A company has long pursued the plan to move “high-level” nuclear waste from power plants across the nation to a storage facility in Andrews County.

A failed regular session bill sought to give a financial break to a West Texas nuclear waste disposal company. Now, lawmakers have removed what opponents called a giveaway and are again trying to pass a bill to stop highly radioactive materials from coming to Texas.

A bill opposed by both environmental and some oil interests that would have given a nuclear waste company in West Texas a big break on state fees failed to receive a vote in the Texas House before a key deadline on Monday.

As a nuclear waste company’s plan to store the most dangerous type of radioactive waste in West Texas moves forward at the federal level, state lawmakers are aiming to ban the materials from entering the state.

AdBut while the slow-moving plan is wrapped in political turmoil, lower-profile changes and proposals from federal agencies are giving Waste Control Specialists another avenue to accept more radioactive waste than it does today. The company is already permitted to accept low-level nuclear waste in Andrews County. The plan to build a facility to store spent nuclear fuel, the most dangerous kind, would bring what’s considered high-level nuclear waste. Some nuclear energy industry experts theorized that expensive commercial nuclear waste facilities like WCS overestimated the amount of low-level nuclear waste that would need disposal as power plant operators became more efficient. The WCS facility is permitted to accept Class A, B, and C nuclear waste — categories that fall below high-level material like spent nuclear fuel.