Program Profile
OCRWM Annual Report to Congress, FY 1996

OCRWM carries out its mission through two business centers and a management center. The business centers are the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office, located in Las Vegas, Nevada, which manages all work leading to licensing and operation of a geologic repository; and the Office of Waste Acceptance, Storage, and Transportation, located at OCRWM headquarters, which manages all work necessary to equip OCRWM with the capabilities needed to accept, store, and transport waste. The work of each of these offices is termed a project.

The program's management center, located at OCRWM headquarters, consists of the Office of Program Management and Administration and the Office of Quality Assurance.

OCRWM's full-time-equivalent staff numbers 203; of those, 103 are located at headquarters and 100 at the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office. An additional 22 are allocated to various DOE offices that provide matrix support to OCRWM. OCRWM purchases most of the broad array of technical services it needs from the private sector.

Funding for the program comes from two sources: nuclear utility ratepayers, who must cover the costs of disposing of spent fuel from civilian nuclear power plants, and taxpayers, who pay for the costs of disposing of defense wastes destined for disposal in the civilian repository. The Fiscal Year 1996 appropriation for OCRWM was $315 million; an additional $85 million was reserved by Congress for interim storage and was not available for expenditure during the fiscal year. The Fiscal Year 1997 appropriation is $382 million.

Location of civilian and defense wastes awaiting shipment to repository