PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Use: Monday, October 27, 2025
Contact: David Kraft, (773)342-7650 (o); (630)506-2864 (c); neis@neis.org
“Governor Pritzker, Legislators: Preserve Illinois’ Nuclear Moratorium,”
Nuclear Watchdog Group Advises
CHICAGO—As the Fall Veto Session of the Illinois Legislature begins on Tuesday this week, an Illinois environmental, safe-energy advocacy organization advises: preserve the Illinois nuclear construction moratorium.
Legislation SB1527 and language in SB25 HA3 (pp.589-590) call for the repeal of the 1987 nuclear construction moratorium, which states that no new large-scale reactors can be built in Illinois until the Federal Government demonstrates that it has an operational facility to dispose of – not merely store – high-level radioactive waste (HLRW).
The U.S. has failed to build such a facility; and all HLRW ever generated by reactors in Illinois remains in storage at reactor sites. Illinois – with 11 operating and 3 shuttered/decommissioned reactors – currently stores 11,000+ tons of HLRW, more than any other state, adjacent to bodies of fresh water.
“Recent political events weakening nuclear power regulation, and the Federal Government’s continued inability to safely and permanently dispose of high-level radioactive waste show beyond a doubt that expanding nuclear power is an outright threat to Illinois,” maintains David Kraft, director of the 44-year old Chicago-based safe-energy advocacy/anti-nuclear organization Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS). “Now is simply NOT the time to repeal the nuclear moratorium,” he asserts.
A letter dated October 9 was sent directly to Governor Pritzker, detailing the many additional negative aspects of moratorium repeal. While NEIS has received postal confirmation of delivery, it has received no response of any kind from the Governor.
In May, President Trump signed Executive Orders (E/Os) which effectively gut the regulatory power of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to fulfill its original founding mandate to protect the public health, safety and environment.
Many experts – including two former Chairs of the NRC — have savaged Trump’s ill-advised weakening of nuclear power regulation. (see attached statement list below).
NEIS points out that the Trump Administration’s desire to expand nuclear fourfold while slashing NRC staff and regulation of both existing, aging reactors and experimental, unproven new reactors is a recipe for disaster. The Boeing plane disasters, the East Palestine train derailment, even the Fukushima reactor disaster – all had their root cause in either de-regulation, self-regulation by industry, or government-industry collusion.
“Illinois is powerless to enact protective legislation to compensate for the regulatory safety void created by the Trump E/Os,” Kraft points out. The NRC retains preemptive authority on all matters pertaining to safety and security at nuclear power plants. No state can enact safety-related regulations stricter than those created and administered by the NRC, no matter how well-intentioned or protective. Therefore, neither Governor Pritzker nor the Legislature can enact anything that will provide additional safeguards.
“Governor Pritzker is reported to have said that he wants to, ‘expand the options for nuclear in the state of Illinois….But it has to be done in the right way.’” Kraft notes.
“Under these conditions, there is no ‘right way.’ The further erosion of even today’s questionable level of regulation argues against calling for more nuclear power,” Kraft states.
“Current reactors are showing signs of aging. New reactors would require greater regulatory oversight during start-up phase. With reduced regulatory oversight, neither will be safe. Now is clearly not the time to bring more nuclear power to Illinois,” Kraft maintains.
“One bad day at the nuclear office will reduce Illinois to the status of the Belarus of North America,” he concludes, referring to the country most heavily impacted by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
“For the sake of public and environmental safety, and economic security, the Illinois nuclear moratorium should be maintained,” Kraft concludes.
–30–
Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) was formed in 1981 to watchdog the nuclear power industry, and to promote a renewable, non-nuclear energy future.
Numerous competent nuclear experts have decried the Trump Administration’s irresponsible nuclear deregulation action:
Statements by Dr. Ed Lyman, Union of Concerned Scientists:
“This push by the Trump administration to usurp much of the agency’s autonomy as they seek to fast-track the construction of nuclear plants will weaken critical, independent oversight of the U.S. nuclear industry and poses significant safety and security risks to the public,” UCS added.
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the UCS, said, “Simply put, the U.S. nuclear industry will fail if safety is not made a priority.”
“By fatally compromising the independence and integrity of the NRC, and by encouraging pathways for nuclear deployment that bypass the regulator entirely, the Trump administration is virtually guaranteeing that this country will see a serious accident or other radiological release that will affect the health, safety, and livelihoods of millions,” Lyman added. “Such a disaster will destroy public trust in nuclear power and cause other nations to reject U.S. nuclear technology for decades to come.”
Statements by Dr. Alison Macfarlane, former Chairwoman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
“An independent regulator is one who is free from industry and political influence…Once you insert the White House into the process, you don’t have an independent regulator anymore.”
“If you aren’t independent of political and industry influence, then you are at risk of an accident,” Macfarlane warned.
Statement by Dr. Gregory Jaczko, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
Gregory Jaczko, who led the NRC under President Obama, said Trump’s executive orders look like someone asked an AI chatbot, “How do we make the nuclear industry worse in this country?”
He called the orders a “guillotine to the nation’s nuclear safety system” that will make the country less safe, the industry less reliable and the climate crisis more severe.
Statement by Joseph Romm, a senior research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media:
…any reduction in capacity at the NRC would be ill-timed with the administration’s proposed ramp-up of nuclear projects.
“This is not the time to be weakening oversight,” said Romm, who was a senior official at the Department of Energy in the 1990s. “It’s very dangerous to be weakening and undermining and politicizing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s oversight at a time when it’s not going to be having to do less work.”
Speeding up the permitting process while accepting proposals for new reactor designs would be “ridiculous and very dangerous,” he added.
Statement by Johanna Neumann, Environment America Research & Policy Center’s senior director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy:
“Do we really want to create more radioactive waste to power the often dubious and questionable uses of AI?”
