Why Biden should designate a nuclear waste negotiator An Atlas railcar carrying test weights on a test track. The US Energy Department is developing special railcars to transport casks of spent nuclear fuel to storage sites. Credit: Energy Department (Editor’s Note: This Opinion piece is being published as a companion article to the essays in the January issue of our magazine, on “Advice to the Next President.”) When President-elect Joe Biden comes to office, there will be a window of opportunity for the United States to make real progress on the management and disposition of nuclear waste. Once envisioned as a permanent waste storage site but now abandoned by both parties, Yucca Mountain is no longer a political lightning rod. And if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grants licenses to one or more proposed interim storage sites in 2021, as seems likely, opponents of those sites will probably call for federal action on the many unaddressed issues associated with interim storage.