US congress has confirmed its broad support for the creation of nuclear lifecycle innovation campuses aimed in part at tackling the country’s growing spent fuel problem, while expressing the need to find both public and private backing for them.

At a House of Representatives committee on energy and commerce hearing to discuss the creation of the campuses, chairman Bob Latta said the US needed to act soon on spent fuel and also look for options to lower the amount of nuclear waste through reprocessing efforts.

In July, the US Department of Energy (DOE) signed non-binding agreements with five states – Tennessee, Utah, Louisiana, Idaho and Oklahoma – to host the innovation campues that would serve as fuel disposal sites as well as delivering uranium enrichment, reprocessing and fuel fabrication.

“These campuses represent a new effort by the DOE and the administration to transform the nuclear fuel cycle,” said Latta.