Before the Obama administration moved to cancel the Yucca Mountain Repository Project for permanent storage of high-level nuclear waste in March of 2010, the President created the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future to study the problem of permanent spent nuclear fuel disposal on January 29, 2010. The Commission was co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. The Commission was not told to select a site or to prefer one type of solution over another. As the saying goes, “everything was on the table,” except for Yucca Mountain, of course.
In the words of the memoranda establishing the Commission, “The Commission should conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. This review should include an evaluation of advanced fuel cycle technologies that would optimize energy recovery, resource utilization, and the minimization of materials derived from nuclear activities in a manner consistent with U.S. nonproliferation goals.”
The Commission was charged to consider scientific, environmental, budgetary, economic, financial and management issues. The Commission was also supposed to consider any important statutory changes that it deemed necessary. The Commission was told to come back in 18 months with a draft report and to make that report available for public review and input. A final report was to be delivered within 24 months. These activities were to be carried out under the authority of the Department of Energy.
There is some boilerplate in the memoranda to the effect that no agency or business is required to disclose sensitive information protected by law. The Commission’s work also was not intended to create any right, benefit or penalty for any entity with respect to the U.S. Government, its agencies, officers or employees.
The Commission met dozens of times over the next two years to hear testimony from experts and stakeholder. They visited nuclear waste management facilities in the United States and abroad. Many different organizations, interest groups and individuals came to the Commission to offer their perspective on the issues before the Commission. Copies of all the submissions and all reports issued by the Commission are available on the Commission’s website.
The draft report was turned in on July 29, 2011 and was almost two hundred pages. The final 180 page report of the commission was presented to the Secretary of Energy on January 26, 2012. The report was accompanied by a letter to the Secretary summarizing the key points of the report and the Commission’s recommendations. Some critics have charged that the Commission spent too much time dwelling on the failure of the governments efforts to solve the nuclear waste disposal problem to date and not enough on finding new solutions. They have also charged that the Commission’s recommendations are too broad and do not offer details on a viable disposal alternative.
