West Virginia has called for clarity over funding after the state joined five others interested in hosting one of the US Department of Energy’s nuclear Iifecycle innovation campuses (NLICs), which are meant in part to establish long-term waste disposal sites.

The state has signed up – along with Tennessee, Utah, Louisiana, Idaho and Oklahoma – to potentially to host a campus that would serve as a spent nuclear fuel disposal site as well as delivering uranium enrichment, reprocessing and fuel fabrication.

Speaking as chair of the Senate environment and public works committee at a hearing to examine US nuclear waste policy, Republican Shelley Moore Capito, who represents West Virginia, said the idea of the innovation campuses was a “good starter”, but reminded members that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act signed in 1982 would need to be updated.