mandj98's flickr photostream/Creative Commons

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the commission whose job it is, assumedly, to regulate nuclear stuff, has announced it “doesn’t have the authority to prevent foreign radioactive waste from being imported into the United States.” So, what exactly…um. Okay?

The NRC wrote in an April 9 letter to Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., that the Atomic Energy Act doesn’t distinguish between domestic and foreign waste. The NRC says that as long as the material can be imported safely and someone is willing to accept it, the commission can’t keep the waste out. [AP via Google]

This is in response to the fact that a company in Utah wants to import “up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy’s shuttered nuclear power program.” The company wants to process the waste in Tennessee, and dump it in the Utah desert. Well, probably not “dump.” But you get the gist. The Congressmen asked the NRC if they could, you know, have that not be allowed, and the NRC responded basically, “Nah. We’ll let you handle this one, Utah.”

The NRC…said Utah is responsible for regulating the company’s facility. ‘The NRC will issue a license to import low-level waste if it determines that issuance of the license would not be inimical to the common defense and security or constitute an unreasonable risk to the public health and safety and that an appropriate facility has agreed to accept the waste,’ the NRC wrote.

Basically, they don’t differentiate between foreign and domestic waste, because, hey, it’s all nuclear anyway. While this doesn’t really play a role in the current debate on whether or not to incorporate more nuclear power into the grid, I think it’s important to takepart to learn about nuclear power. There are a lot of misconceptions regarding it, on both sides of the issue, so as this matter remains prevalent, it’s good to know what the debate is about.