§10136 Participation of States

Summary

The Secretary must find which States have one or more "potentially acceptable" repository sites within 90 days after January 7, 1983, and then must tell each State’s Governor, its legislature, and any affected tribal council within 90 days after that finding. A "potentially acceptable site" means a place that has had geologic studies and field mapping and where the Department begins preliminary drilling and geophysical tests but before detailed data collection. When the President later recommends a site to Congress, the State’s Governor or legislature can send a written notice of disapproval to Congress within 60 days. If State law gives that power to some other official or body, that person or body may send the notice instead. Notices count on the day they are sent to the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate. The Governor’s or legislature’s disapproval right does not apply to sites on Indian reservations. Also, when the Secretary must notify or talk with a tribe about a site on a reservation, the Secretary must also notify or talk with the State Governor. The Secretary must give grants and technical help to the State of Nevada and affected local governments so they can take part, review impacts, do monitoring or testing, inform residents, and ask for impact help. Ordinary State salary or travel costs are not eligible. Assistance must start when site characterization begins. Nevada or a local government asks for help by sending a report on likely economic, social, health, safety, and environmental effects after getting the Secretary’s site plan. The Secretary should try to make a binding agreement on the amount and rules for assistance. Each year the Secretary must also pay Nevada and affected local governments an amount equal to what they would get if they could tax the site’s characterization, development, and operation; these payments continue until those activities stop. Grants under the first aid rule stop one year after the earliest of: the Secretary tells the State site characterization is ended, the Yucca Mountain site is disapproved, or the Commission denies a construction authorization. Assistance under the impact-mitigation rule stops if the Secretary ends characterization or a court permanently blocks activities. Two years after any license to receive and possess is effective in a State, federal funds under the first two aid rules generally end, except for limited support for other short-term repository matters, for agreements made during that two-year window, or for funds under subchapter IV agreements. All this money comes from the Waste Fund. No State except Nevada may get these financial benefits after December 22, 1987.