Home > Radioactive Waste > High-Level Waste Disposal > Regulations, Guidance, and Communications

High-Level Waste Disposal Regulations, Guidance, and Communications

On this page:

• Regulations
• Guidance
• Communications

Regulations

NRC’s regulations are found in Chapter I of Title 10, "Energy," of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Chapter I is divided into Parts 1 through 199. Part 60 is the principal part that governs disposal of high-level radioactive waste in geologic repositories. Part 63 is the site specific regulation that governs disposal of high-level radioactive waste in a potential geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Further information on the regulatory framework specific to Yucca Mountain is available.

The NRC Regulatory Agenda ( NUREG-0936) is a semiannual compilation of brief descriptions of all rulemaking actions. Through the NRC Rulemaking Forum, you may view and comment on proposed rulemakings and petitions for rulemaking. You may view final rules at this site for 90 days after they are published in the Federal Register .

Guidance

Guidance documents that may be useful to stakeholders are:

• Branch Technical Position on the Use of Expert Elicitation in the High-Level Radioactive Waste Program (NUREG-1563)

NRC is preparing extensive regulatory guidance associated with the disposal of high-level waste. When completed these guidance documents will be listed here.

Web (HTML) versions of some guidance documents are available in our NRC Formal Publication Collection. Some are also are available in ADAMS (see our table listing their availability).

Communications

Generic Communications are NRC's primary method of sending information to specific classes of licensees. There are several types:

• administrative letters
• bulletins
• information notices
• generic letters
• regulatory issue summaries

At this time there are no communications relevant to high-level waste disposal.