IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/envpol/v8y2006i1d10.1007_bf03353992.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reconsidering the law and economics of low-level radioactive waste management

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Benjamin

    (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)

  • Jeffrey Wagner

    (Rochester Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Several countries are striving to ensure adequate long-run disposal space for low-level radioactive waste (LLRW). In the United States, the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980 and its 1985 amendments comprise a menu of incentives and penalties designed to motivate the construction of regional LLRW disposal facilities—the operating premise. Congress wished to intervene in the marketplace to bring about a more equitable solution to the LLRW management problem. Some investigators forewarned years ago that the federal law was both inefficient and inequitable. Additionally, however, the law has proved ineffectual, as only one new disposal facility has emerged and that one (at Clive, UT) was created outside of the federal incentive structure. This article (1) provides an argument as to why the LLRW Act of 1980 and its subsequent amendments failed to elicit the regional system of LLRW facilities it envisioned, and (2) complements this argument with a comprehensive model of LLRW management.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Benjamin & Jeffrey Wagner, 2006. "Reconsidering the law and economics of low-level radioactive waste management," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 8(1), pages 33-53, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:envpol:v:8:y:2006:i:1:d:10.1007_bf03353992
    DOI: 10.1007/BF03353992
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF03353992
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF03353992?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sigman, Hilary, 1996. "The Effects of Hazardous Waste Taxes on Waste Generation and Disposal," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 199-217, March.
    2. Dennis Coates & Victoria Heid & Michael Munger, 1994. "Not equitable, not efficient: U.S. policy on low-level radioactive waste disposal," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(3), pages 526-538.
    3. Walls, Margaret & Palmer, Karen, 2001. "Upstream Pollution, Downstream Waste Disposal, and the Design of Comprehensive Environmental Policies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 94-108, January.
    4. Helfand, Gloria E, 1991. "Standards versus Standards: The Effects of Different Pollution Restrictions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 622-634, June.
    5. Lejano, Raul P. & Davos, Climis A., 2002. "Fair Share: Siting Noxious Facilities as a Risk Distribution Game under Nontransferable Utility," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 251-266, March.
    6. Eichner, Thomas & Pethig, Rudiger, 2001. "Product Design and Efficient Management of Recycling and Waste Treatment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 109-134, January.
    7. Stephen K. Swallow & James J. Opaluch & Thomas F. Weaver, 1992. "Siting Noxious Facilities: An Approach That Integrates Technical, Economic, and Political Considerations," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 68(3), pages 283-301.
    8. Kunreuther, Howard & Easterling, Douglas, 1990. "Are Risk-Benefit Tradeoffs Possible in Siting Hazardous Facilities?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 252-256, May.
    9. Margaret Walls & Paul Calcott, 2000. "Can Downstream Waste Disposal Policies Encourage Upstream "Design for Environment"?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 233-237, May.
    10. Molly Macauley & Eduardo Ley & Stephen W. Salant, 2000. "Restricting the Trash Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 243-246, May.
    11. Gloria E. Helfand, 1994. "Pollution Prevention As Public Policy: An Assessment," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(4), pages 104-113, October.
    12. Minehart, Deborah & Neeman, Zvika, 2002. "Effective Siting of Waste Treatment Facilities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 303-324, March.
    13. Palmer, Karen & Sigman, Hilary & Walls, Margaret, 1997. "The Cost of Reducing Municipal Solid Waste," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 128-150, June.
    14. Choe, Chongwoo & Fraser, Iain, 1999. "An Economic Analysis of Household Waste Management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 234-246, September.
    15. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39, pages 137-137.
    16. Louberge, Henri & Villeneuve, Stephane & Chesney, Marc, 2002. "Long-term risk management of nuclear waste: a real options approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 157-180, November.
    17. Ley, Eduardo & Macauley, Molly K. & Salant, Stephen W., 2002. "Spatially and Intertemporally Efficient Waste Management: The Costs of Interstate Trade Restrictions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 188-218, March.
    18. Palmer, Karen & Walls, Margaret, 1997. "Optimal policies for solid waste disposal Taxes, subsidies, and standards," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 193-205, August.
    19. Cropper, M. L., 1980. "Pollution aspects of nuclear energy use," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 334-352, December.
    20. Opaluch James J. & Swallow Stephen K. & Weaver Thomas & Wessells Christopher W. & Wichelns Dennis, 1993. "Evaluating Impacts from Noxious Facilities: Including Public Preferences in Current Siting Mechanisms," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 41-59, January.
    21. Howard Kunreuther & Doug Easterling, 1996. "The role of compensation in siting hazardous facilities," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 601-622.
    22. Highfill, Jannett & McAsey, Michael, 1997. "Municipal Waste Management: Recycling and Landfill Space Constraints," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 118-136, January.
    23. Tawil, Natalie, 1999. "Flow Control and Rent Capture in Solid Waste Management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 183-201, March.
    24. Watabe, Akihiro, 1992. "On economic incentives for reducing hazardous waste generation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 154-160, September.
    25. Burness, H. Stuart, 1976. "On the taxation of nonreplenishable natural resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 289-311, December.
    26. Bruno S. Frey & Felix Oberholzer-Gee, 1996. "Fair siting procedures: An empirical analysis of their importance and characteristics," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(3), pages 353-376.
    27. Kunreuther, Howard & Kleindorfer, Paul & Knez, Peter J. & Yaksick, Rudy, 1987. "A compensation mechanism for siting noxious facilities: Theory and experimental design," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 371-383, December.
    28. Hilary A. Sigman, 1995. "A Comparison of Public Policies for Lead Recycling," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 26(3), pages 452-478, Autumn.
    29. Frey, Bruno S & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix & Eichenberger, Reiner, 1996. "The Old Lady Visits Your Backyard: A Tale of Morals and Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1297-1313, December.
    30. Sullivan, Arthur M., 1992. "Siting noxious facilities: A siting lottery with victim compensation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 360-374, May.
    31. Ready Mark J. & Ready Richard C., 1995. "Optimal Pricing of Depletable, Replaceable Resources: The Case of Landfill Tipping Fees," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 307-323, May.
    32. Gerard Gaudet & Michel Moreaux & Stephen W. Salant, 2001. "Intertemporal Depletion of Resource Sites by Spatially Distributed Users," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1149-1159, September.
    33. Jeffrey A. Krautkraemer, 1998. "Nonrenewable Resource Scarcity," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 2065-2107, December.
    34. Levinson, Arik, 1999. "NIMBY taxes matter: the case of state hazardous waste disposal taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 31-51, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kurita, Kenichi & Managi, Shunsuke, 2023. "New economic geography model with natural capital and migration congestion effect," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 635-641.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard Benjamin & Jeffrey Wagner, 2006. "Reconsidering the law and economics of low-level radioactive waste management," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 8(1), pages 33-53, December.
    2. Francisco J. André & Emilio Cerdá, 2005. "Gestión de residuos sólidos urbanos: Análisis económico y políticas públicas," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2005/23, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    3. Wagner, Jeffrey, 2011. "Incentivizing sustainable waste management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(4), pages 585-594, February.
    4. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:11:y:2005:i:1:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jeffrey Wagner & Gregory DeAngelo, 2005. "Characterizing regulation and negligence rule uncertainty in solid waste management," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 11(1), pages 1-11.
    6. Calcott, Paul & Walls, Margaret, 2005. "Waste, recycling, and "Design for Environment": Roles for markets and policy instruments," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 287-305, November.
    7. Acuff, Kaylee & Kaffine, Daniel T., 2013. "Greenhouse gas emissions, waste and recycling policy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 74-86.
    8. Numata, Daisuke, 2009. "Economic analysis of deposit–refund systems with measures for mitigating negative impacts on suppliers," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 199-207.
    9. Walls, Margaret, 2003. "The Role of Economics in Extended Producer Responsibility: Making Policy Choices and Setting Policy Goals," Discussion Papers 10855, Resources for the Future.
    10. Lafforgue, Gilles & Lorang, Etienne, 2022. "Recycling under environmental, climate and resource constraints," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Caplan, Arthur & Grijalva, Therese & Jackson-Smith, Douglas, 2007. "Using choice question formats to determine compensable values: The case of a landfill-siting process," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(4), pages 834-846, February.
    12. Walls, Margaret, 2011. "Deposit-Refund Systems in Practice and Theory," RFF Working Paper Series dp-11-47, Resources for the Future.
    13. Walls, Margaret & Calcott, Paul, 2000. "Policies to Encourage Recycling and "Design for Environment": What to Do When Markets are Missing," RFF Working Paper Series dp-00-30, Resources for the Future.
    14. Keith Waehrer, 2003. "Hazardous Facility Siting When Cost Information Is Private: An Application of Multidimensional Mechanism Design," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 5(4), pages 605-622, October.
    15. Eduardo Ley & Molly K. Macauley & Stephen W. Salant, "undated". "Spatially and intertemporally efficient waste management: The costs of interstate flow control," Working Papers 97-07, FEDEA.
    16. Fleckinger, Pierre & Glachant, Matthieu, 2010. "The organization of extended producer responsibility in waste policy with product differentiation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 57-66, January.
    17. Söderholm, Patrik, 2011. "Taxing virgin natural resources: Lessons from aggregates taxation in Europe," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 55(11), pages 911-922.
    18. Valentina Iafolla & Massimiliano Mazzanti & Francesco Nicolli, 2010. "Rifiuti generati, rifiuti in discarica ed efficacia delle politiche ambientali in Europa," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(2), pages 103-135.
    19. Özdemir, Öznur & Denizel, Meltem & Guide, V. Daniel R., 2012. "Recovery decisions of a producer in a legislative disposal fee environment," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 216(2), pages 293-300.
    20. M. Dubois & J. Eyckmans, 2015. "Efficient Waste Management Policies and Strategic Behavior with Open Borders," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(4), pages 907-923, December.
    21. Valentina Iafolla & Massimiliano Mazzanti & Francesco Nicolli, 2010. "Are You SURE You Want to Waste Policy Chances? Waste Generation, Landfill Diversion and Environmental Policy Effectiveness in the EU15," Working Papers 2010.77, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:envpol:v:8:y:2006:i:1:d:10.1007_bf03353992. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.