FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Contacts:

Dr. Edwin Lyman elyman@ucs.org 202.853.8210

Diane Turco 508.776.3132 tturco@comcast.net

Deb Katz 413.834.3280 deb@nukebusters.org

Boston, MA., November 6, 2025-Dr. Edwin Lyman, Nuclear Safety Director, Union of Concerned Scientists presents a program on "The Risks of Small Modular Reactors: Separating Fact From Fiction."

Wednesday, November 12, 2025 

10:00 AM-Noon

Room 222

Massachusetts State House

The Commonwealth Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy is committed to advancing clean and renewable energy, combating climate change, and making energy affordable. We invite our legislators and the public to an educational event about state energy policy around new nuclear power. 

Gov. Maura Healey’s energy bill, H.4144, contains many valuable ideas. However, Section 45 would repeal a law created by a 1982 citizen-initiated ballot measure that prohibits new nuclear power construction and operation without voter approval and permanent repository for the waste, that doesn't exist. The governor views that 1982 law as a “major barrier” to promoting untested small modular nuclear reactors [SMRs]. Yet SMRs face technical, economic, regulatory, and supply chain challenges that will not meet state carbon reduction goals in time or reduce consumer costs.

Dr. Lyman shares our concerns. He states, “The independence of federal nuclear regulators has been compromised and they can no longer be trusted to protect the public from nuclear plant accidents. The people of Massachusetts should not throw away a critical tool they have to defend themselves: the right to decide whether potentially unsafe, experimental nuclear reactors should be located in their state. These costly reactors would also exacerbate the energy affordability crisis in the Commonwealth.”

Diane Turco, Director of Cape Downwinders, calls for removal of Sec. 45 from the bill. She states, “The public’s input and perspectives are essential as we work together to shape a clean, sustainable, and safe energy future as is the intent of the law. Keep democracy alive and let the people decide.”

“The resurrection of nuclear power as a 'clean' solution for anything is a travesty," said Deb Katz of Citizens Awareness Network. “This is a time for real solutions-for all its claims, nuclear power is neither clean nor green, including theoretical SMRs. We need a public debate. The Governor should welcome public engagement, not silence it.”

Edwin Lyman is an internationally recognized expert on nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism as well as nuclear power safety and security. Since joining UCS in 2003, he has published articles in a number of journals and magazines, including Science, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Science and Global Security, and Arms Control Today, and he has been cited in thousands of news stories, including articles in the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and USA Today, and in segments on ABC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, NBC, NPR and PBS. 

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