The governor of Texas drew a line in the sand this week on commercial interim storage, signing a law banning storage of high-level nuclear waste in the Lone Star State.
House Bill (HB) 7, which Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law Thursday, went into effect immediately. The law prevents anyone from storing or transporting high-level nuclear waste, including spent nuclear fuel, in Texas. Spent fuel generated from existing power plants or university test reactors is exempt from the ban.
A high-level waste ban may be a setback for Interim Storage Partners (ISP), the Waste Control Specialists (WCS)-Orano joint venture which plans to build an interim storage facility for spent fuel at WCS’s existing low-level waste site in Andrews, Texas. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is poised this month to make a final decision on whether to license the proposed site — NRC staff in July recommended that the agency give ISP the green light.
A spokesperson for ISP declined to comment on Friday.
ISP’s proposed interim storage site has been the target of fierce opposition from Texas stakeholders and environmental groups in recent weeks.
Representatives of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, Public Citizen and the Texas branch of the Sierra Club applauded the state legislature for passing the proposed high-level waste ban on an “overwhelming vote” in a press release Tuesday. The groups praised the bipartisan nature of the bill, which passed 119-3 in the state House Sep. 2.
“Such a strong bipartisan vote is rare these days in Texas,” the release said.
Opposition to the proposed ISP site hasn’t just come from the state level. The Andrews County commission voted unanimously July 15 to formally oppose the project after a public hearing. WCS president David Carlson, speaking at the meeting, said that his company was “a good citizen” of Andrews and that there was “no safety or environmental issue” with the proposed interim storage site.
Abbott himself has long been an opponent of interim storage in Texas. The governor penned a letter to then-President Donald Trump in October asking the White House to step in on the proposed Andrews site.
ISP’s proposed site is just one of two such commercial interim storage facilities under federal review. A similar site in Lea County, N.M. owned by Holtec International is also in the latter stages of an NRC review. The agency has said a final decision on the Holtec site should come down in January.