WNPJ's Carbon Free, Nuclear Free Campaign
Support a Carbon Free, Nuclear Free Wisconsin!
Wisconsin can build an energy future that gives us affordable power, creates jobs and improves our environment. So why gamble on costly nuclear reactors that generate radioactive waste?
Wisconsin can be carbon free and nuclear free -- if we demand it!
Instead, state legislators are trying to remove our common-sense nuclear safeguards with Assembly Bill 384 and Senate Bill 288. In early 2016, the state Assembly passed AB 384 by voice vote. As of mid-January, a Senate vote has not yet been scheduled.
Please call your state legislators via the legislative hotline at 1-800-362-9472. Or, you can find your legislators and their office numbers online, at waml.legis.state.wi.us
State legislature
Repeatedly, the nuclear industry and its supporters in the state legislature have tried to remove the safeguards Wisconsin places on nuclear reactors. State law requires that, before a new nuclear reactor can be built here, there must be a federally-licensed repository for the high-level radioactive waste and the electricity must not place an undue financial burden on our residents and businesses.
The third recent push to overturn Wisconsin's nuclear safeguards has gotten farther than previous attempts, with AB 384 passing the state Assembly in early 2016. Groups opposing AB 384 / SB 288 include WNPJ, Nukewatch, Wisconsin Resources Protection Council, Sierra Club, Clean Wisconsin, Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, Citizens Utility Board and Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group.
Please call your Representative and Senator, via the legislative hotline at 1-800-362-9472. Or, you can find your legislators and their office numbers online, at waml.legis.state.wi.us
Past sessions
In the 2009-2010 Wisconsin legislative session, there were two measures that would have gutted our safeguards on new nuclear reactors.
Assembly Bill 516 / Senate Bill 340 would have completely repealed our nuclear safeguards. While this bill died in committee, it received more sponsors than any previous repeal measure -- 25 Representatives and 10 Senators!
The Clean Energy Jobs Act (Senate Bill 450 / Assembly Bill 649) would have also gutted our nuclear safeguards, by removing the requirement for a radioactive waste repository and easing the financial requirements.
Because the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA) also contained important provisions furthering energy efficiency and renewable energy in Wisconsin, our Carbon Free, Nuclear Free coalition worked for months to craft language to add to CEJA that would shore up our nuclear safeguards, and to find legislators to introduce and support the language.
Unfortunately, the final version of CEJA was even more pro-nuclear, while its good renewable, energy efficiency and transportation provisions were watered down significantly. We reluctantly decided to oppose CEJA.
CEJA died at the end of the session, without receiving votes on the Senate or Assembly floor, due to big business opposition and internal politics.
That means that Wisconsin legislators will be working in future sessions to craft our energy future -- and the repeal effort will likely continue. So your representatives need to hear from you!
Contact your state representatives!
Please call your state Representative and Senator and tell them that nuclear energy isn't clean and shouldn't be included in future clean energy bills! Please also tell them that you want Wisconsin's restrictions on new nuclear reactors to be kept intact!
You can look up your legislators and their direct office numbers online, here. Or you can call the Capitol switchboard at 1-800-362-9472 and ask to be connected with their offices.
Thank you for taking action! Constituent phone calls and letters really do make a difference.
Read more about the issue
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- Sierra Club, "Wisconsin: Open for a nuclear waste site?," Jan 12, 2016
- Al Gedicks, Wisconsin Resources Protection Council, "Bill would invite radioactive waste dump to Wisconsin," Jan 12, 2016
- John LaForge, Nukewatch: "Nuclear might be safe or cheap, but never safe and cheap," Jan 10, 2016
- Diane Farsetta, "Nuclear power doesn't make sense," Nov 19, 2015
Earlier news:
- Press release and informational packet from Carbon Free, Nuclear Free Wisconsin, September 2011 - Broad coalition calls for maintaining nuclear safeguards
- Pam Kleiss, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility Wisconsin op/ed column: "Learn the lesson from Japan's tragedy: Keep nuclear safeguards in Wisconsin"
- Waste and Cost Safeguards on New Nuclear Reactors at Lobby Day 2011
- WNPJ action alert: Oppose the Clean Energy Jobs Act!
- State Senator Kathleen Vinehout op/ed column: "Speed could kill unwieldy energy bill"
- Sara Barczak, Safe Energy Director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy: "Pro-nuclear legislation would hurt consumers"
- WNPJ action alert: Act now to keep WI safeguards on nuclear reactors!
- Jennifer Nordstrom: Carbon Free Nuclear Free Wisconsin
- WNPJ's Environmental work group leads the Carbon Free, Nuclear Free Campaign
- WNPJ: No Nukes Wisconsin
- WNPJ news: Here we go again: Pro-nuclear legislators push to repeal 'moratorium'
- WNPJ action alert: Send a message: Don't nuke Wisconsin's climate
- Jennifer Nordstrom: Take nukes out of Wisconsin's climate bill
- John LaForge: Nuclear is too expensive, too risky
- Wisconsin Environment research report: Generating Failure: How Building Nuclear Power Plants Would Set America Back in the Race Against Global Warming
- George Wagner op/ed column: We should say no to coal
- Diane Farsetta op/ed: Remove nuclear provisions from Clean Energy Jobs Act
- Al Gedicks op/ed column in the Green Bay Press Gazette: Nuclear power is a false solution to climate change
- Peter Bradford op/ed column: Massive nuclear subsidies won't solve climate change
- Milwaukee County Democrats pass Carbon Free Nuclear Free resolution
- Clean Wisconsin: Wisconsin: The Next Yucca Mountain?
- Here we go again: Pro-nuclear legislators push to repeal 'moratorium'
- Letter from WNPJ member Lee Brown: State Journal stance on nuclear energy wrong, but predictable
- Frank Von Hippel, a physicist, professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University and co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, in The Capital Times: Reprocessing nuclear fuel a dangerous option
- Al Gedicks of Wisconsin Resource Protection Council, in the La Crosse Tribune:Nuclear energy option is neither safe nor affordable
- Jim Draeger of Peace Action-Wisconsin in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Nuclear power: The fool's choice
- WNPJ Co-chair Bill Christofferson in Milwaukee's Shepherd Express: Battle looms over relaxing nuclear regulations
- Christofferson in the Appleton Post Crescent:Nuclear power not as green, safe or cheap as supporters say
- Letter from WNPJ co-chairs to governor and legislature: Don't relax nuclear plant rules; News release
- Coalition of 12 public interest groups urges governor and legislature to oppose nuclear power
- Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG) report: The High Cost of Nuclear Power
- Pam Kleiss, Physicians for Social Responsibility, op/ed: Don't ignore two big drawbacks to nuke power
- WISPIRG's Bruce Speight op/ed: Nuclear power is too costly
- WNPJ co-chair Bill Christofferson op/ed: Nuclear power still doesn't make sense
- Download a free book by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research: Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy
- Sierra Club's Shahla Werner op/ed:Nuclear energy too risky when efficiency works
- Bill Christofferson op/ed in the Green Bay Press Gazette: Climate crisis will not be solved by nuclear power
- Xoff Blog: Nuclear industry targeting Wisconsin
- PR Watch article:The campaign to repeal the nuclear moratorium
- John LaForge of Nukewatch op/ed:The toll of Three Mile Island
- Al Gedicks, Wisconsin Resources Protection Council, op/ed: Nuclear myths are challenged
- Video of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research's Arjun Makhijani and the Nuclear Energy Institute's Patrick Moore: A debate on nuclear power