Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) today plans to introduce a bill taking on the volatile issue of how the feds should store thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste from power plants until a permanent repository is built. The bill would have the federal government take title to the waste but leave it at reactor sites instead of shipping it to a single temporary national storage spot. The nuclear industry has rejected such a plan in the past, but yesterday Western governors voted 9-2 in favor of a resolution calling for spent nuclear fuel to be left where it is until a permanent storage site exists and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson also endorsed that approach.
