AUSTIN, Texas – A bill that would set up a low-level radioactive waste dump in Texas and allow the U.S. Department of Energy to ship waste to a separate proposed dump was given preliminary approval Wednesday by the Texas Senate.

The bill was swiftly criticized by lawmakers, including the author of the bill, who urged members to drop the provision that would allow the federal government to ship radioactive waste to Texas.

“My concern with it is it is a separate issue from the compact,” said Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. He said adding such a provision has killed the bill in previous sessions.

The compact involves low-level radioactive waste from Maine, Vermont and Texas. The compact is part of a nationwide plan to store low-level radioactive waste regionally.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, offered an amendment to void the part of the bill that would allow the state to take the federal waste. Shapleigh said the state would not be taking waste to honor a federal agreement but to benefit a single company.

Shapleigh’s measure failed when a motion to defeat the amendment won a 16-13 vote.

Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, added the provision to accept the federal waste during committee hearings, saying that merely a compact waste site was not economically feasible.

He said Wednesday that the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission would have the authority to set limits for the federal waste, taking into consideration such factors as risk to humans and the environment. He said the risk from the federal waste could be no greater than the risk from the compact waste.

Duncan had pushed for the bill and said he still supports it because without a site the state would not meet its requirements to contain waste in a compact with Maine and Vermont.

“It’s irresponsible not to have a site in Texas,” Duncan said.

Now, the state has about 1,200 sites where low-level radioactive waste is being stored. Setting up the compact would allow for the waste to be stored and managed at one site.

Low-level radioactive waste is produced as a byproduct of medical, research and industrial activities and through the operation of nuclear power plants.

Debate on the bill sparked several shouts of protest from people in the Senate gallery who oppose the site. Police arrested four people on misdemeanor charges of disrupting a public meeting.

“What are you, crazy? You’re all insane!” one protester shouted down at the senators.

The TNRCC could determine where the site would be although Bivins said it’s likely the site would be placed in Andrews County in West Texas.

Lloyd Eisenrich, president of the Andrews Industrial Foundation, has said residents of the county have supported the bill and the county has been educating its citizens about the proposed facility.

“The reality is we have the alignment of three unique planets,” Bivins said. He said there is a place where people want the site, that has the unique land needed by the site and a solvent operator.

Over the next 35 years, Texas, Maine and Vermont are expected to produce 2.7 million cubic feet of low-level radioactive waste. Approximately 75 percent of that will come from dismantling of nuclear power plants, according to the TNRCC.

Under the bill, a county would be able to contract with a private company to build a storage facility for the waste generated by the three states. The state would own the land for the compact site as well as the waste itself. The federal site would be separate, at least a quarter-mile away.

The bill still needs to receive one more vote of approval from the Senate.