Officials say a treatment plant designed to treat radioactive waste stored in eastern Idaho could start operating next spring. The Post Register reports the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit was built to treat 900,000 gallons (3,406,770 liters) of liquid radioactive waste by 2012, but it has not been able to get past the testing phase.  Usnews.com

A bipartisan pair of former congressional leaders, backed by corporate money, are launching a seven-figure advocacy and lobbying group in support of a carbon tax. Axios.com

Japan has told the United States it is ready to dispatch experts to North Korea to help the country dismantle nuclear facilities toward the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, Japanese government sources said Friday kyodonews.net

Local governments lost a lucrative source of tax revenue when nuclear reactor operations were suspended in 2011, but they have found other ways to collect funds, even on idle reactors that will be decommissioned. All 12 prefectures that host nuclear plants have passed ordinances by June that allow them to tax offline reactors. Asahi.com