The sponsors of a proposed bill banning the storage of high level nuclear waste in Texas, which passed the state Senate Wednesday, are using a parliamentary gambit to get the law on the books before the federal government can license a planned interim storage facility in the Lone Star State.
After unanimously passing the Texas Senate on Wednesday, the bill is headed back to the state House instead of Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) desk. An amendment offered by the bill’s senate-side sponsor, state Sen. Brian Birdwell (R), is the reason for that change in procedure. If the state House passes the measure with a two-thirds majority it will be considered an “immediate threshold application bill” that will become law as soon as it has the governor’s signature, Birdwell explained during Wednesday’s session.
The state House was scheduled to vote on the amended bill Thursday, according to the legislative calendar. The lower chamber cleared state Rep. Brooks Landgraf’s (R) version of the measure last week.
This parliamentary blitz, Birdwell said Wednesday, is designed to get a high-level waste ban on the books in Texas before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Andrews County, Texas. Birdwell said an NRC licensing call could come as early as Sep. 13 — the agency itself has also said it should come to a decision this month.
If it became law, the bill would ban the storage and transportation of high-level nuclear waste including spent fuel in the Lone Star State. The legislation exempts waste kept onsite at nuclear power plants and university test reactors.
The bill is being considered as part of Texas’s second special legislative session. If Abbott doesn’t call another when the current special session ends Sep. 7, state delegates won’t meet again in Austin until 2023.
This is Landgraf and Birdwell’s second attempt to ram a high-level waste ban through the Texas legislature. A parliamentary snag brought down the initial bill in the state House back in May, and it never got a vote in the state Senate.
ISP, a joint venture between Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and Orano USA, proposed an interim storage site at WCS’s existing low-level waste storage facility in Andrews. It’s one of two commercial interim sites currently awaiting NRC approval. The other, owned by Holtec International, would be built just west of Andrews in Lea County, N.M.
