Full Title: Nuclear Waste Management: Minimum Requirements for Reforms and Legislation
Author(s): Jack Spencer
Publisher(s): The Heritage Foundation
Publication Date: March 1, 2013
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Senator Ron Wyden (D–OR), chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, is expected to put forth a bill to reform nuclear waste management in the U.S. According to media reports, the bill under consideration maintains the same basic structure of America’s current, failed system for waste management.
While such a bill might meet some near-term interests of the federal government and the nuclear utilities, it would make implementing the reforms necessary to fix nuclear waste policy over the long-term almost impossible. Completely privatizing the current system overnight may not be practical, but instituting a reform effort that transitions from a government-run approach to one driven more by market forces and corporate responsibility can be achieved. Indeed, the following criteria would do just that and should be the minimum requirements for any nuclear waste management reform effort to move forward.