Why Texas Lawmakers Want To Ban Radioactive Waste

Waste Control Specialists joint venture with Orano: Interim Storage Partners, wants to store high-level nuclear waste in West Texas. Texas lawmakers want to ban HLW as well as cut down on fees that WCS already pays to the state of Texas. Cutting these fees would cost the state $400,000 a year towards general revenue, and $1,000,000 a year that goes toward an environmental fund that remediates radiation.

This interim storage plan is moving ahead at the federal level but state lawmakers and activists are pushing back at the local level. The 332 acre site of Waste Control Specialists, which lies on the New Mexico and Texas border, has been under fire from opponents since its inception. This legislature session has seen another attempt by WCS and lobbyist working for the company to reduce the fees they pay to the state of Texas as well as loophole their way around a state-wide ban on high-level nuclear waste storage.

Representative Brooks Landgraf of Andrews sponsored a bill that was mainly written by WCS themselves that skirted around a ban on HLW in Texas. But opponents like Governor Greg Abbott and Tom Craddick have publicly said that the state needs an outright ban on HLW. 

If this bill were to pass the Texas House and Texas Senate, it would lower fees that Waste Control Specialists are required to pay the state in case of an accident or company bankruptcy.

via Eli Hartman