The task force will meet at 9 a.m. today at the Capitol for a hearing on the draft report and proposed legislation that would enhance oversight of Enviro- care's facility in Tooele County.

The panel of seven state senators and 11 House members decided against drafting legislation governing who owns the site during the so-called perpetual care time period, that is, 100 years after the site is cleaned up and padlocked.

Public testimony will be taken at the hearing, and critics already are lining up to denounce the draft report.

"There were attempts by some members of the task force to set strong policy for the state. But at the end of the day, what we end up with is a murky policy that doesn't give direction for the Legislature," said Jason Groenewold, spokesman for the nonprofit Healthy Environment Alliance. "There's not a lot of teeth in this, given they've been studying it for two years."

Groenewold said it was a mistake for the task force not to take up the perpetual care time-period ownership, putting taxpayers at risk far into the future.

"This is the point where all your liability accrues. There are no revenues," he said. "Where is the money to protect taxpayers from this liability?"

State regulators in 2001 signed off on Envirocare's technical plan for taking class B and C radioactive waste, which is more dangerous than the low-level class A waste it now takes. Envirocare takes about 98 percent of all the class A waste in the nation.

The task force was set up to decide the hotter waste question and take a look at the taxes Envirocare pays.

B and C waste can be thousands of times more radioactive, and includes some waste from nuclear power plants. State law now says Envirocare can't accept B and C waste without the permission of both the governor and the Legislature.

Only two other commercial sites are available in the nation for B and C waste, and those will be closed to 39 states beginning in 2008, increasing the pressure on Utah's commercial disposal options.

Envirocare now pays $400,000 each year into a so-called perpetual care fund, and is committed to spend nearly $41 million in closure and post-closure costs.

The task force grappled with the question of whether that was enough, but the report doesn't answer the question except to propose the periodic reviews in a law that the 2005 Legislature would consider.

The panel also will consider whether to adopt the position that Envirocare's low-level radioactive waste operations "pose a lower risk than many other chemical and mining facilities that currently operate in the state."

The legislative hazardous-waste task force is proposing to:

l Set up new oversight requirements for the Solid and Hazardous Waste Control Board, which every six years would have to review whether enough money is being set aside to manage the Envirocare waste site in Tooele County after it closes.

l Increase the fines for violating state law on hazardous waste.

l Make new rules covering the disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), toxic compounds used in transformers and other electrical equipment. The task force decided not to call for a ban on class B and C radioactive waste, nor did it propose legislation to cover what happens to the Envirocare site in the centuries after it shuts down.