So, they passed a bill Wednesday easing political oversight of the company's radioactive waste landfill and sent the measure to Huntsman on Valentine's Day with veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate.

The governor gave a cold shoulder to the company last year, just when it needed his approval to expand the Tooele County landfill, the largest of its kind in the nation. And, when lawmakers came to the company's defense by trying through legislation to take away the governor's final word on major waste projects, the Republican governor dumped the bill and lawmakers failed to muster the votes to override his veto.

The latest effort to accommodate EnergySolutions' expansion plans was sent to the governor with a 55-10 vote by the House on Wednesday. And, within minutes, the Senate blessed a last-minute House amendment with its own 22-5 vote.

Overriding a veto requires a minimum of 50 votes in the House and 20 in the Senate.

Spokesman Mike Mower said the governor, who refused contributions from the company and its owners during his 2004 campaign, is studying the bill. The measure would eliminate the political approval process for EnergySolutions alone and allows the company to take as much waste as it wants within its current boundary as long as it is no hotter than the low-level material now permitted.

“Gov. Huntsman,” said Mower, “has not made a final decision on whether he will sign the bill.”

Meanwhile, the company and its opponents both say they haven't spoken with the governor about it. Huntsman has 10 days to decide, and with 14 days left in the 2007 legislative session, lawmakers would have enough time to override a veto.

Vanessa Pierce, director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, called the bill a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for the state's Department of Environmental Quality. The group and at least one former company executive had signaled over the last year that they might fight the state over its interpretation of the 1990 law.

Opponents contend regulators failed to enforce a part of the law that would have forced several expansions to go before Tooele County, the Legislature and the governor - including a pending expansion that would allow waste to be piled 85 feet high, or 8 stories tall.

Despite this “50-percent rule” that triggers the political approvals, the Division of Radiation Control has amended EnergySolutions' license more than 80 times in the past 19 years and has never directed the company to get the Legislature and the governor to approve those changes, many of them large expansions.

Critics - 666 public comments on the request have been under review since November - seemed poised to press their case on appeal and perhaps, to put the state's interpretation of the 50-percent rule on trial in court.

Rep. Richard Wheeler, R-Ephraim, said he wants no say over what happens at EnergySolutions' current site.

“My plea is: let's let the regulators do their jobs,” he said.

fahys@sltrib.com