Tag Archives: politics

Announcement from HEAL Utah:

Tonight, Governor Huntsman let Senate Bill 155 become law.

While pledging to prevent “backdoors” for more and hotter nuclear waste to be dumped in Utah, Gov. Huntsman instead let EnergySolutions and the Legislature push the door wide open while locking Utahns out.

Using EnergySolutions’ language to describe the bill as a needed “technical clarification,” Gov. Huntsman vindicated the Legislature’s desire to remove itself and all elected officials in Utah from future expansions and licensing decisions at EnergySolutions’ current site–including decisions to take hotter waste.

In his statement, Gov. Huntsman did pledge to limit the volume of waste at EnergySolutions through his powers as governor. We hope this means he can still carry through with his promise to keep Utah from being the nation’s dumping ground for nuclear waste. But we’ll need to make sure.
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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.”
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