Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 10:29AM Nuclear News
A photo from inside the AX-101 underground waste tank at the DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington. (Photo: DOE)
A clearer definition of what constitutes high-level radioactive waste could save the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management “tens of billions of dollars” in waste management costs and accelerate its cleanup schedule by decades, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
DOE-EM’s efforts to manage waste resulting from legacy spent nuclear fuel reprocessing have been hindered for decades by the ambiguity of the statutory definition of HLW as laid out in the Atomic Energy Act and Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the report states. While admitting that the DOE has taken steps to overcome this ambiguity, the GAO says that the department has not fully evaluated all available opportunities to treat and dispose of waste more economically as either transuranic or low-level radioactive waste.
“By systematically evaluating these opportunities and pursuing them to the maximum extent possible, [DOE-EM] could accelerate its cleanup mission and save at least tens of billions of dollars,” the GAO report says.
The report, Nuclear Waste Cleanup: Clarifying Definition of High-Level Radioactive Waste Could Help DOE Save Tens of Billions of Dollars (GAO-26-108018), was published on March 25.
Recommendations: Acknowledging the complexity of the issue and the implications that revising the statutory definition of HLW could have, the GAO suggests that Congress consider convening a panel of experts to recommend specific revisions to the HLW definition to address any ambiguities.
The GAO is also recommending a Blue Ribbon Commission comprising a group of relevant experts from, for example, key agencies, industry, and academia who could develop and recommend specific revisions to the definition of HLW in the AEA and NWPA and report these recommendations to Congress within 12 months.
The GAO also recommends that DOE-EM “systematically evaluate opportunities to treat and dispose of certain waste associated with reprocessing as something other than HLW and communicate to Congress regarding its efforts to implement these opportunities as well as actions Congress can take to minimize or eliminate any barriers impeding [DOE-EM’s] ability to pursue them.”
In response to the report, the DOE agreed with the GAO’s recommendations.
The tools at hand: The GAO report notes that DOE-EM has three main classification tools it can use to determine that certain waste associated with reprocessing is not HLW:
- The Waste Incidental to Reprocessing evaluation, as outlined in DOE Manual 435.1-1.
- Section 3116 of the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2005.
- The DOE’s 2019 HLW interpretation, which was incorporated into DOE Manual 435.1-1.
“While the tools provide [DOE-EM] with formal requirements and a process for clarifying which waste is not HLW and may be safely treated and disposed of as non-HLW, the three tools have shortcomings that impede [DOE-EM’s] ability to progress with its cleanup of certain waste streams,” the report states.
Specifically, the GAO finds that the three classification tools do not provide a consistent radioactive threshold at which waste is considered HLW; do not fully apply at the DOE sites involved in cleaning up reprocessing waste (the Hanford and Savannah River Sites, Idaho National Laboratory, and the West Valley Demonstration Project); and can be an expensive and extensive process to use, leading to delays.
In addition, the GAO report states that the lack of clarity in the definition of HLW has left DOE-EM vulnerable to lawsuits when applying the classification tools. This includes risks posed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling overturning the Chevron doctrine. That decision may put the department in greater litigation risk, as courts may no longer defer to the DOE’s interpretation of the AEA and NWPA regarding what constitutes HLW, simply because the law is ambiguous.
