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30 Fuel Cycle to Nowhere standards or criteria, supporting transportation infrastructure, the roles and authority of the various state and federal actors, or the procedures for making final project and regulatory decisions.114 The Rise of the Environmental Movement and the End of Reprocessing Beginning in the late 1950s and gathering steam through the 1960s, the modern environmental movement and the rise of organized opposition to nuclear power in the United States emerged on parallel tracks, as postwar horror at the human consequences of the atomic bomb deepened and awareness of the environmental consequences of industrial development grew. These often intertwined social and political movements also displayed certain affinities with the civil rights movement (including use of litigation to promote political and societal change) and the movement against the Vietnam War. Both were fueled by increasing public distrust of government and the military-industrial complex. Environmental advocates and opponents of nuclear power, with the increasing support of the American public, eventually succeeded in checking the expansion of nuclear power and in imposing legal obligations on DOE to clean up the legacy of toxic and radioactive contamination left by AEC’s ill-conceived and unsafe nuclear waste storage and disposal practices at its weapons sites. Concerns over nuclear proliferation and environmental contamination, combined with the dismal economic performance of commercial SNF reprocessing, also led to the end of civilian SNF reprocessing in the United States, which helped trigger a sense of crisis regarding nuclear waste disposal. The modern environmental movement in the United States is a phenomenon of the past sixty years, though built on a firm foundation of American conservationism that stretches far back into the nineteenth century.115 Modern environmentalism was sparked by compelling and influential accounts of the adverse health effects and eco­ logical destruction caused by new technologies that were deployed on a wide scale during and after World War II. Concerned about unchecked industrial pollution and the environmental consequences of new industries and development projects, citizens around the country protested and organized to demand control of pollution and oppose a wide variety of new industrial facilities and development projects whose environmental impacts had not been understood or considered by the government bodies responsible for undertaking, funding, or licensing them. The movement gathered remarkable political steam during the 1960s, culminating in passage by Congress of the landmark 1969 National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). Newly emerging national environmental organizations, staffed with scientific experts and well-trained lawyers, worked to document and publicize environmental problems and propose the means to address them; working with Congress and the media , they helped stimulate and mobilize public concern over environmental problems and widespread public support for addressing them. These efforts led Congress during the 1970s to enact a set of powerful federal environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and laws dealing with hazardous wastes. The parallel rise of numerous, more grassroots-oriented environmental organizations throughout the country helped spur the adoption of environmental leg- Evolution of U.S. Nuclear Waste Law and Policy 31 islation at the state and local levels, and rallied citizens to take concerted action against environmentally damaging facilities and development projects.116 Opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear power had originated in the aftermath of World War II. It began with protests against nuclear weapons production and testing by the government and later included opposition to civilian nuclear power plants on environmental, health, and safety grounds. The civilian deaths and suffering inflicted by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provoked feelings of intense horror and anguish in many Americans. Prominent scientists who had helped develop the atomic bomb through their work on the Manhattan Project publicly expressed remorse and regret for their role in the development of nuclear weapons, and a small but growing postwar antinuclear peace movement began actively to oppose the production and deployment of atomic weapons. The U.S. government in 1945 initiated an intensive program of nuclear weapons testing that continued throughout the Cold War, lasting until 1992.117 Much of the weapons testing took place at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), although tests were also conducted in New Mexico, Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, and at the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands. From 1945 until 1962, the tests occurred at or above ground, causing radioactive fallout.118 A 1954 weapons test in the Marshall Islands released very large amounts of radioactive fallout, forced evacuation of islanders, and caused severe health effects and...

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