ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some important developments concerning the high-level nuclear waste (HLNW) program. An important area for Department of Energy (DOE) has been with the management of the HLNW program and the Yucca Mountain project. Loading Yucca Mountain with HLNW as if it were a repository, especially on compromised standards, and then finding that Yucca Mountain is unsuitable or that some other option for HLNW management is necessary, will place tremendous burdens on future generations, complicating rather than simplifying their abilities to manage the legacy of HLNW. The new approach continues to rely on non-voluntary siting of a facility at Yucca Mountain by relaxing standards for scientific study, analyses of data and information, and licensing requirements. One area with continual problems is the intergovernmental relations involving DOE and state and local governments. In 1993 the US Secretary of Energy commissioned "an independent review of the financial and management" performance of DOE's work on the Yucca Mountain project.
