New agency to control of US nuclear waste under Senate bill

Four senior US senators on Thursday released draft legislation to deal with nuclear waste now languishing at nuclear power plants around the country.

The bill would create a new federal agency for the task of disposing of that waste, give the new agency direct access to hundreds of millions of dollars in collected waste fees, and allow an interim storage facility to be built before a permanent site is chosen.

Differences over whether a consolidated interim storage site for commercial and defense nuclear waste can be built before a permanent repository is chosen have been a key hurdle to previous legislation.