BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press
LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — Gov. Rick Perry is pushing lawmakers to establish a location in Texas for storing the state’s high-level radioactive waste.
Perry wrote Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus telling them Texas is suited to store spent nuclear fuel from the state’s four commercial reactors.
Texas waste is stored by utilities operating the four reactors. But Perry wants to develop a single storage location until a national repository for nuclear waste is established.
The governor’s March 28 letter also chided the federal government for its inaction.
Perry was referring to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain site, which utility companies in the U.S. have paid billions toward building. It doesn’t appear viable at this point, so spent fuel in the U.S. currently is stored at the more than 100 commercial nuclear reactors.