GEC Statement in Support of Risch-Gallego ARC Act

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  
March 11, 2026  

Washington, DC—The United States will need new nuclear reactors to meet growing electricity demand, but as the need for clean, firm generation intensifies, the financing gap for first-of-a-kind projects has become a critical bottleneck. A new bipartisan bill aims to change that.

Earlier this month, Sens. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Ruben Gallego,D-Ariz., introduced the Accelerating Reliable Capacity (ARC) Act of 2026, a bill to unlock $3.6 billion of federal funding to incentivize investment in early-of-a-kind nuclear reactor projects. The ARC Act is intended to prevent cost escalation and motivate project completion by providing the cost-sharing support needed to reduce investor risk. The bill’s introduction signals bipartisan recognition that bridging the financing gap for early-of-a-kind projects requires meaningful federal investment.

Administered through the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, the ARC program would provide enhanced loan guarantees and limited cost-share support for capital-intensive, ready-to-build projects. Crucially, ARC funding is applied to the loan balance only after the project is placed in service to further encourage project completion. The program also embeds other guardrails, including stringent project readiness requirements, independent cost and schedule review, and ongoing federal oversight to ensure that risk-sharing is disciplined.

But what’s most noteworthy about ARC is how it shares that risk. Conventional clean energy policies, such as renewable portfolio standards, socialize costs through retail electricity rates—an approach that hits lower-income ratepayers the hardest. By contrast, ARC is a federal risk-sharing mechanism, meaning it would distribute cost across national taxpayers. By design, cost sharing under this approach is less regressive. If carefully implemented, ARC could help spur private investment and reduce costs for subsequent projects through learning and repetition, while buffering against power price increases and tighter grid reliability margins.

The ARC Act offers a fiscally modest, bipartisan step toward expanding new nuclear generation—and meeting firm capacity needs—without defaulting to rate hikes. Done well, it could help stabilize power prices and strengthen the grid, while setting a precedent for clean energy policy that advances deployment without shifting costs onto those least able to bear them. Good Energy Collective supports the ARC Act and looks forward to engaging with policymakers as the bill advances, with particular attention to transparency, governance, and responsiveness to communities.

Read the full announcement here.

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