Upon enactment of legislation to implement an agreement to site a repository negotiated under section 10243(a) of this title, the Secretary shall conduct appropriate site characterization activities for the site that is the subject of such agreement subject to the conditions and terms of such agreement. Any such site characterization activities shall be conducted in accordance with section 10133 of this title, except that references in such section to the Yucca Mountain site and the State of Nevada shall be deemed to refer to the site that is the subject of the agreement and the State or Indian tribe entering into the agreement.
42 U.S.C. § 10245
EDITORIAL NOTES
CODIFICATION Pub. L. 100-202 and Pub. L. 100-203 added identical sections.
- Commission
- The term "Commission" means the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
- Indian tribe
- The term "Indian tribe" means any Indian tribe, band, nation, or other organized group or community of Indians recognized as eligible for the services provided to Indians by the Secretary of the Interior because of their status as Indians, including any Alaska Native village, as defined in section 3(c) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (43 U.S.C. 1602(c)).
- Secretary
- The term "Secretary" means the Secretary of Energy.
- State
- The term "State" means each of the several States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and any other territory or possession of the United States.
- Yucca Mountain site
- The term "Yucca Mountain site" means the candidate site in the State of Nevada recommended by the Secretary to the President under section 10132(b)(1)(B) of this title on May 27, 1986.
- monitored retrievable storage facility
- The term "monitored retrievable storage facility" means the storage facility described in section 10161(b)(1) of this title.1So in original. The semicolon probably should be a period.2See References in Text note below.
- repository
- The term "repository" means any system licensed by the Commission that is intended to be used for, or may be used for, the permanent deep geologic disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel, whether or not such system is designed to permit the recovery, for a limited period during initial operation, of any materials placed in such system. Such term includes both surface and subsurface areas at which high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel handling activities are conducted.
- site characterization
- The term "site characterization" means-(A) siting research activities with respect to a test and evaluation facility at a candidate site; and(B) activities, whether in the laboratory or in the field, undertaken to establish the geologic condition and the ranges of the parameters of a candidate site relevant to the location of a repository, including borings, surface excavations, excavations of exploratory shafts, limited subsurface lateral excavations and borings, and in situ testing needed to evaluate the suitability of a candidate site for the location of a repository, but not including preliminary borings and geophysical testing needed to assess whether site characterization should be undertaken.