Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act

Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act
Great Seal of the United States
Long title An Act to authorize the Secretary of Energy to enter into cooperative agreements with certain States respecting residual radioactive material at existing sites, to provide for the regulation of uranium mill tailings under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial) UMTRCA
Nicknames Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978
Enacted by the 95th United States Congress
Effective November 8, 1978
Citations
Public law 95-604
Statutes at Large 92 Stat. 3021
Codification
Titles amended 42 U.S.C.: Public Health and Social Welfare
U.S.C. sections created 42 U.S.C. ch. 88 § 7901 et seq.
Legislative history
Major amendments
  • Public Law 97-415, 96 Stat. 2067, subsection (e)(3) (1983)
  • Public Law 100-616, 102 Stat. 3192, subsection (a), section 8(b) (1988)
  • Public Law 102-486, 106 Stat. 2776, subsection (a) (1992)
  • Public Law 104-259, 110 Stat. 3173, subsection (a), subsection (d) (1996)
  • Public Law 106-398, 114 Stat. 1654, subsection (f) (2000)

The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act is a United States environmental law that amended the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to establish health and environmental standards for the stabilization, restoration, and disposal of uranium mill waste. Title 1 of the Act required the EPA to set environmental protection standards consistent with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, including groundwater protection limits; the Department of Energy to implement EPA standards and provide perpetual care for some sites; and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review cleanups and license sites to states or the DOE for perpetual care.[1] Title 1 established a uranium mill remedial action program jointly funded by the federal government and the state.[2] Title 1 of the Act also designated 22 inactive uranium mill sites for remediation, resulting in the containment of 40 million cubic yards of low-level radioactive material in UMTRCA Title 1 holding cells.[3]

Limitations

The act was written in the "hectic final days" of the 95th U.S. Congress and contained multiple errors that made it "a nightmare of statutory construction," and required remedial legislation to fix.[4] The act also perpetuated the "Agreement State" program, established in 1959, in which the Atomic Energy Commission gave regulatory authority of certain nuclear materials to states.[5] It was unclear how much regulatory power Agreement states actually had, and as a result these states took little regulatory action. Sites that were owned by the federal government, the NRC, or Agreement states were ineligible for remedial action under the UMTRCA as they were instead the responsibility of the government agencies who owned them.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Laws We Use (Summaries):1978 - Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act(42 USC 2022 et seq.), EPA, retrieved December 16, 2012
  2. ↑ Fact Sheet on Uranium Mill Tailings, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, retrieved December 16, 2012
  3. ↑ Regulatory Framework: UMTRCA Title I Disposal and Processing Sites, U.S. Department of Energy, retrieved December 16, 2012
  4. ↑ Grammer, Elisa J. (1981), "The Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act of 1978 and NRC's Agreement State Program", Natural Resources Lawyer, 13 (3): 469–522 [478], JSTOR 40922651
  5. ↑ Grammer 1981, pp. 478, 481.
  6. ↑ Grammer 1981, p. 481.
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