A new model for understanding the public

Progress in siting waste facilities has been impeded by a too-limited understanding of what the public wants. National and statewide surveys sponsored by the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness and others on both high-level and low-level radioactive waste reveal a new, more comprehensive model for assessing public opinion. These surveys by independent research firms -- Market Strategies, Gordon S. Black, Tarrance, and Bruskin/Goldring -- have a margin of error of +3% for national polls and +4% for statewide polls. The old model assumes that because people fear radioactive waste, support for building waste facilities is politically risky. The new model shows that fear of radioactive waste is an important dynamic, but reaches a different conclusion about the public's sense of generational responsibility. Because people see waste as dangerous, most support the principle of transporting the waste to a permanent disposal facility instead of keeping the waste stored at many different sites. Most want to keep the uses of radioactive materials that produce waste -- including nuclear energy. They strongly believe that disposing of radioactive waste now instead of leaving it for future generations is the environmentally responsible thing to do