A bill that would broadly prohibit storage of spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico is set up for a final vote in the New Mexico legislature with only days to go before the end of the session.
On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee of the New Mexico House of Representatives passed an amended version of Senate Bill 53, “Storage of Certain Radioactive Wastes,” 6-5. The same version of the bill, introduced by state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), passed the full state Senate on Feb. 13 by a vote of 21-13.
The bill would change state law to ban construction of spent fuel storage facilities to which New Mexico has not “consented to or concurred.” It would also bar spent fuel storage in New Mexico until a national permanent spent fuel repository is open and would give the state’s radioactive waste task force oversight of private storage facilities.
Holtec International, Jupiter, Fla., has called Steinborn’s bill a threat to the company’s proposed HI-STORE facility, which the company wants to build in Eddy County, N.M. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said it could license the proposed site by March.
Holtec has said the HI-STORE site initially could store 8,700 tons of spent nuclear fuel in 500 canisters. By weight, that is roughly 9.5% of the total inventory of U.S. spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
This is the fourth time in as many years that a New Mexico lawmaker has tried to ban spent fuel storage in the Land of Enchantment.
Last year, Steinborn’s bill stalled out in the state Senate’s Judiciary Committee, but a companion House bill made it to the chamber floor and earned an endorsement from New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), who said she would have signed the bill.
The legislature tabled the anti-nuclear measure last year after some lawmakers worried that the bill would have conflicted with federal law, drawn a lawsuit from the U.S. Justice Department, and been struck down in court.
