Rep. James Hansen
(R) Utah's First Congressional District

The reservation lands of the Skull Valley Band of the Goshute Indians lie right in the middle of Utah's 1st Congressional District. For more than 20 years that district has been represented in Congress by Republican James Hansen. Hansen now chairs the powerful House Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over all federal lands--including national parks and public range lands--as well as jurisdiction over much of the nation's natural resources.

Rep. Hansen was interviewed in his Washington, D.C. office by program Producer Ken Verdoia.

Ken Verdoia: The Skull Valley Reservation lands fall right in the middle of the 1st Congressional District of Utah, your district. Is it the place for high level radioactive waste storage?

Rep. Jim Hansen: Well, apparently some people think it is. I don't happen to be of that school of thought. What a lot of people don't realize is that it's in the Utah Test and Training Range. There's a lot of training ranges around America and encroachments coming from all different angles. The one we have out there is the only training range I know of that has zero to 58,000 feet of clear air space. And if you go down to Nellis you can fight aircraft between 20 and 25,000 and then above that there's an airline and then above that there's something else going on. It's a very dangerous place to go. People love that area, not only for the aircraft that fly over it but for things we do on the ground. Now if we have the Goshute Indian Reservation, which is in Skull Valley, and we happen to put high level nuclear waste in it, what kind of problem does that create, is the issue people of Utah should look at.

Ken, I got to come off from the area of talking about the 388 Fighters Wing and the 419th. If I was the commander of one of those bases I'd be very hesitant to send those F-16's or anything else that I would fly, anywhere close to them because you may have an accident in that area and you may hit something that could be very, very serious. So if I was one of those fellows, and having talked to those folks, I think they kind of agree with this theory. You probably lose about 1/3 to 40 percent of the range because you wouldn't dare put your guys over it. Remember when that cruise missile crashed not too long ago? What a couple of years ago? That was a relatively close to that area. Also we've had two F-16's go down. A lot of people don't realize this is a Test and Training Range and those planes have been worked on, something could go wrong with those things. It's not like getting in a 727 or 757 and flying to Washington. It's an entirely different ball game. So it is right in the middle of our area. It's right in the middle of the Utah Test and Training Range, and it happens to be where we take care of these airplanes for Hill Air Force Base.

Let's add another dimension to this. Hill Air Force Base is the single biggest employer there is in the state of Utah. Literally, billions of dollars go through that gate and if you want to have an Air Force base, it's got to fly airplanes and if you do anything to encroach or hurt it flying airplanes, you've somewhat restricted the value of that Base. And that to me would be a terrible thing to happen for Utah. In fact, if we lost Hill Air Force Base we would be close to a depression. I'm confident of that. So one thing is the economy. Another's the safety angle and another may be keeping that a viable Test and Training Range and it's very important to me that it stays that way.

Verdoia: That concern is very clearly stated. Did you get a chance to have anyone listen to your concerns before the Goshutes signed that contract?

Rep. Hansen: Ken, this may take just a second to explain this, but back in 1982 we passed a Nuclear Waste Recovery Bill. I was on the Resources Committee, which I now chair. Mo Udall [Representative from Arizona, now deceased] was the Chairman of the committee and we did it by geological formations. There was one in New Mexico. There was one down by Blanding and the third one was Yucca Mountain. And in that particular piece of legislation it said we will have scientists and other folks determine which would be the best place to put them. And then that determination is made, we'll start working on one or the other and eventually the President of the United States and Congress will have to say this is the final repository for high level nuclear waste.

The one in New Mexico seemed to have too many problems, but I can't remember what it was. The one in Blanding, we flew down there a couple of times with the committee, looked at it. One of the disadvantages it's very close to Bryce and we didn't want it that close to Bryce even though that wasn't the main consideration. The geological formation didn't lend itself to us. And the one that was the best was Yucca Mountain. As you know that's out by and a little west of the past atomic testing area that we had and later on, the nuclear testing area. And so they ended up being the repository. There's been an awful lot of work done out there. I mean, we're talking basically billions of dollars of money going into that and also next to it, there is a temporary site, which a lot of people don't realize. To make sure that we didn't really get hammered on it, I put an amendment in that said the state governor and the Legislature could veto it. There were some provisions of what they could veto it on. A fellow representative amended my language that said it would not pertain to a nation within a nation, which would be Indian tribes. And so I think that when it came, this time that the folks back east, New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota had to move the spent rods to another area they looked for an Indian reservation so they really, practically, didn't have to deal with the state government. And of course, headed out toward Yucca Mountain they looked at the Goshute Indian area.