GAO: ACCESS TO CLASSIFIED STUDIES NEEDED TO AID IN NRC’S SPENT FUEL DECISIONMAKING

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must create an agency-wide mechanism to search classified studies, as they may be pivotal to aid in major agency decisions regarding managing spent nuclear fuel before a permanent disposal solution is found, the Government Accountability Office said in a report issued Sept. 13. Because the NRC cannot easily access classified studies on the risk of a fire of spent fuel pool, it may not be capable of making the best interim decisions, including on the necessity of accelerating the movement of spent fuel from wet to dry storage, GAO said. “Because a decision on a permanent means of disposing of spent fuel may not be made for years, NRC officials and others may need to make interim decisions, which could be informed by past studies on stored spent fuel,” the report states. “In response to GAO requests, however, NRC could not easily identify, locate, or access studies it had conducted or commissioned because it does not have an agencywide mechanism to ensure that it can identify and locate such classified studies. As a result, GAO had to take a number of steps to identify pertinent studies, including interviewing numerous officials.” The full report is available here.