A renewed push to reintroduce nuclear energy facilities to Oregon is headed toward a quiet end as the 2025 session speeds through its final days.

One of the bills that made it the furthest — House Bill 2410, which would have paved the way for Umatilla County to launch a nuclear energy pilot project — hasn’t had any activity since April. The chief sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, wrote in an email that the bill was unlikely to advance this session.

“We had to make really hard choices this year in terms of dollars spent,” she wrote. “Nothing is ever final until the gavel drops, but I don’t think it’s likely.”

Oregonians passed a measure banning new nuclear energy facilities in 1980 unless there is a federally-licensed waste depository. While the U.S. still lacks a depository, nuclear energy has gotten a boost from small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs.

Tech companies are especially interested in the technology because they believe SMRs can help supply their energy-intensive data centers with plentiful low-carbon energy, all while operating without the cost and safety concerns that come from traditional reactors. In 2024, Amazon announced it was investing in SMR technology in southeastern Washington to power its data centers across the Columbia River in Umatilla and Morrow counties.

While Amazon found a workaround to Oregon’s ban, nuclear energy opponents have rallied to prevent legislators from weakening it. They argue that SMRs aren’t viable yet and still have the same pollution concerns that led Oregonians to ban new facilities decades ago.

Kelly Campbell, the policy director for the environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper, said she’s tracked and opposed nuclear energy bills in the Legislature for the past 15 years. While she’s typically seen one or two bills a year, her group is tracking 13 this year.

Discussions around nuclear energy are changing, she said, even among Democrats usually resistant to the idea.

“People were playing it pretty close to the vest, and we and our partners had trouble understanding which bills are going to move forward and why,” she said. “It was a shift. It was a difference in terms of the way the legislature was approaching [it].”

HB 2410, which would have allowed Umatilla County to site SMRs as a part of a pilot project approved by local voters, not only received a hearing but was recommended out of the House Climate, Energy and Environment Committee before stalling in the Ways and Means Committee. Another bill Levy sponsored on nuclear energy that would have required Oregon to study legal pathways to nuclear waste disposal also got a recommendation before meeting a similar fate.

Levy said she plans to reintroduce nuclear energy legislation either in the 2026 short session or the full session in 2027.

If she does, she’ll have to contend with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, which opposed HB 2410. The tribes have long opposed nuclear energy projects in the region over concerns that nuclear pollution could affect hunting, fishing and other rights secured under their treaty with the United States. The CTUIR put out a statement in April thanking Levy for including language in the bill that requires tribal consultation, but otherwise reiterated its opposition.

Levy said she believes that she and the tribes can eventually find common ground. She added that she was helping organize a tour of the Columbia Generating Station, a nuclear facility in southeast Washington, as a part of the Eastern Oregon Economic Summit. This year’s event will be held on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/26/oregon-nuclear-power-energy-house-bill-2410-umatilla-morrow/