RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT  - SUMMARY OF LEGISLATIVE ACTION 2001

Background

Radioactive waste remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years. The debate about what to do with the waste in Texas has raged on for not quite as many years, but has driven citizen participation in the issue for at least 20 years. During that time, the Sierra Club and other citizen groups have again and again forced the nuclear industry and state officials away from cheap and easy solutions such as dumping the waste in underground trenches in the backyards of low income, Mexican American communities. The 77^th legislative session was filled with more drama and controversy, but in the end no radioactive waste legislation was passed and no nuclear waste disposal facility will be built in the next 2 years. Citizens walked away with another victory under their belts and momentum to build support for safe and reasonable radioactive waste solutions during the interim.

The showdown over radioactive waste began before the session started, with dueling House and Senate interim studies and dueling waste disposal companies. The House Environmental Regulations Committee study proposed that the state own the license for waste disposal and that assured isolation (above ground management) become an option for dealing with waste that Texas could accept under the its compact with Vermont and Maine. (The Texas Compact, ratified by Congress in 1998, provides that if Texas builds a radioactive waste disposal facility it will accept waste from Vermont and Maine.) On the other hand, the Senate Natural Resources Committee interim study proposed that a private company be allowed to obtain a radioactive waste management license and permitted to dispose of nuclear weapons waste from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). While compact waste from Texas, Maine, and Vermont is expected to be approximately 2.7 million cubic feet over the 35-year lifespan of the compact, estimates on the volume for DOE waste reach into the hundreds of millions of cubic feet over the next ten years.

Similarly, two radioactive waste disposal companies were vying for business in Texas. Envirocare, with land for a possible site in Ward County, was lobbying for a state-owned license and the use of assured isolation. Waste Control Specialists, with a radioactive waste processing facility already located Andrews County, was lobbying for privatization and below-ground dumping. But just weeks before the legislative session began Envirocare agreed to abandon operations in Texas pursuant to a lawsuit settlement with Waste Control Specialists. Additional pressure was focused on Texas by a court order that DOE clean up 50 years of cold war radioactive mess at over 70 sites throughout the country, as well as the Bush administration’s newly announced energy policy, which calls for the creation of a new generation of nuclear power plants IF a cheap disposal option for existing waste and dismantled plants is found.

Tension was high when the session began in January. The Lone Star Chapter and the West Texas-based Texas Radioactive Waste Defense Coalition agreed on nine principles for radioactive waste management which were turned into legislation and filed by Rep. Lon Burnam (see list of bills at the end of this section). The Sierra Club and others prepared to fight the mammoth lobby team of Waste Control Specialists (which had contributed over $600,000 to state officials since 1997), as well as Texas’ nuclear utility giants. Since Waste Control Specialists opened its Andrews County site in 1995 the company has lost $77 million. By passing a bill that would allow it to break into the DOE waste clean-up market, Waste Control hoped to turn its losses into billions in profit.

Senate Committee Action

Senator Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) introduced SB 1541 only hours before the filing deadline in March. The 100-page bill was kept a secret from all but a few key legislators and industry lobbyists until it was filed. The bill allowed private companies to be licensed to import and dispose of massive amounts of radioactive waste at up to three separate disposal facilities, while transferring ownership of and liability for the waste to the state taxpayers. Senator Duncan invited the Sierra Club, along with several industry groups, to testify at the first Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing on the bill. After many meetings with Senator Duncan, grassroots pressure, and media publicity, Senator Duncan re-wrote the bill and removed many of the worst provisions. The new version attempted to limit the amount of waste imported to Texas and bar the importation of DOE waste. The number of disposal facilities was reduced from three to one.

The next significant action on the bill came when, in the words of a Waste Control lobbyist, Senator Teel Bivins (R-Amarillo) "hijacked" Duncan’s bill by getting enough votes in a Senate Natural Resources Committee meeting to add a 16-page amendment restoring many of the provisions Senator Duncan had deleted. With four members of the committee present, Senators Brown, Duncan, and Lucio voted for the amendment while Senator Duncan voted against it. The Bivins amendment called for the creation of two private dumps—one for compact waste and one for virtually unlimited amounts of DOE waste, including a new category called "mixed waste": radioactive waste mixed with hazardous chemicals. The amendment was tailor-made for (if not written by) Waste Control Specialists.

Senate Floor Action

The Lone Star Chapter and other organizations and individuals from across the state worked hard to convince 10 Senators to block the bill when it came to the Senate floor. Because Senator Bivins and Waste Control Specialists had convinced more than a majority of the Senate to vote for the bill, the Sierra Club and others attempted to take advantage of Senate rules that require a two-thirds majority of the Senate to bring any bill to the floor. This rule creates a situation in which 10 Senators can block a bill.

All of those who endeavored to find 10 votes to block consideration were bitterly disappointed when the bill was set for debate on the May 2 Senate calendar and only nine senators voted to block the bill (Record vote #?). Senator Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) offered an amendment to strip the provisions added by Bivins in committee, with Senators Duncan and Truan joining him to object to Bivins’ amendment. Unfortunately, Senator Shapleigh’s attempt to exclude DOE waste failed in a 16 to 13 vote (record vote #), and the bill was passed by the Senate on a 19 to 10 (record vote #).

Editorial opposition to the bill poured forth after the Senate vote, with the Austin American Statesman, Waco Tribune-Herald, Dallas Morning News, Alpine Observer and the El Paso Times all strongly denouncing the bill. The Houston Chronicle ran a guest editorial against the bill by a Houston-area Sierra Club member.

House Committee Action

On April 3, the House Environmental regulations Committee held a hearing on all radioactive waste bills filed in the House. A list of those bills and how they fared can be found at the end of this section. Many citizens from West Texas and Austin testified that afternoon against HB 3240, the House companion to SB 1541, and in favor of a slate of bills proposed by the Texas Radioactive Waste Defense Coalition and carried by Rep. Lon Burnam.

The Environmental Regulations Committee did not vote on any bills that day. Instead, Chairman Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) waited until SB 1541 was approved by the Senate and sent to the House. He then re-wrote the bill, changing several small but significant provisions, including a requirement that a private company be licensed to build a facility for Texas Compact waste. This was significant because Bivins’ amendment included no requirement that a licensed private operator that establishes a highly profitable disposal site for DOE waste also establish a site to handle much smaller and less profitable amounts of Compact waste. Advocates of the legislation habitually justified it as necessary to fulfill Texas’ "obligations" under the Compact. (It should be noted that the Compact does not obligate Texas to build a radioactive waste disposal site).

On May 15^th the Environmental Regulations Committee met to vote on SB 1541. Despite considerable grassroots pressure on committee members to strip the Bivins amendment from the bill, it was approved with the DOE waste provision intact.

House Calendars Committee

SB 1541 was sent to the House Calendars Committee on May 19, only one day before the last House Calendar could be set according to House rules. The Lone Star Chapter, Public Citizen, League of Conservation Voters and numerous citizens from across the state worked to generate calls, letters and visits to Calendars Committee members. On Sunday, May 20^th at 7:00 PM—only 5 hours before the deadline to set the very last House Calendar—the Committee voted 5 to 3 against placing the bill on the calendar, thereby killing the bill. Rep. Debra Danburg (D-Houston) led the charge against the bill, with Representatives Harold Dutton (D-Houston), Brian McCall (R-Plano), Jim Solis (D-Harlingen), and Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) also voting against it. Representatives Kim Brimer (R-Fort Worth), Gary Walker (R-Plains) and Chairman Barry Telford (D-De Kalb) voted to set the bill on the House calendar.

House Floor Action

One last-ditch attempt was made to pass the bill by attaching a crucial element of SB 1541 to another bill as an amendment on the House floor. At 11:30 on May 22, half an hour before the deadline for passing all bills, Rep. Ron Wilson (D-Houston) offered an amendment to a minor bill relating to the definition of hazardous waste. Wilson’s amendment to privatize radioactive waste disposal would have opened the floodgates to federal weapons waste. The amendment was withdrawn after Rep. Burnam raised a point of order against it, but it was quickly re-written and offered again. This time, several Representatives gathered at the microphone to "chub" (essentially a filibuster) the bill until the midnight deadline.

Other Legislation Related to Radioactive Material

HB 1099 by Rep. Warren Chisum (R-Pampa) - Effective 9-1-01

This bill, as originally filed, would have weakened the financial assurance requirements for uranium mining companies. At least 2 uranium mining companies in Texas have recently threatened bankruptcy in order to raid their clean-up trust funds to pay executive salaries and the opening of new mines. Sierra Club and others alerted Rep. Chisum of the need for greater, not lesser, financial scrutiny of the uranium mining companies. Rep. Chisum agreed, and re-wrote the bill. The new version of the bill deals mainly with fees and penalties for those who are licensed to use radioactive materials, and with the inspection of mammography machines.

HB 8 by Rep. Gary Walker (R-Plains) - Died in House Environmental Regulation Committee

Would have allowed private companies to obtain state licenses for radioactive waste disposal and accept radioactive waste from the U.S. Department of Energy for disposal in Texas.

HB 85 by Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Alpine) – Died in Senate

Passed out of House and Senate committees but never taken up by the full Senate, this bill would have deleted a cartographic "box" around Sierra Blanca in Hudspeth County, Texas that exists in current law. The law currently stipulates that a radioactive waste disposal facility run by the state must be located within this box.

HB 2370 by Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) - Died in House Environmental Regulation

Would have prohibited below ground disposal of radioactive waste.

HB 2371 by Burnam - Died in House Environmental Regulation

Attempted to close a gaping loophole in the Texas-Maine-Vermont radioactive waste compact that allows governor-appointed compact commissioners to vote to import unlimited amounts of nuclear power plant waste from other states to be dumped at a Texas disposal facility. This bill required the compact commissioners to take an oath to vote against accepting waste from any state besides Maine or Vermont.

HB 2905 by Burnam - Died in House Environmental Regulation

Would have created a Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority to hold the license for long-term radioactive waste management. The authority could then contract with one or more private companies to operate one or more disposal facilities.

HB 3086 by Burnam - Died in House Environmental Regulation

Would have required the host county of a radioactive waste disposal facility and all adjacent counties to hold a voter referendum on the siting of the facility.

HB 3283 by Chisum - Died in House Committee on Environmental Regulation

A 50-page bill that defined assured isolation, required the state to hold the license for radioactive waste disposal of assured isolation, removed the box around Hudspeth County, prohibited waste disposal within 100 km of the border, attempted to close the compact loophole, mandated that the disposal or assured isolation facility be built in West Texas, among other things.

HB 3420 by Chisum - Left Pending in House Environmental Regulation
The House companion to SB 1541.