Minnesota Senate committee votes to lift the moratorium on new nuclear power plants
On Thursday, the Minnesota Senate Energy and Utilities Finance Committee heard multiple bills regarding nuclear power in our state.
These bills included a full repeal of the current moratorium on building new plants (S.F. 0225), a bill that would allow small modular reactors to be built (S.F. 4082), and a bill funding a study to investigate the feasibility of replacing retiring coal plants with new nuclear power plants (S.F. 4163).
S.F. 0225 passed on a voice vote with DFL Senator Jerry Newton joining all of the Republican members of the committee. However, the other two bills passed with unanimous support.
You can watch the debate by clicking the video below. Both Senator Jason Rarick and Senator Mathews had strong points regarding the safety of storing spent nuclear fuel and the need to legalize new nuclear power plants in our state.
If you’d like to sign a petition urging your elected officials to legalize new nuclear power, you can click this link.