Ban on foreign waste from Italy to Utah gets OK

The U.S. House voted Wednesday to ban importing foreign low-level radioactive waste and block an attempt by EnergySolutions to bring tons of it from Italy to Utah.

It voted 309-112 for a bill pushed by Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., to bar such foreign waste, which includes lab coats, shoe coverings and cleaning cloths from nuclear power plants. EnergySolutions has proposed to process 20,000 tons of Italian waste in Tennessee and dump it in Utah. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Matheson and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, voted for the bill. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, was with Utah students touring Virginia and missed the vote but has spoken against it previously. He was once a state lobbyist for EnergySolutions and received about $26,000 from the company's political action committee and employees for his 2008 election and $5,000 this year.

"No other country in the world takes another country's radioactive waste," Matheson told the House. "I don't think we should either."

Any nation sophisticated enough to produce nuclear waste should also be sophisticated enough to responsibly dispose of it within its own borders, he said. "This clarifies federal policy and preserves our disposal space for our own domestic needs."

Besides the 20,000 tons that EnergySolutions is proposing to import from Italy, Matheson said, "There's discussion about Brazil, Mexico, Great Britain to move low-level radioactive waste to this country."

But Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., argued that the bill restrains international trade and would cost jobs created by treating and disposing such waste.

Matheson countered, "For trade to exist, you have goods and services going in both directions, not just one. I don't understand how this in any way could be described as a restraint of trade."

During debate Chaffetz said there's a reason no place in Europe, even with $1 billion on the line, has stepped up to take foreign waste: "It's dangerous. It's very dangerous."

Gordon also argued that America should preserve what space it has for such waste for expansion of the U.S. nuclear power industry as it become a more important power source amid global warming concerns. "For 37 states, there's no place to go but Utah. When that runs out, it's out. That's a very serious problem," he said.

Matheson added, "Not many states are lining up to take it."

However, Stearns argued that EnergySolutions told him that it has room to handle such waste for decades and that no capacity problem exists.

Matheson said, however, that EnergySolutions "made a commitment to our governor that they were not going to ask for any increase in the licensed capacity," but said the company in written testimony "included tables that assumed great expansion of the site."