford, WA—are using their congressionally granted authority to
prohibit waste from outside their regional compacts. Another site, in Utah, has since become
available nationwide for most Class A low-level waste, but no site is currently open to nationwide
disposal of all major types of low-level waste. As a result, most of the nation’s class B and C
waste is currently being stored at the sites where it is generated.
A commercial low-level waste disposal site planned by the Texas Compact may address the class
B and C storage problem. The Texas legislature voted in May 2011 to allow up to 30% of the
Texas disposal site’s capacity to be used by states outside of the compact, which consists of Texas
and Vermont. The disposal site, in Andrews County, TX, is licensed to handle class A, B, and C
waste. The facility is currently under construction and scheduled to begin receiving waste by the
end of 2011.60
Legislation providing congressional consent to the Texas compact, which originally also included
Maine as well as Vermont, was signed by President Clinton September 20, 1998 (P.L. 105-236).
However, on October 22, 1998, a proposed disposal site near Sierra Blanca, TX, was rejected by
the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, and Maine subsequently withdrew. Texas
Governor Perry signed legislation June 20, 2003, authorizing the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to license adjoining disposal facilities for commercial and
federally generated low-level waste. Pursuant to that statute, an application to build the Andrews
County disposal facility was filed August 2, 2004, by Waste Control Specialists LLC. TCEQ
voted January 14, 2009, to issue the license after the necessary land and mineral rights had been
acquired and approved construction of the facility January 7, 2011.61
The disposal facility at Barnwell, SC, is currently accepting all Class A, B, and C low-level waste
from the Atlantic Compact (formerly the Northeast Compact), in which South Carolina joined
original members Connecticut and New Jersey on July 1, 2000. Under the compact, South
Carolina can limit the use of the Barnwell facility to the three compact members, and a state law
enacted in June 2000 phased out acceptance of non-compact waste through June 30, 2008. The
Barnwell facility previously had stopped accepting waste from outside the Southeast Compact at
the end of June 1994. The Southeast Compact Commission in May 1995 twice rejected a South
Carolina proposal to open the Barnwell site to waste generators outside the Southeast and to bar
access to North Carolina until that state opened a new regional disposal facility, as required by the
compact. The rejection of those proposals led the South Carolina General Assembly to vote in
1995 to withdraw from the Southeast Compact and begin accepting waste at Barnwell from all
states but North Carolina. North Carolina withdrew from the Southeast Compact July 26, 1999.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 1, 2010, that the withdrawal did not subject North
Carolina to sanctions under the compact.62
The only other existing disposal facility for all three major classes of low-level waste is at
Hanford, WA. Controlled by the Northwest Compact, the Hanford site will continue taking waste
from the neighboring Rocky Mountain Compact under a contract. Since the South Carolina
facility closed to out-of-region waste, the 36 states and the District of Columbia that are outside
the Northwest, Rocky Mountain, and Atlantic compacts have had no disposal site for Class B and
C low-level waste.

60 Waste Control Specialists website, http://www.wcstexas.com.
61 TCEQ website: http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/permitting/radmat/licensing/wcs_license_app.html#wcs_status.
62 Alabama et al. v. North Carolina, S. Ct. (2010), http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/132Orig.pdf.
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Regulatory Requirements
Licensing of commercial low-level waste facilities is carried out under the Atomic Energy Act by
NRC or by “agreement states” with regulatory programs approved by NRC. NRC regulations
governing low-level waste licenses must conform to general environmental protection standards
and radiation protection guidelines issued by EPA. Transportation of low-level waste is jointly
regulated by NRC and the Department of Transportation.
Concluding Discussion
Disposal of radioactive waste will be a key issue in the continuing nuclear power debate. Without
a national disposal system, spent fuel from nuclear power plants must be stored on-site
indefinitely. This situation may raise public concern near proposed reactor sites, particularly at
sites without existing reactors where spent nuclear fuel is already stored. Concern about spent
fuel storage safety has been heightened by the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear plant.
Under current law, the federal government’s nuclear waste disposal policy is focused on the
Yucca Mountain site. However, President Obama’s plan to terminate the Yucca Mountain project
and develop a new waste strategy through the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear
Future has brought most activities in the DOE waste program to a halt. Congress is continuing to
debate the project’s termination, particularly through the appropriations process.
Because of their waste-disposal contracts with DOE, owners of existing reactors are likely to
continue seeking damages from the federal government if disposal delays continue. DOE’s 2004
settlement with the nation’s largest nuclear operator, Exelon, could require payments of up to
$600 million from the federal judgment fund, for example. DOE estimates that payments could
rise above $13 billion if the federal government cannot begin taking waste from reactor sites
before 2020, as previously planned. The nuclear industry has predicted that future damages could
reach tens of billions of dollars if the federal disposal program fails altogether.
Lack of a nuclear waste disposal system could also affect the licensing of proposed new nuclear
plants, both because of NRC licensing guidelines and various state laws.63 In addition, further
repository delays could force DOE to miss compliance deadlines for defense waste disposal.
Problems being created by nuclear waste disposal delays are being addressed by the Blue Ribbon
Commission. Major options include centralized interim storage, continued storage at existing
nuclear sites, reprocessing and waste treatment technology, development of alternative repository
sites, or a combination. Given the delays resulting from the ongoing shutdown of the nuclear
waste program, longer on-site storage is almost a certainty under any option. Any of the options
would also face intense controversy, especially among states and regions that might be potential
hosts for future waste facilities. As a result, substantial debate would be expected over any
proposals to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

63 Lovell, David L., Wisconsin Legislative Council Staff, State Statutes Limiting the Construction of Nuclear Power
Plants, October 5, 2006.
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Legislation
H.R. 301 (Forbes)
New Manhattan Project for Energy Independence. Establishes program to develop new energy-
related technologies, including treatment of nuclear waste. Introduced January 18, 2011; referred
to Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
H.R. 617 (Matheson)
Radioactive Import Deterrence Act. Restricts imports of radioactive waste. Introduced February
10, 2011; referred to Committee on Energy and Commerce.
H.R. 909 (Nunes)
Roadmap for America’s Energy Future. Includes provisions to triple the number of U.S. nuclear
power plants, encourage recycling of spent nuclear fuel, develop nuclear waste disposal capacity,
remove statutory limits on waste disposal at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, establish a
nuclear fuel supply reserve, and require NRC to establish expedited procedures for issuing new
reactor combined construction and operating licenses. Introduced March 3, 2011; referred to
multiple committees.
H.R. 1023 (Thornberry)
No More Excuses Energy Act of 2011. Includes provisions to prohibit NRC from considering
nuclear waste storage when licensing new nuclear facilities, and to establish a tax credit for
obtaining nuclear component manufacturing certification. Introduced March 10, 2011; referred to
multiple committees.
H.R. 1242 (Markey)
Nuclear Power Plant Safety Act of 2011. Requires NRC to revise its regulation within 18 months
to ensure that nuclear plants could handle major disruptive events, a loss of off-site power for 14
days, and the loss of diesel generators for 72 hours. Spent fuel would have to be moved from pool
to dry-cask storage within a year after it had cooled sufficiently, and emergency planning would
have to include multiple concurrent disasters. NRC could not issue new licenses or permits until
the revised regulations were in place. Introduced March 29, 2011; referred to Committee on
Energy and Commerce.
H.R. 1710 (Burgess)
Nuclear Used Fuel Prize Act of 2011. Authorizes the Secretary of Energy to establish monetary
prizes for advancements in used nuclear fuel management technology. Introduced May 4, 2011;
referred to Committees on Science, Space, and Technology and Ways and Means.
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H.R. 2075 (Engel)
Dry Cask Storage Act. Requires spent nuclear fuel to be moved from storage pools to dry casks
within one year after it has sufficiently cooled. Owners of spent fuel could reduce their payments
to the Nuclear Waste Fund to offset extra dry cask storage costs resulting from the act. Introduced
June 1, 2011; referred to Committee on Energy and Commerce.
H.R. 2133 (Matheson)/S. 1220 (Conrad)
Fulfilling U.S. Energy Leadership (FUEL) Act. Among other provisions, authorizes nuclear fuel
cycle research and development, including waste treatment processes and advanced waste forms.
Requires the Secretary of Energy to consider recommendations of the Blue Ribbon Commission
on America’s Nuclear Future in implementing the authorized program and to submit a report to
Congress comparing the Secretary’s proposed long-term nuclear waste management solutions
with the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. House bill introduced June 3, 2011; referred to
multiple committees. Senate bill introduced June 16, 2011; referred to Committee on Finance.
S. 1320 (Murkowski)
Nuclear Fuel Storage Improvement Act of 2011. Authorizes the Secretary of Energy to provide
payments to units of local government that, with the approval of the state governor, volunteer to
host a “privately owned and operated temporary used fuel storage facility.” Introduced June 30,
2011; referred to Committee on Environment and Public Works.
For Additional Reading
Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.
Draft Report to the Secretary of Energy, July 29, 2011, http://brc.gov/index.php?q=
announcement/brc-releases-their-draft-full-commission-report.
Commissioned Papers. 2010-2011. Reports on current nuclear waste issues. http://brc.gov/
index.php?q=library/documents/commissioned-papers.
Harvard University. John F. Kennedy School of Government. Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs. The Economics of Reprocessing vs. Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel.
DE-FG26-99FT4028. December 2003.
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
Experience Gained from Programs to Manage High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear
Fuel in the United States and Other Countries. April 2011. http://www.nwtrb.gov/reports/
reports.html.
Survey of National Programs for Managing High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear
Fuel. October 2009. http://www.nwtrb.gov/reports/reports.html.
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RAND Corporation. Managing Spent Nuclear Fuel: Strategy Alternatives and Policy
Implications. 2010. 71 p. http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2010/
RAND_MG970.pdf.
University of Illinois. Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security. ‘Plan
D’ for Spent Nuclear Fuel. 2009. http://acdis.illinois.edu/publications/207/publication-
PlanDforSpentNuclearFuel.html.
U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management home page;
provides archived documents from the Yucca Mountain project, which the Obama Administration
is working to terminate. http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov.
U.S. General Accounting Office. Low-Level Radioactive Waste: Disposal Availability Adequate in
the Short Term, but Oversight Needed to Identify Any Future Shortfalls. GAO-04-604. June 2004.
53 p.
Walker, J. Samuel. The Road to Yucca Mountain: The Development of Radioactive Waste Policy
in the United States. University of California Press. 2009. 228 p.


Author Contact Information

Mark Holt

Specialist in Energy Policy
mholt@crs.loc.gov, 7-1704


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