FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has resurrected a decade-old proposal to give tribes the option of knowing when commercial nuclear waste is being shipped across their reservations.

NRC regulations already require that state governors or a designee be informed of certain shipments of spent nuclear fuel and other waste passing through states.

“We want to do right by tribal governments and accord them the same courtesies and opportunities as state governments have,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said Dec. 7.

Each federally recognized tribe could opt to receive advanced notification of shipments but could not release the details of those shipments. The information would be given only to the highest-ranking individual representing a tribe.

The NRC is accepting comment on the proposal through the new year. It has recommended the plan take effect in a year to allow time to develop a list of tribal contacts, and for training on the new requirements.

Debra Croswell, interim executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, said advanced notification could help police and firefighters respond more quickly to emergencies.

“If there were some kind of major event that affected the environment, that staff within our tribal government would be involved in helping to guide the cleanup so it doesn't effect the water and the resources,” she said.

The NRC approved 1,553 shipments of commercial nuclear waste from 1979 to 2007 – the majority driven across the interstate highway system. In the more than 1 million miles of travel, none of the shipments resulted in an injury through the release of radioactive material, the NRC said.

A map of the routes used in that 30-year period show activity was busiest on the East Coast but that shipments crossed almost every state. Not all of those routes still are used.

McIntyre said the commission has no information on how often shipments of spent nuclear fuel crossed tribal lands.

The NRC proposal would apply only to the commission's licensees, including universities that might have a research reactor, utilities or private companies. The U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Defense regulate other nuclear waste shipments.

The NRC received 44 comments when it first proposed the advanced notification to tribes in 1999. Most of the tribes and tribal organizations that responded supported it, but some disagreed on how it should be implemented, the NRC said.

Under the current proposal, the designated tribal official would be notified by mail at least four days before the waste is shipped across tribal lands.