Texas Company: We Want Nation's Radioactive Waste

To accept waste from outside its compact of Texas and Vermont, the company would need to win the approval of compact commissioners — six from Texas and two from Vermont — who are appointed by the governors of each state.

Waste Control spokesman Chuck McDonald said accepting waste from outside the compact would make operating the compact more affordable for Texas and Vermont and make the rest of the country safer.

"The material is there. It needs to be moved to a secure, licensed facility and we believe that our site can provide that need," he said.

Since the 1980s, the federal government has urged states to build low-level nuclear waste landfills, either on their own or in cooperation with other states in compact systems. But only one low-level landfill, in Utah, has opened in the past 30 years, and it accepts only Class A waste, considered the least hazardous.

That has left the more dangerous Class B and C waste in dozens of states stored on site, leading to fears that some of the material will be lost, or worse, stolen by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs.