Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report written by Mike Cerulli.

This week, we’ve got word from the Fazio camp that they’ve passed the $100,000 mark before their first fundraising deadline.

Plus, Governor Lamont has been talking up the possibility of expanding capacity at the Millstone Nuclear Power Station as he seeks to find more energy supply for the state. Can Connecticut position itself at the forefront of the nuclear energy revival?

Let’s dive in…

Fazio says he’s passed the $100k mark

In the race to raise cash for next year’s gubernatorial election, Ryan Fazio appears to be off to a strong start.

He told the Tip Sheet this weekend that he’s raised more than $100,000 since launching his campaign in the middle of last month.

The size of Fazio’s first haul has been the source of much speculation among rivals and allies alike. His Fairfield county roots and early endorsements from the legislature’s two Republican leaders have set high expectations for his first fundraising report. A six-figure filing will help to dispel some of the insider punditry claiming Erin Stewart’s early start made her the odds-on favorite in a fight for the GOP nomination.

Stewart has been fundraising in earnest since launching her exploratory effort at the beginning of this year. As of last week, she’d cleared more than $320,000.

Official filings are due late next week.

Nuclear Ned?

This morning, Governor Lamont will gather to mark the 50-year anniversary of operations at Millstone Nuclear Power Station. More specifically, the governor and the plant’s operator, Dominion Energy, will be celebrating half a century of generation at the plant’s Unit 2.

Millstone’s Unit 2 reached what nuclear scientists call “initial criticality” back in 1975, back when a young Ned Lamont was still wearing the Harvard crimson as an undergrad. Criticality refers to the point at which a reactor becomes self-sustaining, with its atomic fuel creating a chain reaction of fissions that are harnessed into carbon-free, dependable power.

50 years later, a moment of political criticality is taking shape around the issue of nuclear energy. Interest in atomic power is rebounding after decades of economic and political challenges that caused reactors across the country, including Connecticut Yankee and Unit 1 at Millstone, to go idle.

The coalition that’s supporting the nuclear comeback is perhaps the most disparate of any forged in the recent history of American politics. Pro-growth conservatives, Abundance liberals, tech bro venture capitalists, and even many in the environmental movement are all powering what Axios recently described as a “nuclear renaissance.”

The governor wants to put Connecticut at the forefront of that renaissance. Lamont repeatedly said that he’d like to see Millstone’s capacity increased as part of a broader effort to grow the state’s supply of electricity.

The state has taken some steps in recent years to clear the way for more nuclear power. The longstanding moratorium on the construction of more nuclear generation was amended in 2022 to exempt Millstone. Senate Bill No. 4, the landmark energy bill passed during this year’s legislative session, took that exemption a step further. Advanced nuclear reactors like the ones being developed by the Bill Gates-backed firm TerraPower are now included under the exemptions.

S.B. 4 also established a new grant program, seeded with up to $5 million in authorized bonding, to help towns and cities prepare for the adoption of these new technologies.

Aside from those two recent legislative steps, Lamont has also been engaged in talks with leaders in the Trump administration on how to bring more capacity online in Connecticut. Last week, the governor sidebarred with the Trump-appointed chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) before the two signed an agreement delegating oversight of nuclear technologies to the state government.

Those technologies that are now largely under the auspices of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection are mainly centered on medical and industrial applications and do not include the reactors at Millstone.

In addition to his outreach to the NRC, Lamont has also built surprisingly friendly relationships with two key Trump cabinet secretaries, Chris Wright and Doug Burgum, who oversee national energy policy – even as he fights with them on some fronts.

Wright, Trump’s energy secretary, has described Lamont as “fantastic” and on multiple occasions has glowingly recounted his first meeting with the governor. Burgum, the interior secretary, also met with Lamont earlier this year. At the time, Lamont said advanced nuclear reactors were a topic of conversation with both secretaries.

In a rare departure from their normally pugilistic critiques of the governor, Fazio and State Senate Minority Leader Steve Harding applauded Lamont’s meetings with the two secretaries. They emphasized their desire to deploy advanced reactors in the state. Underscoring the bipartisan interest in issue, Fazio has been one of the most outspoken advocates for nuclear energy in Connecticut.

If Connecticut is to become a leader in the nascent field of advanced nuclear reactors, the state might have some catching up to do.

Several states have already taken proactive steps to be among the first sites to host the reactors. Wyoming is home to TerraPower’s first test site. Kansas recently entered into an agreement with the Gates-backed firm to explore locations for a plant. Another company, Holtec, intends to build the first of its most advanced reactor designs in Michigan within the next decade.

We’ll be back next week with another edition of the Tip Sheet!