Strategic planning for transportation under the NWPA

This paper reports that the western states have found strategic planning to be an effective approach for identifying activities, and the appropriate sequencing of activities, that should be undertaken in the development of a transportation system for shipping high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel to a repository or monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facility. The Western Interstate Energy Board's High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee works with the U.S. Department of Energy pursuant to a cooperative agreement on the development of a safe, publicly-acceptable transportation system. The Committee has developed a Strategic Plan and Schedule which: guides the scheduling and prioritization of the Committee's work; enhances understanding of the complex and interrelated activities that states believe should be undertaken in developing a transportation system for high-level radioactive materials; and provides states with an appropriate structure for evaluating DOE's responsiveness to state needs