A $1-trillion infrastructure bill with tax credits for financially-struggling nuclear power plants passed the Senate on a widely bipartisan vote this week.
The infrastructure package cleared the Senate in a 69-30 vote Tuesday and now heads to the House, whose members were scheduled to return to Washington on Aug. 23 to vote on the measure. If the bill becomes law, roughly $6 billion in credits will be auctioned off to nuclear plants that post an annual net operating loss. The measure directs energy secretary Jennifer Granholm to work with related federal agencies and “establish a process” for evaluating bids and allocating credits.
The credits program would also give priority to nuclear plants that are fueled using uranium sourced in the U.S., the bill said.
With several nuclear plants scheduled to close this year and more in dire financial straits, the Joe Biden administration has faced pressure from some in Congress to staunch the bleeding. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) has been a prominent Democratic voice on the issue, telling RadWaste Monitor last week that the federal government has to do “everything humanly possible” to keep plants open. Manchin also sent a letter to the Biden administration in April urging the White House to step in.
Despite the suddenly plausible new federal subsidies, nuclear plants are still closing rapidly. Days after the Senate approved the infrastructure bill, Exelon, the utility that owns the financially-troubled Byron and Dresden Nuclear Generating Stations in Illinois, said it plans to shutter both plants for good later this year. The Palisades plant in Michigan is also on the chopping block in 2022, and New York’s Indian Point Energy Center went dark in April.
Two Ohio nuclear plants — Davis-Besse and Perry owned by former FirstEnergy subsidiary Energy Harbor — are also in dire financial straits. A spokesperson for Energy Harbor didn’t respond to a request for comment by deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor as to whether the company would bid on federal credits for the embattled plants.
Meanwhile, prominent nuclear industry group the American Nuclear Society said in a statement Tuesday evening that it was pleased with the infrastructure bill and the proposed credits program.
The infrastructure bill also didn’t include any language about nuclear waste or spent fuel storage. The Biden administration requested $20 million for 2022 to help the Department of Energy find somewhere to build a federal interim storage repository. Those funds will be part of the annual discretionary appropriation for next fiscal year, which got a step closer to reality when the Senate around 4 a.m. Wednesday approved a $3.5-trillion budget resolution on a 50-49 party line. One Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.C.), didn’t vote.
The resolution sets spending levels for appropriations bills that, for the most part, lawmakers have already written. In July, the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee approved separate 2022 appropriations bills with the requested $20 million for DOE interim storage.
