This story was updated at 1:49 p.m. EDT.

Federal regulators will spend the next two years revising a controversial policy that a federal appeals court threw out this summer that deals with storing nuclear waste at sites across the country.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today ordered the agency's staff to develop an environmental analysis and revise the agency's "waste confidence" rule within two years as well as the commission's rule for the temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel. The policy is a generic finding that spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored for decades beyond the licensed operating life of a reactor without significant environmental effects.

The agency's decision is in direct response to a federal appeals court's ruling in June that the agency did not sufficiently analyze the environmental effects of storing nuclear waste without a permanent solution in sight (Greenwire, Aug. 7).

"Resolving this issue successfully is a commission priority," NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane said in a statement. "Waste confidence plays a core role in many major licensing actions, such as new reactors and license renewals."

The court's ruling also prompted the commission to wait before approving licenses for new nuclear plants or renewing the licenses of existing facilities until the dilemma of how to store hot, radioactive waste at sites across the country is resolved.

The NRC staff must now address deficiencies that the court found in the commission's revised 2010 waste confidence rule.

The court found that NRC failed to consider how temporary nuclear waste storage sites would be affected if the United States failed to build a permanent waste repository. Waste is currently being stored at reactors across the country after Congress reached an impasse over the controversial nuclear waste site under Yucca Mountain, Nev.

The court also said NRC failed to consider leaks and fires at spent fuel pools.

The NRC called on the staff to draw from the agency's "long, rich history" with waste confidence determinations as well as work performed by other agencies, such as environmental assessments, technical studies, and reports addressing the impacts of transportation and consolidated storage of spent fuel.

NRC staff were also ordered to provide "ample opportunity" for public comment and to form an interoffice team of environmental experts to develop the environmental impact statement and resolve outstanding issues.

The NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, which oversees spent fuel storage and disposal, has established a Waste Confidence Directorate to develop the waste confidence EIS, according to the commission.

Keith McConnell, the deputy director of the Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection in the Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, will lead the new group.