BOISE -- Eight Western states have rejected a company's plan to ship tons of radioactive Italian waste to Utah by declaring that rules don't allow for foreign loads.

The vote Thursday in Boise by members of the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management is a blow to efforts by EnergySolutions Inc. to bring 20,000 tons of Italian waste into the country.

It will affect a pending Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision on an import application by EnergySolutions.

Without explicit approval from compact members, the NRC may to balk at letting the company ship the waste to Utah.

The federal agency could still allow the Italian waste into the United States, to be processed at EnergySolutions' facility in Tennessee and shipped back to Italy.