Nuclear Waste

In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Energy's (DOE) nuclear waste management program to: (1) compare the use of fiscal year (FY) 1985 program funds with the approved budget; (2) assess the effects of schedule delays on program costs; and (3) assess the life-cycle cost estimates.

GAO found that: (1) although Congress appropriated $327.7 million from the Nuclear Waste Fund for FY 1985, DOE moved $12 million to other waste management subprograms and used $219.3 million for the first-repository subprogram; (2) because of delays in completing environmental assessments and site selections, the first-repository project offices could not accomplish many activities planned during FY 1985; (3) the additional funds required to complete the assessments and activities substantially increased the cost of the first-repository subprogram; (4) schedule delays compressed milestones and caused concerns over DOE ability to meet the original milestones without sacrificing quality; (5) DOE cost estimates have changed significantly due to uncertainty over the final design, construction, and operation of the waste system; and (6) since DOE based its spent-fuel projections and revenue estimates on long-range forecasts of economic activity and energy demand, overestimating future industry growth may result in DOE building an unnecessarily large waste disposal system and setting fees too low to produce revenues at the rate needed to cover total program costs.

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.

Director: Team: Phone: