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.

In 2019, the NWMO commissioned Maawandoon Inc to lead Indigenous Dialogue session to support NWMO’s transportation planning for the long-term care of Canada’s used nuclear fuel. This research built upon and complemented public attitude research carried out in 2017 and 2018. The research methodology consisted of 7 Indigenous dialogue sessions and attendance at 3 Indigenous Annual General Assemblies (AGA)/meetings with dialogue components.

In October 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (Board or NWTRB) published Survey of National Programs for Managing High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel.  For each of the 13 national programs studied, the report catalogued 15 institutional arrangements that had been set in place and 15 technical approaches that had been taken to design repository systems for the long-term management of high-activity radioactive waste.