In a unanimous vote at the weekend, members of the California Republican Party agreed to work to end the US state’s 31-year ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants.

The official vote was taken at the California Republican Party’s convention on Sunday morning, 9 September 2007. But the pro-nuclear energy resolution was unanimously approved the day before by the state party’s Initiatives Committee.

The resolution places the full weight of the party behind an initiative to overturn California’s ban on the construction of nuclear power plants. The initiative is known as the California Energy Independence and Zero Carbon Dioxide Emission Electrical Generation Act of 2008.

California state assemblyman Chuck DeVore, who authored the pro-nuclear energy resolution, and his group, Power For California, are now gathering the 500,000 signatures needed to place the initiative on a June 2008 ballot for Californians to decide.

After the vote Mr DeVore said: "I’m delighted with the unanimous support of the California Republican Party in favour of building modern nuclear power plants. The only way we can meet California’s ambitious mandate to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent in 13 years is if we allow the construction of new nuclear power plants."

Construction of nuclear power plants has been banned in the state since 1976, chiefly because of concerns over storage of spent nuclear fuel. But four reactors under construction at the time were allowed to be finished.

Those four units, two at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and two at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, generate about 13 percent of the state’s electricity.