North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, left, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, right, both Democrats, vetoed bills to allow construction of new nuclear power plants in their states over the past three months.In just the last three months, the Democratic governors of Illinois and North Carolina have vetoed bills to build new reactors in their states, warning that doing so would divert money and attention from a strategy of using renewable energy backed up, at least for now, with natural gas.
Pacific Gas and Electric's Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the only operating nuclear power plant in California, seen in June 2023 in Avila Beach.If there is an easy explanation for the two moves, it may lay in voter opinions. “Democrats still register in polls as far less excited about nuclear energy than they are about renewable power,” said Jackie Toth, deputy director of the Good Energy Collective, a progressive pro-nuclear group.
“Nuclear already had a reputation for going over budget and could be seen as a consumer risk without more price protections,” she said, noting that her group advocates for nuclear companies seeking new types of insurance and other policies to protect against cost overruns.The rejections stand in contrast to moves by Republican governors to encourage more use of nuclear energy. Last year, West Virginia Gov.
The U.S. had been on the cusp of building the world’s first long-term disposal site for nuclear waste until 2009, when then-President Barack Obama cut funding to the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. The move, a high political priority for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, essentially froze the debate over how to deal with nuclear waste, since the Reagan-era law that set the project in motion established Yucca Mountain as the first such site.