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Yucca Mountain: Blueprint for Failure 195 amendments to the section were introduced up until the day the NWPA was passed. States with likely sites had advocated a variety of different approaches to securing an effective role in decision making on repository siting.99 One proposal, by Senator Howard Cannon of Nevada (a potential host state), provided for a process very similar to the disapproval process ultimately included in the legislation. This and other proposals that would have given states some form of veto over repository siting were resisted until the final days of debate,100 thanks in part to opposition by senators from Washington and Texas, two other potential host states.101 Because Representative Jim Wright of Texas was the House Speaker, and Representative Tom Foley of Washington was the House majority whip, these two states probably could have blocked any unfavorable siting decision without a state veto provision and were reluctant to let other candidate states have a veto right.102 The notice-of-disapproval mechanism finally adopted in NWPA was viewed by some members as a sufficiently effective protection for unwilling host states;103 other members were more skeptical.104 Another proposal, by Mississippi, was to add a stringent population criterion that effectively precluded siting in states such as Mississippi with low territory-to-­ population ratios.105 While this provision was not adopted, NWPA provided that DOE’s siting guidelines were to include “population factors that will disqualify any site from development as a repository if any surface facility of such repository would be located (1) in a highly populated area; or (2) adjacent to an area 1 mile by 1 mile having a population of not less than 1,000 individuals.”106 The final act also required that the guidelines consider “the proximity to sites where high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel is generated or temporarily stored and the transportation and safety factors involved in moving such waste to a repository,” although it did not require the guidelines to limit sites to states where wastes were generated.107 DOE’s Implementation of the NWPA Siting Process Notwithstanding NRC’s Waste Confidence Decision of 1984, which concluded that permanent disposal of SNF was well enough in hand to justify operating new nuclear power plants, optimism about developing repositories faded in the five years after NWPA’s passage .108 Key events of those years included the winnowing of potential first-repository host states in the West amid increasing controversy, the abrupt termination of DOE’s efforts to site a second repository in the face of massive resistance in the East, and the eventual scuttling by Congress of a proposed MRS facility in Tennessee that had been strongly resisted by the state. Also, President Reagan determined in 1985 that defense HLW would not have to be disposed of in a separate repository from that for commercial SNF.109 Co-disposal of these wastes could not take place at WIPP, however, unless Congress were to amend provisions of the 1980 WIPP Authorization Act that precluded disposal of civilian wastes at the facility. DOE’s efforts to site a first and second repository and an MRS facility elicited strong resistance. By 1986, twenty-five lawsuits had been filed against DOE by states, local communities, environmental groups, and others challenging DOE’s implementation of NWPA.110 While generally unsuccessful, the litigation reflected widespread opposition to the siting program by potential host states. 196 Fuel Cycle to Nowhere Pitfalls in Siting the First Repository Following enactment of NWPA, DOE initiated the first round of siting, which focused on identifying a repository in the West and Gulf South, by designating nine sites in six western and southern states for evaluation.111 The nine sites were Deaf Smith County and Swisher County in Texas, Davis Canyon and Lavender Canyon in Utah, Cypress Creek Dome and Richton Dome in Mississippi, the Vacherie Dome site in Louisiana, the Hanford site in Washington, and Yucca Mountain in Nevada.112 These nine sites had been identified through an ERDA program begun in 1975 to identify potential sites for disposal of commercial SNF. This program, known as the National Waste Terminal Storage Program, aimed to survey rock formations in thirty-six states in order to identify suitable sites for six pilot repositories, to be constructed by the year 2000. State opposition in some key states underlain by promising geologic formations, such as Michigan, had led DOE by 1980 to focus solely on Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Utah, Nevada, and Washington...

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