A proposed bill in the New Mexico state Senate that would have created a state-level “radioactive waste consultation task force” was left in limbo Thursday after a split vote in the chamber’s Conservation Committee.
Committee members tied 4-4 on motions to advance SB 82 to the full Senate. Proposed by state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), the bill would create a task force consisting of the state secretaries of: energy; minerals and natural resources; health; environment; public safety; homeland security and emergency management and Indian affairs.
Both a motion to pass the bill and another to advance the measure though the legislature with no recommendation from the committee ended in a tie vote. The potential tie-breaker, state Sen. William Soules (D) was not present for either committee vote and was excused from both.
Soules, a career public school teacher, left the hearing for a prior speaking engagement at a virtual conference of the New Mexico School Boards Association, he told RadWaste Monitor in an email Thursday evening. Sen. Elizabeth Stefanics (D), chair of the Conservation Committee, said during the hearing that she had been informed Soules would not return for the rest of the meeting. The committee adjourned around 11 a.m. local time. Soules returned from his speaking engagement shortly afterward, he said.
So, for now, SB 82 is stuck in committee, barring a successful motion to reconsider. At deadline for RadWaste Monitor, the Conservation Committee was scheduled to reconvene Saturday morning.
The proposed state task force’s primary responsibility would have been to negotiate with the federal government on the siting and licensing of waste disposal sites, notably Holtec International’s proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico.
The measure would have assessed the possible effects of potential nuclear waste storage sites on nearby communities, populations and property and coordinated state investigations into these effects. It also would have forced the state executive to provide an annual report to the state legislature on these investigations, Steinborn said Thursday.
SB 82 first appeared on the committee’s docket for Feb. 2 but debate on the bill was delayed multiple times — including on Tuesday, when the committee adjourned abruptly because of a “food fire” which caused an evacuation of the state house, Stefanics said Thursday.
Meanwhile, some members of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) administration supported SB 82 ahead of Thursday’s debate.
James Kenney, the state environment secretary, wrote a letter in favor of the bill to Steinborn, which the state senator read during the meeting. Eletha Trujillo, a representative from the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, has also voiced her agency’s support for SB 82.
Local opponents of the bill like Ed Hughs, a member of the citizens’ group Northeastern New Mexicans United Against Nuclear Waste, said at Thursday’s committee hearing that passing the measure would “send the wrong message” to Holtec and the feds — that New Mexico had consented to the storage of spent nuclear fuel within their borders.
Steinborn pushed back on this argument, saying that SB 82 wasn’t a “welcome mat” for companies like Holtec because the CISF licensing process was moving ahead regardless of state input. Instead, the proposed task force would provide a framework for the state to be “better fighters” in representing their interests as the facility is constructed, he said. Steinborn added that industry had “hired a team of lobbyists” to kill his bill.
Steinborn did not respond to a request for comment by deadline for RadWaste Monitor Friday.
Meanwhile, the proposed Holtec site is still under environmental review by the NRC. The process, a critical gateway point for licensing, likely won’t be done until the summer, the agency has said.
