Panel meets to discuss nuclear waste removal agreement

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - On Friday, a panel including Senator Jim Risch, Congressman Mike Simpson and Governor Brad Little came together at the Bennion Student Union to discuss the state's new nuclear waste agreement.

Signed in November, Little says the new deal - which extends the timeline of the original agreement - is really just an update.

"It was 1995 when that agreement was signed and like anything that's that old - 25 years old - you have to adapt it to current times, and that's what we did," Little said.

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, like Governor Little, felt the new relationship between the state, the INL and the Department of Energy was among the biggest takeaways from this new agreement.

"We're on the same page, we're heading down in a straight line, heading for a good goal," Wasden said, adding that their relationship has them "in lockstep" with the 1995 deal.

According to the governor, the original agreement had been signed with the belief that there would be more permanent repositories than there currently are. Little added that it's important for Idaho to keep its "foot on the gas" with nuclear waste removal.

"We need to continue to work on clean up. We need to continue to work to expand the mission of this facility to do what's critical going forward," he said.

Idaho is at "the front of the line" for getting the nuclear waste out, according to Little. But while it is still here, it will continue to improve research and development efforts.

Attorney General Wasden says this deal won't just benefit the Gem State.

"This has worldwide impact and the research that is being done at INL ... benefits all of us, all mankind."

Just outside the student union, a large group of protestors voiced their displeasure with another issue.

"Mike Simpson and Jim Risch are here at this presentation tonight and we are ashamed of the both of them for not supporting the impeachment of Donald Trump," Robin Piet, a protester, said.

Dozens, like Piet, didn't feel that their protest would change anything but wanted it to be known that they were disappointed.

"It's not necessarily true that this part of Idaho is instantaneously all conservative," Vic Allen, another protester, said.