Batt Pushes For Nuke Storage Deal Navy Can Use Inel If Permanent Site Developed Elsewhere

Amid intensifying congressional pressure to resume dumping nuclear waste in Idaho, Gov. Phil Batt continued paving the way on Friday for what he hopes will be widespread public acceptance of a deal resolving the seven-year confrontation with the federal government.

“I think we’re going to accomplish something that you’re going to be satisfied with and most of the residents of the state will be, too,” Batt told the Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce.

After being sharply criticized during his first month in office for not vehemently opposing radioactive waste being stored at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Republican Batt has taken the same hard-nosed - if not as inflammatory - position as retired Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus. Andrus began the confrontation in October 1988 by refusing to accept any more waste at INEL until permanent dumps were opened in other states as the government had long promised.

And Batt recently won extension of the 2-year-old court ban on all but 27 waste shipments pending judicial review of the government’s conclusion that more waste could be safely dumped.Batt, however, pointed out in his prepared remarks that the farther he gets from Idaho Falls and INEL, the louder the opposition grows to waste storage.”People who are otherwise calm and rational get highly agitated and almost irrational when it comes to radioactive shipments,” the governor said.

But the Navy, which claims national security is being eroded each day the ban remains in effect, is steadily building congressional support to void that order. And while Idaho’s senior senator, Republican Larry Craig, said this week top Navy brass know that ploy will not succeed, others in and out of Idaho conceded that if pushed to a vote, the congressional override will pass easily.

Faced with that prospect, Batt has spoken with renewed optimism that a deal can be worked out in which waste shipments resume and his demand for a reasonable, enforceable deadline for moving the waste back out of INEL can be met.