After anti-nuclear waste activists rallied against the reclassification and Utah Democrats shouted about a conspiracy — Bishop had previously lobbied for Envirocare and received campaign donations from the company — Bishop backed away from the issue and left the decision about which waste to accept to the Legislature, which currently has prohibited any "hotter" classes of waste.

Bishop said the whole controversy was fueled by inaccuracies from the activists, especially about the danger of the waste, which is "distinctly different but not any hotter" than what Envirocare currently accepts. In fact, one of his primary motivations for trying to get the Ohio waste to Envirocare was to make sure it would be moved by trains instead of by trucks, which would be more likely if it had to go to Nevada.

"The first issue ought to be personal safety," he said. "We should be looking at ways to transport it (waste) more safely."

Additionally, there was no guarantee that Envirocare would ever receive the waste, since the Utah company would have to bid on it against similar firms in Utah and other states. Without the reclassification, however, it seemed most likely that the waste will be shipped by truck through Utah to the Nevada Test Site, something Department of Energy officials were trying to avoid when they asked for the congressman's support in sending the waste to Envirocare. Since then, Nevada has refused to accept the waste, and the company responsible for the clean-up at the Ohio site is now trying to send it to Texas.

Activists see the reclassification attempt in a different light and emphasize that the effort was business-as-usual for the representative, not a political mistake or an anomaly. Claire Geddes, who fought Bishop on numerous issues when he was a legislator and helped lead the opponents of the reclassified waste, said that he serves his constituents poorly because his focuses are elsewhere.

"He hasn't been a good representative, because I don't think he can serve the public and the special interests," Geddes said. "I've watched him since 1992, and this is how he operates. He is the worst type of person to have elected to office, because he is very savvy about how to use the system, and he has a lot of friends who he lobbied for that he wants to help."

What will not happen because of the waste controversy is a general public outcry, Geddes said, because he is a Republican in a GOP-heavy state.

"A Democrat would have never gotten away with it," she said. "So people who vote for him need to understand that when they get taken to the cleaners, they have nobody to blame but themselves."

Urban vs. rural