NJ Opens Door to Nuclear, as NY Lawmakers Weigh Hitting Pause

New Jersey lifted what it calls a “de facto moratorium” on building new nuclear plants and plans to start a task force focusing on expanding the power source, as Democrats in nearby New York consider potentially halting nuclear development altogether.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D), who signed the bill into law Wednesday, tied the move to energy affordability, an issue she and many other state leaders have homed in on in recent months as consumers grapple with higher electricity prices.

“For costs to come down, we need more energy supply,” Sherrill said in a statement. “By lifting outdated barriers and bringing together leaders across government, industry, and labor, we’re setting the stage for our state to pursue new advanced nuclear power.”

The state’s 1973 law didn’t explicitly ban new nuclear projects. However, a project’s plan for getting rid of radioactive waste needed to follow standards from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which Sherrill’s office called “an outdated standard that cannot be met.” Under the new law, the head of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection can “approve permits based on safe, NRC-compliant waste storage,” according to Sherrill’s office.

While New Jersey is the latest in a line of states to repeal their moratoriums on new nuclear development in recent years, the state’s repeal stands in some contrast with New York, where some Democrats want to see the state impose a new moratorium.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has grown increasingly bullish on nuclear and recently raised the state’s target for nuclear energy to 5 gigawatts from 1 gigawatt. State Sen. Kevin Parker (D), chair of the chamber’s energy and telecommunications committee, said he’s planning to propose legislation that would implement a two-year moratorium on nuclear projects.

States around the country are accepting nuclear power more broadly. Illinois lifted the last part of its ban on nuclear power at the beginning of this year, and West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Kentucky all repealed their bans within the last decade. Kentucky’s restrictions were similar to New Jersey’s in that the state changed the requirement that nuclear power facilities needed to have plans for permanently disposing of waste.

In late March, the governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont all issued a group statement saying they want to explore developing advanced nuclear projects.

Several states—including two-thirds of the states that signed the joint statement—still have nuclear moratoriums, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Department of Energy, including Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Oregon, California, Hawaii, and Minnesota. New York has a very limited moratorium that bans new nuclear development in a few counties in the Long Island area.

The bill New Jersey’s Sherrill signed into law calls nuclear power “a zero-emissions and highly reliable source of baseload energy” and mentions how nuclear power is “almost always capable of delivering power to the grid, regardless of weather and other external factors.”

“The regional electric grid is facing unprecedented load growth driven by rising demand and constraints on new supply entry that risks grid reliability for New Jersey ratepayers,” the act, which went into effect immediately, states. “Current low capacity has resulted in record-high capacity market clearing prices, which are being passed on to ratepayers and exacerbating the State’s energy affordability crisis.”