Idaho Lawmakers To Hold N-Waste Hearings Senator Says Hearings Not Intended To Take Side On Batt’s Deal With Feds

Gov. Phil Batt’s nuclear waste agreement with the federal government will undergo scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats after the Legislature convenes next month.

Lawmakers will conduct public hearings on Batt’s agreement to accept 1,133 waste shipments destined for the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, said Sen. Laird Noh, R-Kimberly, Senate Resources and Environment Committee chairman.

The legislators will quiz state, Navy and U.S. Department of Energy officials on their interpretations of the pact. They also will decide whether Batt should be able to appoint the head of the state’s nuclear waste oversight program without legislative confirmation.

The hearings are not intended to either criticize or bolster Batt, Noh said.

“It’s a very complex and lengthy agreement,” he said. “In that detail and complexity, there is always room for agreements and disagreements.”

One of the questions he would like answered is how much and what kind of foreign nuclear waste would be allowed into Idaho under Batt’s pact.

Noh would like to use the comments at the public hearing as a public record to hold officials to their agreement.

House Speaker Michael Simpson, R-Blackfoot, suggested the hearings, Noh said.

News of the hearings pleased Brian Goller, director of the nuclear activist Snake River Alliance group.

The current head of the state oversight program, Bob Ferguson, is too cozy with INEL workers, who are getting paid to store and clean up nuclear waste, he said.

“It’s a little bit like having the fox guard the henhouse,” he said. “I don’t mean to malign Bob Ferguson, but I just don’t feel he’s the right person to handle it.”

Ferguson worked for INEL from 1959 to 1971, said oversight program spokesman Alan White. In the last two years, he served as a consultant for the INEL and the Energy Department.

Appointed by Batt, Ferguson reports directly to the governor. That’s a change from 1994, when oversight directors reported to the state Department of Health and Welfare.

That current system worries Goller, who said the oversight director and the governor could cover up accidents without a middle agency involved.

“Bob’s response to that is he knows the people, he knows the program, and he knows a lot about what’s going on out there,” White said. “Having worked there, he knows what’s going on better than an outsider because he knows where the skeletons are hidden.”

Ferguson would be willing to go through a legislative confirmation session, White said.