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Beyond Yucca Mountain: Split Liability Drives Action For Interim Nuclear Waste Storage, Amy L. Stein

UF Law Faculty Publications

After fifteen years and six billion dollars, the United States still lacks a viable long-term solution to the mounting levels of high-level nuclear waste scattered across the nation in 68 sites. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (“NWPA”) and its 1987 Amendments have driven regulators to approve Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for burial of the 37,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in need of a final resting place. In the NWPA, Congress set January 31, 1998 as the deadline by which the Department of Energy (“DOE”) was to dispose of the utilities' nuclear waste. However, litigation challenges, scientific uncertainty, and …