As directed by Congress the Department of Energy (DOE) is conducting more than 10 years of extensive scientific studies - called site characterization - at Yucca Mountain. The site characterization activities include surface-based tests which include analyzing rock, soil samples, and water movement; subsurface tests which include the exploratory studies facility, and laboratory tests which include analyzing rock, liquid and gas samples.

Last year the Presidentially appointed and independent Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) reported they were impressed with the science being conducted at the site and with the progress being made in the exploratory studies facility (ESF).

Currently DOE is developing a viability assessment of Yucca Mountain to be finalized in 1998. This assessment will consist of repository and spent fuel package designs; an evaluation of the probable performance of the system on natural and engineered barriers; a plan and cost estimate to complete the additional technical work needed to prepare a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and an estimate of the costs to construct and operate a repository using the above mentioned designs.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established the Federal government's responsibility to provide for the permanent disposal of the nation's spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from national defense facilities and then directed that the generators and owners of these wastes be responsible for the costs of their management and disposal.

The nation's nuclear utilities have committed more than $12 billion to the Nuclear Waste Fund which pays for the Yucca Mountain program.

In 1974, the federal government began a search for possible permanent repository sites, beginning with a survey of underground rock formations in 36 states.

In February 1983, following passage of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, DOE formally identified nine potentially acceptable sites. The Yucca Mountain Project started in 1977 when DOE began evaluating the possibility of disposing of radioactive wastes in a geologic repository at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Over the next two years, DOE investigated a number of sites near the NTS and decided to concentrate exploration efforts on the tuffs of Yucca Mountain.

In 1984, in compliance with the Act, DOE reduced the number of sites to five. In 1986, the president approved a reduction to three sites for detailed site characterization. The Act was amended in 1987 to focus the site characterization efforts only at Yucca Mountain. The majority of the scientific community felt Yucca Mountain was the best site because it was the only site where the repository would be in the unsaturated zone.

In 1992, a report from the National Academy of Sciences noted that most countries have concluded that the best means of long-term disposal of high-level radioactive waste is deep geological emplacement, always including some form of engineered containment or encapsulation and generally with some limited retrieval capability, at least initially.