Green New Deal sponsor Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez still has an “open mind” on nuclear energy and differentiates between the decades-old plants in the United States and more advanced technologies under development, but she also backs the upcoming shutdown of the Indian Point nuclear reactors in New York in 2020-21.

“I don’t take a strong anti- or pro-position on it,” the New York Democrat said about nuclear energy in an interview late last week. Her Green New Deal resolution, which calls for “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy” to meet 100 percent of U.S. power needs in the next 10 years, “leaves the door open on nuclear so that we can have that conversation,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez, who alongside other progressive lawmakers and some environmental groups is pushing for an expedited U.S. energy transition, posed open-ended questions over whether the market would bear nuclear power, and whether nuclear energy can be produced with sufficient speed and safety.

Passing the Green New Deal resolution, she said, “is what will allow us to have these substantive conversations.”

“The initial approach to nuclear energy as laid out by the Green New Deal was a nonstarter, and this is clearly a start in the direction towards the bipartisan consensus on nuclear energy,” David Blee, president and chief executive of the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council, said regarding Ocasio-Cortez’s comments. “It’s clear from anyone involved in environmental policy, you can’t get from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ without nuclear energy. But notwithstanding, the bill has a long way to go before it can muster even a vote in the Senate.”