568 
-10- 
as support for the reversal of U.S. policy on this important 
issue, the credibility of the debate will be distorted and ill- 
served. 
II. The Need Exists For More Complete Infcrmation ©n Past 
Dumping Practices 
At present the EPA has prime responsibility for collecting 
all available information on past U.S. dumping of nuclear waste. 
One of the more frustrating aspects of analyzing past ocean dump- 
ing is that complete data are simply not available, because there 
were no regulations in effect when the dumping took place requir- 
ing that complete records be kept, because in some cases records 
were destroyed in the intervening time, or because such informa- 
tion has not been retrieved from agency and other archives. 
Speaking to this point, a former EPA Assistant Administrator 
stated in the fall of 1980: 
Today, the records of the ocean dumping activities 
consist primarily of documentation drayvn from the 
[Atomic Energy Commission] AEC licenses ené from 
logs indicating the general nature and quantities 
of the materials, the estimated radioactivity, and 
the coordinates of the dumping locations .... 
But, because they were regarded primarily as gar- 
bage, precise records were apparently not kept of 
the specific contents. 20/ 
In: light of this information limitation the GAO recognizes 
that, the "lack of accurate and complete data, in the records 
available at [Department of Energy] DOE, [Nuclear Regulatory 
Commissjion] NRC, and the [Department of Defense] DCI has made 
20/- Ocean Dumping of Radioactive Waste Off the Pacific Coast: 
Hearing Before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government 
Operations, 96th Cong., 2nd Sess., at 56 (1980) (statement by 
Davia Hawkins, Assistant Administrator for Air, Noise and Radia- 
tion; Environmental Protection Acency) [hereinafter cited as 
October 1980 Hearinas]. 
