The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires the environmental assessment to include a detailed statement of the basis for nominating a site as suitable for characterization. This detailed statement is to be an evaluation of site suitability under the U.S. Department of Energy siting guidelines; the evaluation will be the basis for the comparisons of sites reported in Chapter 7. Such an evaluation for the Deaf Smith site is presented in sections 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4 of this chapter. A brief explanation of the siting guidelines their format, structure, and implementation is given in Section 6.1.