Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Greg Jaczko said this week New York state lawmakers should approve the proposed nuclear moratorium bill to protect taxpayers from possible financial overruns of new nuclear plants.
Assembly Bill A114333, named New York State Ratepayer Protection Nuclear Moratorium Act, would install a two-year halt to state funding and permits for new nuclear reactors. During that temporary stoppage, a nuclear assessment task force will conduct a report on the financial, environmental and public impacts of constructing a new reactor before going forward.
The proposed New York state legislation comes as Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) pushes for more nuclear power to meet growing energy demands in the state. The moratorium bill’s sponsor, Jo Anne Simon (D), attended the Wednesday press conference, arranged by anti-nuclear groups, in which Jaczko spoke.
Jaczko, who chaired NRC during the Barack Obama administration, said financial challenges continue to be at the crux of adding new nuclear power. He added that 20 years ago a “nuclear renaissance” was promised and it did not come to fruition, and he believed that will likely not come again.
“It was a craze of the early 2000s when the industry promised tens of new reactors will be built in the country. The result was a significant failure,” Jaczko said. “Only two reactors were built at a significant cost overrun in Georgia and in fact another two reactors [in South Carolina] were under construction and canceled after four of the people involved were indicted for federal fraud.”
“So, the result of that renaissance in the 2000s was more fraud convictions than actual reactors constructed. But there were billions of dollars wasted of taxpayers’ money,” Jaczko added.
Jaczko said the nuclear sector is currently filled with new tech companies that have little experience with nuclear energy and that President Donald Trump’s administration has “very little regard for regulation, safety and the environment.”
“These combinations won’t bode well for ultimately what will be taxpayer and federal dollars being misused and wasted again,” Jaczko said.
Jaczko said the New York state bill is the right effort to stop the nuclear industry from running up taxpayers’ and ratepayers’ money and gives the opportunity for a task force to study the real feasibility of nuclear power.
Nuclear waste management was another reason for New York to hold off on efforts to add more reactors, Jaczko said. He believes that a national repository for nuclear waste is highly unlikely to happen and that nuclear waste has to be at the forefront at every conversation about building new reactors when talking with host communities.
“We still do not have a permanent repository for nuclear waste in this country and every community and every policymaker that wants to support nuclear power has to be honest with the community and acknowledge that nuclear waste will stay in those communities perhaps forever,” Jaczko said.
New York, led by Hochul, has expressed a renewed interest in nuclear power over the past year. In June 2025, Hochul (D) announced the state’s plans to add at least 1,000 megawatts of nuclear generation. She later raised the stakes in her Jan. 13 State of the State Address calling for the state to build up to five gigawatts, or 5,000 megawatts, of new nuclear energy.
New York Power Authority, the state agency charged with handling this task, said in April it planned to select a host site in upstate New York by the end of this year.
New York Power Authority has already received interest from 23 companies to partner up for the deployment of a new reactor and has a list of eight upstate New York communities that want to host it.