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yescnmng n as "one ot the most serious challenges facing the nation,” Sen. John Warner (R-VA) recently introduced legislation to establish a coordinated federal policy to safely dispose of and store the nation’s high-level radioactive waste.
“It is a fact that we have reached a critical point in our nation’s nuclear waste program,” said Sen. Warner in introducing the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Mission Plan Amendment Act of 1987. “Unless Congress takes positive action to give new direction to the Department of Energy, I believe we will create a threat to public safety.”
Sen. Warner’s legislation embodies the Department of Energy’s decisions contained in the January 1987 Draft Amendment to the Mission Plan for the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program. Specifically, the legislation will:
• Establish a realistic schedule to bring the first high-level radioactive repository and a monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility into operation;
• Revise the schedule for a second high-level repository to reflect the additional information that has become available since the program started;
• Relieve the Secretary of Energy of the obligation to renew specific siting work on a second repository if he provides information to Congress supporting his decision.
Sen. Warner said the effect of the legislation for Virginia would be that the Department of Energy would delay conducting further evaluation of a second waste repository site untO the mid to late 1990s. “At that time, the Secretary of Energy can continue to postpone the search for a second °'te if there is no need for one. Without this legis- i lation, the Department will renew , the search for a second site where it < left off before the May 28, 1986, <
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