Nuclear waste changes sought

Huntsman wants feds to look at how it's transported and stored

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. hopes to encourage congressional leaders to change the way the United States handles nuclear waste.

While trying to stop the transport of high-level nuclear waste to Utah, Huntsman said during his monthly news conference at KUED, he also wants Congress to take a broader look at how the waste is transported and stored. Whether it's in Utah or some other off-site storage facility such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the dangers presented by moving the waste and the limited options for storage facilities make it difficult to continue with the current waste storage proposals.

"Even with Yucca Mountain, you're looking at just a temporary storage solution," Huntsman said. "And I'm saying, why do we keep moving from one temporary solution to another?"

Huntsman said that he plans to discuss the issue with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, during the senator's visit to Utah next week. He hopes to help bring Reid, Utah's congressional delegation and other Western officials together in united opposition against storage at Western nuclear dumps for waste generated in other parts of the country. That was not the case when Congress voted on storing waste at Yucca Mountain because Utah officials feared that a vote against Yucca Mountain may have forced the waste to Skull Valley.

"Congress standing up and doing something in the form of changing our storage policy in the United States is something I hope we can push. . . . I think we can find allies on both sides of the aisle," Huntsman said. "This is not a partisan issue. It is a regional issue."

In addition to the nuclear waste issue, Huntsman and other state educational officials continue to work with federal officials on the No Child Left Behind mandate before an April 20 special session of the Legislature. Among his primary concerns about the NCLB are a lack of recognition for the state's own U-PASS testing system and the "one-size-fits-all" standards that do not account for unique challenges such as disabled students or those who are learning English as a second language.

Other topics addressed by the governor during the half-hour news conference on the University of Utah campus, which was recorded Thursday morning and broadcast Thursday night:

• Salt Lake City's measures to reduce emissions are something the state should study, Huntsman said. It is also an issue he has discussed with Mayor Rocky Anderson.

• Employee morale within state government needs to be addressed, Huntsman said, especially for the veteran employees who took the most significant hit because of tightened restrictions on sick leave reimbursement at retirement. However, one of the best things for morale will be the pay increases, the "largest in years," which will take effect July 1.

• A lawsuit challenging an anti-pornography bill that creates a registry of pornographic sites would not surprise him, although he said state attorneys were confident that the law would be upheld. The registry would be used by service providers, at their customers' request, to block sites with adult material.

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com

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