A bill to ban storage of high-level nuclear waste in Texas passed in a state House committee Wednesday, setting it up for a floor vote.
The measure, proposed by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R), passed in the Texas House Environmental Regulation Committee on a 6-2 vote. Landgraf chairs the committee. The panel reported the bill favorably to the full House, but no date had been scheduled for a floor vote by deadline Thursday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. This session of the Texas legislature, the 87th, is scheduled to end May 31.
If it becomes law, the bill would ban the storage of high level waste in the Lone Star State, with the exception of spent fuel stored onsite at power plants or university test reactors. Landgraf said during a committee meeting Monday that the measure would also ensure that Texas didn’t have to take responsibility for existing commercial low-level storage sites in the event the companies running them became insolvent.
Meanwhile, Waste Control Specialists is waiting on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve their license to build an interim storage site near their low-level repository in Andrews County, Texas. The company’s president told the Environmental Regulation Committee March 8 that they wouldn’t build the site without state approval.
Either way, NRC has said their environmental impact statement on the proposed site, a gateway to licensing, won’t be complete until the summer.
