Oregon Public Broadcasting

The U.S. needs a new federal agency with the mission of finding and building a home for the nation’s nuclear waste. That’s according to draft recommendations from a blue ribbon commission meeting Friday, in Washington, D.C.

Across the nation nuclear waste is piling up with no permanent safe place to store it. Much of it is at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, in southeast Washington.

The Obama Administration closed the repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and appointed the blue ribbon commission to find a new dump for nuclear waste.

Now, the commission says a permanent repository may still be years off.

Commissioner Jonathan Lash says the problem of permanent storage is so complex and politically wrought that it should be handled by an agency separate from the Department of Energy.

Jonathan Lash: “It is a difficult position that we have put the Department of Energy in as a generator of waste, responsible for technology research to promote the industry and think of the path forward, and trying to create a waste repository.”

The next release of draft recommendations will be from the full commission in July.

Blue Ribbon Commission

http://www.brc.gov