Published January 27, 2025
By Christine Reed
Scarlett Forrest, an assistant research scientist in the School of Energy Resources (SER) recently published an article in the Journal of the Texas State Bar Section of Oil, Gas, and Energy Resources Law (OGERL) exploring the legal implications of consolidated interim storage facilities for nuclear waste.
The article, “Should the U.S. Wait to Consolidate? Recent Legal Developments Regarding the Interim Storage of Nuclear Waste,” appears in the winter edition of the journal alongside seven other articles on small modular reactors, related nuclear topics, and Wyoming-specific content.
Recognizing that the United States has historically struggled with the issue of storing nuclear waste, the article provides a status update and legal analysis on the presently evolving federal laws and regulations governing the interim storage of nuclear waste.
“There are currently a lot of technical, regulatory, and political challenges for when it comes to storing spent fuel safely,” says Forrest. “A permanent repository does not exist in the U.S. and there are no consolidated interim storage facilities so nuclear power plants must indefinitely store their spent fuel onsite and there are a lot of questions about where we go next. We really wanted to examine the current activities in the legal and regulatory sphere and then look at the ongoing litigation and what that means for the future of spent fuel storage.”
Following a thorough examination of the historical and political context surrounding spent fuel, the paper concludes that the current discourse and pending legal cases before the U.S. Supreme Court will have major implications for the future of spent fuel and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ability to determine licensing for interim storage facilities.
Additionally, the paper stresses that a consent-based siting process remains a critical piece of the equation no matter the outcome in the legal system.
Based in the Jurisprudence of Underground Law and Energy (JOULE) research group at SER, Forrest is an attorney with experience working on energy and environmental remediation projects and provides regulatory and legal research support on a number of grants. The group conducts innovative legal research that advances the understanding of the rules and relationships governing the use of the subsurface and development of energy and natural resources.
“Scarlett is really exploring a new area of the law,” says JOULE Associate Research Scientist Madeleine Lewis. “Her article speaks to the need for interim storage and does so in the context of a recent Supreme Court case that very few scholars have yet to explore.”
To download a 2-page brief, as well as the entire report, visit https://www.uwyo.edu/ser/research/centers-of-excellence/jurisprudence-of-underground-law-energy/index.html
