Today the Texas Senate passed a couple of bills that outline how the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission will oversee the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact, which was established by SB 1504.
SB 1504 would allow the compact, which currently consists of only Texas and Vermont, to bring domestic waste to a facility in Andrews County. This bill prohibits the importation of foreign waste.
Other states could send their waste to Texas but it would cost them $1,000 per cubic foot and states that want to join the compact must pay $40 million until September 1, 2015, and $60 million until 2020 to join.
SB 1605 establishes the compact commission as an independent entity answering to the Texas legislature, according to State Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, the bill’s author. It charges the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality with regulating the facility.
The bill passed by a vote of 30 to 1.
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