The Governor of Utah has until midnight tonight to veto the nuclear waste bill that passed both the state senate and house.
SB 155 would take the Legislature and governor out of disposal decisions by Energy Solutions on its own property.
The Governor’s office has been flooded with calls and emails urging him to veto this bill:
From HEAL Utah
Gov. Huntsman has until tonight to veto Senate Bill 155 or it becomes law. Hundreds of calls have poured in, yet the Governor has yet to make a decision.
Please take a minute to call Gov. Huntsman today at (801) 538-1000 and leave a message asking him to veto SB 155.
Then, if Gov. Huntsman does veto the bill, join us on Capitol Hill for the final day of the session: Wednesday, February 28th. We’re holding a citizen lobby day all day long from 9:00am-Midnight to urge our legislators to do their jobs and not exempt themselves from having oversight over nuclear waste expansions at EnergySolutions. More details to follow, but let us know if you can make it.
If you can’t make it on the last day, make sure to contact your senator and representative and ask them to support the Governor’s veto of SB 155. You can find your state legislators here: http://www.le.state.ut.us/maps/amap.html.
To see how they voted, follow these links:
Senate vote: http://le.utah.gov/~2007/status/sbillsta/sb0155.003s.txt;
House vote: http://le.utah.gov/~2007/status/sbillsta/sb0155.001h.txt
Gov. Huntsman has said this about SB 155: “I want to make sure there are no backdoors in terms of volumes of waste [and] in terms of hotter waste.”
Here are three ways SB 155 opens a backdoor for EnergySolutions for both hotter nuclear waste and massive expansions of nuclear waste without oversight from our state’s elected leaders. Given the public opposition to this bill, and the backdoors it will open, we feel Gov. Huntsman has ample reason to veto SB 155 (For full explanations of these points, click on the link here: http://www.healutah.org/takeaction/actionalerts/021507)
1) SB 155 allows EnergySolutions to dump as much nuclear waste on its current site as state regulators will allow without future oversight from the Legislature or the Governor.
2) If the current ban on hotter nuclear waste were ever overturned by the Legislature, SB 155 would allow hotter nuclear waste to be dumped in Utah without approval from the Legislature or Governor.
3) SB 155 removes the Governor’s ultimate say on the issue of hotter nuclear waste and would allow such waste to be dumped in Utah even if the Governor says No.
Gov. Huntsman has positioned himself as a backstop to more and hotter nuclear waste being dumped in Utah. This is a role the vast majority of Utahns admire and respect.
Please call Gov. Huntsman today and ask him to veto SB 155 and maintain his important and popular role as backstop. The majority of the Legislature may want to do EnergySolutions’ bidding, but at least we have a Governor who strives to listen to the people. Let’s make sure he hears the call to veto SB 155.
John Urgo
HEAL Utah, Outreach Director
68 S. Main St, Suite 400
SLC, UT 84101
(801) 355-5055
Deanna Dee-Dee Taylor 