Bill to ban nuke waste imports advances in House

A House panel on Tuesday voted to block the importation of foreign
nuclear waste into the United States in response to a Salt Lake City
company's plan to bury low-level radioactive waste from Italy at a site in
Utah.

The Energy and Commerce Committee's energy subcommittee approved by a
voice vote a bill sponsored by Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah; Bart Gordon,
D-Tenn.; and Lee Terry, R-Neb. to prohibit the importation of low-level
radioactive waste unless it originated here or served a strategic national
purpose as determined by the president.

A companion version of the bill has been introduced in the Senate by
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

At issue is 20,000 tons of low-level waste from Italy that a U.S.
company, EnergySolutions Inc., wants to process in Tennessee before
disposing of the remaining 1,600 tons at a private site about 70 miles west
of Salt Lake City. It's the largest amount of low-level radioactive waste
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ever been asked to allow into the
country.

A commission official told lawmakers last month that the commission
doesn't have the authority to turn down an import request as long as the
proposal meets safety and security regulations.

Without legislation to prevent importation of waste, the U.S. risks
becoming the world's nuclear dumping ground, said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.,
the panel's chairman.

Although there is currently enough low-level waste storage capacity in
the United States to meet the needs of the domestic nuclear industry, that
capacity should be preserved for U.S.-generated waste that is expected to
increase as new reactors are built, Markey said.

Jill Sigal, EnergySolutions' executive vice president for strategic
planning, said she wasn't surprised by the vote, but hopes the bill can be
stopped in the Senate.

"There is no capacity issue," Sigal said. "Reserving up to 4.3 acres
in the west desert of Utah can't be deemed a dumping ground for anything."

She said a ban would hurt U.S. companies that want to compete globally
in the nuclear waste storage and handling market.