fed into the melter in the Vitrification Facility.

The Liquid

Waste Treatment System will be completed early in the year and used to treat low-level liquid wastes resulting from operation of the Supernatant Treatment System. Decontamination of needed hot cells will continue.

LOW-LEVEL WASTE MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

The Low-Level Waste Program provides assistance to States and regions in developing capacities for the disposal of low-level radioactive waste, in accordance with Public Law 99-240, the LowLevel Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985, enacted on January 15, 1986. This legislation has assigned individual States the responsibility for the disposal of low-level wastes generated within their borders, with the exception of waste generated as a result of certain Federal activities and civilian low-level waste exceeding the limits established by the NRC for Class C low-level waste. The formation of regional compacts to carry out this responsibility is encouraged by the Act. The goal of the Department's Low-Level Waste program is to assist States and regions in the development of an effective nationwide lowlevel waste management system. The Act has also assigned several new responsibilities to the Department in addition to providing assistance to States and compact regions.

During FY 1986, the Low-Level Waste Program will conduct the activities required in the Act and will focus primarily on meeting the generic technical needs of the States and compact regions as they work to select sites and develop new disposal facilities. Specifically, the Department plans to concentrate on assisting States and regions in evaluating alternative disposal technologies to those currently in practice at the currently operacing sites in Washington, South Carolina, and Nevada. The program will support the continued correction of problems and

stabilization efforts at disposal sites no longer in operation and will continue to provide an evaluation of innovative waste treatment methods to the private sector. DOE expects to finish development of the procedures that will be used to evaluate proposals for transfer of closed low-level waste sites to the Department under Section 151 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of

1982.

In FY 1987, the Low-Level Waste Program will continue to provide technical assistance to States and regions to support the selection and development of new low-level disposal facilities; support the correction of problems and stabilization at existing disposal sites; and complete an assessment of advanced, innovative methods for the treatment and disposal of low-level waste. The report identifying options for the Congress on disposing of greater-than-Class C low-level wastes will be completed by January 1987.

WASTE TREATMENT

The goal of the Waste Treatment Program over the past 5 years has been to develop and transfer technologies for the treatment and immobilization of nuclear wastes in forms acceptable for transportation, storage, and disposal. Efforts have been focused on determining the long-term reliability and maintaining the ability of a prototypical high-level waste treatment system, on testing and selecting acceptable high-level waste forms for storage or disposal, and on transferring treatment technologies to specific Departmental waste management programs such as the West Valley Demonstration Project.

In FY 1986 we will complete the second year of our efforts to determine the operational reliability, safety, and process control flexibility of the ceramic melter system for

solidification of high-level radioactive wastes and continue

collaborative programs with the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan on testing of a radioactive vitrification system.

In FY 1987, radioactive testing of the high-level waste

vitrification system at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory will be stopped unless individual users have a need for and fund

additional research and development work.

obtained in FY 1986 will be completed.

Reports on R&D results

BYPRODUCTS UTILIZATION

In the FY 1986 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act (Public Law 99-141), Congress provided resources for a civilian byproducts utilization program with a primary emphasis on food irradiation. We have proceeded--in cooperation with States, other Federal agencies, and private sector organizations--to develop plans and designs for establishing agricultural commodity irradiators in States selected on the basis of their needs and proximity to major agricultural production and processing centers. In anticipation of possible widespread use of food processing with irradiation, this program also focuses on developing an adequate U.S. based supply of radiation sources. Funding from the private sector will be sought for completion of these projects in future years, including FY 1987.

URANIUM ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES

The Department's FY 1987 budget request for the Uranium Enrichment program is approximately $1.05 billion in budget authority, which will be fully offset by $1.29 billion in projected revenues. In addition, DOE proposes to return $235 million to the Treasury as a part of the repayment of prior Government investment in the uranium enrichment enterprise.

The funds requested are distributed among the major elements of the program as follows:

Revenues in excess of outlays of approximately $110 million will accrue to the Treasury in FY 1986.

OVERVIEW

During this period the program

The next 2 years will be a key time period for the uranium enrichment enterprise. restructuring which began in 1984 will continue. In the last 2 fiscal years, significant progress has been made in redirecting the enterprise to help assure its competitiveness and long-term viability in the international marketplace. Supply and demand have been stabilized by issuing the Utility Services (US) contracts and by very successfully converting existing customers to the new contracts. Having defined the customer demand that must be met through the conversions to the US contracts, the Department then developed appropriate production and R&D strategies to meet that demand and announced those decisions in

June 1985.

Through revision of the Uranium Enrichment Services Criteria, the ground rules under which the enterprise will operate in the future will be refined. The Department will initiate payments to the Treasury in recovery of prior unrecovered costs.

A new initiative now under review is an effort to transfer future development and ultimate deployment of the AVLIS technology to

the private sector. The areas in which the private sector can

most beneficially be involved in the enterprise will be

evaluated. At a minimum, it is hoped that the private sector will be interested in deploying the AVLIS technology. This advanced method of enriching uranium holds significant technical and economic potential for the United States and should provide the type of challenge which the private sector has demonstrated its capability to meet. In that light, the Department will initiate later this year an industrial access program to allow qualified U.S. firms to become familiar with the AVLIS technology so that there is an assured industrial base to deploy the technology in the future.

We believe the prospects for a bright future for uranium enrichment in the United States continue to improve. It is clear that the changes made the last few years were necessary. The enterprise is becoming much more cost competitive in operating. the existing gaseous diffusion plants and is continuing the development of the world's most advanced enrichment technology for the future. However, there is more to be done. In FY 1987, the Department will develop the institutional framework that will assure that the Nation continues to have a reliable supply of enrichment services for the long term. We must continue to pursue vigorously a restructuring of the enterprise and the involvement of the private sector to assure that the optimum benefits of the strategy on which we embarked several years ago are achieved. A brief review of the elements of that strategy

follows.

OBJECTIVES

Our primary objective is to retain a competitive, financially healthy uranium enrichment supply capability in the U.S. for the long term consistent with the Atomic Energy Act, other legal requirements, and the interests of the Nation.