Huntsman makes anti-nuke pitch

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Before leaving his first Western Governors' Association meeting, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. managed to make a private pitch against a high-level nuclear waste site in Utah to U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

"I'm not expecting any yes or no immediately, because I know how these things work," Huntsman said. "They take time to play out. . . . You work the process and you work the key decision-makers."

The chance to spend 15 minutes with Bodman was one of the main reasons Huntsman attended the three-day annual meeting of the WGA, which ended Tuesday. The governor also was able to have approved a resolution raising concerns about nuclear waste storage and transport.

Huntsman, who opposes a temporary high-level nuclear waste facility proposed on the Goshute Indian reservation in Tooele County, has raised a number of safety and security concerns about the project with various administration officials.

Tuesday, the governor said he was told by Bodman that the energy bill pending before Congress includes $10 million to study storing nuclear waste where it is produced. That's the solution preferred by Huntsman and by officials from Nevada, where a permanent storage site is proposed for Yucca Mountain.

Such a study, the governor said, "hasn't been done before. . . . It's a step in the direction from a public policy standpoint I think bodes well for perhaps a longer-term policy fix."

Legislation calling for on-site storage has already been introduced in Congress by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

During his meeting with Bodman, Huntsman said he "covered the on-site aspects that he knows I'm pushing. And, of course, he wanted to remind me there are two sides."

Also discussed was the potential danger of transporting nuclear waste from facilities around the country to be stored in Utah.

"I once again stated how outlandish I thought it was from a security standpoint, and from a long-term storage standpoint, to be putting 4,000 above-ground casks filled with that material downwind from 2 million people," the governor said. "It's not that a lot of people disagree with what I'm saying. It's just getting the process to work."

The resolution that he and Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn co-sponsored on nuclear waste should help, Huntsman said. There was no discussion Tuesday on that or any of the 27 resolutions that were approved by the governors.

But there were months of work on the language done behind the scenes. Huntsman's chief of staff, Jason Chaffetz, spent two days at this ski resort finalizing the resolution. While it's not an outright statement in support of on-site storage, it does suggest it as an option.