Each year over 100 utility-owned nuclear power plants and thousands of commercial enterprises, such as pharmaceutical manufacturers, hospitals, universities, and industrial firms, generate various types of radioactive contaminated waste. While waste in the form of used (spent) fuel from nuclear power plants is classified as “high-level” because of the amount of radioactivity in the fuel, almost all other commercial waste is designated as “low-level” because the levels of radioactivity in these wastes are relatively lower. Low-level radioactive waste items include such things as rags, paper, liquid, glass, protective clothing, as well as hardware, equipment, and resins exposed to radioactivity or contaminated with radioactive material at nuclear power plants. In 1993, operations at utilities’ nuclear power plants accounted for about 50 percent of the volume of commercially generated low-level radioactive waste, but this volume contained about 95 percent of the radioactivity in low-level waste. Examples of other commercial uses of radioactive materials that either directly or indirectly produce low-level radioactive waste include the following: Medical procedures involving radiation or radioactive material. More than 100 million of these procedures are performed each year. Testing and development of about 80 percent of new drugs. Sterilization of consumer products, such as cosmetics, hair products, and contact lens solutions using radioactive materials. Production of consumer products, such as smoke detectors, and industrial products, such as instruments to inspect for defects in highways, pipelines, and aircraft. The radioactivity in most commercially generated low-level waste decays to safe levels within 100 years, but some waste remains hazardous for longer than 500 years. Because these wastes are potentially harmful to workers, the general public, and the environment, they must be stored and disposed of safely. Throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s, commercially generated low-level waste was routinely disposed of in three facilities at or near Beatty, Nevada; Barnwell, South Carolina; and Richland, Washington. However, Nevada closed its facility on January 1, 1993. The facility in Washington was closed to generators in all but 11 states on January 1, 1993, and on July 1, 1994, South Carolina closed its facility to waste generators in all but 8 southeastern states. The generation of significant amounts of nuclear wastes began during World War II and because nuclear operations then and for years afterward were controlled by the federal government, the government assumed responsibility for the disposal of these wastes. Eventually, however, the federal Atomic Energy Commission began permitting commercial entities to possess, own, and use radioactive materials and to dispose of low-level waste. With the increase in commercial uses of radioactive materials, the Congress, in 1959, authorized the Commission to transfer to states authority and responsibility for regulating most commercial users other than nuclear power plants. States that desired to assume such authority and responsibility could do so by establishing regulatory programs that were adequate to protect the public health and safety and compatible with the Commission’s regulatory program. Such states are referred to as agreement states. With increased commercial use of radioactive materials and an expanding regulatory role for states, private companies, rather than the federal government, began to provide disposal facilities for commercially generated low-level waste. By 1971 there were six privately operated disposal facilities located in Illinois, Kentucky, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, and the state of Washington. All of these disposal facilities except the facility in Illinois were regulated by agreement states. Only the facility in Washington was developed on federal land; specifically, on the Hanford Reservation, now managed by the Department of Energy (DOE). (Figs. 1.1 and 1.2 show the disposal facility in Barnwell, South Carolina.) By March 1979 the disposal facilities in Illinois, Kentucky, and New York had been closed for a variety of reasons, including leakage at the sites. Then, in July 1979, the governor of Nevada ordered the Beatty facility shutdown after two incidents involving trucks carrying radioactive waste into the facility. Thereafter, the governors of Nevada, South Carolina, and Washington wrote to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for assurance that rules governing shipments would be enforced. The Beatty facility reopened in late July 1979. In October 1979, the governor of Washington ordered that state’s disposal facility to shut down after deficiencies were found in waste shipments bound for the facility. Among other things, a truckload of radioactive cobalt was leaking. Also in 1979, the governor of South Carolina said that the state’s disposal facility was receiving up to 90 percent of all commercially generated low-level waste and that decontamination of the disabled Three Mile Island nuclear power plant would generate waste amounting to almost 50 percent of the total volume the state had received in 1978. For this reason, the governor said that South Carolina would not accept waste from the disabled plant. Concerned about the potential loss of disposal capacity, several congressional committees held hearings in 1979. Initially, the committees considered legislation that would make the federal government responsible for the disposal of commercially generated low-level waste. The governors of the three states with operating disposal facilities, however, opposed this approach because they wanted states to have an opportunity to examine alternatives to federal disposal. By the end of the year, Washington and Nevada had reopened their disposal facilities, and the Congress had deferred consideration of legislation to the next year. Subsequently, a task force convened by the National Governors’ Association recommended that responsibility for the disposal of low-level waste be assumed by the states. Other state government organizations supported this approach. Late in 1980, the Congress established a new policy regarding the disposal of commercially generated low-level waste by enacting the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-573). The act made each state responsible for making disposal capacity available and stated that low-level radioactive waste can be most safely and efficiently managed on a regional basis. To implement this policy, the Congress encouraged states to form compacts to meet their collective disposal needs and to minimize the number of new disposal sites. Congressional consent was required for a compact to become effective. As an inducement to states to form compacts and develop regional disposal facilities, the act stated that compacts could, beginning January 1, 1986, restrict the use of their disposal facilities to wastes generated within their respective regions. The Congress expected states to have new disposal facilities capable of handling their own low-level waste by that date. Although nearly 40 states had formed seven regional compacts by the end of 1983, it had become clear that no new disposal facilities would be ready for at least another 5 years. As a result, the Congress passed and, on January 15, 1986, the President signed into law, the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 (P.L. 99-240). At the same time, the Congress granted consent to the seven regional compacts. The amendments represented a compromise for competing parties. On one side, waste generators in states that would be left without access to disposal facilities—generators that were relying on the existing disposal facilities in Nevada, South Carolina, and Washington—got a 7-year extension of the period during which they could ship waste to existing disposal facilities. On the other hand, these three states, which wanted to close their facilities to waste generators outside their respective compacts, received additional assurances that other states or compacts of states would develop their own disposal facilities. Among these additional assurances were six deadlines and milestones by which states should make decisions and commit to certain actions towards developing new disposal facilities. The amendments prescribed limited responsibilities for DOE and NRC. The amendments also established financial penalties, or surcharges, on the waste disposed of in existing facilities if certain milestones were not met. In addition to basic disposal charges, waste generators were to pay nonpenalty surcharges based on the volume of wastes disposed of at the three operating disposal facilities. The six deadlines and milestones are described in figure 1.3. New York and two of its counties challenged several provisions of the amendments, including the take-title provision contained in the last milestone. Nineteen other states supported this challenge. Under the take-title provision, states or compacts that failed to provide for the disposal of all waste generated within their borders by January 1, 1996, were required, upon request, to take title to and possession of the waste and become liable for damages suffered by the generators as a result of the state’s failure to do so. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in New York v. United States, 112 S.Ct. 2408 that this provision was unconstitutional. The court concluded that the Congress has power under the Constitution to preempt state regulation or to encourage states to provide suggested regulatory systems for disposal of the low-level waste generated within their borders, but the Constitution does not confer upon the Congress the ability to compel the states to do so in a particular way. The court held that the take-title provision was severable from the remainder of the act. Concerned about the environmental and economic effects of implementing the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980, as amended, Senators Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman requested that we review the status of the low-level waste program, the economic and environmental effects of the planned disposal facilities, and alternatives to the approach specified in the act, as amended. To respond to the requesters, we interviewed state officials and members of the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum—an association of representatives of states and compacts established to help implement the act; waste generators and their associations, other professional associations, environmental groups, and members of academia; representatives from citizens’ advisory groups and citizens groups that have opposed efforts by Connecticut, Nebraska, and Massachusetts to select sites for new disposal facilities; New York and North Carolina county officials in communities close to where sites have been considered; and officials in DOE, NRC, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who are responsible for issues in the commercially generated low-level waste area.