WASHINGTON — Private Fuel Storage has asked Congress to consider allowing the Energy Department to become one of PFS's clients and move nuclear waste to Utah, or at least reimburse utilities that choose to use the temporary storage site.

The idea surprised Utah's congressional delegation, which thinks it is a bad idea that most likely won't go anywhere.

"On more than one occasion, the administration has stressed that PFS is not part of the nation's nuclear waste policy," said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

"That position has not changed. PFS has repeatedly stressed its independence from the government and accentuated the 'private' in Private Fuel Storage. Now it wants the government to take over. The about-face of this letter demonstrates PFS sees that its options continue to dwindle. They're grasping for options, but this one won't work, either."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said it would be a "huge mistake" for Congress to introduce any bills that would help PFS and so far no one has indicated they would do so.

"I'm not surprised that PFS is getting very creative in trying to breathe life back into this project," Hatch said.

However, if agreed to, the change would open a whole new pot of money for PFS's plan to store nuclear waste on Goshute Indian land in Skull Valley, Tooele County, with the federal government as its main customer. It would allow PFS to overcome Utah's small victories made late last year when several PFS investors decided to no longer provide money to the project.

Private Fuel Storage Chairman John Parkyn used a money-saving tactic in his pitch to Congress, emphasizing that it would cost less to move waste to Utah than for the government to continue to pay court settlements to utilities that still have waste.

"It would reduce tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers' liability while permitting fuel movement within a three-year period to the only available central interim location currently vetted through the licensing program to ensure safety and security for this large quantity of material," Parkyn wrote.

The federal government was supposed to open a permanent federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, in 1998. But that project has faced a series of obstacles and has not finished its license application yet. Utilities have sued the government, and in some cases have received millions of dollars, for breaking its promise to take the waste by the 1998 deadline.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims ordered in January that the government pay $34.9 million to the Tennessee Valley Authority, the operator of two nuclear power plants in Alabama and Tennessee, for its failure to take the waste and to cover costs the company incurred when it had to find other ways to store waste that was not supposed to be there. The industry anticipates similar rulings down the road that could add up to billions of dollars of payments the government would owe to utilities — all using taxpayer dollars.