Department of Energy Implementation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982

GAO discussed the Department of Energy's (DOE) efforts to implement the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Overall, DOE has made significant progress toward implementing major legislative requirements. However, it faces a difficult challenge in meeting repository siting deadlines mandated by the act, ensuring adequate financing for the high cost of the program, and enhancing management controls over repository planning and execution. DOE has taken several important steps toward finding a suitable location for the nation's first high-level waste repository. Each of the nine candidate sites selected by DOE is undergoing public review and comment, and DOE expects to make a final recommendation to the President in summer 1985. Organizationally, DOE has put into place a headquarters office to direct the overall program; however, its managers do not have the authority to directly control the field staff who execute the program through multiple contractors. The field staff are overseen by DOE field offices, and the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management will need to pay particularly close attention to developing strong management controls over repository planning and execution. In the program financing area, DOE should fully evaluate ways to more promptly collect fees from all anticipated users of its repository services, and it should also evaluate ways to more promptly collect fees from all generators and owners of highly readioactive materials and establish fees for the disposal of high-level wastes.