§10101 Definitions

Summary

Defines the main words used in the chapter about handling, storing, and disposing of radioactive materials. It names people, places, kinds of waste, and the work done to study or manage sites. Administrator — the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Affected Indian tribe — a tribe on a reservation where a storage or repository is proposed, or a tribe whose treaty-based land use outside the reservation could be badly affected, if the Interior Secretary finds that is true. Atomic energy defense activity — defense-related energy work, such as naval reactors, weapons work (including defense inertial confinement fusion), verification and control technology, defense nuclear materials production, defense nuclear waste and by-products management, security and safeguards work, and defense research and development. Candidate site — an area being recommended, approved, or studied as a possible repository. Civilian nuclear activity — any atomic energy work that is not defense-related. Civilian nuclear power reactor — a civilian nuclear power plant that needs a license. Commission — the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Department — the Department of Energy. Disposal — putting high-level waste, spent fuel, or other very radioactive material into a repository with no plan to recover it. Disposal package/package — the main container holding solidified high-level waste, spent fuel, or other radioactive material, and any overpacks used. Engineered barriers — manmade parts of a disposal system meant to stop radioactive releases, like the waste form and canisters and materials around them. High-level radioactive waste — very radioactive material from reprocessing spent fuel and any other very radioactive material the Commission says needs permanent isolation. Federal agency — any Executive agency of the federal government. Governor — the chief executive of a State. Indian tribe — any tribe recognized by the Secretary of the Interior as eligible for services, including Alaska Native villages. Low-level radioactive waste — radioactive material that is not high-level waste, spent fuel, transuranic waste, or certain by-product material, and that the Commission classifies as low-level. Office — the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Repository — any system the Commission licenses for deep geologic disposal of high-level waste and spent fuel, including surface and underground handling areas, and which may allow limited recovery early on. Reservation — an Indian reservation or dependent Indian community, or land selected by an Alaska Native village under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Secretary — the Secretary of Energy. Site characterization — lab and field work (borings, excavations, shafts, tests) to learn a site’s geology and parameters for a possible repository, not including preliminary tests to decide whether to start. Siting research — similar borings and excavations done to test a site for a test and evaluation facility. Spent nuclear fuel — fuel taken out of a reactor after use that has not been reprocessed. State — each State, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and any other U.S. territory or possession. Storage — keeping high-level waste, spent fuel, or transuranic waste with the intent to recover it later. Storage Fund — the Interim Storage Fund created by the law. Test and evaluation facility — a deep underground prototype chamber with lateral excavations used for research on handling and disposing of solidified high-level waste, transuranic waste, or spent fuel. Unit of general local government — a borough, city, county, parish, town, township, village, or similar local government unit. Waste Fund — the Nuclear Waste Fund created by the law. Yucca Mountain site — the candidate site in Nevada recommended to the President on May 27, 1986. Affected unit of local government — the local government that has jurisdiction over a repository or monitored storage site, and possibly neighboring local governments at the Secretary’s discretion. Negotiator — the Nuclear Waste Negotiator. In subchapter IV, Office — the Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator. Monitored retrievable storage facility — the type of storage facility described elsewhere in the law.