The Utah House of Representatives apparently is. It gave preliminary approval last week to a bill that would give Tooele County’s EnergySolutions an opening to take hotter waste.
It’s being cast as a modernization of regulations, but make no mistake. House Bill 220 will end Utah’s 14-year ban on “B” and “C” low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Current law only allows “A” waste, the least dangerous class of waste that loses most of its radioactivity in a century or so. The higher classifications push that out more centuries.
That ban was passed in 2005 because Utah had seen enough radioactivity.