Draft Mission Plan Amendment

The Department of Energy’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management prepared this document to report plans for the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program, whose mission is to manage and dispose of the nation’s spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste in a manner that protects the health and safety of the public and of workers and the quality of the environment. The Congress established this program through the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (see Appendix A), though efforts to solve the waste-disposal problem go back several decades. Specifically, the Congress directed us to isolate these wastes in geologic repositories constructed in suitable rock formations deep suggested by the National Academy of Sciences in the 1950s. In 1980, it was compared against other options in an environmental impact statement and identified as the preferred alternative.