Beyond Nuclear -

Wednesday

May052021

ACTION ALERT! Urge TX State House Members: Vote NO on Bad Radioactive Waste Bill -- HB 2692 could return to House Floor!

May 5, 2021

(See a larger/more legible version of the graphic above, posted online here.)

ACTION ALERT!

Urge TX State House of Reps. Members to Vote NO on Bad Radioactive Waste Bill -

HB 2692 could still return to TX State House Floor!

Dear Beyond Nuclear Members/Supporters in Texas,

Thank you very much to all who have already taken action on this. Below is the most recent action alert from Karen Hadden of the SEED Coalition in Austin (Sustainable Energy and Economic Development). Please take further action, based on her alert below, and please spread the word to other Texans! Thank you!

---Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist, Beyond Nuclear

Urgent Action Alert

The bad radioactive waste vendor bill, HB 2692, [could still return to the State of Texas House Floor].

Please help right away with calls and/or emails to Speaker Phelan, your Representative and others! The companion bill, SB 1046, could come up quickly in the Senate too, so calls and emails to Senators are also a great idea. [See: < https://senate.texas.gov/directory.php >] A list of House emails that you can copy and paste (minus Brooks Landgraf, the bad bill's sponsor) is included at the end of this email.

You can copy and paste the message below as you'd like! Be sure to sign your name and list any organizational affiliation you'd like.

Thanks and best wishes, Karen Hadden 512-797-8481

(PS The language in the high-level radioactive waste portion leaves out Greater-Than-Class C waste - a major part of the very dangerous, deadly waste that would come in along with Spent Nuclear Fuel if WCS gets their license. The omission in the Landgraf bill is no accident! We've suggested it be added in, and the answer was a definite NO.)

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Dear Speaker Phelan and House Members,

Please vote NO on HB 2692, a bad radioactive waste vendor bill. Environmental groups and oil companies agree on this issue!

WON'T WORK: The proposal to bring high-level radioactive waste to Texas must be halted, but this bill fails to accomplish the goal due to loopholes and federal preemption. Waste Control Specialists' (WCS) President told the Senate Natural Resources Committee that the company is NOT willing to withdraw their federal license application. While the language in this bill sounds good, it won't stop WCS' dangerous Consolidated Interim Storage plans to bring in 40,000 tons of very hot nuclear reactor waste and store it for decades in Texas.

Resolutions have been passed opposing high-level radioactive waste by Dallas, Bexar, El Paso, Midland and Nueces Counties and by the cities of San Antonio, Midland and Denton, representing 5.4 million Texans.

MASSIVE FINANCIAL LOSSES TO TEXAS: The bill includes massive giveaways to a private company that would cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps over a billion dollars over time. We'll need that money when it comes time to clean up contamination. The existing surcharges should stay in place so we can collect this money from companies in other states. The surcharge reduction in this bill would hurt Texas.

SHREDS SAFETY REQUIREMENTS: It loosens safety requirements for disposal of low-level radioactive waste at the existing Waste Control Specialists site and removes antitrust requirements.