The Vermont Senate has voted to close the state’s lone nuclear power plant. On Wednesday, the state senators voted to shut the Vermont Yankee plant when its license expires in 2012. The thirty-eight-year-old plant is one of the oldest in the country and has had a series of leaks. The move marks the first time a state has moved to shut down a reactor in over twenty years. Opponents of the plant gathered at the state legislature broke into cheers after the vote was announced. Vermont State Senate President Peter Shumlin said the vote would have national implications.

Peter Shumlin: “I think, from a national perspective, the question is, what does this mean for other states? And I certainly intend to use my power as president of the senate to insure that we make ourselves accessible to other legislators, other governors, who want to understand better how they can empower their states to address the concerns that they might have about their aging nuclear power fleet, what it’s doing to their families, to their communities. So there is a national message in this action today.”

(Related coverage: In Historic Vote, Vermont Poised to Shut Down Lone Nuclear Reactor.)