Walker

Despite its status as the number one state in nuclear generating capacity (with 11 power reactors)—and despite having provided a sizeable financial boost to its reactor fleet last September—Illinois currently prohibits new nuclear power plant construction.

The ban, however, is now being targeted by state Rep. Mark Walker (D., Arlington Heights), who is sponsoring a measure in the Illinois General Assembly to have it repealed.

The bill: On January 31, Walker introduced H.B. 5589, which would amend the Illinois Public Utilities Act by deleting language stating that “no construction shall commence on any new nuclear power plant to be located within this state, and no certificate of public convenience and necessity or other authorization shall be issued therefore by the Illinois Commerce Commission, until the director of the [Illinois] Environmental Protection Agency finds that the United States government, through its authorized agency, has identified and approved a demonstrable technology or means for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste, or until such construction has been specifically approved by a statute enacted by the General Assembly.”

With only days remaining before the scheduled retirement of Exelon Generation’s Byron nuclear plant, the Illinois General Assembly may be close to passing a comprehensive energy package (S.B. 2408) that would save that plant, as well as the state’s similarly struggling Braidwood and Dresden facilities.

House Democrats have introduced an amendment to S.B. 2408 that would require municipally owned coal plants to achieve a 45 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 and completely phase out coal by 2045. The House is considering the amendment today.

(Financial assistance to Illinois’s nuclear fleet is part of a package that for weeks has been mired in disagreement between unions and environmental groups over the fate of the state’s coal plants.)