2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB4112
HB4112 tightens an existing Texas restriction on high-level radioactive waste: the exception for storage at nuclear-power reactors and university-operated research/test reactors is tied to the reactor where the waste originated.
Official caption: Relating to the disposal or storage of high-level radioactive waste.
Official report lists House author(s): Landgraf. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB4112 tightens an existing Texas restriction on high-level radioactive waste: the exception for storage at nuclear-power reactors and university-operated research/test reactors is tied to the reactor where the waste originated.
- The law addresses two state controls.
- Texas's definition of high-level radioactive waste expressly includes spent nuclear fuel—the used fuel removed from a reactor without separating its constituent elements through reprocessing.
What does it do?
HB4112 tightens an existing Texas restriction on high-level radioactive waste: the exception for storage at nuclear-power reactors and university-operated research/test reactors is tied to the reactor where the waste originated. A reactor site is not, under this state-law exception, an authorized destination for other reactors’ waste. The act removes the prior phrase “currently or formerly operating” from the exception. Signed June 20, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025. Final act · History
The law addresses two state controls. First, it conditions the reactor-site exception to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s prohibition on issuing the specified construction, stormwater and wastewater approvals for facilities licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under 10 CFR Part 72 for disposal or storage of high-level radioactive waste. A facility permitted under that exception may store waste only at the power reactor or university research/test reactor where it originated. Second, it adds the same origin requirement directly to the statewide storage exception in Section 401.072. The general prohibition expressly includes the compact waste-disposal license holder; it is not a new authorization for disposal. Sections 1–2
Texas’s definition of high-level radioactive waste expressly includes spent nuclear fuel—the used fuel removed from a reactor without separating its constituent elements through reprocessing. This is not a ban on every category of radioactive material or every low-level-waste activity. Nor does qualifying for the exception itself grant a permit or waive other water-quality requirements. The existing exemption from the chapter’s frozen 1999 federal-regulation reference remains for this permit provision. State definitions · Federal definitions · Federal Part 72 scope
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill removed the “currently or formerly operating” wording but did not include the final express origin requirement. The House committee substitute added a requirement that waste originate at the reactor site. The House then adopted Landgraf’s amendment on May 9: it revised both exceptions and both origin provisions to say a permitted facility may store waste only at the reactor where it originated. That limitation survived in the final law. Introduced · House substitute · House amendment
The Senate committee substitute folded the origin requirement directly into Section 401.072’s exception instead of keeping a separate subsection there. Birdwell’s adopted Senate floor amendment on May 26 deleted three commas in the reactor descriptions; it did not remove the origin limitation. The House concurred May 29. Both indexed floor amendments were read and their changes compared with the final text; no rejected floor amendment is listed. Senate substitute · Senate amendment · Amendment index · Version index
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Communities concerned about receiving other reactors’ waste gain a more explicit state-law limit. Proposed off-site storage operators and others seeking to move waste between reactor sites face that restriction; reactor operators still need lawful arrangements for the waste generated at their own sites. The act does not create a national disposal destination, pay for storage or quantify environmental benefits or private business losses.
The final posted fiscal note anticipated no significant state or local-government fiscal impact and assumed state costs could be absorbed with existing resources. That estimate is not a finding that waste-storage operations have no private costs or risks. May 26 fiscal note
Federal-law boundary: This explains Texas’s statute, not a conclusion that it overrides every federal license or resolves a specific facility’s operating rights. In its June 18, 2025 decision in NRC v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit because Texas and Fasken were not parties entitled to obtain that judicial review of the federal licensing decision. The Court expressly did not decide the ultimate question of NRC statutory authority to license private off-site storage. That ruling should not be presented as a decision upholding or invalidating HB4112. This briefing does not certify later litigation outcomes or a facility’s current permit status. Official Supreme Court opinion, especially pages 2 and 16–24
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
