TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO SB1527
The Proposed Repeal of Illinois Nuclear Construction Moratorium
May 1, 2025
By David A. Kraft, Director
Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) is a 44-year old nuclear watchdog, safe-energy advocacy organization based in Chicago. On behalf of our over 800 members, we wish to register our opposition to SB1527, a bill that advocates the repeal of the 1987 Illinois nuclear power construction moratorium, and the development and construction of future nuclear reactors in Illinois.
This moratorium was enacted to protect Illinois from becoming a de facto high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) dump. It simply says – no more reactors will be built in Illinois until the Federal Government honors its legal obligation to build and operate a permanent disposal ** facility for the dangerous spent-fuel radioactive waste reactors create. This facility was supposed to open by 1997, but didn’t. Current government estimates claim we won’t have one before 2048. To date Illinois’ 14 reactors (11 still operating) have created over 11,000 tons of spent-reactor fuel with no disposal** facility in operation. The waste is presently stored** at reactor sites. Legislators in 1987 wanted to make sure that Illinois would have to manage as little of this waste as possible, prior to permanent disposal**.
The good news is – it worked. The Moratorium did and continues to do what it was designed to do: protect Illinois.
Regarding the moratorium repeal, SB1527 not only violates the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” maxim; it goes out and actively BREAKS something that protects Illinois for goals that are illusory at best, nefarious at worst. Regarding future nuclear advocacy, it suggests an inadequately investigated and discussed option for Illinois’ energy future that is strongly contested by competent energy officials and professionals nationwide, without meaningful participation by the public and thorough investigation of the downsides and negative effects, particularly on Illinois’ clean energy goals enacted in CEJA.
While this provides an explanation for the primary issue of origin of this common-sense moratorium – high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) disposal** — passage of SB1527 would make it clear that the Legislature has learned nothing from the 2023 partial Moratorium repeal to accommodate the development of “small modular nuclear reactors” (SMNRs), and continues to ignore unresolved issues regarding nuclear power that will only worsen with its further expansion.

ISSUE #1 – HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL:
Simply put, more reactors of any kind mean more high-level radioactive waste creation, with no disposal option in operation or even in sight. The 11 operating and 3 closed reactors in Illinois have to date produced more than 11,000 tons of HLRW, with an additional ~720 tons stored at the GE Morris Operation site. Each currently operating reactor produces an additional 20-25 tons of HLRW per year of operation.
Storage is not the same as disposal, neither legally nor technically. At a 2019 Congressional briefing on reactor decommissioning, former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jaczko had this to say about the storage of HLRW:

“If you think about this there are a lot of challenges behind this idea of centralized “interim” storage. The first one is that this is essentially permanent storage.
“As much as you may hear from people that this is centralized “interim” storage, it is de facto permanent storage because once you move fuel somewhere it’s going to be very hard to move it somewhere else…”
“The only place in principle you could move it to would be a permanent repository. But right now, there are NO prospects, certainly not in the next several decades for any type of permanent repository for spent fuel.” (emphasis ours)
[SOURCE: Decommissioning: A New Era for Nuclear Power; a Need for Congressional Oversight, May 13, 2019, https://www.eesi.org/briefings/view/051319nuclear ]
Opening Illinois to becoming a de facto HLRW storage depot is simply irresponsible governance.

 

ISSUE(S) #2 – UNRESOLVED NUCLEAR ISSUES:
Rather than enacting legislation that only makes a bad situation worse, NEIS encourages the Legislature to work on the many unresolved nuclear-related issues that we have called to your attention since 2014. Among them:
• “It’s the Waste, Stupid!”: As illustrated above, everyone makes token nods to the continuously growing HLRW disposal problem, and then moves on to their own narrow priorities, while irresponsibly promoting adding more HLRW.
• Just Transitions for Reactor Communities and Workers: Like it or not, reactors will eventually close, hopefully by choice and not by other unpleasant means. Since 2014 in testimony before the legislature and in letters to the Governor’s office, NEIS has advocated establishing escrowed “just transitions” funds for nuclear communities that would protect local tax bases, and provide worker re-training programs to soften the inevitable blows that “company towns” experience when their largest employer leaves. This concept has been routinely ignored.
• Ratepayers and Taxpayers — Watch Your Wallets!: Recall that the Illinois legislature previously approved $3+ billion in subsidies from 2016 to 2026 for several of Constellation’s reactors that were not economically competitive. These subsidies will expire next year, in 2026. Adding more reactors, especially large-scale one, into the mix of already uncompetitive reactors will most certainly create an energy glut that will further deflate prices – resulting in more ratepayer pain and the very real probability of future bailouts. The applies to both “small modular nuclear reactors” (SMNRs) and proposed full-scale nukes.
• Anti-Corruption Citizen Oversight: the recent nuclear-related scandals, indictments and guilty pleas in Illinois, Ohio and South Carolina, and the outrageous cost and delay of Georgia’s Vogtle 3&4 reactors argue mightily for a different kind of nuclear oversight. NEIS’ unsuccessful 2024 proposal to create an Illinois Citizen Oversight Commission attempted to address this problem, and ensure that the voices of 12+ million Illinoisans — not just those of the politically well-connected and paternalistic nuclear elites — would be reflected in crafting and deciding Illinois’ energy future. Our proposal is available for review and reconsideration.
• Regulatory erosion: The annual budget struggle to adequately fund the Illinois Dept. of Nuclear Safety (and other State agencies), and the Trump Administration’s intention to depopulate and eviscerate independent regulatory agencies like the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a serious safety concern for the most nuclear-reliant state in the U.S. Many in Washington have long viewed the NRC as a “lapdog” regulator. These actions to further weaken even the lapdog leaves Illinois with no credible oversight of nuclear power. Adding more reactors to this situation has serious negative environmental, safety, health and security implications.
• Transmission woes: For the past four years NEIS has been calling attention to the need to improve the transmission grid. One can have a million reactors or a million wind turbines, but if you cannot provide reliable electrical service by connecting these to the customer, they are all worthless.
Additionally, competition for grid access – already an identified problem for renewables producers — will worsen with the addition of new reactors. If any state money should be allocated anywhere, it should be to enhance and improve grid access and reliability, in tandem with energy storage. Transmission should become the new state priority, not more nuclear.
Concerted action of political as well as engineering/technological interventions are needed, and quickly.
If the Legislature feels a burning need to enact legislation on nuclear power issues, this list would be a far more preferable place to begin, to solve very real, growing and inevitable problems for Illinois communities, ratepayers, and the environment, rather than adding more reactors that will only exacerbate these and other problems.

CONCLUSION:
SB1527 is unacceptable public policy. It literally prematurely and unnecessarily dismantles a successfully protective statute of Illinois law. The recent Ohio vinyl chloride train derailment and the two Boeing 737MAX crashes demonstrate what happens when effective, demonstrably protective regulation is subverted, weakened and ignored. No matter how well intended, SB1527 demonstrates a lack of deep thinking, and amounts to poor and detrimental public policy.
For these reasons we urge the Committee to vote against SB1527, and channel public resources into effective and needed energy solutions: increased energy efficiency and renewables, energy storage, and an improved transmission grid.
Thank you for your consideration of these views.

[NOTE: ** “Disposal” and “Storage” are terms legally and precisely defined in the 1982 High-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act. They are NOT interchangeable terms, and mean qualitatively different things. Great care and legal precision should be used when using either of these terms. “Disposal” is permanent, requiring deep-geological burial; “storage” is temporary, and is usually above ground/grade. The Illinois Moratorium requires a federal “disposal” solution, NOT “storage.”]