Illinois Senate Deputy Minority Leader Sue Rezin provided a status update on her efforts to end the state’s moratorium on building new nuclear reactors:
“As a result of ongoing negotiations with the support of the Senate President, his team, and other stakeholders, we are in the process of finalizing the language for legislation that I believe will be voted on in the Senate this week.
“The new legislation will have similar language to Senate Bill 2591, which I filed last month. It is my hope that this new bill will address the concerns of the Governor by including a very specific and intentional definition of what constitutes new nuclear within our state. Furthermore, it will include state-level oversight in addition to the already stringent oversight laid out by the federal government.
“Nuclear energy runs 24/7, 365 days a year, rain or shine. Nuclear is the clean and affordable energy that is necessary to help power Illinois and America’s future. The federal regulatory permitting process takes six to eight years, so we must act quickly to ensure that our state has the opportunity to take advantage of the amazing advancements in new nuclear technology that have occurred over the past couple of decades. The longer we wait to end this moratorium, Illinois falls further behind the rest of the nation.”