Capito says ADVANCE Act will help nation, West Virginia

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito says the ADVANCE Act will use nuclear power to help meet the nation’s energy needs.

Advance, which passed the Senate Tuesday and is heading to the desk of President Joe Biden, sets up process to license small modular reactors.

Capito said SMR aren’t what people usually think of when they think of nuclear energy.

“They’re small, they are more contained and they’re safer,” Capito said Wednesday on MetroNews “Talkline.” “They use less fuel and they are still emissions free. You’re right they aren’t the nuclear reactors of old.”

Advance Act, which Capito authored, would also allow SMRs to be licensed on former coal-fired power plant sites that are considered Brownfields sites. Capito said that would be good for West Virginia.

“They (the old sites) have transmission right there ready to go and you could put these modular reactors on those sites, as a Brownfield site, then you have your employment base back and you’ve got the power generation that West Virginia has been providing for decades,” Capito said.

During a floor speech Tuesday in favor of the bill Capito said:

“The ADVANCE Act reduces regulatory costs for companies seeking to license advanced reactor technologies.

“It requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish a regulatory roadmap to license new nuclear facilities on brownfield sites, something that would be very important to my state of West Virginia.

“It directs the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to update its Mission Statement to reflect the beneficial uses of nuclear technology and establish a licensing structure to support an efficient, timely, and predictable regulatory review.”

Capito admitted on “Talkline” Wednesday that there is some criticism of furthering the use of nuclear energy but she called those criticisms unfounded.

“This is about energy security, it’s about the economy, it’s environment and it also works to make us be the global leader in energy innovation in the global technology,” Capito said.

Discussion on the bill first began in March 2023. Capito said it worked its way through the committee progress and has strong bipartisan support.

West Virginia lawmakers passed a bill in 2022 that would allow for nuclear energy facilities to be established in West Virginia. The bill was strongly supported by Senate President Craig Blair and Senate Democratic leader MIke Woelfel.

“This is not our grandfather’s nuclear facility. I rise in support of the bill. It is a good economic development tool for the future. This bill makes us a leader in terms of all-of-the-above,” Woelfel said during a Senate debate then.

“We can’t afford to be protective of any industry at this point. We have to be attractive to manufacturing around the world.”