Batt’s Nuke Deal Creates Interest Clinton Administration Apparently Likes Parts Of Proposal; Decision Due Today

There was a hint Thursday that the Clinton administration is interested in major portions of Gov. Phil Batt’s deal for resuming radioactive dumping at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

But sources said the Batt proposal has not been entirely endorsed by the federal government and that unspecified modifications might be sought before today’s noon deadline for a response to his offer.

And there was no indication that the kind of changes the U.S. Energy Department might propose would be acceptable to the governor, who laid out the deal a week ago on the understanding that he would consider only “minor adjustments.”

Optimism that the offer might be accepted began rising after a meeting late Wednesday between members of Idaho’s all-Republican congressional delegation and top Energy Department officials.

The latest maneuvering came as the full House adopted a $244 billion defense appropriations bill that authorizes the Navy to ignore the existing court ban on new nuclear shipments to INEL and to begin dumping waste from its nuclear warships on Oct. 1.

That provision likely would be the subject of compromise negotiations with the Senate, where supporters of the nuclear Navy backed away from pressing for mandated dumping earlier this week, and it would be meaningless if Batt’s deal is accepted.

Facing the prospect that Congress would force new waste shipments on Idaho with nothing in return, Batt essentially terminated months of negotiations with the administration last week when he made what he called his final best offer for a settlement.

In Idaho, where a huge majority of voters oppose any new waste shipments, critics of the governor’s proposal have pointed out that its guarantee for eventual removal of the nuclear waste does not include 2 million cubic feet of low-level nuclear waste buried at INEL before 1970. That material is covered under a 1991 agreement that has no requirement for removal by any date.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BATT’S PROPOSAL Idaho would allow 968 new nuclear waste shipments to be dumped at INEL over the next 40 years in return for guarantees that all nuclear waste - old and new - would be removed from the site by 2036. The plan includes specific projects that must be accomplished over that period or new shipments would cease. And failure to remove the waste by the final deadline would carry large daily fines.