Nuke Waste Decision Highlights Need For Gordon’s Bill
April 23, 2008, WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon praised Utah Governor Jon Huntsman’s decision to oppose an application to import 20,000 tons of nuclear waste from Italy, process it in Tennessee and dispose the remainder in Utah, and he said a bill he introduced would help set a national policy against foreign waste imports.
Huntsman said he will direct Utah’s representative on the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste Management to oppose the application pending before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission when the compact meets next month. Federal regulations require the approval of the state and the compact in which the disposal site is located.
"Gov. Huntsman's decision stands to benefit Tennessee, Utah and the entire nation,” said Gordon. “But we shouldn't have to go through this process on a case-by-case basis every time an import application comes before the NRC. We need to set a national policy to ban imports of foreign generated nuclear waste, and that’s why I have introduced a bill to do exactly that.”
Gordon’s legislation, H.R. 5632, would block the NRC from authorizing imports of foreign-generated low-level radioactive waste into the United States. The bill would allow the president to grant exceptions if the waste was necessary to meet an important national or international policy goal, such as research.
The issue of importing nuclear waste gained attention last fall when EnergySolutions, a Utah-based company with operations in Tennessee, applied to the NRC for a license to import 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from decommissioned nuclear reactors in Italy.
Gordon fears that application could be just the beginning.
“I don’t want to see the United States become the world’s nuclear dumping ground, but that could happen without action,” said Gordon. “Many other countries do not have adequate space for their nuclear waste, and I’m sure they would be happy to send their waste to the United States and be rid of it forever. That might be a good deal for them, but that plan is simply not in the best interest of the United States.”
