Two former Idaho governors last week threatened the Department of Energy with litigation should it move forward with its planned shipments of commercial spent nuclear fuel to the Idaho National Laboratory for research purposes. Former Govs. Cecil Andrus (D) and Phil Batt (R), both of whom worked to establish the 1995 Settlement Agreement, which banned anymore spent fuel from entering the state, said last week the state and DOE failed to adhere to National Environmental Policy Act requirements when they agreed to the waiver, while also ignoring the citizens’ wishes. “The intent of this is to tell them to either comply with the policy set forth in NEPA, or the governor and I will be forced to file litigation in a federal court, which we are prepared to do and which we intend to do if necessary. We hope it isn’t,” Andrus said in a press conference held last week. “The point that we can’t ignore is that to continue giving waivers means that there is just a continual stack up of waste above the aquifer. Anybody with any experience of knowledge of the situation knows that anything that comes in is going to be here a long, long time.”
Idaho is open to providing the Department of Energy a one-time waiver to allow DOE to send the spent fuel for research purposes, but only if the Department provides an enforceable time frame for coming back into compliance with a 1995 Settlement Agreement. Current Governor Butch Otter said in response last week that he sees INL as an asset, not a liability. “It seems as if the former governors would be satisfied with cleaning up the INL and shutting it down,” Otter said in a statement. “Their approach ignores the asset the INL has become to eastern Idaho, the state and nation. Clean up under the terms of the agreement, including removal of ALL materials by 2035, remains our first priority, but it is not our only priority. Continuing the valuable research at the Lab with its world-class facilities and people is the future and one we should all work towards. It is clear the former governors see the Lab as a liability, while I see its possibilities.”
