It's Not Just Vermont: State Lawmakers Do Not Share Congress' Love for the Nuclear Industry

From EarthTimes:

It was front-page news across America this February when the Vermont Senate voted to shut down the troubled Vermont Yankee reactor in 2012.  But what most Americans don't know is that the nuclear industry also lost all of its seven other major state legislative pushes this year  going 0-8 and putting yet another nail in the coffin of the myth of the "nuclear renaissance" in the United States, according to an analysis by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS).

Even as some in Congress would lavish tens of billions of dollars ? and even unlimited ? loan guarantees on the embattled nuclear power industry, state lawmakers in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Vermont and West Virginia and Wisconsin said a firm "no" this year to more nuclear power.  The legislative issues ranged from attempts by nuclear industry lobbyists to overturn bans on new reactors to "construction work in progress" (CWIP) assessments to pay for new reactors to reclassifying nuclear power as a "renewable resource."    

How bad is the nuclear power industry doing in state legislatures?  In 2009, the industry went 0-5 with reactor moratorium overturn efforts in Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, and West Virginia. Even after stepping up its on-the-ground efforts in 2010 with paid lobbyists and extensive public relations efforts in states like Wisconsin, the industry again came up with nothing.

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