In addition to summarizing the most recent developments (to September 2021), this Congressional Research Service report on the topic of civilian nuclear waste disposal provides a policy background, status of nuclear waste litigation, congressional action including recent legislation, and current policy and regulation for both spent nuclear fuel and low-level radioactive waste.

Our Common Future, Chairman's Foreword 

"A global agenda for change" - this was what the World Commission on Environment and Development was asked to formulate. It was an urgent call by the General Assembly of the United Nations: 

Large-scale investments in land are spreading faster than ever before across the global south. Often these investments target lands governed by customary rights that are not adequately recognized and protected under national laws, or sites where governments lack the capacity to enforce the law. Land deals that change the use of land and natural resources have wide implications for indigenous peoples and local communities who depend primarily on these resources for their livelihoods, welfare and cultural identity.

In November 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or Department) re‐established its Environmental Justice (EJ) Task Force to review and update the 1995 Environmental Justice Strategy and develop an Environmental Justice Five‐Year Implementation Plan.

The Department of Energy (hereinafter DOE or the Department) is responsible for ensuring the Nation’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. DOE maintains the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, reduces the threat of nuclear proliferation, oversees the Nation’s energy supply, leads the Nation in areas of federally sponsored basic research critical to U.S.

Inspired by the energy democracy movement, this conceptual review critically explores relationships between concentrated or distributed renewable energy and political power. Advocates assert that because the renewable energy transition is fundamentally a political struggle, efforts to shift from fossil fuels and decarbonize societies will not prove effective without confronting and destabilizing dominant systems of energy power.

The Federal Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice (EJ IWG) established the NEPA Committee in 2012 pursuant to the Memorandum of Understanding on Environmental Justice and Executive Order 12898 (2011).

Introduction

A. The Biden-Harris Administration’s Commitment to Environmental Justice 

The purpose of this report is to equip the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) with evidence-based recommendations to further equity and environmental justice (EJ) efforts within their capacity as the state’s environmental regulatory agency, in service of advancing EJ for those who live, work, and play in Washington. This report is intended to share promising trends and tools, acknowledge common barriers and ideas for overcoming those barriers, elevate successes, and amplify equitable practices for defining, measuring, mobilizing, and sustaining meaningful EJ work.

In response to President Biden’s Executive Order 14008 and Administrator Regan’s directive to “strengthen enforcement of violations of cornerstone environmental statutes and civil rights laws in communities overburdened by pollution,” OECA issued four policies.1 These policies provide direction to the civil regulatory, compliance assurance, criminal, and cleanup enforcement programs to incorporate environmental justice (EJ) considerations throughout the enforcement process. The key elements of these strategies and preliminary successes are described below.

The U.S. nuclear waste management program has labored for decades at a cost of billions of dollars each year, and yet there is still no active disposal program either for spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors or for the high-level radioactive legacy waste and spent nuclear fuel from defense programs.