The Donald Trump administration is reportedly considering offering economic incentives for states to consider taking on nuclear waste, according to a Wednesday article from Politico.
The Trump administration intends to introduce a program sometime this week addressing nuclear waste, Politico reported. Governors would be invited to compete for economic development in exchange for hosting spent nuclear fuel.
“Under the new plan, the administration is aiming to link the waste problem to something governors actually want: industrial projects, capital investment along with high-paying jobs,” according to the article.
The federal government is expected to issue a request for information laying out the details of what the federal government will do to assist states in taking on the storage of nuclear waste, according to the article.
The Department of Energy did not reply Wednesday afternoon to Exchange Monitor’s request for comment.
Over the past year, the Trump administration has put a lot of emphasis on nuclear power for various purposes, such as to power artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and growing energy demands. A looming question with the push has been what will be done with the spent nuclear fuel.
Under the Joe Biden administration, DOE was pursuing a “consent-based siting” approach, but had not gone so far as to spell out what economic rewards that host communities might expect in return.