SECTION 180(C) IMPLEMENTATION Of the major transportation institutional issues, OCRWM has made the most progress in resolving the issue of assistance to states and tribes. Required by Congress in Section 180(c) of the NWPA, OCRWM must provide financial and technical assistance to states and tribes that will be affected by shipments to NWPA facilities. The assistance is intended to help states and tribes train local public safety officials. After a rough start in the mid-1990s to develop a policy for implementing Section 180(c), OCRWM revised its approach in 2004 and worked instead through the TEC/WG to modify the original proposal in a way that met the needs of the states and tribes. The program had been looking ahead to pilot testing the procedures when the Yucca Mountain program was terminated. While the effort to resolve the issue of Section 180(c) assistance fell short of getting 100 percent agreement on aspects of the policy and procedures, the example still stands as a model for resolving other significant institutional issues. The NWPA as originally passed did not include any provision for preparing the communities along the shipping routes to handle emergencies involving shipments of spent fuel or high-level waste. Congress corrected this oversight in the 1987 amendments to the act with the inclusion of Section 180(c): “The Secretary [of Energy] shall provide technical assistance and funds to States for training for public safety officials of appropriate units of local government and Indian Tribes through whose jurisdiction the Secretary plans to transport spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive waste [to facilities authorized by the NWPA]. Training shall cover procedures required for safe routine transportation of these materials, as well as procedures for dealing with emergency response situations” (NWPA, as amended, Section 180(c)). The Nuclear Waste Fund would be the source of funding for this assistance. Following the passage of the amendments act, OCRWM moved fairly swiftly to develop its program for implementing Section 180(c), developing a preliminary strategy in 1989-91 and publishing a draft for comment in January 1992 (DOE 1992b, p. 5). An original “rough outline” of the strategy was developed in cooperation with several cooperative-agreement groups, including the three regional groups that had been organized by that time (WIEB, SSEB, and CSG Midwest) (ibid., p. 7). OCRWM published the final strategy in November 1992 after public comments were received. In the strategy document, OCRWM committed to an “interactive process” for “resolving planning issues to provide a viable training assistance program strategy” (ibid., p. 6). The program cited the Transportation Institutional Plan as laying the foundation for “issue discussion and resolution processes” that informed the 180(c) strategy, particularly with regard to emergency response and inspection/enforcement. OCRWM observed that, with the passage of the NWPA amendments, “the commitments OCRWM had initiated regarding emergency response, inspection, and enforcement became mandates” (ibid.).
The strategy document described the issue-resolution process OCRWM intended to follow. Notably, the report identified the newly organized TEC/WG as “an ideal forum for predecisional input on implementing Section 180(c)” (ibid., p. 7). The report stated that the TEC/WG would “be an active partner in developing the Section 180(c) program” by providing “a forum for review and comment on component documents” (ibid., p. 8). Furthermore, the report stated that “Working group members may be asked to contribute to sections of the implementation plan where their expertise would be helpful, particularly in balancing training needs with existing training assistance” (ibid.). OCRWM’s plan for implementing Section 180(c) included developing a policy options paper, a policy statement, and an implementation plan. Throughout the entire process, OCRWM intended to work “in consultation with participating States and Indian Tribes,”making use of Transportation Coordination Group meetings, TEC/WG meetings, and workshops to solicit input (ibid., pp. 8, 10). Once these documents were complete, OCRWM would “publish a notice of proposed rulemaking embodying the draft policy statement and a discussion of the proposed implementation plan” (ibid., p. 8). Following a comment period, OCRWM would “issue the final rule,” following which the final step would be “to implement training assistance” (ibid.). OCRWM envisioned a phased approach to rolling out Section 180(c) assistance, going from program start-up to ramp-up as the transportation system moved to full-scale implementation (ibid., p. 12). The third phase would be ongoing monitoring and retraining. Regarding the latter, OCRWM noted the “rapid turn-over rate of State, Tribal, and local emergency response and transportation regulatory personnel” as a reason to plan for retraining. The program committed to accommodating the states’ and tribes’ “need for resources…to retrain” (ibid.). The approach was timed so that OCRWM would be able to implement Section 180(c) “for shipments to an MRS facility in 1998” (DOE 1991, p. 117). Assistance would begin early in 1995, with retraining starting up in mid-1996 (DOE 1992b, p. 5). Shortly after publishing the strategy document, OCRWM released its preliminary draft paper “Options for Providing Technical Assistance and Funding Under Section 180(c) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as Amended.” The executive summary of the paper noted that “many options are available for providing funds and technical assistance,” and that “[a]ny reasonable decision by OCRWM could be supported under the provisions of 180(c)” (DOE 1992, p. v). The paper cited “the NWPA’s emphasis on consultation and cooperation [and] OCRWM’s commitments in the Strategy document” as reasons for the program to seek comments from “the various groups that have been contributing to issue discussion and resolution” (ibid.). The paper presented five groups of options for providing the funding: • Use established Federal agency programs other than DOE; • Establish agreements with State, Tribal, and other organizations; • Establish a DOE grant program; • Establish an OCRWM grant program; and
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