Me. This post is about me and how I feel and why I feel that way.

Disappointed.

Embarrassed.

Betrayed.

I, like many of you, heard that Governor Herbert doesn’t want foreign waste to come into Utah. I naively thought that he had some intention of actually doing something about it.

Silly me.

Angie Welling, the Governor’s spokeswoman disabused me of any misplaced associations of the term “fearless leader” associated with our new governor, and bashed any hope that he might actually proactively fulfill his oath of office with the interests of the people of the state of Utah in mind.

Our governor won’t send a representative to committee hearings in support of the RID act, our state’s last best hope at preventing EnergySolutions from shoving Italy’s radioactive waste down our throats and into our west desert to stay forever. Not even a letter. No, no official support whatsoever!

Here it is from his spokeswoman:

"The governor is not going to take a position on the RID (Radioactive Import Deterrence) Act, but in concept remains opposed to storage of foreign waste in Utah."

“He believes that the compacts’ have the authority now to decide this issue and is hoping for a ruling from the 10th Circuit that reaffirms that authority."

When faced with the precedent that will send the world’s waste down our roads (don’t think that our snow is sooo good that it will eclipse the quality of our waste dumps in future real estate and travel planning) Governor Gary Herbert is content to hope!

Hoping your way through a legal, regulatory, and legislative battle with EnergySolutions is like trying to win the Cold War with a mouthful of pop-rocks, it would be funny if our governor weren’t trying to do it. EnergySolutions has a comprehensive and proactive suite of strategies. They have a legal strategy, a regulatory strategy, a marketing strategy, what you could call a “bribery ” strategy. EnergySolutions is focused, determined, and they don’t back off.

Governor Herbert has one strategy (defending the compact), which is incredibly important. But if you put all your eggs in one basket, you end up with yolk on your face – or, in this case, foreign waste in your face… and state... and basket.
 
Is it too much to ask that at the end of his first summer in office he write a letter or take a stand on a difficult issue? What does he stand to lose?

Trust, I suppose. He’s going to lose someone’s trust.

Either the trust of a company: EnergySolutions, or the trust of one state’s population.

It just so happens that he was sworn in to protect the PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF UTAH, not the interests of a company incorporated in Deleware that happens to have their name on the place where the Jazz play.

And NO IT IS NOT ENOUGH to merely hope! Ronald Reagan’s famous words would have rung as hollow as herbert’s had he said: Mr. Gorbachov HOPE down that wall.

TEAR was the word and the wall came down.

But today in Utah hope is the word and the state of Utah is left with a Governor who refuses to be their advocate.
The resolve of our new governor and my trust in him are melting like spilt snow-cones on a summer side walk just after three in the afternoon.
Which is a shame because it was raspberry-coconut, and it’s melting is a metaphor for the future of our state which in a few hours will be no more than a red stain passing under the feet of the masses chasing the six o’clock bus on their way home from work.

Yeah, I’m sad. I’m sad about my snow cone, and my state. The state where I wanted to raise my kids, is beginning its transition from promised land to wasteland on Gary Herbert’s watch.