Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has stepped up the fight to keep low-level nuclear waste from Italy out of Utah.

Huntsman's office announced Wednesday he's directed the state's representative on the Northwest Interstate Low-Level Waste Compact to vote against any proposals for foreign nuclear waste to come into Utah.

That would include EnergySolutions Inc.'s plans to use its Tooele County facility to dispose of what is left over after some 20,000 tons of low-level waste from Italian nuclear plants is processed in Tennessee. That should be about 8 percent, or some 1,600 tons of material.

According to the governor's office, the compact has the authority to halt foreign nuclear waste shipments in the region and Utah has veto power over any such materials coming into the state.

"As I have always emphatically declared, Utah should not be the world's dumping ground," Huntsman said in a statement, going on to suggest Congress should take similar action.

"Our country has limited space to store even domestic waste and it would be most appropriate to have a federal policy against the importation of foreign nuclear waste. However, as the federal government is slow to adopt such a policy, Utah will lead the way."

In a statement, EnergySolutions said it will go forward with its proposal, which is currently pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Agency. The company make its case at the compact's May 8 meeting.

"EnergySolutions is deeply disappointed that Governor Huntsman has taken this action," the company's statement read, noting the NRC has granted import licenses in the past for waste disposal at the Tooele County site that were also approved by the compact.

"We will continue to pursue the Italian cleanup project which involves the routine disposal of a very small amount of low-level material as part of a clean-up and recycling project that will benefit our Earth's environment," the statement concluded.

The governor has been criticized by opponents of the Italian waste coming to Utah for not taking a stronger stand against the EnergySolutions proposal. Huntsman had said an agreement he signed with the company in 2007 that halted a plan to expand the Tooele dump site limited his ability to act.

But the governor's spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley, said after further review by state attorneys, he decided that since foreign waste was not specifically addressed in the agreement, he could seek a veto of the proposal from the compact.

EnergySolutions spokesman John Ward said the company was not commenting "at this time" on whether it saw the governor's reversal as a violation of the agreement.

Critics of Huntsman's earlier position praised his new stand on Wednesday.