The Reporter's Handbook on Nuclear Materials, Energy & Waste Management

Important Federal Legislationand Regulations

| 233 Important Federal Legislation and Regulations Written by Henry J. Mayer, with comments by Thomas Cotton Atomic Energy Act The Atomic Energy Act (AEA) was originally passed by the U.S. Congress in 1946 following World War II and the demonstration of the power of the atom. The AEA is the fundamental U.S. law on both civilian and military uses of nuclear materials. On the civilian side, the AEA provides for the development and regulation of the uses of nuclear materials and facilities in the United States, declaring the policy that the development and use of atomic energy shall “be directed toward improving the public welfare, increasing the standard of living, strengthening free competition in private enterprise, and promoting world peace.” In 1954, the U.S. Congress amended the AEA to encourage the development of commercial nuclear power. These amendments allowed private industry to own and operate nuclear power plants to generate electricity for the public. The AEA provides authority for setting the standards for the use of nuclear materials to promote the nation’s common defense, protect health, and minimize potential danger to life or property. These standards were originally enforced and regulated by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The U.S. Congress created the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to replace the AEC when it passed the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. This act gave the NRC responsibility for regulating various commercial, industrial, academic, and medical uses of nuclear materials and nuclear energy. (Full text at www. nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr0980/rev1/vol-1-sec-1.pdf, p. 15.) 234 | The Reporter’s Handbook: Additional Resources Nuclear Waste Policy Act Some forms of nuclear waste (high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel) remain hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years after production. In the short term, such waste can be stored in facilities with carefully controlled conditions monitored by personnel. However, such monitoring anticipates the continued ability to regulate and operate such facilities. Short-term storage is scattered across the country at numerous sites, thereby exposing large numbers of people to the potential risk associated with nuclear waste. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (P.L. 97-425) of 1982 recognized the inherent inefficiencies and sustainability issues associated with storage of nuclear waste and established in law that it is the federal government’s responsibility to provide facilities for permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from domestic nuclear power plants and from national defense nuclear activities, including production of nuclear weapons and operation of naval nuclear vessels. While previous legislation already provided the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with the authority to develop storage facilities and permanent repositories, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act mandated the DOE to proceed expeditiously with siting two permanent disposal facilities (known as geologic repositories) and to license, construct, and operate the first. The act required that the generators of nuclear waste pay for the construction and operation of permanent disposal facilities. The act established a fund generated by fees charged to nuclear waste generators. The fee was initially set at one tenth of 1 cent per kilowatt-hour but must be adjusted as needed to ensure that the full costs of disposal are borne by the generators of the waste. It authorized the DOE to enter into contracts with the owners and generators of nuclear waste to begin accepting such waste for disposal by January 31, 1998, in exchange for payment of the fees. It established the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management as a program of the DOE, with responsibility for siting, building, and operating the facility, termed a repository. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for developing standards for protecting the public from exposure to radiation, and the NRC will ultimately authorize DOE to construct and then operate the facility once NRC determines that EPA’s standards are met. A 1987 amendment focused all site investigations on a single site, Yucca Mountain in Nevada. It created the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, comprising 10 presidentially appointed scientists, to act as an independent source of expert advice on the scientific and technical aspects of the DOE’s handling of the disposal process (Kubiszewski, 2006). The amendment also authorized the DOE to construct a facility for temporary storage of spent fuel, Important Federal Legislation and Regulations | 235 termed “monitored retrievable storage” (MRS). To address the concern that construction of...