By JOAN LOWY /Associated Press Writer/389 words/3 November 2009/13:18/Associated Press Newswires/APRS/English/(c) 2009. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.
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