Private Fuel Storage continues to apply pressure and storm forward:
Using the tactic of promoting money-savings, PFS has asked Congress to provide assistance in its efforts to store nuclear waste in Utah.
Private Fuel Storage has asked Congress to consider allowing the Energy Department to become one of PFS’s clients and move nuclear waste to Utah, or at least reimburse utilities that choose to use the temporary storage site.
The Deseret News Article contains statements from these lawmakers:
The idea surprised Utah’s congressional delegation, which thinks it is a bad idea that most likely won’t go anywhere.
“On more than one occasion, the administration has stressed that PFS is not part of the nation’s nuclear waste policy,” said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.
“That position has not changed. PFS has repeatedly stressed its independence from the government and accentuated the ‘private’ in Private Fuel Storage. Now it wants the government to take over. The about-face of this letter demonstrates PFS sees that its options continue to dwindle. They’re grasping for options, but this one won’t work, either.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said it would be a “huge mistake” for Congress to introduce any bills that would help PFS and so far no one has indicated they would do so.
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“I’m not surprised that PFS is getting very creative in trying to breathe life back into this project,” Hatch said.
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.”
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 