Herbert urged to reject nuclear waste offer

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, is urging Gov. Gary Herbert to reject EnergySolutions' attempts to get the state to drop its objections to importing foreign nuclear waste for disposal here.

In a letter sent Friday to the governor, Matheson uses the term "influence peddling" to describe the Salt Lake City-based company's renewed offer to share profits with the cash-strapped state if it drops its legal fight to keep the waste out of Utah.

"Utahns have spoken loudly and clearly in their opposition to being a dumping ground for unregulated, hazardous waste," Matheson wrote, noting his joint efforts with former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. against the proposal.

Herbert spokeswoman Angie Welling said the Republican governor had not yet seen Matheson's letter but he remains opposed to the shipment of foreign nuclear waste to Utah.

Herbert, who was sworn in last month after Huntsman became U.S. ambassador to China, also supports Utah's current appeal of a federal judge's ruling that the state can't use a regional compact to keep foreign nuclear waste out, Welling said.

"What I can tell you is that Gov. Herbert's position on this issue has not changed," she said.

State Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, has said it would be wise to revisit the offer given the state's estimated $700 million budget shortfall.

Killpack contends the state's legal fight to stop the waste is flawed. If the state loses, the waste could go to the desert site about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City anyway and the state would get nothing, he added.

The company wants to import as much as 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy through the ports of Charleston, S.C., or New Orleans. After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would be disposed of at its Clive, Utah, site.

EnergySolutions, in a statement earlier this month, said it had informed the new Herbert administration that its offer was still on the table.

In February, the company said it would offer Utah 50 percent of its net revenues from the disposal of foreign waste if it agreed to let it in Utah.

"No other country on Earth takes another country's nuclear waste, and I am determined that the U.S. won't be the exception," Matheson said.