The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (2012 Final Report) is a federal advisory report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy. The Commission was created by the President to study the nation’s long-standing failure to develop a workable system for managing spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, following the Yucca Mountain project’s stall.
The report is not tied to any specific site. Instead, it offers a comprehensive national strategy for nuclear waste management that covers storage, transportation, disposal, and federal oversight.
This document is not a law or regulation. It has no direct legal force, but it plays an influential role in shaping federal policy.
- It provides formal recommendations to Congress and federal agencies on how to change existing nuclear waste laws and programs.
- It proposes a shift to a “consent-based siting” process, meaning communities, states, and tribes would have a meaningful role and potentially binding agreements in deciding whether to host nuclear waste facilities.
- It recommends creating a new federal organization to manage nuclear waste, separate from the Department of Energy, and ensuring access to dedicated funding.
- It calls for the development of both interim storage sites and permanent deep geological repositories, forming the basis for many current federal initiatives.
