A crucial amendment by Sen. Duncan (R-Lubbock)--co-author of the bill--proposing a cap of 36 million cubic feet of federal waste was initially passed. This amendment would have allowed the license holder (widely presumed to be Waste Control Specialists) to make $1.04 billion dollars in the first five years. Apparently, this was not enough money. Minutes later, Waste Control Specialists supporters re-grouped on the Senate floor and voted to reconsider the amendment. The cap was lifted to a whopping 126 million cubic feet. This would allow the license holder to make over $100 billion.

"Blatant greed won out today," said Erin Rogers, Sierra Club spokesperson. "This bill is a monumental mistake for Texas and a huge financial windfall for one private company."

The Senate rejected several amendments designed to protect Texans from some of the worst environmental and financial problems created by the bill. Among the amendments rejected were:

The bill now heads to conference committee and then to Gov. Perry, who has received at least $175,000 from the two owners of Waste Control Specialists in the last two years.

The Sierra Club calls on Gov. Perry to veto the bill.

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NR 03-022 [NR]

HB 1567 will turn West Texas into a national dumping ground for mountains of radioactive waste from federal nuclear weapons facilities and nuclear power plants around the country. This waste will be trucked through every major city in Texas en route to the dumpsite.

The bill's sorely inadequate financial security provisions will leave the state and taxpayers footing the bill for future clean-up of the site--a tab that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. HB 1567 only requires the dump license holder to set aside $20 million in financial security for post-closure clean-up needs. But $20 million isn't likely to even make a dent in the actual cost of cleaning up at a site that holds hundreds of millions of cubic feet of waste. A 1998 DOE report estimated that the clean-up cost for a radioactive waste dump handling just 1.5 million cubic feet of waste would be $370 million. WCS proposes taking up to 400 million cubic feet of waste.

This bill allows a private company to import huge quantities of radioactive waste, including plutonium and other weapons-related waste, from highly secure sites around the country and dump it in dirt trenches at a low security site in West Texas. The bill includes absolutely no safeguards against terrorists stealing dirty bomb material from the site or hijacking the waste transport trucks on the way to the site.