PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said Parkyn wanted to remind members of Congress of the Skull Valley project's existence. She said getting the federal government involved was not something that had been considered before but came up because there was a lot of talk last year about other alternatives to Yucca.

She was not aware of any responses from lawmakers on the proposals so far.

Parkyn's letter went to chairs of House and Senate committees that deal with nuclear energy issues.

Utah's congressional delegation doubted anything will come of it.

The Energy Department has made it clear that PFS is not part of its nuclear waste strategy and Congress has established a record that waste would not go to PFS with the government's help, according to Scott Parker, chief of staff for Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

"The letter appears to have been sent over right about the time Rob and the delegation were successful in creating wilderness to block the rail spur needed to haul in the waste," Parker said. "So this may have just been PFS trying to react in some way to a legislative loss for them and a big victory for Utah. There doesn't appear to be anything new or ground-breaking in the memo."

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, said the pending bill supported by Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations — to leave waste on site at nuclear power plants until the government can come up with a better disposal policy — is a better alternative.

"The proposal outlined in this letter, a 'solution to the issue of spent nuclear fuel,' confirms what we have always suspected Utah would become, for decades — the de facto repository of thousands of tons of the most lethal waste on earth," Matheson said. "This proposal is nothing short of a terrible idea made worse."

Joe Hunter, chief of staff for Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said getting the department to own the waste before moving it to Nevada is an option "worth considering," but PFS's latest proposal is "a nonstarter."

"Who owns the waste is irrelevant if the idea is still to store it above ground on a reservation in Utah," Hunter said. "This would appear to be a 'proposal' designed to salvage an ill-advised plan that is rapidly losing ground."

Martin Malsch, a nuclear waste law expert with Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch and Cynkar, called the letter nothing but a "sales pitch" to Congress to get it to support a project that is "endangered and crumbling."

Malsch has worked with Utah in its fight against PFS and is one of the main attorneys hired by Nevada to fight Yucca.

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com