Utah-based Thorium Energy Inc. has claims to what it calls the richest high-grade thorium reserves in the United States, with 68 resource claims on about 20 acres each in the Lemhi Pass region on the border between Idaho and Montana. Company spokesman Jack Lifton praised the Hatch bill as a step toward a "safe, secure and independent energy future."

Thorium Power's Grae said Hatch and Reid's bill would "strengthen American technology and American business to compete in the global marketplace."

Thorium Power formed in 1992 to "develop and deploy" nuclear-fuel designs by Alvin Radkowsky, with the goal of not producing weapons-suitable plutonium as a waste byproduct. In 2007, the publicly-traded company announced an alliance with Russian government-owned Red Star.

Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius discovered thorium in 1828, naming the new element after Thor, the Norse god of thunder and weather, according to the EPA. The element's history of practical uses include X-rays, ceramic glazes and lantern mantels.

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