Friday, November11, 2005
| Did feds try to help N-waste company? Utahns pleased funding for attorneys dropped from bill The final version of a transportation appropriations bill will not include authorization for the federal government to hire attorneys to defend a consortium of nuclear power utilities seeking to send nuclear waste to Utah. "I am pleased that the House conferees receded to the Senate language in the final bill and agree that this is not a proper role for the federal government," said Sen. Bob Bennett, a member of the conference committee who, along with the rest of the Utah delegation, has been fighting the shipment of nuclear waste to Utah. "I remain committed to fight against any effort to bring spent nuclear fuel to Utah and firmly believe that this waste should be stored where it currently is until we work out the economics and technology to reprocess it," the Utah Republican added. The House-passed version of the bill included funding for two federal attorneys designated to handle legal challenges by the state of Utah over the proposed shipment of spent nuclear waste to Utah's Skull Valley on the Goshute Reservation. The funds were designated for the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which would oversee transportation of the waste. During the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation meeting in July to discuss the 2006 budget bill, Bennett, a member of the subcommittee, successfully struck that provision from the Senate's version of the bill. Additionally, he added language that "denies funding for new positions to administer shipment activities of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste to a private interim storage facility." The request for funding caught the Utah delegation off-guard because it appeared the Bush administration, while publicly saying it only supported permanent storage at Yucca Mountain, Nev., was working behind the scenes to ensure smooth sailing for nuclear waste storage in Utah by Private Fuel Storage, which is seeking to store up to 40,000 tons of spent fuel on Goshute tribal lands southwest of Salt Lake City. At that time, Bennett spoke with Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolten to confirm the Bush administration's support for Utah's efforts to block the waste from coming to Utah and ensure that it would not work to restore the House language in conference. "The federal government should not be in the business of mounting legal challenges for a privately owned company," Bennett said last summer. "The language passed by the House specifying shipments of nuclear waste to Skull Valley is in direct conflict with administration policy and something I was happy to eliminate from the Senate bill." Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. issued a terse statement last summer saying he was shocked and dismayed by a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to allocate federal funding to address anticipated "legal challenges" that might be brought by the state of Utah. "The federal government should not be funding the litigation expenses of a privately owned, for-profit enterprise in its efforts to force spent nuclear fuel on a state that doesn't want it," Huntsman said. "This is public policy at its worst and represents a dramatic departure from previous statements made by congressional leaders." Once the conference committee finishes work on the bill, both Senate and the House must approve the compromise version. But funding for PFS legal challenges cannot be slipped back in.
E-mail: spang@desnews.com
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