Nuclear Waste

DOE Needs to Ensure Nevada's Conformance With Grant Requirements Gao ID: RCED-90-173 July 9, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) program to provide financial assistance to Nevada under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

GAO found that: (1) Nevada opposes the DOE Yucca Mountain project; (2) Nevada spent most of the $32 million in nuclear waste act grants properly, but used $1 million of the funds for activities that were not authorized; (3) Nevada employed law firms that performed lobbying activities between July 1986 and June 1989; (4) Nevada used grant funds to pay expenses incurred in suing DOE; (5) Nevada exceeded the congressional limit on the money it could spend on socioeconomic studies for the year ended June 1989; (6) Nevada used over $150,000 in grant funds to pay expenses of the state's nuclear waste legislative committee; (7) Nevada has internal control weaknesses that place funds at risk; (8) DOE and Nevada have not formally agreed to all of the terms of the grant amendments award documents; and (9) DOE did not resolve the disagreements over the lobbying provision before releasing grant funds, and it has not determined the best way to recover grant funds used for unallowable purposes.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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