Matheson, Gordon Repeat Call for Passage of Bill to Ban Foreign Waste Imports

Express support for efforts by Northwest Compact to Close Loophole

October 22, 2008

Washington, D.C.-- Utah Congressman Jim Matheson and Tennessee Congressman Bart Gordon today voiced strong support for action taken by a multi-state compact to close a loophole which has allowed small amounts of foreign radioactive waste to be disposed of in Utah.  However, Matheson and Gordon pointed out that piecemeal action is not sufficient to halt the importation of radioactive waste to the U.S.

“We need federal legislation to stop this,” Matheson and Gordon said.  They have introduced a bill to ban the import of foreign low-level radioactive waste. “Bringing in other countries’ radioactive waste is bad public policy for our country.  Only through passage of our bill will we be able to shut the door on efforts to make the U.S. the nuclear garbage dump for the world.”

The Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management must approve importation of foreign nuclear waste into Utah and its other member states.  Northwest Compact officials—meeting in Portland, Oregon today with representatives from the Southeast Waste Management Compact—acted in response to recent revelations that a Salt Lake City-based company has been disposing of small amounts of foreign radioactive waste in its Tooele County, Utah landfill for 8 years, apparently bypassing approval of regional compact regulators.  In 2001 and again in 2005, the company said it would not—and never had—taken radioactive waste from outside the U.S.

In 2007, EnergySolutions filed a license application with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to import 20,000 tons of low-level waste from Italy, process it at its Tennessee facility and ultimately bury 1,600 tons in Utah.  At a Congressional hearing on HR 5632—the Gordon/Matheson bill—last May, the company’s president testified that waste shipments from Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada and Mexico have been disposed of at its Clive site.  This waste goes through the company’s treatment facility in Tennessee and is mixed with domestic waste.  EnergySolutions then classifies and disposes of it as “domestic waste” without notifying the Northwest Compact of its origin or obtaining the Compact’s approval.

“We consider this an unacceptable attempt to get around the Compact’s authority,” said Gordon and Matheson.  “Our legislation will put a stop to this questionable interpretation of the law.  No other country in the world takes another country’s radioactive waste and neither should the United States.”

###

Toll-Free Number 1 (877) 677-9743