Arizona bill would strip rural counties from being able to use zoning to prohibit nuclear reactors

Much of rural Arizona could soon be dotted with small "modular" nuclear reactors.

Legislation approved by the Senate and awaiting a House vote would strip supervisors in Arizona’s 13 rural counties — everywhere but Maricopa and Pima — from being able to use zoning or other land use regulations to prohibit reactors from being located in certain places.

The measure is aimed, at least partly, at allowing these reactors to be placed where there used to be coal-fired power plants without additional review. The idea is that there already is the infrastructure, mainly in high-voltage power lines, to distribute the power generated.

But the bigger piece is wrapped up in the debate about data centers.

That's because the measure is specifically worded to say that one of those plants can go in right next door — without county oversight — to a business with an "extra high load energy factor." That means a lot of 24/7 electricity demand, which pretty much matches the power draw of a data center.

The measure, Senate Bill 1418, has so far advanced solely with Republican votes.

Democrat lawmakers are raising questions about safety, dealing with nuclear waste, and why the state isn't instead promoting renewable forms of energy like solar, wind, and geothermal.

But there could be a crack in that partisan divide.

"As Republicans, we are supposed to be for local control," Rep. Walt Blackman told GOP colleagues during a caucus to discuss the pending House floor vote. The Snowflake Republican represents a sprawling district that includes parts of Coconino, Gila, Navajo and Pinal counties.

"I've been seeing a lot of bills from so-called Republicans that do the opposite," he said. And Blackman said if the net effect of this bill is to override local decisions he will vote against it when it reaches the House floor.

House Majority Leader Michael Carbone, however, said he has no problem with such an override.

"We do it all the time," acknowledged the Buckeye Republican.

In fact, Carbone was a prime mover behind a 2025 law that allows homeowners to build "accessory dwelling units" on their own property, regardless of local zoning — and over the objections from cities who said this should be a local issue.

But he said that, for him, the bottom line for all decisions for the Legislature to step in is that cities and counties are subdivisions of the state. And that, said Carbone, means state lawmakers sometimes need to preempt local control for what they believe are worthy causes.

In this case, he said, that’s a worthy cause, in part for rural economic development.

Carbone said one data center under development, once completed, will generate between $70 million and $90 million a year in just property taxes.

"That fire, police, infrastructure," he said.

"That's water, sewer, roads," Carbone continued. "They're your schools. That's where that money goes."

And Carbone said that building more data centers is necessary to ensure that Arizona — and the United States — have enough computing power to compete with China. And that, he said, can occur only if there is the “juice” to power them.

These reactors are nothing like what people know.

The legislation limits them to a capacity of generating 300 megawatts. By comparison, the three units at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix can generate more than 3,900 megawatts.

And David Morris, a lobbyist for Americans for Prosperity which lobbies for free-market policies and deregulation, told lawmakers they are physically smaller, perhaps no taller than 30 feet, versus the 200-foot towers of traditional reactors.

All that, however, still leaves the question of whether these reactors are a good idea and, more to the point of SB 1418, whether the desire to make it easier to put them in rural areas should allow them to ignore the objections of local supervisors.

"Supervisors and county residents understand the importance of economic development and the infrastructure necessary for energy," testified Jacob Emnet on behalf of the County Supervisors Association. But he told lawmakers this has historically been established "in collaboration with residents and the elected residents."

"And while we appreciate the excitement around small modular reactors, we are still in the early stages of the development of the technology," Emnet said.

Still, much of the discussion about overriding local control is the promise that having a source of power like a modular reactor would produce more local economic development, much like what already exists in the state's two metro areas.

Carroll said, for example, that the Phoenix area has benefited from construction of the new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plant.

"The city of Winslow, from every indication, wants to participate in that," he told colleagues. But that, said Carroll, requires available energy, particularly with coal-fired plants being shuttered in northern Arizona.

"This bill is designed to support the rurals," he said.

Sen. David Gowan echoed the sentiment, calling the modular plants "perfect for rural Arizona and building out smaller towns and cities and giving them the ability of competing, maybe in the future for, more economic boom with businesses."