Nuclear Energy & Waste Disposal Law

Catalog description

Nuclear Energy and Waste Disposal Law provides an introduction to the basic concepts and mechanisms of the law governing the operation of nuclear power plants and nuclear waste storage and disposal in the United States. The course covers the history and evolution of the statutes, regulations, cases, policies, and procedures that control the “normal” as well as “abnormal” operation of the 104 existing U.S. nuclear reactors, including an examination of how the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the recent Fukushima nuclear disaster have altered the regulatory landscape. The course considers the future of U.S. nuclear power plants in a prospective “Nuclear Renaissance,” as well as the laws governing the ultimate decommissioning of America’s nuclear fleet. The course further probes, from a legal perspective, the question that has been plaguing the United States for decades and remains as-yet unanswered: what are we as a country ultimately going to do with all the radioactive waste? The course considers nuclear energy public policy perspectives as well as the relevance and interrelationship of other environmental statutes to the laws that control the operation of nuclear power plants and nuclear waste disposal, in order to provide overarching insights into the controlling legal framework.