09/15/2026 at 10:00AM
The Subcommittee on Energy will hold a hearing on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. (ET) in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. The hearing is entitled, “Nuclear Spent Fuel Policy: Examining Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses.” The hearing will examine the potential role of the Department of Energy’s proposed Nuclear Lifecycle Innovations Campuses in carrying out the nation’s nuclear waste policy.
Witnesses:
- Theodore J. Garrish, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, Department of Energy
- Jared S. des Rosiers, Deputy General Counsel and VP for Public, Government & Regulatory Affairs, Maine Yankee, on behalf of Decommissioning Plants Coalition
- Maria Korsnick, President and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute
- [Stacey Paradis], Commissioner, Illinois Commerce Commission, on behalf of National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
- Greg R. White, Legacy Officer, Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition
Since the Manhattan Project ushered in the nuclear age, the United States has accumulated high-level radioactive waste that requires permanent disposal. Use of nuclear reactors to power U.S. Navy ships and activities to maintain a nuclear deterrent have resulted in about 14,000 tons of defense waste, which is currently located primarily in Washington State, South Carolina, and Idaho. For the purposes of this hearing, civilian commercial use of nuclear power to produce electricity has produced over 99,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), currently stored safely at seventy-five sites in thirty-three states, accumulating at a rate of approximately 2,000 tons annually.2 About a quarter of the sites no longer have operating reactors.
Congress formally established the nation’s nuclear waste policy with the enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA). The NWPA created the federal government obligation to dispose of all high-level radioactive waste. The law established the Department of Energy (DOE) program and the objective, scientifically based process to select two sites for permanent geologic disposal. The law established a process to consult with and provide benefits to states, tribes, and local hosts of a site and obligated DOE to take title of commercial SNF and remove and transport it for disposal beginning no later than January 31, 1998.
The law established that nuclear utility ratepayers would pay fees—one tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by commercial nuclear plants—into the Nuclear Waste Fund to cover the disposal costs of SNF, under the principle that those who benefit from nucleargenerated electricity should cover the disposal costs.
In 2002, following extensive scientific and technical analysis by DOE and its national laboratories, the Secretary of Energy determined Yucca Mountain was suitable as a repository, and Congress enacted a resolution formally designating the site for a repository. DOE subsequently prepared and submitted a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the Yucca Mountain facility in 2008.
In 2010, the Obama administration announced its intention, for policy not technical reasons, to abandon the Yucca Mountain project and made a motion to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application from the NRC with prejudice. The administration dismantled the DOE office responsible for implementing the NWPA, terminated all activities to support the repository program, and established the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (BRC) to conduct a review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including alternatives for storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense SNF and highlevel waste.
In January 2013, DOE released a document titled Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste, which included a response to the BRC’s recommendations and a framework for meeting the government’s obligation to dispose of nuclear waste.8 DOE agreed with the BRC that a consent-based siting process would be critical to the successful implementation of the agency’s waste management strategy. On January 12, 2017, DOE released a document outlining a draft consent-based siting process for disposal and storage of nuclear waste.
In the meantime, following the administration’s attempt to withdraw the license application, the states of Washington and South Carolina, in addition to private parties, sued the federal government to resume NRC’s review of the license. On August 13, 2013, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the petitioners and issued a writ of mandamus forcing NRC to continue the licensing process for Yucca Mountain.10 As a result, the NRC resumed consideration of the scientific and technical review of the DOE’s license application and in 2015, found that DOE’s license application met applicable regulatory requirements, including postclosure requirements that the repository could be reasonably expected to safely protect public health for one million years. Prior to the Commission making a final decision on the Yucca Mountain license application, DOE and NRC would have to resolve approximately 300 contentions filed by affected parties associated with the project. DOE has taken no action to resume the licensing process, and Congress has not supplied the funding to do so.
In November 2013, the D.C. Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of state utility regulators and held that the Nuclear Waste Fund fee may not be collected from electricity ratepayers due to the federal government’s lack of a nuclear waste management plan due to DOE’s closure of the Yucca Mountain Project. The approximately $750 million annual collection was suspended by DOE in May 2014. As of September 30, 2025, the NWF maintained a balance of $51 billion.13 Given DOE’s failure to fulfill its contractual obligations to begin disposing of SNF in 1998, nuclear utilities began filing lawsuits to recover additional storage costs they would not have incurred had DOE begun accepting waste as scheduled. Court decisions have held that compensation would come from the U.S. Treasury’s Judgment Fund, a permanent account that is used to cover damage claims against the government with taxpayer funds that do not require congressional appropriations. In FY 2024 and FY 2025, the Judgement Fund paid $500 million and $1.1 billion, respectively, to settle claims. With $12.2 billion already paid out, DOE estimates its potential future liabilities for delays in taking SNF could total as much $44 billion in additional expenditures.
In January of 2026, the DOE issued a Request for Information (RFI) inviting states to express interest in hosting Innovation Campuses. The proposed Innovation Campuses would host activities across the nuclear fuel cycle, including fabrication, enrichment, reprocessing SNF, and disposition of waste. The proposed goals of the Innovation Campus RFI to co-locate functions across the nuclear fuel cycle leading to final disposition of waste resulted in several states expressing interest in hosting a site. In July 2026, DOE signed memoranda of understanding with Utah, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Idaho, and, in September, with West Virginia, expressing the shared intention of continuing to explore the opportunity to become a host state for an Innovation Campus. DOE plans to continue negotiating with the 6 states to try to reach hosting agreements for the Innovation Campuses.