Legislature

Illinois on May 27 became the third state in the nation to pass legislation requiring coal ash protections beyond federal requirements.  The state’s House passed the Coal Ash Pollution Prevention Act (SB 9) in a 77-36 vote on Monday, only weeks after Senate passage of the bill in a 39-9 vote on May 9. The […]

Lawmakers in California’s Assembly on August 28 cleared a key vote on a bill that would require the state to obtain 100% of all retail electricity sales from renewable and zero-emissions resources by 2045.  The state’s Assembly voted 43–32 in favor of SB 100. The bill, which now heads to the state Senate for a […]

New Jersey’s Assembly and Senate in separate actions on April 12 passed bills to ensure continued operation of PSEG’s Salem and Hope Creek nuclear power plants. Lawmakers also passed bills to modify the state’s renewable portfolio standards and for support of a pilot offshore wind farm. Legislation (S-2313/A-3724) directing the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) […]

Following the lead of Illinois and New York, which have enacted policies supporting nuclear power plants, the Minnesota Legislature is weighing a bill that could help the owner of two nuclear facilities within its borders. Minnesota is home to the single-unit 671-MW Monticello nuclear plant and the dual-unit 1,100-MW Prairie Island plant (Figure 1). Xcel […]

  Chances that an 895-MW project to expand Sunflower Electric Power Corp.’s coal-fired Holcomb Station in Kansas will ever be completed are “remote,” a key project partner said. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association—a Denver-based power generator owned by 43 electric cooperatives that partnered with Sunflower in 2005 to build the new unit—in an August 10-Q […]

Dominion Energy told POWER it will begin a “strategic reassessment” of its plans for the 2,111-MW Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Connecticut after state legislators effectively blocked a bill that would have provided it a mechanism to bid for state contracts reserved for renewables. Dominion waged a tough campaign to push the bill through the […]

Wisconsin’s Senate has voted to lift a longstanding ban on building new nuclear plants unless a federal site exists to store the waste and it can be shown to benefit ratepayers. The Senate voted 23–9 for Senate Bill 384, with several Democrats joining Republicans in voting for the measure. The bill now heads to the […]