INVENTORY OF MEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES AT DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS HEALTH CARE FACILITIES.

SEC. 602. INVENTORY OF MEDICAL WASTE MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES AT DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS HEALTH CARE FACILITIES.(a) Inventory.—The Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall establish and maintain a national inventory of medical waste management activities in the health care facilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The inventory shall include the following:(1) A statement of the current national policy of the Department on managing and disposing of medical waste, including regulated medical waste in all its forms.(2) A description of the program of each geographic service area of the Department to manage and dispose of medical waste, including general medical waste and regulated medical waste, with a description of the primary methods used in those programs and the associated costs of those programs, with cost information shown separately for in-house costs (including full-time equivalent employees) and contract costs.(b) Report.—Not later than June 30, 2005, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall submit to the Committees on Veterans’ Affairs of the Senate and House of Representatives a report on medical waste management activities in the facilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs. The report shall include the following:(1) The inventory established under subsection (a), including all the matters specified in that subsection.(2) A listing of each violation of medical waste management and disposal regulations reported at any health care facility of the Department over the preceding five years by any Federal or State agency, along with an explanation of any remedial or other action taken by the Secretary in response to each such reported violation.(3) A description of any plans to modernize, consolidate, or otherwise improve the management of medical waste and disposal programs at health care facilities of the Department, including the projected costs associated with such plans and any barriers to achieving goals associated with such plans.(4) An assessment or evaluation of the available methods of disposing of medical waste and identification of which of those methods are more desirable from an environmental perspective in that they would be least likely to result in contamination of air or water or otherwise cause future cleanup problems.