Enrolled Bill Summary

            House Bill 1567 amends the Health and Safety Code to authorize the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to issue a license for a single compact waste disposal facility (compact facility) to dispose of low-level radioactive waste that is generated in a host or party state or has been approved for importation to this state under the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact (compact). The bill authorizes the commission to license the compact facility license holder to dispose of federal facility waste at a separate and distinct facility that is operated exclusively for the disposal of federal facility waste and that is adjacent to the compact facility. The bill requires the commission to limit the overall capacity of the federal facility waste disposal facility (federal facility) to three million cubic yards during the first five years and to limit the total volume of Class A, B, and C low-level radioactive waste at the facility to 300,000 cubic yards. After five years, and upon making an affirmative finding that increasing the capacity of the federal facility will not pose a significant risk to human health, public safety, or the environment, the commission is required to increase the overall capacity of the federal facility to six million cubic yards and to increase the volume of Class A, B, and C low-level radioactive waste at the facility to 600,000 cubic yards. The bill prohibits the commission from allowing commingling of compact waste and federal facility waste and prohibits the compact facility license holder from accepting federal facility waste at the federal facility until the license holder begins accepting compact waste at the compact facility. The bill establishes certain site restrictions, including location in a 100-year flood plain, and requires the license holder to dispose of Class A, B, and C waste within certain containers and in such a manner that the waste can be monitored and retrieved. It provides that the term of a license issued by the commission is 15 years and authorizes a license to be renewed for one or more terms of 10 years.

            The bill requires the commission, by January 1, 2004, to provide notice in the Texas Register that the commission will begin accepting license applications for a certain period and that applications must include a nonrefundable $500,000 application processing fee. The bill authorizes the commission to assess additional fees if necessary to recover costs. It authorizes the exercise of eminent domain to acquire fee simple interest in a mineral right required by the commission if an applicant cannot reach a surface use agreement with a private landowner. The bill establishes certain time frames for processing an application, including that the commission has 270 days to select an application. It requires the commission to consider as administratively complete an application that satisfies 11 technical elements, and it establishes and ranks criteria that the commission must consider in evaluating an application. It sets forth provisions relating to public notice, opportunity for a public hearing, and judicial review. Regarding financial assurance, the bill prohibits the amount of security required of a license holder from being set at less than $20 million at the time the disposal site is decommissioned and requires the license holder's payment schedule to be sufficient to ensure that the amount of security at any time between the issuance of the license and the time at which the facility is decommissioned is sufficient to address any increase in the health and safety risk. The bill authorizes the commission to prohibit the license holder from accepting waste if the commission finds that the license holder violated a statute or rule in a manner that endangers public health or safety, and establishes requirements for denial of a license or license renewal based on the applicant's compliance history.

             The bill requires the license holder each quarter to transfer to the commissioners court of the host county 5 percent of the gross receipts from compact and federal facility waste received at the disposal facility and 10 percent of the gross receipts to the state general revenue fund. It provides that the initial payment of $12.5 million from each nonhost party state in the Texas compact is due by November 1, 2003.