In his editorial this morning, Opinion Editor Marty Trillhaase of the Lewiston Tribune spotlights the attempt by Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis to bully Attorney General Lawrence Wasden into backing down on N-waste research in Idaho:

If Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden didn't know it already, he does now: He is very much a man standing alone. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, pulled Wasden's office budget from that chamber's calendar. At the same time, Davis is talking about decoupling Wasden from supervision over half of his deputies -- those lawyers assigned to agencies spread across the state. Rather than answer to Wasden, they'd essentially report to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's appointees.

Davis says he's "disappointed" with Wasden because the attorney general is standing between the Idaho National Laboratory and research it hopes to conduct on spent fuel rods that were headed to Idaho. That's a real problem for a state lawmaker whose eastern Idaho legislative district depends on the national lab to drive the economy. But Wasden possesses that authority under the landmark nuclear waste settlement agreement former Idaho Gov. Phil Batt signed with the U.S. Department of Energy 20 years ago. More here.