National Radioactive Waste Coalition, written in 2021.
1. Stop Making Nuclear Waste
Nuclear Energy has created a vast Nuclear Waste Legacy which has contaminated and continues to contaminate our environment, threatening public health now and for many generations into the future. After more than 70 years, the nuclear industry and the government still have not developed a safe, equitable, and cost-effective way to prevent the adverse and intergenerational effects of nuclear waste. We cannot continue adding to this intractable problem; we must stop making nuclear waste by stopping/preventing new sources of nuclear waste and discontinuing existing sources.
2. Prioritize Human Health and Environmental Protection
Our country’s nuclear waste decision-making policy must protect public health and safety and the environment, not nuclear industry profits and subsidies. The foundations of nuclear waste policy must therefore be grounded in environmental and public health principles; racial, gender, and intergenerational justice and equity; sound science; and independent regulation and oversight.
3. Acknowledge and Combat Environmental Racism and Injustice
For decades, Indigenous peoples, communities of color, and working-class communities across our country have been forced to bear the burdens of the nuclear industry. Imposing these burdens on these communities is a result of systemic racism and environmental injustice. Nuclear waste policy must advance environmental justice and equity, honor tribal treaties, and protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
4. Stop Subsidizing the Sources of Nuclear Waste
We must stop subsidizing the private corporations that create nuclear waste and instead give communities the resources they need to address and remediate the adverse impacts caused by the waste. This is one of the most important means of dismantling the inequities that exist between the nuclear industry and the people who bear the burdens of nuclear waste.
5. Protect and Support Communities Already Adversely Affected
The nuclear industry has left communities across our country with economic dependence and generations of nuclear waste and no solutions for safe and effective treatment, transport, or storage. We must invest in solutions and provide direct resources to protect the communities that have already been asked to bear too much of the burden by storing the nuclear industry’s waste.