Public Input Essential in Nuclear Waste Storage

April 13, 2022

The United States continues to wrestle with how to permanently store radioactive waste generated at nuclear power plants. Efforts are now aimed at building interim storage facilities that can handle waste currently dispersed at dozens of locations, the Washington Post reports. For such a stopgap approach to be fair, Başak Saraç-Lesavre argues in Issues, the public must be closely involved in deciding whether and where to site nuclear waste facilities. The government is moving in this direction, the Post notes. The goal, Saraç-Lesavre writes, should be “a political process that can put the decision back where it belongs: with the consent of the governed.”