Craig Ad Indicates Turnabout On Nuclear Waste Dumping Just A Few Years Ago, He Criticized Andrus’ Hard-Line Stand On Federal Shipments Into Eastern Part Of State

Republican Sen. Larry Craig is trying to complete his metamorphosis to nuclear waste warrior in his latest re-election campaign advertisement countering Democratic challenger Walter Minnick’s claims that the incumbent has been soft on radioactive dumping.

In the latest radio ad, Craig cites Senate passage of his bill to open a temporary nuclear dump in Nevada and move waste there from the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. It also points out that Minnick opposes the bill, although it does not explain Minnick believes the tactic only undermines efforts to build a permanent radioactive dump somewhere outside Idaho.

And Craig says flatly, “Since I’ve represented Idaho in the Congress, I’ve worked to clean up the INEL and to move the waste out of Idaho.”

But past statements during his 16-year career in the House and Senate seem to undermine that claim.

Although Craig has repeatedly said over the years that he does not want the INEL to become the nation’s de facto nuclear waste dump, he did not become a staunch critic of the federal government’s waste activities in eastern Idaho until Republican Phil Batt became governor in 1995 and had the entire issue blow up in his face.

In fact, Craig often criticized Batt’s predecessor, Democrat Cecil Andrus, for the action he took to halt the use of the INEL for radioactive storage. It was Andrus, on Oct. 19, 1988, who defied the federal government and unilaterally blocked further waste shipments from the idled Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado.

Andrus’ stand against waste escalated into the courts, and in early 1991 the governor announced he would use the state police to block any further waste shipments to INEL from a commercial power plant in Idaho. U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan eventually validated Andrus as he upbraided the government and the utility for misleading him on the necessity of shipping that waste to Idaho.

But on Feb. 7, 1991, just days after Andrus took his hard-line stand, Craig issued a statement declaring that “I don’t agree with him, nor do I believe his stated plan is in Idaho’s best interests.”

“His actions - however satisfied they make him feel in the short term - may have disastrous consequences for Idaho in the long term,” the statement said. “He risks not only the 400 jobs at INEL that would accompany the research associated with this material, but the entire future of INEL.”

But an internal memorandum from then Energy Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Victor Stello showed that as early as July 20, 1990, the government was discussing moving the Colorado utility waste to INEL “for storage.”

And while he later said he did not want the waste issue to become politically partisan, Craig did not disavow the comments on the same day from then-senior Republican Sen. Steve Symms.

“Governor Andrus has chosen the route of obstruction, litigation and anti-progress,” Symms said in a statement. “His action is an open invitation to the federal government to spend their research dollars elsewhere.”

And then nine months later, just after Ryan issued the order formally barring any Colorado utility waste shipments to the INEL, Craig wrote a nine-page letter to Andrus outlining what the senator suggested was a formula for resolving the waste standoff.

Craig said the utility waste was potentially very valuable and that the environmental and health risks “are fairly minute.” Andrus took issue with the latter, contending that if there was only minute risk the government would not require the extensive safety precautions it does in handling that kind of waste.

And as for potential value of the waste for research, Andrus pointed to over 20 years of broken government promises about how it would use and remove radioactive waste that only kept piling up at the INEL.