Utah nuclear waste company ramps up campaign contributions

Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. is aggressively donating to members of key energy committees in Congress as it increasingly seeks lucrative federal contracts and legislation beneficial to the nuclear power industry.

Since 2005, the company's political action committee, executives and investors have poured nearly $400,000 into congressional campaigns through January, up from about $40,000 in the four previous years, Federal Election Commission reports show.

The company's growing influence in Washington will be tested this year as it tries to kill a bill that would ban the importation of low-level radioactive foreign waste, which would be disposed at its dump in western Utah's desert.

"I'm sure this means many millions of dollars to them, so I'm sure they're going to be working hard to stop it," said Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., the bill's co-sponsor.

EnergySolutions increased lobbyist spending from $680,000 in 2006 to more than $1 million last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.

The company already handles some foreign waste, but the amount it wants to import from Italy would be the largest ever from another country, Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman David McIntyre said.

The volume and the publicity surrounding it have generated more than 900 public comments on the company's application to the NRC, he said. Import-license applications typically don't receive more than a handful of comments, if any.

EnergySolutions says it welcomes the comments but contends Gordon's bill is unnecessary.

"The NRC has the scientific and technical expertise to make thoughtful decisions based on the facts," EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said.