skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Thursday, July 17, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans plow ahead on cuts to PBS and foreign aid; LGBTQ advocates condemn FL Attorney General's focus on transgender athletes; Court allows NH TikTok lawsuit claiming deceptive practices to proceed; Funding fight in one Michigan city not stopping clean energy efforts.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Trump is pressed to name a special counsel for the Epstein case. Speaker Mike Johnson urges Senate not to change rescissions bill, and undocumented immigrants are no longer eligible for bond before deportation hearings.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Cuts in money for clean energy could hit rural mom-and-pop businesses hard, Alaska's effort to boost its power grid with wind and solar is threatened, and a small Kansas school district attracts new students with a focus on agriculture.

Fed Board Meets in ID to Discuss Nuclear Waste Storage

play audio
Play

Tuesday, August 29, 2023   

Federal officials are in Idaho to discuss where to store nuclear waste. The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent federal agency, is holding two meetings in Idaho Falls. The first is today and will feature a workshop on the siting of radioactive waste facilities. Wednesday's board meeting will focus on the Energy Department's consent-based siting process for waste.

Don Hancock, the nuclear waste program director for the Southwest Research and Information Center, said the consent-based process fell by the wayside during the Trump administration but has become a focus again under President Biden.

"They're starting off saying we think we want to come up with a consent-based process to see if we can store spent fuel for some considerable period of time," he explained. "But people would be consenting to temporary storage as opposed to permanent disposal."

Hancock added the Obama administration decided the siting process should prioritize temporary sites rather than long-term geological storage and the Biden administration has picked up there. The public can be involved in both Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board's meetings this week, either in person or online.

Hancock noted that Boise State University was selected by the Energy Department to receive $2 million dollars to study consent-based siting. However, he added it is not clear what that means for Idaho.

"An important question that I think people of Idaho would want to know is does Boise State and their partners think that what they're doing now and what they could be doing down the line is having Idaho consent to being this kind of interim storage site?," he said.

Boise State University did not respond to a request for comment by the deadline for this story.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Just 30% of U.S. solar and 57% of wind projects are expected to survive under the new GOP tax and spending law signed by President Donald Trump. (Adobe Stock)

Environment

play sound

More than $7 billion in Colorado's GDP and 9,600 jobs are projected to be lost under President Donald Trump's signature tax and spending bill which cu…


Environment

play sound

California receives high marks in a report on the fight against plastic pollution. This is Plastic-free July and the United States of Plastics report…

play sound

Environmental groups say Oregon's new groundwater law, meant to curb pollution, has been diluted to the point they can no longer support it. …


At least one in seven Nebraskans, or 287,240 people, are facing hunger, with one in five children considered food insecure. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

Groups working to end hunger in Nebraska are reaching out to all parts of the state to train food insecure people to advocate for others facing simila…

Social Issues

play sound

New Mexico demonstrators will join nationwide protests today to oppose policies of the Trump administration. The "Good Trouble Lives On" nonviolent …

Refugee and Immigrant Connections Spokane will use its AARP Community Challenge funds to teach digital literacy skills to refugee seniors. (Adobe Stock)

Social Issues

play sound

More seniors in Washington state are facing financial strain or even losing their homes and seven local organizations will expand support for them wit…

Environment

play sound

An effort to restore Northern pike habitat in Green Bay is also benefiting other wildlife species and raising local awareness about the effects of cli…

Environment

play sound

Conservation groups, including the National Wildlife Federation and Oceana, are calling for a moratorium on deep-sea mining for minerals until more …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021