For Christensen, the main debatable issue should be whether his company's Clive facility in Tooele County has the capacity to store the waste. Rogers told the committee there is more than enough room, with 33 years of life left at the Clive site if an additional area there is developed for expanded disposal operations.

However, waste competitor Cedar Mountain Environmental's Charles Judd told the committee that EnergySolutions, using the company's figures provided to the state, the Clive site has only about five years of life left. Judd is currently challenging several issues, including capacity, related to the company's operating license, before the state's Radiation Control Board.

Judd said, as a competitor, the amount of Italian waste proposed for importing to EnergySolutions' Clive site was insignificant. He welcomed the resolution as a means of clarifying the waste marketplace.

Christensen also told the committee that for EnergySolutions to play on the "world stage," it needs to be authorized to accept foreign waste at the Clive site.

But the application has been met with opposition by Huntsman, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Utah's own Radiation Control Board. The NRC also took a rare step in issuing a "fact sheet" due to the number of inquiries and negative public comments it received.

John Urgo of Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah urged the committee in Boise not to allow a major precedent-setting policy shift by letting EnergySolutions go after foreign waste, opening the door to more and more overseas shipments.

In their defense, company officials stated in documents prepared for Thursday's meeting that some electricity produced in Italy has come from American- and British-designed nuclear reactors, with fuel for those Italian reactors coming from uranium mined in the U.S. and even in Utah.

The company filed a federal lawsuit this week asking the U.S. District Court to make a declaratory judgment in the company's favor by declaring the compact lacks the authority to bar the company from storing the Italian waste in Utah. The company believes that will eventually allow them to receive the waste.

"We believe the courts will uphold the position that the Northwest Compact does not have authority to interfere with interstate commerce at a private facility," EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said a statement following the meeting.