The Nation - News from Feb. 2, 1989

The Energy Department has agreed to spend $456 million in the next five years to clean up hundreds of thousands of barrels of buried nuclear waste at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Gov. Cecil D. Andrus said. The federal agency more than tripled its budget request for clean-up money at the laboratory for fiscal year 1989 since Andrus imposed a ban in October on the further shipment of nuclear waste to the site near Idaho Falls. Additionally, the Energy Department is requesting more than six times as much money for the clean-up in fiscal 1990 and more than eight times more money for fiscal years 1991 through 1994 than it had requested before the ban, Andrus said.