Murfreesboro (TN) Democratic Representative Bart Gordon said Friday (October 16) a ban on importing foreign radio active waste is needed to ensure there is ample space to store waste generated in the U.S., including at Tennessee research facilities and Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plants, according to an October 17 posting on the tennesean.com.
Representative Gordon participated in a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Energy and Environment subcommittee on legislation he co-sponsored to enforce a ban.
This proposed legislation was prompted by an application from EnergySolutions Incorporated to bring in up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italian nuclear power facilities to the United States, where it would be processed at a company plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; any remaining material would be shipped to a company storage facility in Clive, Utah.
That request, which was made to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), has been in limbo, waiting for the resolution of a lawsuit over the application. The company sued a regional low-level radioactive waste oversight group Northwest Compact, challenging its authority to block the importation of foreign waste. The company won at the district court level in May, 2009, but an appeal is pending in the tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A sparring match took place at the hearing between Gordon and Val Christensen, president of EnergySolutions, over a statement in a company filing to the NRC stating that the firm would be hurt if the deal to import Italian waste was negated because contracts were in place. Christensen said that final contracts were not complete; rather, a memorandum of agreement had in fact been signed; therefore, he said, the statement in the filing is accurate.
Gordon argued that the questionable statement gives pause to the accuracy of other company declarations; Christensen said his company is highly regulated and key to the expansion of nuclear power in the United States.