An alleged “secret scheme” to allow more nuclear waste into Idaho is at the center of a squabble between current and past governors.
Former Idaho Governor Cecil Andrus (D) wrote in an op-ed Sunday he believes state and Idaho National Laboratory officials want to “revise” a 1995 agreement. That agreement requires the federal government to remove all nuclear waste from INL by 2035. Andrus said revisions would extend the deadline by fifteen years, and open Idaho’s borders to 3,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel.
Current Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter (R) fired back at Andrus in his own op-ed Wednesday. Otter wrote the former governor is “tilting at windmills.” He said, “There is no scheme - secret or otherwise,” and “that Idaho will not be the nation’s nuclear dumping ground.” Otter says he’ll hold the federal government to the original agreement.
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