A proposed bill that would ban the storage of high-level nuclear waste in Texas got a new lease on life last week after its second iteration made it through the state House.
The measure, proposed by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R), passed via voice vote in a special meeting of the state House Friday evening. The bill’s next stop is the state Senate. At deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, the upper chamber had yet to schedule a vote.
If it becomes law, Landgraf’s bill would ban the storage and transportation of high-level nuclear waste including spent fuel anywhere in the Lone Star State. The legislation appeared only weeks before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was scheduled to make a final licensing decision on a proposed interim storage facility for spent fuel to be built at Waste Control Specialists’ (WCS) existing low-level storage site in Landgraf’s district.
The proposed Andrews, Texas interim storage site, to be run by WCS-Orano joint venture Interim Storage Partners (ISP), is in the latter stages of licensing. NRC has said that it would make a final decision on the site in September.
Friday was the second time Landgraf has attempted to get his high-level waste ban through the Texas legislature. An earlier version of the measure died on the state House floor back in May after a parliamentary fracas got it kicked back into committee.
State Rep. Tom Craddick (R), whose parliamentary maneuvering helped quash an earlier version of Landgraf’s bill in the regular session earlier this year, offered an amendment to the current version that would have expanded a category of banned waste to include certain types of Greater-Than-Class-C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste. The amendment was overturned after Landgraf raised an objection, arguing that the original bill was intended only to regulate high-level waste.
In his closing remarks, Landgraf said that he wasn’t against regulating GTCC, which encompasses some of the least-radioactive waste like irradiated soils and building materials, but also that he didn’t want Craddick’s amendment to “jeopardize our crucial effort to ban high-level radioactive waste in Texas.
“[T]he business that is directly before us is to ban a new stream of high level radioactive waste including spent nuclear fuel from coming to Texas, because it’s about to be forced down our throats,” Landgraf said.
Waste Control Specialists also spoke up on its own behalf on Twitter, calling attention to the various types of waste, already stored in Texas, that would have been swept up by the Craddick amendment.
“GTCC of any kind is Low-Level Waste,” the company tweeted. “WCS has been safely storing this material for years. It is not dangerous for this community or our employees.”
