BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Editor in Chief/Investigative Reporter
One of, if not the biggest expense people have outside of their rent or mortgage for their home is their energy bill. When energy plants close in a state, that is so much less electricity being generated and it becomes a supply and demand issue. Demand stays the same, supply goes down, prices go up. In this case it is the consumer who ends up getting hurt and having to fork out more money for the same thing.
This is what happened on April 30, 2021, when the Indian Point Nuclear Power plant spewed out its last bit of electricity to the Hudson Valley and other parts of New York. Millions of residents of NY lost a lot of their electricity. On top of that, the closure caused about 1,000 people lost their jobs.
On March 6, 2026, Congressman Mike Lawler along with Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Doctor Chris Singh, the CEO of Holtec toured the facility. Afterwards, they held a joint press conference to discuss the reopening of the pant.
“All right, good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here in the Village of Buchanan at Indian Point Energy Center, and I’m proud to be joined today by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright as well as Doctor Chris Singh, the CEO of Holtec, and I want to thank Holtec for welcoming us here today, as well as Teresa Knickerbocker, the Mayor of the Village of Buchanan. ” Lawler stated.
“Standing here at Indian Point is an acute reminder of one of the most disastrous energy policy decisions Albany Democrats have made in decades. For more than 40 years, Indian Point delivered clean, reliable, carbon-free electricity to millions of people across downstate New York, supplying roughly 25% of the region’s power supply, including for New York City when it was shut down. That power generation disappeared, but the demand was still there. And families across the Hudson Valley are opening their utility bills and asking the same question Why are energy prices going through the roof? ”
He stated that the answer is not complicated. “New York’s average residential electricity price reached 27.39 cents per kilowatt hour, 59% higher than the national average. Electricity prices in New York rose 12% over the past year, increasing twice as fast as the national average and 4 times faster than inflation. Since 2019, New York’s residential electricity prices have risen 58% compared to 36% nationally.
Lawler feels as do a lot of people that nuclear power is part of the solution. He pointed to the fact that in the state of Michigan a Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer is bringing a decommissioned power plant back online. Palisades is slated to open this year, and Doctor Singh and his team are working tirelessly to get it back online.
“There’s no reason the same cannot be done here in the state of New York and so I am proud to be here today with Secretary Wright. I’m calling for Indian Point to be rebuilt and reopened. Hudson Valley families are being suffocated with rising energy costs because of Governor Hochul’s failed and disastrous energy policies. It is time to reverse course. Now!”
“The last thing I will say before turning over to Secretary Wright is that this week I introduced legislation, the Economic Recovery for Nuclear Affected Communities Act. The reason I did is because villages like Buchanan, the town of Cortland, Westchester County, and the Henhud (Henrick Hudson) School District have been severely impacted by this shutdown. Millions upon millions upon millions of dollars of tax revenue lost crippling the local economy burdening property taxpayers, that’s why I fought so hard to lift the cap on SALT.
We want to provide tax relief. This legislation would help positively affect communities like Buchanan that did their part to power New York for decades. ”
He added, “After the plant was closed by Andrew Cuomo with no plan in place for the lost jobs, the lost tax revenue, and the nuclear waste that is stored on site. This legislation will provide financial relief to these communities. It will create tax incentives to attract new residents and businesses, and it will support redevelopment of former nuclear sites. To me, we have to focus on this issue comprehensively and so long as the governor is standing in the way of redeveloping this site and rebuilding this nuclear power plant, these communities need support. But I know That the Village of Buchanan and the taxpayers in this community and the ratepayers across the Hudson Valley want one thing. They want cheap, clean, reliable energy. The best way to do that is to rebuild and reopen this plant. With that, I want to introduce our Secretary of the Department of Energy, Chris Wright. ”
“Thank you, Representative Lawler. I think he laid out the case great. I won’t repeat the many points he made, but they’re spot on. I want to thank the Mayor of Buchanan. Mayor Knickerbocker is here today fighting for her community for a decade with a simple agenda, raise wages, lower costs. In fact, that summarizes in a nutshell President Trump’s agenda. He came into office and hired me as Energy Secretary. He said you’ve got to do two, things. You’ve got to lower the costs for all Americans, and the easiest way to lower costs across the board is to lower the cost of energy. If you do that, everyone will want to invest and build factories and expand their businesses in the United States because business and capital investment goes to where there’s low cost, affordable energy, and by creating more jobs you’re going to push up wages and the agenda lower costs, raise wages. I’ve got to point out a friend of mine and a partner of mine. Chris Singh, CEO of Holtec, a decades-long pioneer in the nuclear space, a broad-based company that’s doing awesome stuff to help us restart nuclear power again in the United States. ”
Wright emphasized, “What delivered at that time. Now you have increased demand for electricity. You’ve got to produce more than you typically produce. Natural gas provided and electricity rose almost 50% in the peak of the storm, and of course it heated all the homes it was connected to. Coal power rose 24% at the peak of that power. Nuclear power was flat and rock steady, no interruption. Doesn’t matter the weather, doesn’t matter the condition. Nuclear power is there, rain, shine, under any conditions, and for 60 years right on this location and with a little bit of common sense and a rebuilding effort, 60 more years of 2 plus gigawatts of power can be right here. But in that storm, what happened with wind power? Wind power declined 40% on average at peak demand time. That is normal. Peak demand is a cold, high pressure system. The air is not moving. It’s really cold.”
According to Wright, solar power completely irrelevant as it is in northern states in the winter. You get a lot of solar power in the summer. You don’t get any in the winter or any meaningful amount. New England is the classic example. At those hours of peak demand time that’s what defines what businesses you can have in your grid, what the costs of your grid are. That’s what defines everything is what happened at peak demand.
“At peak demand time, the six states of New England wind, solar, and batteries delivered 2% of total electricity, 2%. We got 50% more, 3% points from burning trash and wood. Oil was the number one source of electricity in New England at the peak demand in Tropical Storm Fern. The rest of the country used to burn oil to produce electricity when my mom was in high school. We’ve gone to cheaper, much cheaper, cleaner, easier to use sources than oil. But why do they burn so much oil on Long Island for electricity generation? Why do they burn so much oil in New England for electricity direction? Just foolish. ” Wright stated.
“I mean, honestly, there’s no way to describe foolish energy choices, thinking that standing in the way of pipelines is somehow fighting climate change or doing something environmentally positive. It doesn’t do that at all. When you burn oil, it’s not only greater greenhouse gas emissions, it’s greater pollutants. You can see it in the air quality. We have fought in the Trump administration since we arrived in office to bring common sense back to energy. That’s common sense, the nexus of the foolishness and the lack of common sense in energy policy is right here in New York State. In a similarly foolish energy state of California where I lived for a long time and as you can see in these plots, that’s electricity prices where red is low and blue is high and you can see the gradations in the colors that’s just numbers that’s just electricity costs, but it looks a lot like a political map, which is why we made the colors red and blue.
“It’s not bad luck. It’s not where you’re located. It is choice to make electricity expensive or choice to make electricity low cost and effective. The blue states on average have 50% higher electricity prices. ”
Sarcastically he said, “A champion like California, they’re twice the national average, and they’re doing everything they can to drive it higher. ”
He then added that, “Sadly, New York State is on the same trajectory. This should not be. Why should we impoverish New Yorkers by making them continually pay up for their energy costs and no business is going to come into a state that has expensive energy today and policies guaranteed to make it more expensive in the future. Those businesses are going to go somewhere else.
“Energy prices are political choices. Everybody wants clean air and clean water. in my whole life I’ve been very proud to see enormous progress in that regard. The Trump administration, Representative Lawler, we have fought tirelessly to continue that progress of ever cleaner air, ever cleaner water in the United States. In my home state of Colorado, our big mammals are coming back. The water, air, and wildlife have never been better in my life than today. What’s the dream we share? We want it to be even better for our kids, even better for our kids. With common sense policies, that’s exactly what we will deliver. Let’s just start thinking about people instead of the misunderstandings of climate change. This behind me (pointing to the plant) should, should in 5 years from now be an over 2 gigawatt generating plant that can lower natural gas and electricity prices in New England, bring new jobs, new opportunity, bid up wages and bring more tax dollars.”
He asked, “Who’s against lower prices or higher wages? I want to hear from those in the questions. Tell us about that coalition that Representative Lawler. We haven’t met those folks yet, but apparently there’s a large coalition of people that want higher energy prices and lower wages, and maybe I’ll stop there and you can see the map.
“I’ve got handouts. I have things on the storm. I’m a data nerd, so if you want to question any of the things I’m talking about, I’m happy to engage with that. Feel free to ask the representative, myself or this fabulous nuclear entrepreneur right next to us, Doctor Chris Singh, who is about to bring the Palisades nuclear power plant back on in Michigan and of course is going to do this elsewhere around the world as well. ”
At this point, the trio took questions from the press.
“Sarah Wallace, WNBC TV. Practically you’re saying that you want to rebuild and reopen this. How practically is that gonna happen?
Wright took the question. “Looking at just sort of estimates from what we know now, this could be done much faster at a new plant and maybe at less than half the cost. So, is this financeable to do it? Absolutely! In the Energy Department we have huge, we are the largest energy lender in the world today, and what are we lending money for? Very simple objective. If we can lend money to credit worthy businesses that will lower Americans’ energy costs and expand economic opportunities, we will loan money on that. Would this qualify for credit? I can’t say without for sure because I’m not supposed to do that, but I would say it’s quite likely. ”
He finished his part of the answer, “Could you attract investment from data center developers, from new industrial powers that would help and fund this? Absolutely. Can this happen? 100%. The only reason this won’t happen is if the politicians don’t let it happen. ”
Lawler stepped in to add to that answer “You have a Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. By no stretch, a moderate or a conservative. She sees the benefit of this. She authorized and approved the rebuild and reopening of Palisades on Lake Michigan, and that is vital. Working with Doctor Singh, they are going to be complete within the next few months, and it’s going to be back online. ”
“As the Secretary just said, this is an issue of political will and being honest about these issues. Nuclear power is the cleanest source of energy. The Democrats want to talk about net zero carbon emissions. This is it, and they have a responsibility if they are serious about bringing down costs, costs that they drove up, they have a responsibility to work with the administration. Work with the local government to bring this back online. ”
Wright explained that this is the safest source of energy on the planet as well and the data is compellingly so.
Tom Zambido from USA Today. “When you talk about a restart here, are you talking about a traditional reactor or SMRs or, and the second part of that is what is, what would be the timeline for a restart? ”
Wright pt the question to the expert, Dr. Singh. “Let’s put it this way, it will be new nuclear at the old plant. We are going to make numerous improvements, but it will be the same power output or maybe a little more, maybe 10% more, and, and it will have all the latest safety features. ”
Brian Cronin from the Highlands Current, “When the plant was closed in 2019 as part of the shutdown agreement, they said there couldn’t be any new nuclear power generated here unless the Village of Buchanan, the Town of Cortland, Westchester County, the State of New York, and the school district all had to agree. So Representative Lawler, the state has said that they wouldn’t approve any. The county has said they would not approve any nuclear. How would you overcome that? ”
“Kathy Hochul has said a lot of things over the years, including that she wouldn’t approve Nessie, and look what happened. She did. She said she wouldn’t do congestion pricing and look what happened, she did. So, I don’t really care what Kathy Hochul has previously said. The question is, is there the political will to actually do something to drive down energy costs? Everything the Democrats have done over the last decade has been to drive up energy costs in this state and it is killing small businesses. It is killing ratepayers. They are struggling because of these disastrous policies. So maybe, just maybe, a little common sense will be applied, and the governor will show some courage and spine. She says she has one. ”
“Maybe she’ll show it and actually push back against some of the folks whose positioning on this is really not rooted in science. It’s not rooted in reality. It’s rooted in politics. The fact is Indian Point should be reopened, and the governor should work with the administration, work with the Village of Buchanan, work with the Town of Cortland, work with the county to actually come to an agreement and lower rates. Otherwise, the reality is rates are going to continue to rise. Andrea Stewart Cousins, the Senate majority leader, had the audacity to hold a press conference on utility costs and decry the fact that they are going up. ”
“She’s the Senate majority leader. It’s her policies that have created this mess in the state of New York. The governor controls the PSC. Those are the folks approving the rate hikes. This isn’t driven by the Trump administration or Republicans in Washington. This is entirely under the control of Democrats in New York State. They have the ability to actually fix this by approving the restart of this power plant. ”
Christina Schneider, from the New York Post, wanted to know if there are any plans to reopen this, any sort of a plan to negotiate with the governor to reopen this works and why this is happening today.
To the first part of her question on negotiating with the governor, Lawler was brief in his answer. No. To the second part, he explained two things. “We’re calling for it to be reopened today, and the governor should take this seriously. She can’t decry the nuclear power plant here when she is talking about building nuclear power upstate. It doesn’t make sense, it’s illogical. The fact is that what is happening in Michigan is showing to the world that this can be done. It can be done safely. It can be done quickly, and it can be done to help provide clean, cheap, reliable energy. That is what we want. We want to reduce costs, as the Secretary points out on the map, New York State has among the highest, top 5 in the country, in terms of electricity prices, and that is absolutely an abomination, and we have an ability to fix it, but it requires leadership. It requires people being honest about both climate science and energy policy. That’s what we’re calling for today.
I got the next chance to ask a question or two.
The final question asked about the dismantling of this plant which began in 2021 and if that was continuing as well as if it will work and how long it will take. Wright fielded the question. “Well, of course you’ve got to fully develop a plan, but there’s some dismantling that’s happened, but some of that actually would have been done anyway. You’re going to put a new reactor vessel anyway because that’s right near the core. Those reactor vessels have been removed. They would need to be removed anyway. Most of the large infrastructure is still here. Some will have to be redone, so it has to be reconstructed, but not massively. Almost everything you see, of course, would be prettier and modern and all that, but this could be done. ”
“If we had political common sense break out in New York and decide to move forward on this, this plant could be running in 5 years. A new nuclear plant of this size the most recent examples down in the Carolinas cost unfortunately over $30 billion. Done smart and intelligently, it could probably be done a little over $20 billion to reconstruct this plant, probably for less than half of that because there’s so much here, the generators, the steam turbines, there’s so much large, heavy equipment still in there. When you build a nuclear power plant, these are built to last for a very long time. They’re licensed for 40 or 60 years, but there’s no reason a nuclear plant should not run more than 100 years. In round number 10 billion, a little more than 10 billion, but to get that much capacity that would last for 60, 80, 100 years at low fuel cost, yes, the economics of that would be quite good. It could certainly be part of lowering energy costs in New York. ”
Lawler thanked Wright, Singh fand the press for being there and they had to leave because the Secretary had to go to another event.