Hearing Set On Foreign Nuke Waste Ban Bill

BROCK VERGAKIS

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — An effort to ban the importation of foreign nuclear waste has been given new life with a hearing set for next week in Washington, D.C.

The hearing for the Radioactive Import Deterrence Act was scheduled for Oct. 16. The bill's sponsors, U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., drew it up in response to EnergySolutions Inc.'s plan to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy through the ports of Charleston, S.C., or New Orleans.

After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would be disposed of at EnergySolutions' facility in Utah.

It is the largest single amount of foreign waste the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ever been asked to allow into the country and the application has drawn a record number of public comments — most in opposition to the plan.

"We are the only nation in the world that imports and disposes other countries' low-level radioactive waste. Unless we act, the United States is destined to become the world's dumping ground," Gordon said in a statement to The Associated Press. "Tuesday's hearing will provide another opportunity to shed light on the importance of this issue."