Public And State Responses To High-Level Nuclear Waste Disposal: Learning From Policy Failure

Nuclear waste policy in the United States has jailed in large part because of public and state opposition to repository siting. However, that outcome was not inevitable. This paver argues that better policy design and greater attention to the crucial tasks of policy legitimation both by the U.S. Congress and by the Department of Energy might have significantly increased the chances for successful implementation. Even though the program now has a highly uncertain future, suggestions are offered for policy learning and change that may increase the probability of success. Copyright 1991 by The Policy Studies Organization.