May 25 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune

he House passed legislation Wednesday that would set aside $30 million for temporary storage of nuclear waste.

Sponsors say the provision doesn't mean spent power-plant fuel will end up in Utah, but the prospect still concerns Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

Matheson said Wednesday that Private Fuel Storage, which seeks to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, could see the interim storage funding as an opening to push for storage in Utah.

"Because PFS has been granted a license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we have to be concerned about Congress seeing Utah as a viable interim storage site," Matheson said in a statement. "That is a non-starter, as far as I am concerned."

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, chairman of the subcommittee that sets spending for energy and water programs and a proponent of interim storage, has said he doesn't want the spent fuel from nuclear reactors forced on any community. That has reassured most members of the Utah congressional delegation.

On Tuesday, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, spoke on the House floor, reminding Hobson of his previous commitment and commending language accompanying the legislation which says storage should be voluntary in areas with large amounts of nuclear power.

"State and local officials in my state, military in my state, environmental groups and citizens in my state are encouraged with these particular words," Bishop said.

If the spending is approved, the existing laws would have to be changed in a separate bill to allow interim nuclear storage.

The House energy bill shorted President Bush's request for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which seeks, in part, to develop a technology to recycle used uranium from nuclear reactors.

EnergySolutions, formerly Envirocare of Utah, is one of the companies interested in the recycling project.