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Opposition mounted this week against a federal court ruling that limits the power of a regional waste compact to restrict radioactive waste going to disposal facilities like the one operated in Tooele County by EnergySolutions Inc. Nothing short of states' rights are at stake in a federal court ruling on the government authority over radioactive waste headed to EnergySolutions Inc.'s Utah disposal site. In filing a friend-of-the-court brief Thursday in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, New Mexico joined a growing line of opponents to a May ruling by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart. It basically said EnergySolutions no longer has to answer to the Northwest Interstate Compact on low-level radioactive waste. Utah, the Northwest Compact and the Rocky Mountain Compact, which share a low-level waste disposal site in Hanford, Wash., are appealing Stewart's ruling, and they filed papers in the case last week. Six regional compacts, joined by New Mexico and the Council of State Governments, weighed in Thursday. And, with all the papers filed Thursday, eight of the nation's ten congressionally established compacts have weighed in the effort to overturn Stewart's ruling. Compacts represent all but six states. The two remaining compacts, which manage waste within eight states, have through Tuesday to join the fray.

State officials contend in federal-court documents filed Tuesday that the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management has authority over EnergySolutions Inc.'s Clive facility in Tooele County, where the company wants to store low-level nuclear waste from Italy. In a motion for summary judgment filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, Utah assistant attorney general Fred Nelson said the Northwest Compact has had authority over the Clive facility since 1991, when Envirocare, which later became EnergySolutions, asked the compact to store low-level radioactive waste. Since that time, the compact has responded to similar requests based on language in a 1985 federal act that created the compact.

Gov. Rick Perry has named seven members to the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission, including Andrews County Judge Richard Dolgener. Andrews County is home to Waste Control Specialists, which currently stores low-level radioactive waste. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has issued a draft license to dispose of the waste and is considering a final license. "The Texas Compact Commission was created by the Texas Legislature to oversee the disposal of low-level radioactive waste was authorized under the Texas-Vermont Compact. It is critically important that the residents of Andrews County has a voice on this commission in light of the fact that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is considering granting Waste Control Specialists a final license to dispose of this waste at the company's Andrews County facility," Dolgener said in a news release.

EnergySolutions Inc. has won its legal battle to import low-level radioactive waste from Italy, after a federal court ruling Friday. The decision by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart in Salt Lake City validated the Salt Lake City-based company's arguments that its efforts to bring the waste to Utah fall outside the regulatory purview of the Northwest Compact, a regional coalition of states tasked with overseeing low-level radioactive-waste management. Attorneys for EnergySolutions had successfully argued in February that the compact's authority only extended to waste generated within the compact boundaries of its member states and that it was not the intent of Congress to grant any overreaching authority beyond that. "The law is very clear, and we are very pleased with the ruling," said Jill Segal, a company spokeswoman. "We always believed we are not a compact facility" subject to those regulations, she said. A spokesman with the Utah Attorney General's Office said late Friday that a decision on whether to appeal the judge's ruling is under review

EnergySolutions Inc. was a big winner in federal court Friday, but the Salt Lake City nuclear waste company is still a long way from its goal of bringing low-level radioactive waste from Italy and disposing it in Utah. Multiple hurdles remain, including a possible court appeal and pending legislation in Congress to ban importation of waste from outside U.S. borders. Although U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart ruled Friday that a regional oversight group has no authority to stop EnergySolutions from using its Utah site to bury foreign radioactive, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not revived its review of the Italy import request, said commission spokesman David McIntyre. "You might have something from the commission soon," he said, "but it is not going to be a yea or nay on the license." Like their counterparts at the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste, the state of Utah and Congress, the NRC's lawyers are studying Stewart's ruling . The judge found Congress never intended to give the compacts power to say what goes into disposal sites not specifically designated for the regional waste groups.

A regional organization is headed back to court in a fight to reclaim its authority over a Utah company, including whether it can dispose of foreign radioactive waste. The Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste will take the case to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver in hopes of overturning a decision by U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart. In his May 15 ruling, Stewart sided with EnergySolutions Inc., the Salt Lake City-based nuclear waste company that wants to import waste generated in Italy and other foreign countries and bury it at its disposal site in Tooele County. The Northwest Compact, which includes Utah and seven other states, made the decision to push forward with an appeal on Monday.

"The US Supreme Court on Monday considered whether a non-state entity can sue a state and impose monetary sanctions as attorneys argued a case involving North Carolina's departure from a group of states trying to find a disposal site for low-level nuclear waste. North Carolina, part of the eight-member Southeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact, had been designated the host state for a low-level waste disposal facility. From 1988 to 1997, the Southeast Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Commission, which administers the compact, provided North Carolina with close to $88 million. During that time, North Carolina spent about $34 million of its own funds but did not obtain a license for a new LLW disposal facility. The waste includes low-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants and that generated by non-utility operations, such as hospitals. "

An eight-state radioactive-waste-management entity plans to appeal a federal court ruling that said a company can dispose of foreign nuclear waste at its facility in the western Utah desert. A judge last month ruled against the Northwest Compact, which includes Utah and seven other states. The compact's executive director, Mike Garner, said officials decided Monday to take the case to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. wants to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy. After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would be disposed of in Utah.

Despite having their own radioactive waste dump, three states have shipped millions of cubic feet of waste across the country this decade to a private Utah facility that is the only one available to 36 other states, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. Department of Energy records. The shipments are stoking concerns that waste from Connecticut, New Jersey and South Carolina is taking up needed space in Utah, unnecessarily creating potential shipping hazards and undermining the government's intent for states to dispose of their own waste on a regional basis. "It's clear that the low-level waste system in this country is broken when there are states with their own dump sites sending tons of radioactive garbage across the country for disposal in Utah," said Vanessa Pierce, executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, an advocacy group. "The compact system, which was supposed to protect states from becoming the country's dumping ground, has been totally derailed."

"In a rare 90-minute session, the Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether North Carolina violated a radioactive waste storing agreement when it abandoned the deal but kept the investment amount of $80 million. "That's the deal. They can run away. But in addition, take $80 million?" asked a skeptical Justice Stephen Breyer. Justice Sonia Sotomayor also appeared concerned about the financial losses suffered from the other states. "The compact expressly says that none of the contracting states have any liabilities" North Carolina in 1999 pulled out of a deal with other southern states to cooperate in the storing of radioactive material. South Carolina had the only previously existing facility of the group, but North Carolina was next in line to develop and host a site, receiving almost $80 million in assistance over the course of 9 years."

Utah has agreed to become a defendant in a federal lawsuit over whether EnergySolutions Inc. can import foreign radioactive waste for disposal here. The Salt Lake City-based nuclear waste disposal firm wants to import 20,000 tons of low-level waste from Italy's shuttered nuclear program for processing in Tennessee and disposal in Utah. After processing, about 1,600 tons would be disposed at its Clive, Utah site. The company's application is currently pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which asked for input from the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste, of which Utah is a member.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking input from "potential parties" before proceeding with EnergySolutions' application for a license to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy. The order was sent to today to the parties, including those who petitioned for a public hearing on the license application, following last week's ruling by a Federal Court that determine that the Northwest Compact has no authority to restrict out-of-region waste sent to the EnergySolutions landfill at Clive, Utah. The NRC had held the license proceedings in abeyance pending that ruling, and now is asking parties for their views on how the commission should proceed. They have until June 19 to file their views with the commission. The filings should be no longer than 15 pages, the order said. The potential parties include the Utah attorney general, the U.S. State Department, the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, and others.