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Summary: Reviews of the federal government's nuclear waste management programs have highlighted the following: (1) public and political opposition to nuclear waste disposal locations; (2) gaps in federal laws and regulations governing the storage and disposal of nuclear waste; (3) geological uncertainties and natural resource trade-offs encountered when selecting permanent disposal locations; (4) lack of regulatory criteria for orderly waste management operations; and (5) lack of a demonstrated technology for the safe disposal of existing commercial and military high-level waste. About 74 million gallons of high-level waste, nearly all produced by Department of Energy (DOE) operations, are being stored temporarily in three locations in the United States. In addition, commercial reactor spent fuel is accumulating at nuclear powerplants because there are no commercial reprocessors or sufficient offsite storage space available. DOE has adopted a spent fuel storage policy that involves voluntary acceptance of spent fuel from utilities, a one time fee for storage and disposal, obtaining private storage facilities for spent fuel, and appropriate compensation to the utilities if reprocessing of spent fuel is ever approved. However, DOE actions have not fully answered the questions of how much storage space is needed, who could provide the space, and when the space must be available. Congress should continue to fund research efforts and studies at the Barnwell reprocessing plant until completion of the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation. This will keep key people and the plant available if the United States decides that some method of reprocessing is consistent with its nonproliferation efforts.
