From the Director
OCRWM Annual Report to Congress, FY 1996

Congressional direction accompanying the Fiscal Year 1996 appropriation provided that we concentrate the work at Yucca Mountain on the most significant outstanding technical and engineering issues and defer licensing activities, as required by the funding constraint. A revised draft Program Plan implementing that direction and the reduced budget was released in May 1996. Its essential purpose was to allow us to manage the unanticipated Fiscal Year 1996 funding reduction and to regain a strategy that is consistent with the intent of the program's enabling legislation, the Administration's policy for the program, and the realities of the budget. The revised plan draws upon the knowledge gained through scientific investigations and engineering design activities to update the technical and regulatory elements of our site characterization program. It defines three near-term objectives designed to maintain momentum toward a national decision on geologic disposal at the Yucca Mountain site:

• complete a viability assessment of the Yucca Mountain site in Fiscal Year 1998;
• update the regulatory framework in Fiscal Year 1997 for evaluating the suitability of Yucca Mountain to focus on safety and environmental performance and to eliminate redundant activities; and
• if the site is subsequently determined to be suitable, recommend it to the President as the repository site in 2001, and submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2002.

The revised plan will allow us to prepare a license application for about $1 billion less than the December 1994 Program Plan required.

As the Program Plan was being revised in early 1996, there was considerable uncertainty concerning the extent of Fiscal Year 1996 termination costs. For this reason it was not certain whether the work planned for that fiscal year could, in fact, be carried out. It was also unclear, at that time, what funding level the program would receive in Fiscal Year 1997.

The Fiscal Year 1997 appropriation for the program is consistent with the funding levels used as a planning basis in the revised Program Plan, and the Conference Report accompanying the Fiscal Year 1997 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act included language directing that Fiscal Year 1997 appropriated funds be expended in accordance with the revised Program Plan.

Despite the severe Fiscal Year 1996 budget reduction, the program maintained significant progress toward key long-term goals. All major milestones for 1996 that were identified in the revised Program Plan have been completed. This was accomplished by building on the momentum generated in Fiscal Year 1995 and implementing the revised program strategy, which concentrates resources on core scientific and technical activities and further streamlines program management.

At Yucca Mountain, although funding cuts precluded optimizing our activity and slowed our progress somewhat, construction of the underground Exploratory Studies Facility proceeded ahead of schedule. By the end of Fiscal Year 1996, the Tunnel Boring Machine had excavated over 4 of the 5 miles of the tunnel's main loop. Scientists continued direct observation and testing of the repository environment and its response to construction activities. In keeping with congressional direction, and based on our enhanced understanding of the site and geologic disposal, we issued a proposal in December 1996 to simplify and update our repository siting guidelines.

Advances in design work, site investigations, and repository performance assessment helped us prepare for the site viability assessment we will complete in 1998. The viability assessment is not a substitute for the site recommendation in 2001, but it will serve as an invaluable management tool by focusing the final years of site investigation and facility design on key tasks and unresolved issues. It will also serve as a major informational input to the policy process, and it will give all parties a common frame of reference for evaluating our findings.

We altered our approach to the interim management of spent fuel to adopt a market-driven strategy that relies on competitive procurements to acquire waste acceptance, storage, and transportation services, and we sought comments from interested parties on this strategy. We also explored design concepts for an interim storage facility. In conformance with the Administration's policy that any decision on an interim storage facility be informed by the viability assessment at Yucca Mountain, this work involves only a generic interim storage facility that could be adapted to any site.

In our revised Program Plan, we have begun to accommodate the significant changes that are needed to focus the activities and maintain the momentum of the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project. If there is an aspect of the Yucca Mountain site that contradicts our expectations about the performance of a repository at the site, we are likely to discover it by 1998 through the work performed for the viability assessment. If there are shortcomings in the available technologies or in our ability to implement the repository design concepts, they will be evident by then. With adequate funding and an updated regulatory process, we are confident that, if the site is suitable, we can meet our target date for submittal of a license application.