Role of Congress in the High Level Radioactive Waste Odyssey: The Wisdom and Will of the Congress - 13096
- DOE/NVOO Project Manager for Yucca Mountain, 1982 thru 1987, 1154 Cheltenham Place, Maineville, OH 45039 (United States)
- Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office, 7404 Oak Grove Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89117 (United States)
Congress has had a dual role with regard to high level radioactive waste, being involved in both its creation and its disposal. A significant amount of time has passed between the creation of the nation's first high level radioactive waste and the present day. The pace of addressing its remediation has been highly irregular. Congress has had to consider the technical, regulatory, and political issues and all have had specific difficulties. It is a true odyssey framed by an imperative and accountability, by a sense of urgency, by an ability or inability to finish the job and by consequences. Congress had set a politically acceptable course by 1982. However, President Obama intervened in the process after he took office in January 2009. Through the efforts of his Administration, by the end of 2012, the US government has no program to dispose of high level radioactive waste and no reasonable prospect of a repository for high level radioactive waste. It is not obvious how the US government program will be reestablished or who will assume responsibility for leadership. The ultimate criteria for judging the consequences are 1) the outcome of the ongoing NRC's Nuclear Waste Confidence Rulemaking and 2) the concomitant permissibility of nuclear energy supplying electricity from operating reactors in the US. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9-332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22224883
- Report Number(s):
- INIS-US-13-WM-13096; TRN: US14V0320045838
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: WM2013: Waste Management Conference: International collaboration and continuous improvement, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 24-28 Feb 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France; 40 refs.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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