After more than 20 years of commercial nuclear power, the Federal Government has yet to develop a broadly supported policy for fulfilling its legal responsibility for the final isolation of high-level radioactive waste. OTA's study concludes that until such a policy is adopted in law, there is a substantial risk that the false starts, shifts of policy, and fluctuating support that have plagued the final isolation program in the past will continue.

In the November 1989 Report to Congress on Reassessment of the Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management Program (DOE/RW-0247), the Secretary of Energy
announced an initiative for developing a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility
that is to start spent-fuel acceptance in 1998. This facility, which will be licensed by
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), will receive spent fuel from
commercial nuclear power plants and provide a limited amount of storage for this

With the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA), Congress for the first time established in law a comprehensive Federal policy for commercial high-level radioactive waste management, including interim storage and permanent disposal. NWPA provides sufficient authority for
developing and operating a high-level radioactive waste management system based on disposal in mined geologic repositories. Authorization

America’s nuclear waste management program is at an impasse. The Obama Administration’s decision
to halt work on a repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada is but the latest indicator of a policy that has
been troubled for decades and has now all but completely broken down. The approach laid out under
the 1987 Amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA)—which tied the entire U.S. high-level
waste management program to the fate of the Yucca Mountain site—has not worked to produce a

The purpose of this document is to describe the Monitored Retrievable Storage (MRS) Project and to establish approved cost and schedule baselines against which overall progress and management effectiveness shall be measured. For the sake of brevity, this Project Plan will be referred to as the Plan throughout this document.

The purpose of this document is to provide waste quantity and sequencing information that serves as the design basis for commercial spent nuclear fuel (CSNF) arriving at the repository, and the information on the transportation systems that will be used to deliver this fuel. It is intended as input for waste package and repository design analyses needed to ensure that facilities are flexible enough to be capable of receiving, unloading, handling, and emplacing the amounts and types of CSNF expected for receipt under realistic bounding conditions.

This paper, prepared to aid the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future in its
deliberations, includes a discussion of the issues that would be faced in the siting, permitting and
licensing of storage and disposal facilities for the “back end” of the commercial nuclear fuel
cycle and for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) high–level radioactive waste. It discusses the
authority that could be employed by non–federal levels of government in supporting or opposing

This vintage 1990 document presents the results of WESTON'S preliminary assessment of the feasibility of several alternative fuel-transfer and storage concepts that have the potential for early spent-fuel acceptance at an MRS facility. The feasibility study was part of a series of studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) during the late 1980's and early 1990's in an effort to establish an MRS design configuration.

This briefing paper is a component of the comprehensive briefing package developed for the Negotiator, and describes previous DOE experience in its attempt to site an MRS facility. The Background section highlights, in chronological order, significant events in DOE's MRS siting history from enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to the issuance of the "Report to Congress on Reassessment of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program" in November 1989.

This report accompanies the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Only page 44 is included in this PDF.