Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management, USA National Report

The United States of America ratified the “Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management” (Joint Convention) on April 9, 2003. The Joint Convention establishes an international peer review process among Contracting Parties and provides incentives for nations to take appropriate steps to bring their nuclear activities into compliance with general safety standards and practices. This first Review Meeting of the Contracting Parties under the Joint Convention is scheduled to take place in November 2003 in Vienna, Austria. This report documents spent fuel and radioactive waste safety in the United States under the terms of the Joint Convention. Contracting Parties agreed on the report format and contents in December 2002.<br/>The U.S. is in compliance with the terms of the Joint Convention. An extensive set of laws and regulatory structure exist to ensure safety of spent fuel and radioactive waste management in the U.S. The report describes radioactive waste management in the U.S. in both commercial and government sectors, providing annexes (appendices) with information on spent fuel and waste management facilities, spent fuel and waste inventories, and ongoing decommissioning projects. Detailed information is provided on spent fuel and radioactive waste management safety, as well as imports/exports (transboundary movements) and disused sealed sources, as required by the Joint Convention.<br/>The U.S. Department of Energy acknowledges the support and cooperation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and U.S. Department of State in preparation of this report through the Joint Convention Interagency Executive Steering Committee and Working Group. The information in this report was extracted from publicly available information sources, including regulations and Internet web sites of these Agencies. Additional information is available on the Internet web sites listed in Section A.