flawed bill purported to be a waste ban

In a strange alliance of oil and gas industry experts and environmentalists, the interim storage plans of Interim Storage Partners ( a joint venture of Waste Control Specialists and Orano) is meeting backlash in Texas. A bill sponsored by Representative Brooks Landgraf of Odessa was shot down in the Texas House this week by state Reps. Tom Craddick of Midland and Harold Dutton of Houston.

They called a point of order to the House floor because the language of HB 2692 by Mr. Landgraf was flawed and did not fully represent what the bill actually entailed. While WCS and Landgraf marketed the bill as a statewide ban on high-level nuclear waste, the bill was actually a reduction in fees and surcharges that WCS has to pay to the state of Texas. 

These fees cover future oversight of the high-level nuclear waste storage. If this bill would have passed, it would have lowered fees from 20% to 5% and lost the state millions of dollars. Mr. Landgraf seemed shocked that the bill caused contention and apologized for the language it contained. Waste Control Specialists lamented the tossing out of the bill and claimed that they were only trying to become more competitive in the nuclear waste market. Yet they are the only company in the United States licensed to hold the type of waste that they do, so there technically is no competition for them to need to hold their ground to.