SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The failure of AB 2647 by Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, a measure that would have “overturn[ed] California’s moratorium on new nuclear power plant construction,” was welcomed this week by the Committee to Bridge the Gap.
In a letter to Isaac Bryan, chair of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, Sierra Club California, Union of Concerned Scientists and other environmental and public-interest groups said approval of the bill would allow “conventional reactors, small modular reactors (SMRs), and advanced reactors (such as non-light-water reactors or NLWRs)” to be built in the state.
AB 2647 sought to “exempt nuclear reactors that receive a design license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)” from a prohibition on the certification of new nuclear fission power plants.
According to the Committee to Bridge the Gap, the bill was amended to become a study bill days before its hearing in the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources.
Executive Director Haakon Williams of the Committee to Bridge the Gap said “California’s nuclear moratorium… may be lifted when there exists a way to dispose of the long-lived radioactive waste.”
Rather than opening opportunities for costly and dangerous nuclear projects, “California should continue investing in renewable energy sources,” Sierra Club California and other opponents of the bill wrote.
They added that the state must strengthen “grid reliability with firm, non-intermittent sources such as geothermal and battery storage.”
The Committee to Bridge the Gap noted that communities such as San Onofre and Humboldt Bay “are still grappling today with the tons of high-level radioactive waste stored on-site,” while lacking a viable long-term disposal solution.
Williams added that while it has been 50 years since implementation of California’s Nuclear Safeguards Act, which prohibits construction of new nuclear fission reactors until successful means exist to “dispose of the high-level nuclear waste,” the United States is “hardly any closer” than it was in 1976 “to figuring out how to responsibly dispose of spent nuclear fuel.”
The group also cited what it described as the Trump administration’s “dismantling… nuclear safety oversight” at the federal level, saying the Nuclear Regulatory Commission conducted a “wholesale revision” of its regulations.
One of the new orders implemented for the NRC revised its mission to “include facilitating nuclear power while ensuring reactor safety.”
Additionally, officials said the current structure of the NRC was “misaligned” with Congress and was directed to “promote the expeditious processing of license applications and the adoption of innovative technology” with the NRC’s DOGE Team.
A DOGE representative informed the NRC that the agency would have to give a “rubber stamp” to new reactors. By rubber-stamping, new reactors would be approved without debate.
In response to the executive order, “[h]undreds of NRC staff… left the agency,” particularly after being unable to “revisit issues assessed by the [Department of Energy] or the Pentagon.”
Rob Bonta said that “exemptions, exclusions, and nuclear safety regulations” should never be combined when discussing “nuclear energy and public safety.”
He and other attorneys general challenged a rule that “would exempt nuclear reactors from environmental review.”
As the United States enters a time of “severe rollback of critical nuclear safety regulations,” Williams said it is difficult to “imagine a worse time to open California to new nuclear reactors.”
She added that the disregard authorities have for “nuclear safety speaks volumes.”
Various reports have noted concerns about “California’s own nuclear infrastructure as military targets,” and “heightened global conflicts” have created additional security concerns surrounding nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power plants, including Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, have ended up costing constituents $32 billion, which opponents said shows “nuclear power is close to the worst investment a state can make.”
Research has found that “small modular reactors” are even more costly, despite being promoted as “a cheaper alternative.”
Williams concluded that “[r]enewables are the real clean energy success story” because they are “cheaper, faster to deploy” and do not produce refined materials that last for hundreds of thousands of years.
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