Request By:
Mr. Brian Kiernan
Committee Staff Coordinator
Legislative Research Commission
State Capitol
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; William S. Riley, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to the Attorney General, it is stated that the Interim Special Committee on Radioactive Waste Disposal has asked for an opinion concerning the meaning of the word "storage" as that word is used in KRS 138.810 through 138.860 found in House Bill 838 in the 1976 Regular Session of the General Assembly.
The committee is interested in knowing whether an organization, such as a university or hospital, in the Commonwealth of Kentucky is required to pay the tax provided for in the above statutes on nuclear waste generated in the organization and stored on the premises.
In the event that an organization pays tax on the storage of nuclear waste, is the tax required to be paid again when the material is placed in a disposal site? Who is responsible for deciding when the material ceases to be useful and becomes waste, the user or the Department of Revenue?
The Kentucky Supreme Court has apparently never defined the word "storage" in connection with any of the cases that have appeared before it. In Brown and Williams Tobacco Corporation V. United States of America, decided in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky in the Lousiville Division in 1973, found in 369 F.Supp. 1283 (1973), the Court defined "storage facilities" as premises where tobacco was stored and aged and as places not reasonably adaptable for purposes other than such storage.
In
Hoyle v. State, 62 S.2d 380, 216 Miss. 330 (1953), "storage" is declared to mean the act of storage or state of being stored, specifically the safekeeping of goods in a warehouse or other depository. Also wee
Lincoln Savings Bank of Brooklyn v. Brown Em. App., 137 F.2d 228 (1943).
From an examination of the above cases and the statute on the processing and storage of nuclear waste material, it is our opinion that the tax on the storage of nuclear waste should be paid only once. That is when the material is deposited or stored in the disposal site. In answer to the question concerning who is responsible for determining when nuclear material ceases to be useful and becomes waste, it is our opinion that it is the responsibility of the user of nuclear material to determine when such material ceases to be useful and becomes waste.