Message to Moore Administration: Nuclear is Not Clean Energy
Legislation from Administration Promotes Huge, Ill-Advised Nuclear Buildout
Published Jan 17, 2025
Legislation from Administration Promotes Huge, Ill-Advised Nuclear Buildout
Today, Maryland Governor Wes Moore released new energy legislation that heavily promotes the buildout of new nuclear energy in Maryland. The Empowering New Energy Resources and Green Initiatives Toward a Zero–Emission (ENERGIZE) Maryland Act significantly alters the way the state will seek to achieve 100% clean energy by 2035. The bill creates new state statutes around a new “‘clean energy” goal that now includes nuclear energy and lists out a procurement process for building new nuclear power facilities.
“This administration’s apparent embrace of new nuclear power is an alarming sign for the future of clean energy in Maryland. Every dollar wasted on enormously expensive, hazardous nuclear energy schemes is a dollar not invested in truly clean, safe and increasingly efficient wind and solar power, said Food & Water Watch Southern Region Director Jorge Aguilar. “It seems clear that the nuclear industry special interests have convinced the administration to jumpstart extremely expensive construction of new nuclear facilities in cities and towns across the state under the guise of clean energy,”
“Nuclear energy is dangerous. It poses alarming risks to public health and the safety of our air and waterways, and there is no legitimate solution for dealing with the inherent problem of deadly radioactive waste,” Aguilar continued. “This bill says little about how the administration will select where nuclear reactors will be located. Maryland residents will be beyond angry when these locations come to light, and communities in harm’s way will surely push back however necessary.”
Executive Director of Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Tim Judson, expressed grave concerns about the ways in which Gov. Moore’s bill would allow nuclear power corporations to hike electricity rates and hijack the state’s energy policy in the years to come:
“Governor Moore’s energy bill would give Constellation and other nuclear power companies unprecedented authority to hike consumers’ power bills. Constellation would be able to hold the state hostage for billion-dollar bailouts whenever it decides its Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant is not profitable enough. And the Public Service Commission would be required to put Maryland residents and businesses on the hook to pay for exorbitantly expensive nuclear power plants – none of which could be built before 2035, when our state’s electricity is supposed to be emissions-free.”
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Press Contact: Seth Gladstone [email protected]
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