Texas Gives Handout to Nuclear Waste Disposal Company
Nuclear Waste Disposal Funding Jeopardized in Texas
Statement of Adrian Shelley, Director, Public Citizen’s Texas Office
Note: The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality today voted unanimously to allow Waste Control Specialists (WCS), the operator of a nuclear waste dump in Andrews County, Texas, to reduce certain disposal fees from 40 cents per unit of radioactivity to just five cents. The move would allow WCS to import nuclear waste from across the nation while charging a fraction of the cost. As a result, Texas taxpayers have assumed massive liability by allowing nuclear waste disposal in the state.
Once again, Texas has put private business interests over the economic interests of the state’s taxpayers.
If there is a nuclear waste accident in Texas, taxpayers could be on the hook. Why reduce fees owed to the state during a global pandemic? Why place a company’s interests over public interest?
This is yet another handout to WSC and another burden for Texas taxpayers. To say we are disappointed in today’s decision would be an understatement.