States Urged to Step Up in Matching Federal Momentum for Developing Nuclear Energy

Reactor developers are calling on lawmakers to trim permitting, revise siting rules, expand workforce programs, and de-risk investment by courting partnerships.

TerraPower's Natrium reactor will be built in the closing Kemmerer Coal Mine in Kemmerer, Wyoming, a reanimation of site formerly used for energy development being replicated in other states such as Indiana, which recently created 40 'energy development zones' on sites, including defunct coal mines, where energy was formerly or currently produced. John Haughey/The Epoch Times

BOSTON—Congress this decade has passed bipartisan bills chiseling back regulatory and financial hurdles hampering nuclear reactor development, such as 2024’s ADVANCE Act, while President Donald Trump in May issued four executive orders aimed at quadrupling the nation’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

Unless states follow through with reciprocal urgency, little of this federal momentum will matter beyond the Beltway, nuclear energy experts and industry leaders warn.

The good news is “states are taking action,” Nuclear Energy Institute Executive Director of New Nuclear Marc Nichol said during a first-day panel presentation at the Aug. 4–6 National Conference of State Legislatures 2025 Summit in Boston.

The bad news is, despite 25 states adopting nuclear energy-related bills in 2024 and more than 200 measures introduced in state houses nationwide in 2025, the legislative pace must quicken and be tailored to curry actionable commitments from reactor developers and energy corporations, he said.

To meet the president’s goal of adding 10 new reactors to the 94 in 54 nuclear power plants now operating in 28 states by 2030, legislatures must foster a “conducive regulatory environment” and “incentivize” venture interest, the panel, moderated by Dominion Energy Vice President for Nuclear Engineering and Fleet Support James Holloway, said.

That includes streamlining permitting, revising siting requirements, expanding workforce programs, and “de-risking” up-front investment by aggressively orchestrating collaborative partnerships, panelists said.

But first things first, GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy Global Government Affairs Leader Adam DeMella said.

Some lawmakers see the unfolding “nuclear renaissance” as a competition between states to “dominate nuclear energy,” a provincial insularity incongruous with how the nation’s integrated interstate electricity grid works, he said.

“Let’s, instead, think regionally. How do we work together? How do we support all the things we need to bring better energy to market?” DeMella said. “Electricity doesn’t know where it was made.”

Indiana Initiatives

DeMella, a self-professed “recovering engineer,” said workforce development is a critical component that states must spearhead to grow nuclear power capacity.

“This is where states have a key role. States can work with universities, two-year colleges. They can work with certificate programs, training schools,” he said.

The nation’s nuclear energy industry is in dire need of nuclear engineers, DeMella said.

“And not just nuclear engineers, mechanical and electrical [engineers]. We also need program managers. I'd argue we need them even more,” he said.

“Even more than that, we need welders. We need electricians. We need all the folks who put on hard hats to go to work.”

A storyboard depicts discussion during a presentation on state initiatives for developing nuclear reactors during the Aug. 4–6 National Conference of State Legislatures 2025 Legislative Summit in Boston on Aug. 4, 2025. John Haughey/The Epoch Times

Creating a workforce that can build and sustain a nuclear energy industry was a bipartisan priority during Indiana’s 2025 legislative session, state Sen. Eric Koch said, noting the Hoosier State is among 22 without a nuclear power plant, yet it gets more than 10 percent of its electricity from the D.C. Cook Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan.

“We’re doing a lot of things” to “advocate workforce development in skilled trades, particularly welding,” he said. “The building trades in Indiana have been a strong ally. For that reason, we want to attract SMR [small modular reactor] manufacturers to Indiana.”

In addition to bolstering budgets for vocational training programs, Indiana lawmakers adopted House Bill 1007, which includes a 20-percent tax credit for SMR manufacturers.

“It’s getting lots of attention, and we’re getting lots of calls,” Koch said.

HB 1007 is among a series of related bills that legislators approved in 2025, but it took a multiyear effort to define and encode the state’s aspiration “to position Indiana to become a leader in ... the manufacturing of SMRs,” he said.

“Three years or so ago, we began a very aggressive legislative effort to incentivize SMRs, beginning with tasking Purdue University, which has a world-class engineering school, to prepare a report and recommendation from that report,” Koch said.

Based on that Purdue study, lawmakers adopted Senate Bill 424, which addressed pre-development costs such as “site selection, engineering, legal, and so forth,” he said.

SB 424 establishes “energy production zones” that stipulate if there is a site now or in the past being used to produce energy—such as a coal mine—“then that land should be allowed to produce energy from whatever source in the future,” Koch said.

He noted there are now “about 40 [energy production zones] around our state, including eight identified by the Purdue study as the most suitable for nuclear.”

Indiana lawmakers in 2025 also endorsed SB 423, commissioning two “shared cost” SMR manufacturing pilot projects the state will soon solicit bids for.

The bill seeks to “de-risk investment in SMRs and encourage partnerships between a utility and what we call ‘eligible partners,’” sharing costs with third parties such as tech companies, universities, other utilities, and the military, Koch said.

Any state with research institutions, trade schools, and a commitment to developing an industry that provides clean, affordable power and good-paying jobs can replicate Indiana’s approach, he said.

With the federal government promoting nuclear energy and states clearing away regulatory obstacles while boosting workforce programs to build and sustain reactors, the onus will be on the nuclear industry to meet the moment, DeMella said.

That’s not a bad place to be, considering the last new nuclear reactor to go online in the United States was in 2016, he said.

“We have to deliver—that’s the next step,” DeMella said. “We have to do it on time. We have to do it on budget.”