Coalition Grows Against Hochul’s Nuclear Plan

By Karl Grossman South Shore Press 5th March 2026

As Gov. Kathy Hochul pushes to make New York the “center” of a revival of nuclear power in the United States, the third in a series of “Forums for a Nuclear-Free New York” was held last week to counter her drive.

Meanwhile, more than 100 organizations—including Sag Harbor-based Coalition Against Nukes, founded by Priscilla Star, its director, and Huntington-based Healthy Planet, its executive director Bob DiBenedetto—sent an “open letter” to Governor Hochul, with copies to other state officials, pushing back on what it called New York’s “failing energy vision.”

It charged there now is an “increasingly likely failure…of will if not the targets themselves…to meet” the climate goals set by a 2019 state law which emphasizes solar and other renewable energy sources.

The “Forums for a Nuclear-Free New York” have been organized by a coalition of environmental organizations. The first was titled “Safe and Affordable Energy,” featuring Dr. Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and author of “No Miracles Needed,” a book about how existing green power sources led by solar and wind could provide all the energy the U.S. and world require. Also featured was Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, who presented research linking nuclear power plants to cancer and other illnesses in communities near them.

The second forum was titled “Why Nuclear Power is Neither Low-Carbon nor Emissions-Free,” and it featured Susan Shapiro, an environmental attorney, and Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a nuclear physicist who has worked on radioactive issues in the U.S. and internationally for five decades. A main Hochul claim is that nuclear power is “zero-emission” and thus needed, she says, as an answer to climate change. They countered that the nuclear fuel cycle was heavily carbon-intensive and nuclear power plants themselves emit a radioactive form of carbon, Carbon-14. To claim nuclear is emissions-free “is a fraud on the public,” said Shapiro.

The third forum featured Dr. Gordon Edwards and was titled: “Debunking Nuclear Hopium—Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Advanced Nuclear Reactors, and Fusion.” Gordon is president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. He refuted Hochul’s claim that nuclear power plants are of new “safe” designs, detailing how they continue to be dangerous and expensive………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..To see and hear the illuminating presentations at the forums, visit: http://www.grassrootsinfo.org/forums