To make that problem go away, EnergySolutions - the successor to Envirocare - has a bill in the Legislature, sponsored by Sen. Darin G. Peterson, R-Nephi. It would carve out exceptions to the law for EnergySolutions.

We think that's a bad idea.

If SB 155 were to pass, EnergySolutions would have to win approval for a license amendment only from the state's Radiation Control Board for the upward expansion of its waste dump. While this is largely a technical issue that should be examined by the experts at the Radiation Control Board, it also is a political issue that the Legislature and the governor should decide.

The politics of nuclear waste disposal are aglow across the nation. The permanent repository for high-level commercial wastes remains stymied in Nevada, and the Private Fuel Storage site for interim parking of those same wastes on the Goshute Reservation in Utah's Skull Valley remains alive, despite the efforts of Utah and federal regulators to drive a stake through its heart.

Under these circumstances, we believe it would be political folly for Utah to approve expansion of EnergySolutions' low-level nuclear waste dump without a thorough public debate that includes both the Legislature and governor. Now is not the time to signal that Utah will happily accept greater volumes of radioactive waste.

EnergySolutions is, after all, the operator of the nation's largest commercial radioactive waste depository. The company's proposal would allow it to pile its waste up to 83 feet above ground level, roughly twice the height allowed now. That would increase the capacity of the mile-square site in Tooele County by nearly 50 percent.

Georges Clemenceau, a premier of France during World War I, famously said, "War is too important to be left to the generals." In this case, we would say, nuclear waste regulation is too important to be left just to the regulators.

The politics of nuclear waste disposal are aglow across the nation.