Demo slams Bishop's waste dealings

Rep. Rob Bishop's attempt to allow Envirocare to dispose of "more concentrated" radioactive waste than it is currently licensed to handle is an example of bad public policy and bad process, says Rep. Jim Matheson.

Matheson, D-Utah, didn't mention Bishop, R-Utah, by name in a Monday address to the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. But Matheson, whose wide-ranging district does not include Envirocare in west Tooele County, used Bishop's attempt to get congressional approval for hotter low-level radioactive waste as an example "of how government should not work."

In an interview after his address, Matheson said he'd leave it up to "1st District constituents to decide (if Bishop's) actions are" an improper conflict of interest.

Bishop, who won the 1st District a year ago, at one time was a paid lobbyist for Envirocare at the Utah Legislature.

Matheson gave two examples of poor government process: the Bishop-Envirocare deal and the Federal Aviation Administration's plan to reroute some commercial jet traffic at the Salt Lake City International Airport over eastern Salt Lake County and the Hidden Peaks Wilderness Area in the Wasatch Mountain range. Congress is not accustomed to majority Republicans "locking Democrats out" of committee rooms while legislation is written in secret, said Matheson. "If you've watched the Utah Legislature, that isn't new," but it is in Washington, D.C., he said.

Matheson said the FAA has told him it picked the eastern jet routes as one of nine alternatives to handle increased traffic at the airport. "But they won't tell me, a member of Congress, what the other eight alternatives are."

Airport bosses are even against the plan, hiring their own consultant to accumulate data to fight it, he said.

"Commercial airlines will be flying low over the east bench," said Matheson. While not many Salt Lakers are paying attention to the issue now, they certainly will when the noisy jets are routinely heard, he predicted.

And the clincher, said Matheson, is that air traffic is down after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. And Salt Lake City International may not be forced to look for new landing and take-off routes "for 30 or 40 years."

"What is the rush? Why aren't we having open, thorough debate on this issue?" the second-term congressman said.

Envirocare's radioactive waste issue is just as bad, he said. Republicans are working "behind closed doors" in the House and Senate, he said.