Capito celebrates signings of Parkinson’s, nuclear power bills

In an increasingly divided Congress and despite disagreements with President Joe Biden over public policy, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito was pleased to see two bills she supported with Democratic colleagues make it to the President’s desk for his signature.

Speaking Wednesday afternoon on a virtual briefing with reporters from her offices on Capitol Hill, Capito, R-W.Va., celebrated the signing by Biden of the Dr. Emmanuel Bilirakis and Honorable Jennifer Wexton National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act on July 2, and the signing of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act Tuesday.

The National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act – co-sponsored with Chris Murphy, D-Conn. – creates an advisory council with federal agencies to coordinate research and services for people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that can interfere with motor functions. Symptoms can include tremors, slow movement, stiffness, and issues affecting walking and balance. The cause of Parkinson’s remains unknown.

The advisory council will write a national plan to cure Parkinson’s and mitigate its worse symptoms. The plan will include ways to lessen the financial burden on Parkinson’s patients, their families, and caregivers. The council will also review all current federal programs dealing with Parkinson’s.

“We have a bill now that actually is a national plan to end Parkinson’s disease,” said Capito. “This is not only good for every West Virginian family that’s affected by this, but it’s also, I think, tied to not just how to manage it, but how to end Parkinson’s and to find out the mysteries of why it occurs.”

Capito first introduced the National Plan to End Parkinson’s Act in 2022 and reintroduced the legislation in 2023. Her interest in Parkinson’s was due to conversations with constituents about the disease, the work of actor Michael J. Fox who himself has Parkinson’s, and her interest in neurological diseases. Both of Capito’s parents – former Gov. Arch Moore and First Lady Shelley Moore – were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease – a form of dementia – later in life.

“West Virginia has a lot of people afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, and it can manifest itself in many different ways, either physically, neurologically, your speech, everything,” Capito said. “I’ve had some friends who’ve had Parkinson’s, and I also met a lot of advocates. I went to the boxing class that they hold at the YMCA in Charleston to see how to get motor skills going. I talked to Michael J. Fox about his Parkinson’s journey working with those that are affected.”

The ADVANCE Act – part of the Fire Grants and Safety Act – encourages the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to work with international partners toward developing the next generation of advanced nuclear reactors for electrical generation.

The bill reduces regulatory costs for companies wishing to license new reactor technologies, creates a prize to incentivize development of new technologies and eases licensing pathways for micro-reactors. It gives the NRC greater flexibility to look at improved manufacturing techniques to more quickly construct new nuclear facilities.

“My ADVANCE Act is an exciting, new look at nuclear energy,” Capito said. “There are these great innovations going called small (modular) nuclear reactors. They’re not the nuclear reactors of old, and you can stack them and move them around a lot easier. They’re safer and more manageable. And so this is to spur the licensing and to also spur the innovation and the development of, of this type of base load energy production.”

The bill also encourages the use of former power plant sites and brownfields for new nuclear reactor programs, as well as eases the licensing review process for new facilities at existing reactor sites. Capito said the goal is not to replace coal or natural gas but to have an additional dependable source of electricity to handle growth in electric vehicle infrastructure and the construction of high-energy industries, such as data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) facilities.

“There is a portion in this bill that I wrote specifically thinking about West Virginia, since we can now have nuclear energy in West Virginia because the Legislature made a change several years ago,” Capito said. “That is to use our old coal-fired power plant platforms. Because there’s transmission right there, it’s a perfect place for small nuclear plants.”

Capito, the ranking Republican member of Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was the lead sponsor and author of the ADVANCE Act along with EPW Committee Chairman Tom Carper, D-Del., and U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

While thankful that Biden signed the bills, Capito planned to take to the Senate floor later Wednesday to criticize Biden over the continued effect of inflation on the price of goods, the President’s lack of attention to the southern border with Mexico, and his foreign policy since the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

“I think…starting with most notably his exit out of Afghanistan, we’ve got mixed messages,” Capito said. “I think we’re at a time right now where the rogue states are aligning, whether that be North Korea, Russia, China, Iran, and its proxies. We’ve got to be the superpower here, because we know that we stand for freedom and democracy and human rights, and these countries do not.”