ID HCR060

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is the nation's lead nuclear research, development and deployment laboratory and Idaho's fifth-largest private employer, accounting for nearly 2.5 percent of statewide economic impact.

The 1995 Settlement Agreement between Idaho and the Department of Energy designates INL as the nation's lead laboratory for spent fuel and allows the state to issue waivers for importing small quantities of commercial fuel for research.

INL spent nearly $130 million with Idaho's businesses in 2015 and generated an estimated $58 million in state and local tax revenues in 2015 while meeting 959 of 964 mandated cleanup deadlines.

A second shipment of approximately 100 pounds of solid fuel rods from Byron Nuclear Generating Station in Illinois is vital to national security and poses no environmental risk to Idaho's aquifer or Eastern Snake River Plain.

The Legislature strongly urges Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to issue a waiver allowing research quantities of spent fuel into Idaho for research and development at the INL.