Panel on Hill OKs Goshute, PFS legal-fees settlement

Legislative leaders approved a settlement for attorney fees with Private Fuel Storage and the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indian Tribe.

With the settlement, PFS will receive $775,000 and the tribe will receive $68,000. All of the money will be used to cover attorneys' fees incurred during a legal fight over Utah laws that targeted the storage of high-level nuclear waste.

The Legislative Management Committee, which is made up of members of the House and Senate leadership teams, unanimously approved the settlement Tuesday with almost no discussion. The settlement has been previously approved by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Under legislative rules, any settlement between $500,000 and $1 million needs to be approved by the committee and the governor. Anything above $1 million would require the approval of the entire Legislature and the governor.

"I'm convinced this is a good settlement," Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem, said. "It represents good work on the part of the state and the litigants."

The lawsuit stemmed from laws passed by the Legislature between 1998 and 2001 that established licensing requirements for storing spent nuclear fuel, required county government to impose restrictions on the waste and gave the state the ability to regulate road construction to the site.

Department of Environmental Quality executive director Dianne Nielson said the laws were intended to "protect the environment and the public."

The Goshutes and PFS took the issue to the federal court, where U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell ruled that federal laws took precedence over the state laws. The state appealed the ruling to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, where they also lost and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the issue.

Despite those court victories, the high-level storage site has not been able to move forward and is now considered practically dead because of federal decisions on lease and access issues.

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com