By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX – "This is in my backyard," said Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) as he was temporarilysuccessful Wednesday in tacking on an amendment to HB 1567, limiting the amount of radioactive waste to be accepted by the state at low-level radioactive waste disposal sites in Texas.
But his success was short-lived after Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio) later offered a compromise amendment that increased the cap over the original amount in the bill (10 million cubic yards) to 6 million cubic yards, still far greater than the 1.3 million cubic yard cap Duncan's amendment approved.
Sen. Bill Ratliff (R-Mount Pleasant) asked to reconsider the vote by which Duncan's amendment passed. That motion was approved and Wentworth then added his amendment as an amendment to the Duncan amendment.
I submit that this is not a compromise," said Duncan. "It's bad policy to adopt this."
Bill sponsor Sen. Teel Bivins (R-Amarillo) thanked Wentworth for a "salvaging amendment." He said he has worked on this issue for six years. "I don't want to work on it anymore." Although the bill came from the House without a cap, he was willing to compromise. "This salvages the deal," he said, urging members to vote for the compromise amendment.
Bivins had previously stated that no licensees would apply for licenses with the Duncan-proposed cap.
The Wentworth amendment was approved.
Duncan said early on in the debate that although the area where the waste site will be located has welcomed the industry, he is afraid the site will cause that area of Texas to become "stigmatized." He also noted that in other states where there have been problems with radioactive waste disposal, it has taken an act of "political upheaval" to reverse the situation. Thus he urged that if the state agrees to take radioactive waste for disposal, it should take only small amounts of the waste at first to see how that amount is handled and if there are any repercussions before the state agrees to take larger amounts.
"If we do this," said Duncan, "we should take a limited volume and that will be respected by the federal government."
In addition to concerns about the amount of radioactive waste to be disposed of at the proposed Texas site, Duncan also expressed concern about the state agency that would have oversight over the disposal site. The bill gives that authority to the Texas Department of Health (TDH).
Duncan offered an amendment that would transfer that oversight authority to the Texas Department of Environmental Quality instead of TDH.
Bivins said the reason authority was assigned to TDH is because that is the state agency that deals with radioactivity issues and it even has within the agency the Bureau of Radioactivity Control. Duncan's amendment passed.
Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) said he fears the state will lose control over what Texas' federal waste future is if the legislation passes.
Shapleigh said passage of this legislation "makes a profitable operation much more profitable for one operator." He said Texas is not obligated to take any federal waste - "not any at all - not even a limited amount."
He offered an amendment to Duncan's amendment that he said provides for no federal waste. He said the state is under no obligation to take federal waste and the only reason for taking it is to make the site profitable for one operator at the Andrews site. "That's what's driving this whole issue," he said. The other issue, he said, based on what happened in other states, is that the state will become obligated to take federal waste based on Department of Energy decisions and litigation in those other states.
"The problem is solved by not taking any federal waste," he said.
Duncan agreed that the state's only responsibility is to dispose of waste in Texas. But he said limiting the waste will allow for monitoring and thus he opposed the Shapleigh amendment.
"We don't have an obligation to take federal waste in the state of Texas," reiterated Shapleigh, who again warned that if federal waste is taken it will obligate the state to continue taking it over the long haul. His amendment to the amendment was defeated.
Duncan earlier made his case for his amendment when it originally passed. He said if the amendment were to be defeated, members will have to go back to their constituents and tell them they did not support limiting the amount of waste coming into the state. He said the amendment "allows an initial cap of 1.3 million cubic yards" and allows for expansion of that limit to a total of 5 million cubic yards over time. "There are good sound public policy reasons for allowing this stair-step and this ultimate cap," he said.
"This amendment will determine if we put this to rest after 25 years of trying," said Bivins in opposition to the Duncan amendment. "We have changed from the vision that we had 20 years ago to have a public authority designed to do away with the waste" because "it would never work" with the state responsible for disposal. Instead, he said, the state has chosen to go to the private sector for disposal services. The legislation is necessary to authorize a private licensee, he said, and if the amendment is adopted, there would be no private licensee. He called the cap Duncan sought "unreasonably low."
If the Duncan amendment were to pass, "There will be no applicant coming to the state of Texas saying, 'I want to do this job,'" said Bivins.
When Wentworth originally offered to draft an amendment with a compromise figure, Bivins noted, "We have tried for months to come to an agreement, and there has never been any willingness to do so." He said that he and Duncan had thus decided to let an up-or-down vote determine the fate. Bivins said he had offered a cap of 6 million cubic yards and been turned down.
The Duncan amendment originally passed by a slim margin, 16-14.
Other amendments were subsequently offered to the bill, but Bivins said he considered them moot because he does not expect any license-seekers because of the limits of the Duncan amendment.
After Wentworth's amendment to the Duncan amendment was adopted, the Duncan amendment as amended was adopted and HB 1567 was passed from the Senate.