Pacific Gas & Electric would get $400 million more to help keep California’s last nuclear power plant open for another five years, if a state budget bill unveiled over the weekend becomes law.
In a reversal for legislative leaders who opposed the funding as recently as June, the compromise spending bill would allow California to top up the Diablo Canyon Extension Fund from the state’s General Fund.
The state’s bicameral legislature must still approve the compromise budget. Lawmakers were scheduled to take up the bill this week, Asm. Robert Rivas (D), the chamber’s speaker, said in a statement posted to his website. California’s state constitution requires the legislature to pass a budget by June 30.
California in 2022 approved some $1.4 billion for the fund, with the federal government throwing in another $1.1 billion over four years from the Department of Energy’s Civilian Nuclear Credits Program.
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) operates Diablo Canyon. The utility has applied for a 20-year license extension with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but state law currently allows the plant to stay open only until 2030, when the second of its two operating reactors must shut down.
NRC has said it could take about two years to finish reviewing PG&E’s license application, meaning the agency may not finish until a month after the federal license for Diablo Canyon Unit 2 expires.
NRC is allowing the plant to remain open while the agency reviews PG&E’s application. Environmental groups sued the NRC over that decision, but the agency won the cast in April.
