Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, addresses lawmakers while explaining House Bill 208 to the Senate during the special session on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 in Charleston, W.Va. (Will Price | West Virginia Legislative Photography)
A bill that will enter West Virginia into an agreement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, allowing the state to oversee the potential storage and disposal of certain radioactive materials, passed the Senate on Tuesday and is now headed to the governor’s desk for a signature.
House Bill 208 passed the House last Monday 73-18, with nine members absent and not voting. Lawmakers in the Senate on Tuesday approved via voice vote a strike-and-insert amendment for the bill sponsored by Sens. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, and Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, that cleaned up technical errors in the language and clarified that the Office of the Inspector General would serve as the board of review for the new code section.
Following the adoption of that amendment, the Senate approved the bill 25-5, with four members absent and not voting. The House concurred with the Senate’s version of the bill in its evening session on Tuesday, approving it 84-7 with eight members absent and not voting.
The passage of the bill came just one day after several environmental organizations from across the state — the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, the West Virginia Environmental Council, the West Virginia Climate Alliance and the West Virginia Citizen Action Group — raised concerns with the content of the bill as well as the procedure used to introduce and push it.
They argued that, since it was introduced and considered in the special session, the content of the bill was not properly, publicly vetted by experts in the field. They also raised alarms about the potential for opening the state up to health and safety risks as questions remain on how the new code will take effect.
“This bill raises serious concerns. Improper storage and disposal of radioactive waste can lead to water contamination … The health of our water — and, by extension, our communities — could be at risk if this bill passes,” wrote Autumn Crowe, deputy director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, in a Monday news release. “Legislators must carefully vet the long-term implications of this bill. It isn’t just about handling our state’s waste; West Virginia risks becoming a dumping ground for materials we cannot handle, going beyond just managing our own state’s waste.”
Tyler Cannon, with the West Virginia Climate Alliance, said it was inappropriate to introduce and consider this bill during a special session without offering the public an explanation for the urgency.
“West Virginians deserve answers – why is this being pushed so urgently, and why now?” Cannon asked in the news release. “The bill lacks transparency and exposes our communities to the dangers of radioactive waste without adequate safeguards.”
Rucker, who voted against the bill despite co-authoring the strike-and-insert amendment that was adopted Tuesday, echoed remarks shared by both advocates and lawmakers in the House who voted against the legislation last week. While she said she thought the bill was “good legislation,” she did not agree with its inclusion on the special session call.
“I feel like this should have been done in the regular session and not the special session,” Rucker said. “I just want to make it clear that I think this is good legislation, I’ve looked into it, we’ve cleaned it up, I just feel like it should have been done in the regular session, and that explains my no vote.”
The bill, as explained by Weld during the Senate floor session, will allow the state to take some responsibilities from the federal government when it comes to dealing with certain kinds of low-level radioactive waste.
Currently the state Department of Health is qualified to regulate some types of nuclear waste, mainly those from devices like X-Ray and MRI machines, as well as overseeing and developing disaster response plans if accidents were to happen with nuclear reactors in other states, Weld said.
“However, [the Department of Health] does not have the authority to exercise the ability to license or regulate in any way items that spontaneously decay, such as those used in cancer treatments, injectable radioactive materials and other low-level devices like in emergency exit signs and aircraft gauges,” Weld said. “This bill would allow [the Department] to do so.”
Weld said that he wanted to be very clear about one thing: “This does not give the state the authority to regulate and license radioactive materials or facilities that are high-level radioactive materials.”
That responsibility, he said, will remain with the federal government.
The bill did not include a fiscal note. According to discussions in the House last week, it’s possible that positions may need to be added within the Department of Health to handle the new responsibilities. The state could also potentially see money coming into the department from fees collected through the disposal process. Without a fiscal note, however, it’s impossible to know exactly how much money could be needed or gained through the changes proposed.
The potential for increased costs for the health agency comes as the Legislature on Tuesday approved a 2% cut to the personal income tax. Around $25 million of the total expected $46 million revenue drop brought by that tax cut will come out of the state’s three health agencies, though details were not available at the time of passage regarding where the money specifically will come from.
Given this context and the lack of clarity on potential costs, Gary Zuckett, executive director of the state Citizen Action Group, said the omission of a fiscal note was “particularly egregious.”
“This oversight occurs while we reduce state revenues through wholesale tax cuts and state departments struggle to balance shrinking budgets with record vacancies,” Zuckett wrote. “Why are we rushing this bill through without the proper action to develop sound state policy?”
If signed by Gov. Jim Justice, West Virginia would move forward in joining 39 other states that are already agreement states with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Mountain State, in January 2023, began the process to become an agreement state when Justice sent a letter of intent to join the pact to the NRC.
As it was requested by Justice on the special session call and limited substantive changes have been made to the legislation, it’s highly likely the bill will receive the governor’s signature and become law. That does not, however, mean the work to implement the changes is over and questions remain on how the state logistically could oversee the new regulatory powers for radioactive materials.
Weld said the legislation will certainly come up again in future sessions as lawmakers will need to approve rulemaking changes for the new code section. According to the NRC, the federal government will also have to approve the state’s proposed process before West Virginia is actually allowed to begin regulating new radioactive materials.
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