Episode 25: To nuke, or not to nuke

Pennsylvania lawmakers have to decide whether they want to aid two nuclear plants, or let them shut down ahead of schedule.

• Katie Meyer
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Katie Meyer was WITF’s Capitol Bureau Chief from 2016-2020. While at WITF, she covered all things state politics for public radio stations throughout Pennsylvania. Katie came to Harrisburg by way of New York City, where she worked at Fordham University’s public radio station, WFUV, as an anchor, general assignment reporter, and co-host of an original podcast. A 2016 graduate of Fordham, she earned several awards for her work at WFUV, including four 2016 Gracies.
  
  Katie is a native New Yorker, though she originally hails from Troy, a little farther up the Hudson River. She can attest that the bagels are still pretty good there.
  
  WITF's Capitol Bureau Chief Desk is partially funded through generous gifts made in the memory of Tony May through the Anthony J. May Memorial Fund.
  
  For more information about Tony May, click here.

 Matt Rourke / AP Photo

FILE - In this May 22, 2017 file photo shown is the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Middletown, Pa. With nuclear power plant owners seeking a rescue in Pennsylvania, a number of state lawmakers are signaling that they are willing to help, with conditions. Giving nuclear power plants what opponents call a bailout could mean a politically risky vote to hike electric bills. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

This week, state lawmakers waded into a fraught, long-anticipated debate over whether to prop up two of the commonwealth’s five nuclear power plants.

One is the Beaver Valley plant near Pittsburgh. The other is Dauphin County’s Three Mile Island, which—you may have heard—partially melted down in 1979 and helped instill a lasting wariness toward nuclear energy in generations of Americans.

The bill to save the plants is being championed by Republican Representative Thomas Mehaffie, of Dauphin County, and it is already getting a boatload of pushback from people across the ideological spectrum.

To help explain the situation, StateImpact Pennsylvania reporter Marie Cusick joins us in the studio.