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WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff committed Tuesday to weigh the dangers of shipping high-level nuclear waste across the country and storing it at a temporary site in Utah versus leaving it at the reactors where it is now, says Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Chertoff's commitment to study the nuclear fuel issue marks the first time the department has looked at the terrorist threat and national security implications involved in Private Fuel Storage's plan to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste in Utah's desert.

Federal regulators ''have looked at the safety issues, but they haven't looked at security, which, post-9-11, should be considered," Huntsman said in an interview. "In the day of the dirty bomb and car bombs this needs to be elevated to that level."

Huntsman also briefed Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue in his office in the White House's West Wing. The vice president asked questions about the status of the PFS project and the logistics of the proposed storage, although Huntsman said the meeting was simply to make Cheney aware of the issue in case it is elevated to his level in the future.

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the group of electric utilities pushing the temporary storage center on the Goshute reservation about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City has committed to meeting any Homeland Security requirements to guarantee the facility is safe. She said if any studies find further safeguards are warranted, they will be put in place.

PFS has argued that consolidating the spent fuel at one site would make it easier to protect and that there are advantages to moving the waste away from the reactors, many of which are in populous urban areas or on waterways.

Huntsman has said that a terrorist attack on the PFS facility could spread radiation across the Wasatch Front and points further east.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security would not comment on the meeting or the study Huntsman said was promised.

Huntsman said the full scope of the Homeland Security assessment is unclear, but it probably would weigh the dangers of transportation and the risks of storing the fuel at the reactors, temporarily on the Skull Valley reservation and in a proposed permanent repository inside Yucca Mountain, Nev.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering whether to approve the PFS plan to store 4,000 steel and concrete casks of nuclear fuel on concrete pads in Utah's Skull Valley.

An NRC decision is expected within a few weeks, although the state has appeals pending and could take its case to a federal appeals court if the NRC grants the license - a battle that Huntsman said could drag the issue out for several years.

The state also continues to press Interior Secretary Gale Norton to reject the lease between PFS and the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes. As the trustee for American Indians, the Interior Secretary can void business deals found to be harmful to the tribes.

The local Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the lease, contingent upon completion of necessary environmental studies and on NRC granting a license.

Huntsman said his administration continues to press the state's case with Interior Department attorneys.

The National Academies of Science said last week that dry cask storage, such as proposed for the PFS facility and which is in place at several reactors around the country, was safer in case of a terrorist attack than the pools that many reactors use to cool the fuel rods.

A spokesman for Sen. Orrin Hatch said the Utah senator asked Chertoff during the secretary's confirmation hearing to study the Homeland Security aspects of the PFS plan.

"It's a very good sign and a hopeful step that he has chosen to do so," said Hatch aide Adam Elggren.