SENATE DOCKET, NO. 46        FILED ON: 1/12/2015

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1797

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

Daniel A. Wolf

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act establishing a fee on the storage of spent nuclear fuel in pools.

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PETITION OF:

SENATE DOCKET, NO. 46        FILED ON: 1/12/2015

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1797

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Eighty-Ninth General Court
(2015-2016)

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An Act establishing a fee on the storage of spent nuclear fuel in pools.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1.  Chapter 10 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2012 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after section 74 the following new section:-

Section 75. Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Fee

(a) Definitions. For the purposes of this section the following words shall have the following meanings:-

“Decommissioning”, shall mean closing and and decontaminating a nuclear power station and nuclear power site, including dismantling the facility, removing all nuclear fuel, coolant and nuclear waste from the site, releasing the site for unrestricted use, and terminating the license.   Safestor is not decommissioning for the purposes of this act. 

“Nuclear fuel assembly”, shall mean a structured group of metal tubes containing pellets of fissionable material which provide fuel for nuclear reactors.

“Nuclear power station”, shall mean a commercial facility that uses or used nuclear fuel to generate electric power.

“Spent nuclear fuel”, shall mean nuclear fuel assemblies that have been removed from the reactor core of a nuclear power station.

“Spent fuel pool”, shall mean any structure in which spent nuclear fuel is kept under water following removal from a reactor.

(b) There is hereby established an annual fee of $10,000 for each nuclear fuel assembly that is or was stored within a spent fuel pool during any part of a calendar year.  All fees due under this section shall be payable by March 1 of the following calendar year to the state treasurer. This fee shall be assessed on the direct or indirect owner(s) of each nuclear power station in the Commonwealth. 

(c) Commercial nuclear power stations that have been completely decommissioned as of January 1, 2016 are exempt from the fee established under subsection (b).

(d) Annually, the state treasurer shall allocate fees collected under this section as follows:

1. Thirty percent of the total revenue from each nuclear power station shall be allocated to the general operations budget of the town or city in which the nuclear power station is located.

2. Fifty percent of the total revenue from each nuclear power station shall be evenly divided and allocated to the general operations budgets of town and cities of the Commonwealth wholly or partially within a 20-mile radius of the nuclear power station other than the town or city in which the nuclear power station is located; provided however, that in the case of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, fifty percent of revenue shall be evenly divided and allocated among the following towns: Town of Bridgewater, Town of Carver, Town of Duxbury, Town of Halifax, Town of Hanover, Town of Hanson, Town of Kingston, Town of Lakeville,  Town of Marion, Town of Marshfield, Town of Middleboro, Town of Norwell, Town of Pembroke, Town of Plympton, Town of Rochester, Town of Scituate, Town of Wareham, Town of Whitman, Town of Barnstable, Town of Bourne, Town of Brewster, Town of Chatham, Town of Dennis, Town of Eastham, Town of Falmouth, Town of Harwich, Town of Mashpee, Town of Orleans, Town of Provincetown, Town of Sandwich, Town of Truro, Town of Wellfleet, and Town of Yarmouth;

3. Twenty percent of the total revenue shall be allocated to the division of green communities in the department of energy resources to fund the green communities program established under section 10 of chapter 25A. If any portion of the allocation under this subsection causes the funding for the green communities program to exceed $10 million in any single fiscal year, then that portion shall be reallocated to the general operations budgets of the towns and cities identified in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this subsection in the percentages specified in said paragraphs.

SECTION 2. Subsection (d) of section 10 of chapter 25A, as so appearing, is hereby amended by striking out paragraph (4) in its entirety and inserting in place thereof the following paragraphs:-

(4) amounts from spent nuclear fuel storage fee payments under section 75 of chapter 10; and (5) other funds as the governing board of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust Fund established under section 9 of chapter 23J, may provide.

SECTION 3. This act shall take effect on January 1, 2016.