The Way Forward on Nuclear Waste

Last week, I joined the New Mexico governor, congressional delegation members, the mayors of Carlsbad and Hobbs, citizens and a proud workforce in commemorating the reopening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant after a three-year shutdown because of an underground accident. The facility is the U.S.'s only geological repository for nuclear waste, such as plutonium-contaminated materials from the Department of Energy's national security complex. The lesson of this milestone is that a lot can be accomplished on addressing challenging nuclear issues when local, state and federal governments are aligned.

The 115 Congress is likely to also take up nuclear waste, specifically the disposal of highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants and high-level waste from the Cold War nuclear weapons program. The opportunity to move forward is real, but not if we continue to clash over policies and methods that have not worked for decades. Congress should look at the entire nuclear waste system and adopt an approach that emphasizes community and state buy-in and provides options for implementing a long-term program that will inevitably have technical and political surprises.