The president of a company in charge of a proposed interim storage facility in Texas told state lawmakers this week that it wouldn’t build the site unless it got the green light from the governor’s mansion.
David Carlson, president and chief operating officer at Waste Control Specialists (WCS), told members of the Texas House Environmental Regulation Committee Monday that he wanted to be “absolutely clear” that his company would not build the proposed interim storage facility “without the consent of the state of Texas.”
Asked whether his company was currently seeking approval from the state, Carlson said that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott “has been clear in his position on that.” Abbott penned a letter to then-President Donald Trump in September voicing his opposition to both the proposed storage site in his state as well as its Holtec International counterpart in southeastern New Mexico.
The proposed interim storage site would be built in Andrews County, Texas at WCS’s existing low-level waste disposal facility. Carlson reminded the committee at the beginning of his presentation that the state “chose to take” on low-level radioactive waste as part of the Texas compact under the 1985 Low-Level Waste Policy Act and that the company’s operations are codified in both state and federal law.
The company’s presentation to the Texas legislature comes after state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R), who chairs the Environmental Regulation committee, introduced a bill last week that would ban the storage of radioactive waste in the state. At deadline Thursday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing Landgraf’s bill had not yet been scheduled for debate in committee.
A spokesman for WCS declined to comment on either the Monday hearing or whether the company would seek state approval before building its proposed storage facility.
The proposed Texas site is currently undergoing a federal environmental impact review, a prerequisite for licensing. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has previously said this process won’t be done until the summer.
