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West Virginia looks to lift three-decade-old ban on nuclear production

West Virginia is moving to remove a ban on nuclear power plants.

Craig Blair

“I support it. I think we should be an all-of-the-above energy state and work our way towards that,” Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, said today on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”

He said big energy consumers like Nucor Steel, which announced a major investment in West Virginia last week, have asked why nuclear couldn’t be part of their consumption options. “If that’s the way corporate America is perceiving us, we need to put a little bit more makeup on and take the nuclear ban away,” Blair said.

West Virginia instituted a ban on nuclear power production in 1996. Senate Bill 4, which has bipartisan sponsorship, would reverse that. The bill is succinct: “Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia: Repeal of the article banning construction of nuclear power plants.”

The bill then states the sections of state code to strike.

That portion of current state law mainly addresses concern about waste disposal, along with economic feasibility.

“The Legislature finds and declares that the use of nuclear fuels and nuclear power poses an undue hazard to the health, safety and welfare of the people of the State of West Virginia, especially until there is an effective method to safely and permanently dispose of the radioactive wastes generated thereby,” lawmakers wrote in a “findings and purposes” section accompanying the ban in state code.

In 2009, then-Senator Books McCabe led an effort to repeal the ban, saying 13 years ago that the policy was antiquated. But that effort met resistance from the West Virginia Coal Association, as well as from the West Virginia Environmental Council. The bill was assigned to a “special study subcommittee,” which is legislative purgatory.

This year, there are bills in both the Senate and House. The Senate Economic Development Committee approved the bill eliminating the ban after a relatively short discussion this afternoon. The bill moves on to the Senate Finance Committee.

Mike Woelfel

“It’s a great idea, it’s long overdue, it makes West Virginia along with other state an option for those who want to have this as an energy source,” said Senator Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell.

Among those watching in the Senate committee room was Delegate Kayla Young, D-Kanawha, one of the sponsors of the same bill in the House. Young also participated in a Tuesday night online information session about the feasibility of advanced nuclear in West Virginia with fellow delegates Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, and Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia.

“There’s broad, bipartisan support for repealing the ban on nuclear. I think it’s something our state really needs to move forward,” Young said in the hallway after the Senate committee meeting.

She described the potential of small modular reactors.

“It’s not the nuclear that we’re thinking of, of the past, that exists in the states around us. that there have been issues with over the past few decades,” Young said. “It’s mainly federally-regulated, so there’s not much we need to do at the state level in terms of policy.”

West Virginia, which still focuses much of its political attention on coal, seems to have been going through something of a transition over the past couple of years. Two years ago, lawmakers passed a bill making it easier for companies to get a sliver of their power supply from solar energy.

“I think people are starting to realize the companies that are coming, like Nucor, want a diversified energy portfolio — and we need to be able to provide that for them,” Young said.





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