What Happened?

If you pay federal taxes, a nuclear waste cleanup effort that could cost up to $840 billion and run until 2100 is being slowed and made more expensive by overlapping laws and regulatory disputes, according to a Legis1 review of a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Oct. 16. ​

Much of the waste at Department of Energy (DOE) sites is "mixed waste," containing both radioactive and hazardous materials, and cleanup proceeds largely under three laws, each with different requirements and regulators. Most DOE cleanup sites were created during World War II and the Cold War to research and produce nuclear weapons, and DOE signed cleanup agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and states in the 1990s, before the full extent of contamination was known.

Why Does it Matter to Me?

DOE estimates the cleanup mission could run until 2100 and carry a price tag of $641 billion to $840 billion.

DOE has agreed to clean up large portions of some sites to residential standards even where no residential use is planned, without evaluating less stringent alternatives. Groundwater rules add further pressure, because the legal framework often requires cleanup to drinking-water standards even where future drinking-water use is considered unrealistic, and the standards for some contaminants rely on scientific information from the 1960s.

The Rocky Flats site in Colorado shows what a more realistic assumption can do: after Congress designated it a national wildlife refuge in 2001, the estimated cleanup cost fell from $23 billion to about $10 billion, a drop of roughly $13 billion, or about 57 percent.

Both Sides, Now

GAO found that experts said some states are taking legal and regulatory actions on radioactive waste that may exceed a state's authority, lengthening cleanup schedules and adding billions in federal costs. EPA officials told GAO that EPA currently lacks authority to challenge state actions that are at least as stringent as federal requirements.

Washington state sued over DOE's handling of mixed waste at the Hanford site, and in 2009 the Ninth Circuit affirmed that the state's hazardous-waste law could apply to mixed waste stored there, according to the Washington State Attorney General. Washington and federal agencies finalized a revised Hanford tank-waste cleanup agreement on Jan. 9, 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, Hanford Site. Congress has not passed legislation to resolve the underlying legal conflicts.

What Happens Next?

GAO directed six recommendations for executive action to DOE and EPA, all six of which remain open, covering steps such as evaluating cleanup costs under multiple land-use assumptions and establishing a joint interagency task force to resolve high-priority disputes.

GAO also sent three matters to Congress for consideration, including clarifying how much federal law limits state authority over radioactive waste and creating a process for DOE to appeal certain state requirements to EPA. All three congressional matters remain open.

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