Russia backs nuclear waste imports

Putin has to sign the bill before it becomes law

MOSCOW, Russia -- Nuclear waste could be imported into Russia as part of a money-making bid after a controversial bill was approved.

Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry said it could earn up to $20 billion by importing 20,000 metric tons (22,000 short tons) of spent nuclear fuel over 10 years.

The country's lower house quickly approved the bill on Wednesday.

It would use part of the money to clean up regions polluted by radioactive waste from the Soviet-era nuclear programme, the Associated Press news agency said.

The bill has to pass the Federation Council upper house and be signed by President Vladimir Putin in order to become law.

The upper house usually quickly approves government bills, but its speaker, Yegor Stroyev, warned that broad public opposition to the proposals could delay its passage.

Opponents said the measure would make Russia the world's nuclear dump, and questioned whether the money would be used as promised.

"Our citizens are against turning Russia into an outhouse," said Sergei Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko faction.

Yabloko and other opponents of the bill wanted the vote postponed, but the 450-member State Duma approved the three-bill package after a 20-minute debate.

A supporter of the bill, Deputy Yegor Ligachev, a Communist and a former member of the Soviet Union's ruling Politburo, said: "I am voting for this bill because I don't want places in my country remaining dead zones, contaminated by radiation."

Alleged conflict of interest on the part of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov briefly stalled the bill in December.

Although he was dismissed in a Cabinet shakeup, his successor, Alexander Rumyantsev, also championed the idea and it passed on second reading in April.

Many Russian towns, rivers and areas of land were exposed to radioactive pollution during the secretive development of the Soviet nuclear industry.

Environmentalists warn that large-scale imports of spent nuclear fuel would threaten radiation safety by leaving no place for Russia's own waste from nuclear power plants and decommissioned submarines.

"The imports of spent nuclear fuel would raise the danger of accidents at our nuclear plants," said Vladimir Kuznetsov, the co-ordinator of nuclear safety programs for the Russian Green Cross, an independent environmental group.

Kuznetsov, who previously worked at the state nuclear safety watchdog agency, also said that lax security and crumbling railroads would pose additional risks if nuclear waste was imported.