McCain touts energy plan at nuclear plant

McCain touts energy plan at nuclear plant - Yahoo! News

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Senator Obama and Senator McCain stand on the issue.

prepared by Alexander Lee/Clamshell Yahoo Group
John McCain has consistently misrepresented Senator Obama's position on nuclear energy and we suspect that he may well do so again today when he discusses the issue in Michigan. Below is information to ensure you have a clear sense of where both Senator Obama and Senator McCain stand on the issue...

Barack Obama supports safe and secure nuclear energy. Nuclear power represents more than 70 percent of our noncarbon generated electricity. It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power as an option. However, before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, Obama thinks key issues must be addressed including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation. Barack Obama introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to establish guidelines for tracking, controlling and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants. To prevent international nuclear material from falling into terrorist hands abroad, Obama worked closely with Sen. Dick Lugar (R‐IN) to strengthen international efforts to identify and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. As president, Obama will make safeguarding nuclear material both abroad and in the U.S. atop anti‐terrorism priority. In terms of waste storage, Obama does not believe that Yucca Mountain is a suitable site. He will lead federal efforts to look for safe, long‐term disposal solutions based on objective, scientific analysis. In the meantime, Obama will develop requirements to ensure that the waste stored at current reactor sites is contained using the most advanced dry‐cask storage technology available.

MCCAIN'S CLAIM THAT OBAMA OPPOSES NUCLEAR POWER IS "FALSE"

Annenberg/UPenn Factcheck.org: "The McCain Ad Also Portrays Obama As Saying 'No' To Nuclear" And That's "False." Factcheck.org wrote, "The McCain ad also portrays Obama as saying 'no to clean, safe, nuclear energy.' That's false. Obama has said he's open to building new nuclear plants if they are clean and safe. As we noted in a recent article, McCain bases his claim on a partial quote from Obama from a town hall meeting in Newton, Iowa, on Dec. 30, 2007. Obama had been asked whether he was 'truly comfortable' with the safety of nuclear power. Obama, Dec. 30, 2007: 'I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal. ... I am not a nuclear energy proponent.' If that was all Obama said it would not make him an opponent of nuclear power, of course. It would make him 'Dr. Maybe,' but not 'Dr. No.' And In fact, Obama went on to say later in the same response: Obama, Dec. 30, 2007: 'There is no perfect energy source. Everything has some problems right now. We haven't found it yet. Now I trust in our ingenuity. ... I have not ruled out nuclear as part of that [$150 billion proposed energy research] package, but only so far as it is clean and safe.' Furthermore, the energy plan Obama released in October 2007 said: 'It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table.'… It's inaccurate to cast Obama as an opponent, and McCain goes too far when he portrays Obama as saying 'no' to nuclear." [Factcheck.org, 6/26/08 ]

OBAMA HAS CONSISTENLY BEEN OPEN TO MORE NUCLEAR POWER

Obama position on Nuclear power: Nuclear power represents more than 70 percent of our noncarbon generated electricity. It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power from the table. However, there is no future for expanded nuclear without first addressing four key issues: public right-to-know, security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation. Barack Obama introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to establish guidelines for tracking, controlling and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants. To prevent international nuclear material from falling into terrorist hands abroad, Obama worked closely with Sen. Dick Lugar (R – IN) to strengthen international efforts to identify and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. As president, Obama will make safeguarding nuclear material both abroad and in the U.S. a top anti-terrorism priority. Obama will also lead federal efforts to look for a safe, long-term disposal solution based on objective, scientific analysis. In the meantime, Obama will develop requirements to ensure that the waste stored at current reactor sites is contained using the most advanced dry-cask storage technology available. Barack Obama believes that Yucca Mountain is not an option. Our government has spent billions of dollars on Yucca Mountain, and yet there are still significant questions about whether nuclear waste can be safely stored there. [http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/EnergyFactSheet.pdf]

· Obama: Nuclear Power Isn't A Panacea But We Should Invest In R&D To See If We Can Store It Safely Since It Doesn't Emit Greenhouse Gasses. Obama said, "I've said this before, I don't think that nuclear power is a panacea. But I also think that given that it doesn't emit greenhouse gases, for us to invest some R&D into seeing whether we can store nuclear waste safely, or reuse it. These are all areas where the market interacting with a clear set of rules by the federal government and billions of dollars devoted to research and development can, I think, trigger the kind of economic growth that we haven't seen in this country for a long time." [Obama Remarks, 6/20/08 ]

· Obama Said We Have To Look At Nuclear And It Can Be An Effective Option If We Figure Out The Storage And Safety Issues. Obama said on Meet The Press, "I think we do have to look at nuclear, and what we've got to figure out is can we store the material properly? Can we make sure that they're secure? Can we deal with the expense? Because the problem is, is that a lot of our nuclear industry, it reinvents the wheel. Each nuclear power plant that is proposed has a new design, has--it, it has all kinds of changes, there are all sorts of cost overruns. So it has not been an effective option. That doesn't mean that it can't be an effective option, but we're going to have to figure out storage and safety issues. And my attitude when it comes to energy is there's no silver bullet. We've got to be--we've, we've got to look at every possible option." [Meet The Press, 5/4/08 ]

· Obama Said He Would Explore Safer Ways To Use Nuclear Power And Accelerate Research Into Technologies That Safe Storage Technologies. "We will also explore safer ways to use nuclear power, which right now accounts for more than 70% of our non-carbon generated electricity. We should accelerate research into technologies that will allow for the safe, secure treatment of nuclear waste. As President, I'll continue the work I began in the Senate to ensure that all nuclear material is stored, secured and accounted for - both at home and around the world. There should be no short cuts or regulatory loopholes - period." [Speech On Clean Energy Future, 10/3/07]

· Obama: We Can't Take Nuclear Power Off The Table. Obama said, "I don't think that we can take nuclear power off the table. What we have to make sure of is that we have the capacity to store it properly and safely, and that we reduce whatever threats might come from terrorism. And if we can do that in a technologically sound way, then we should pursue it. If we can't, we should not. But there is no magic bullet on energy. We're going to have to look at all the various options to reduce greenhouse gases and to put us on a path to energy independence." [Democratic Debate, 9/26/07 ; WATCH HERE ]

OBAMA WAS ATTACKED IN THE PRIMARY FOR HIS OPENNESS TO NUCLEAR POWER

· Obama Contrasted With Edwards, Said We Should Explore Nuclear Power As Part Of The Energy Mix. After John Edwards said he opposed nuclear plants, Obama said, "I actually think that we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix. There are no silver bullets to this issue. We have to develop solar. I have proposed drastically increasing fuel efficiency standards on cars, an aggressive cap on the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted. But we're going to have to try a series of different approaches." [Youtube Debate, 8/13/07 ; WATCH HERE ]

· Edwards Attacked Obama For Being "Open To The Possibility Of Additional Power Plants" And Obama Defended Himself Saying That The Country Should "Create A Menu Of Energy Options." Edwards "added that, unlike Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, he is completely opposed to the building of more nuclear power plants—a point he so often makes when addressing voters on the campaign trail. Edwards said that Obama is 'open to the possibility of additional power plants' and that Clinton has said she is 'agnostic' on the subject. Obama defended himself, saying that he has long been a critic of Yucca Mountain, yet added that the country should "create a menu of energy options" in handling the storage of nuclear waste and 'see where the science and the technology and the entrepreneurship of the American people take us.'" [Fox News, 1/17/08 ]

· NYT: Edwards "Eagerly Pointed Out" That A Difference Between Him And Obama Was That Obama Has Been Supportive Of Building More Nuclear Power Plants. "Mr. Edwards also eagerly pointed out a difference between himself and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois: Nuclear power. 'I'm very strongly against building any more nuclear power plants,' Mr. Edwards said. 'I think it is an inviting terrorist target. I'm against it. I think Senator Obama has in the past been supportive of building more nuclear power plants,' he continued. 'We just have a difference on that issue -– and that's an issue that people should be aware of.'" [New York Times, 12/16/07 ]

MCCAIN RECORD ON NUCLEAR WASTE

McCain Claims on Job Creation Unrealistic: McCain claimed that his plan to build 45 new nuclear plants will create 700,000 jobs, a claim that has no basis in fact. In order for that to be case, each plant would have to create 15,556 unique jobs (meaning no construction workers from one plant would be used to help build others). Even the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's trade association isn't that bullish on nuclear plants. They say the average nuclear plant.

· employs 1,400 to 1,800 people during construction (with peak employment as high as 2,400)

· employs 400 to 700 people long-term, at salaries typically substantially higher than the average salaries in the local area.

· creates economic activity that generates 400 to 700 additional jobs locally

· Total jobs per plant (2,200-3,800)

Even under this rosy industry-created scenario, McCain's math is not even in the ballpark. [http://www.nei.org/keyissues/newnuclearplants/economicbenefitsofnewnuclearplants/]

McCain Has Consistently Voted to Approve Yucca Mountain As A Nuclear Waste Dump Site. In 2002, John McCain voted to approve a site at Yucca Mountain as a repository for nuclear and radioactive waste. After the vote, McCain said that storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain would answer "one of the most important environmental, health and public safety issues for the American people." In 2000, McCain voted to override the presidential veto of legislation that would establish a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. In 1997, McCain similarly voted to establish a repository at the Mountain. McCain voted yes on a similar bill in 1996. [2002 Senate Vote #167, 7/9/2002; The Arizona Republic, 7/10/2002; 2000 Senate Vote #88, 5/2/2000; 1998 Senate Vote #148, 6/2/1998; 1997 Senate Vote #42, 4/15/1997; 1996 Senate Vote #259, 7/31/1996; 1996 Senate Vote #256, 7/31/1996]

McCain: "I Am For Yucca Mountain." The Las Vegas Sun reported that in 2007 McCain told the Deseret News, "I am for Yucca Mountain. I'm for storage facilities. It's a lot better than sitting outside power plants all over America." [Las Vegas Sun (Las Vegas, NV), 5/28/08]

McCain: "I Believe That Yucca Mountain Is A Suitable Place For Storage." At a campaign event in Springfield, Pennsylvania, McCain said, "I believe that Yucca Mountain is a suitable place for storage and I know that there's controversy about it and lawsuits and all that. But shouldn't America, a country as smart and as wise as we are, be able to find a place to store spent fuel?" [CNN Live Feed (Springfield, PA), 3/14/08]

McCain Senior Adviser Holtz-Eakin Called Political Opposition To Yucca Mountain "Harmful To the U.S. Interests." "McCain criticized both Democrats for their opposition to Yucca Mountain. 'The political opposition to the Yucca Mountain storage facility is harmful to the U.S. interest and the facility should be completed, opened and utilized,' McCain adviser Holtz-Eakin said." [Reuters, 5/6/08]

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Mc CAIN/ SEABROOK !

WCSH6.com | Portland, ME |: "Republican presidential candidate John McCain says the long-dormant Seabrook (New Hampshire) Unit 2 may fit into his plan for 45 additional nuclear power plants in nation in the next two decades."

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Nuclear's Tangled Economics

Business Week
Nuclear's Tangled Economics:
John McCain says new plants can help solve the energy crisis and address climate change. It's not that simple

by John Carey

To power America's future, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has an energy plan with a distinctly French accent. 'The French are able to generate 80% of their electricity with nuclear power,' the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee points out. 'There's no reason why America shouldn't.'"

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the twin towers of Internet censorship and atomic reactor terror

The Free Press -- Independent News Media - Harvey Wasserman: "US Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman are linking Internet censorship with atomic power in a way that should terrify us all.

McCain is the real power behind Lieberman-Warner global warming bill on which the Senate could vote as early as Tuesday, June 3. As a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, McCain is pushing hard for massive subsidies to build new atomic reactors. Despite his 'free market' ideology, this bill may hand a half-trillion taxpayer dollars to an industry that cannot get private backing for a failed, terror-target technology."

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All 3 U.S. presidential candidates back nuclear power

All 3 U.S. presidential candidates back nuclear power - International Herald Tribune
John McCain embraces it. Barack Obama wants to address its flaws. Hillary Clinton is cautious but not opposed.

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HOW SWING STATE OHIO GOT NUKED

HOW SWING STATE OHIO GOT NUKED

By Harvey Wasserman

Ohio is poised to do its thing as the ultimate swing state. On March 4 it may, along with Texas, choose the Democratic presidential nominee.

Tragically, the candidates will campaign in a state whose economic future has been nuked.

Once a great industrial heartland, Ohio’s rust belt status has been solidified by billions in excess electric rates driven by four nuclear reactors, and by the state government's inability to make way for a green-powered future.

On Friday, February 22, a powerful group of international steel investors announced they were pulling Ohio out of the running for a new high-tech production plant. Some 500 jobs will now go elsewhere. The investors blamed unstable power prices. "If you had to rank from clarity on the utility situation, Ohio would not rank very high," said one.

The state suffers some of the nation's highest and most unpredictable electric costs for four simple reasons: the Davis-Besse, Perry, Zimmer and Beaver Valley 2 nuclear plants.

Davis-Besse, near Toledo, is world-famous for a leak of boric acid that ate through a six-inch stainless steel reactor pressure vessel, bringing northern Ohio to the brink of a Chernobyl-scale catastrophe. Perry, east of Cleveland, suffered billions in construction cost over-runs, and is the only US nuke to have been damaged by an earthquake. Zimmer, on the Ohio River, was allegedly more than 95% complete when massive design and construction flaws forced its hugely expensive 1980s conversion to coal. Beaver Valley 2, near Pittsburgh, has run up even more in overages.

To recoup their radioactive losses, Ohio utilities rammed a 1999 “deregulation” bill through the legislature that has thus far cost ratepayers at least $10 billion, and counting. The vast bulk of the money has gone to repay “stranded costs,” corporate code for sunk debt reactor owners don't want to eat. Had that money gone to increased efficiency and renewable technologies, Ohio’s economy would be on a very different footing.

The bill was largely guided by the Akron-based FirstEnergy, whose Anthony Alexander has been a major Bush-Cheney donor. FirstEnergy makes very large campaign donations, mostly to Republican legislators in Ohio and nationwide. Forbes Magazine estimated Alexander's 2005 salary at more than $6 million.

As part of the dereg scam, the utilities promised an “open market” for electricity once the nukes were paid off. But instead of competition, Ohio is getting unregulated monopolies that are neither clean nor reliable. It was FirstEnergy's shaky grid that helped black out 50 million people in the northeastern US and Canada in 2003. Small wonder investors are skittish.

A much-touted energy bill passed by the state Senate in October mandates that Ohio utilities generate 25% of their electricity with "advanced energy" by 2020.

About two dozen other states have similar provisions. But Ohio's has become a national joke by including “clean coal” and nuke power in the mix. The Senate bill says half of that quota---12.5%--- must come from renewables such as wind, solar and bio-fuels. But the other 12.5% can come from still more nuke and fossil fuels.

Because of this and disputes over regulation, the bill has languished in the Ohio House. Republican Speaker Jon Husted is reportedly considering removing the coal/nuke concession. But Democratic Governor Ted Strickland has long-standing ties to the coal and uranium enrichment industries, which are deeply rooted in his native southern Ohio.

In the meantime, electric prices and green energy are in deep in limbo, and have dragged down any hope of an economic revival. Except for municipal utilities like Cleveland and Bowling Green, northern Ohio endures some of the nation’s highest electric rates.

The region does not lack green visionaries---or resources. Bowling Green owns four extremely successful wind turbines, and may build more. The Cleveland Foundation and others are pushing hard for a renewable energy infrastructure along the lakefront to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels and fuel cells. The Museum of Science hosts the only utility-scale windmill in a US downtown.

The Great Lakes region boasts some of the world's most powerful wind resources. But a sustainable green harvest must somehow blow by Ohio's continued corporate commitment to nuke power.

The Senators campaigning here for the presidency had best look closely at the $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for new reactor construction that were written into the Congressional Appropriations Bill passed in 2007. They might also do something about the Lieberman-Warner Global Warming Bill, soon to be debated on the Senate floor, which may contain significant handouts to build still more atomic reactors.

Above all, as the campaign rolls through swing state Ohio, those who would be president should make note of what a mess nuke power has made of this state's economy.

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Harvey Wasserman is author of SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH (www.solartopia.org).

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Nuclear industry warms up to Dems

Concord Monitor - Nuclear industry warms up to DemsLooking back, Joseph Cosgrove says he was naive to think that Sen. Barack Obama could require nuclear power plant operators to disclose any radioactive releases.

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Weekly Radio Spin: Of Palm Oil and Snake Oil

Source: Center for Media and Democracy, February 1, 2008
Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at nuclear power plant safety, officially misleading green marketing and what happens when Big Oil's on campus. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we tell you how many steps it takes to get from Hillary Rodham Clinton to Mitt Romney. The Weekly Radio Spin is freely available for personal and broadcast use. Podcasters can subscribe to the XML feed on www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

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Nuclear interests pull a big switch

via Harold Marcuse.

Nuclear interests pull a big switch - Los Angeles Times: "EFFORT HALTED: Barrack Obama, spurred by public outrage against the Braidwood nuclear plant in Illinois, introduced a bill requiring disclosure of radioactive discharges. The 2006 measure, lobbied by one of the candidate's donors, ultimately stalled.
The industry, which backed GOP candidates in past elections, gives large sums to Obama and Clinton.
By Dan Morain and Maloy Moore, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
February 3, 2008
Looking back, Joseph Cosgrove said he was naive to think that Sen. Barack Obama could require that nuclear power plant operators publicly disclose any radioactive releases."

This Sunday's LA Times had a report on the nuclear industries' donations to
each candidate.

The print edition summarizes the contributions in a graphic
not included in the online version (the beginning of which is inserted
below). It starts with the previous 3 election cycles, then each candidate:
1999-00: $79,375 to dems
$231,469 to reps
2003-04: $213,469 to dems
$678,172 to reps
2007 : $536,300 for dems
$293,912 for reps
Obama: 265,816
Clinton 166,360
Mccain 107,500
Romney 87,674

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Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate

PHOTO:Carlos Javier Sanchez/Bloomberg News

John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon and also of the Nuclear Energy Institute, a lobbying group, has been an Obama donor.

February 3, 2008
Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate

By MIKE McINTIRE
When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.

Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”

“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.

A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.

Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.

“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”

The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.

Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.

Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.

In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.

The Obama campaign said in written responses to questions that Mr. Obama “never discussed this issue or this bill” with Mr. Axelrod. The campaign acknowledged that Exelon executives had met with Mr. Obama’s staff about the bill, as had concerned residents, environmentalists and regulators. It said the revisions resulted not from any influence by Exelon, but as a necessary response to a legislative roadblock put up by Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time.

“If Senator Obama had listened to industry demands, he wouldn’t have repeatedly criticized Exelon in the press, introduced the bill and then fought for months to get action on it,” the campaign said. “Since he has over a decade of legislative experience, Senator Obama knows that it’s very difficult to pass a perfect bill.”

Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.

Nuclear safety advocates are divided on whether Mr. Obama’s efforts yielded any lasting benefits. David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed that “it took the introduction of the bill in the first place to get a reaction from the industry.”

“But of course because it is all voluntary,” Mr. Lochbaum said, “who’s to say where things will be a few years from now?”

Others say that turning the whole matter over to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as Mr. Obama’s revised bill would have done, played into the hands of the nuclear power industry, which they say has little to fear from the regulators. Mr. Obama seemed to share those concerns when he told a New Hampshire newspaper last year that the commission “is a moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become a captive of the industry it regulates.”

Paul Gunter, an activist based in Maryland who assisted neighbors of the Exelon plants, said he was “disappointed in Senator Obama’s lack of follow-through,” which he said weakened the original bill. “The new legislation falls short” by failing to provide for mandatory reporting, said Mr. Gunter, whose group, Beyond Nuclear, opposes nuclear energy.

The episode that prompted Mr. Obama’s legislation began on Dec. 1, 2005, when Exelon issued a news release saying it had discovered tritium, a radioactive byproduct of nuclear power, in monitoring wells at its Braidwood plant, about 60 miles southwest of Chicago. A few days later, tritium was detected in a drinking water well at a home near the plant, although the levels did not exceed federal safety standards.

At least as disturbing for local residents was the revelation that Exelon believed the tritium came from millions of gallons of water that had leaked from the plant years earlier but went unreported at the time. Under nuclear commission rules, plants are required to tell state and local authorities only about radioactive discharges that rise to the level of an emergency.

On March 1, Mr. Obama introduced a bill known as the Nuclear Release Notice Act of 2006. It stated flatly that nuclear plants “shall immediately” notify federal, state and local officials of any accidental release of radioactive material that exceeded “allowable limits for normal operation.”

To flag systematic problems, it would also have required reporting of repeated accidental leaks that fell below those limits. Illinois’ senior senator, Richard J. Durbin, a fellow Democrat, was a co-sponsor, and three other senators, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, later signed on. But Mr. Obama remained its primary champion.

In public statements, Mr. Obama dismissed the nuclear lobby’s arguments that the tritium leaks posed no health threat.

“This legislation is not about whether tritium is safe, or at what concentration or level it poses a threat,” he said. “This legislation is about ensuring that nearby residents know whether they may have been exposed to any level of radiation generated at a nuclear power plant as a result of an unplanned, accidental or unintentional incident.”

Almost immediately, the nuclear power industry and federal regulators raised objections to the bill.

The Nuclear Energy Institute jumped out in front by announcing its voluntary initiative for plant operators to report even small leaks. An Exelon representative told an industry newsletter, Inside N.R.C., that Exelon was “working with Senator Obama’s office to address some technical issues that will allow us to support the legislation.”

Last week, an Exelon spokesman, Craig Nesbit, said the company sought, among other things, new language to specify what types of leaks should be reported, and assurance that enforcement authority remained with the nuclear commission and not state or local governments.

“We were looking for technical clarity,” Mr. Nesbit said.

Meanwhile, the nuclear commission told Mr. Obama’s staff that the bill would have forced the unnecessary disclosure of leaks that were not serious. “Unplanned releases below the level of an emergency present a substantially smaller risk to the public,” the agency said in a memorandum to senators, which ticked off about a half-dozen specific concerns about the bill.

Senate correspondence shows that the environment committee chairman at the time, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma who is a strong supporter of industry in battles over energy and environmental legislation, agreed with many of those points and held up the bill. Mr. Obama pushed back, at one point temporarily blocking approval of President Bush’s nominee to the nuclear commission, Dale E. Klein, who met with Mr. Obama to discuss the leaks.

But eventually, Mr. Obama agreed to rewrite the bill, and when the environment committee approved it in September 2006, he and his co-sponsors hailed it as a victory.

In interviews over the past two weeks, Obama aides insisted that the revisions did not substantively alter the bill. In fact, it was left drastically different.

In place of the straightforward reporting requirements was new language giving the nuclear commission two years to come up with its own regulations. The bill said that the commission “shall consider” — not require — immediate public notification, and also take into account the findings of a task force it set up to study the tritium leaks.

By then, the task force had already concluded that “existing reporting requirements for abnormal spills and leaks are at a level that is risk-informed and appropriate.”

The rewritten bill also contained the new wording sought by Exelon making it clear that state and local authorities would have no regulatory oversight of nuclear power plants.

In interviews last week, representatives of Exelon and the nuclear commission said they were satisfied with the revised bill. The Nuclear Energy Institute said it no longer opposed it but wanted additional changes.

The revised bill was never taken up in the full Senate, where partisan parliamentary maneuvering resulted in a number of bills being shelved before the 2006 session ended.

Still, the legislation has come in handy on the campaign trail. Last May, in response to questions about his ties to Exelon, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to a Nevada newspaper citing the bill as evidence that he stands up to powerful interests.

“When I learned that radioactive tritium had leaked out of an Exelon nuclear plant in Illinois,” he wrote, “I led an effort in the Senate to require utilities to notify the public of any unplanned release of radioactive substances.”

Last October, Mr. Obama reintroduced the bill, in its rewritten form.

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Will Ohio be left behind by the green energy revolution

January 31, 2008
Testimony to the Public Utilities Commission of the Ohio House, January 30, 2008

Thank you for allowing me to testify today.

I am a resident of central Ohio and author, or co-author, of a dozen books, including four on energy. My most recent is SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, which is graced by an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and has been captured in song by Pete Seeger.

My message today is simple: any state that allows the construction of new nuclear power plants in the face of today’s global industrial competition and financial turmoil will be committing economic suicide.

Any energy legislation that allows any kind of incentive to build such reactors dooms itself to the failures of the last century, not the successes of the new one. Thus the 12.5% of future electric production that is left open to nuclear power and coal in this new energy bill should be transformed and devoted entirely to renewables and efficiency.

There is nothing “advanced” about atomic energy.

Aside from all its other problems, nuclear power is 50 years of proven financial failure. The industry at birth promised electricity “too cheap to meter.” What it delivers is too expensive to afford. Any attempt to revive atomic energy is akin to refloating the Titanic and re-selling the Edsel.

The first commercial reactor opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1957. It has since been dismantled, at huge expense.

Ohio’s poster children for atomic energy’s failure are Perry and Davis-Besse. Perry is the only US reactor to have suffered actual physical damage from an earthquake. In 1987, then-Governor Richard Celeste’s Blue Ribbon report showed that the area could not be evacuated in the face of a major accident. It thus failed a primary test for federal licensing. With massive increases in nearby population, that’s even more true today. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine any site in Ohio where a new nuke could meet basic evacuation requirements.

Davis-Besse is infamous throughout the world for the boric acid leak that ate through all but a fraction of an inch of its inner containment system. It took us within millimeters of a Chernobyl-scale catastrophe that would have killed countless Ohioans, irradiated the world’s largest body of fresh water and wrecked economic havoc beyond calculation. Whether we escape next time may once again be a matter of sheer luck.

Hidden in the mix is the sorry fiasco of the Zimmer Reactor, which at one point was considered more than 90% complete. Then its massive construction, design and bookkeeping irregularities forced the state to pull the plug, at huge public cost.

Less than a decade ago, in this room, legislation was debated that allowed the state’s utilities to recoup---at ratepayer expense---upwards of $9 billion in costs “stranded” by these failed reactors.

Calculate, for a minute, what Ohio could have done with $9 billion invested in industrial and high-tech infrastructure. Instead, private utility companies were bailed out of bad nuclear decisions that had been fiercely opposed from start to finish.

Today we face another such crossroads. We have before us what amounts to a 12.5% renewable portfolio standard. It is focused on wind, solar, biofuels, efficiency, conservation. These true green technologies work. They are profitable, create jobs and fight global warming. Wall Street loves them.

Each of these technologies has its special challenges. But few if any unbiased observers who study the realities of green energy believe that it has anything but a hugely profitable future ahead of it.

Economics, employment and the environment are all in synch here. Renewables and efficiency are at the cutting edge of what may be the most profound and profitable technological revolution yet, almost certain to transcend even the dot.com boom of the late 20th Century. That one had its inevitable stock market burst. But does anybody believe the internet or personal computer will soon disappear?

Unfortunately, as an industrial center, Ohio missed much of that revolution. But if we make the right decisions, we are poised to cash in on the revolution in green power. We already have substantial facilities here in solar photovoltaic cells, and in fuel cells.

But Northern Ohio is also poised for a massive boom in wind power. On-shore, our wind resource may not be comparable to Great Plains states like the Dakotas, Minnesota and Kansas. But we have a readily available transmission network, easily accessible urban centers with very large demand, and (unfortunately) high electric rates, largely due to the financial residues of those nuclear plants.

The city of Bowling Green has already erected four windmills worth $1.8 million each. It’s seriously contemplating more. They work, they’re profitable, well liked, don’t kill birds, and will never bring northern Ohio to the brink of a Chernobyl. If the wind resource in the north coast region is properly harvested, and if we take the lead in building the industrial infrastructure to make that happen, Ohio could reap billions in long-term profits and untold good, safe, high-paying jobs.

Beyond the north coast is one of the world’s greatest untapped energy resources, the winds in the middle of Lake Erie. Cleveland now hosts the first utility-scale windmill in an American downtown. It’s a gateway to a lake that is relatively shallow. Its powerful, steady winds could light the region. Brilliant plans are now in motion to make sure the manufacturing base to do that is in Ohio, not overseas or in other states.

But such a vision demands state policies that make sense. This is not futuristic, pie-in-the sky utopianism. Germany, Spain, Denmark, Holland, India, Japan, Israel…all are booming into a green-powered future they see as inevitable, and as a proven pathway to present prosperity.

In 2002 I attended my first national convention of the American Wind Energy Association. There were 1700 people there. In the summer of 2007, in the Los Angeles Convention Center, there were 7,000. This industry is growing at up to 25% per year, and represents well over $10 billion in annual revenues.

This past summer, Cleveland hosted its first gathering of the American Solar Energy Society. It was a rousing success, accompanied by the installation of a solar array which now helps power the Great Lakes Science Center. You could make this Ohio’s future.

But we will miss this revolution without a renewable portfolio standard that makes sense. And this bill contains a poisoned pill. It is the 12.5% of our energy future that would allow new nuclear and coal construction. Time does not allow me to address the issue of coal, except to say that ultimately, global warming and basic economics rule it out as a long-term player in our clean energy supply.

But the verdict on nuke power is clear: it is a welfare basket case. After 50 years, there is no solution to the radioactive waste problem---that hinges on a highly dubious government program centered on a dump in Nevada that may never open.

There is no private liability insurance against a catastrophe by terror or error--- that depends on a federal limit on how much the owners of a reactor will have to pay.

There is no private investment pool waiting to finance a new generation of reactors---that will only come with federal loan guarantees at the taxpayers expense.

There is no market viability for a radioactive product that cannot compete now with renewables and efficiency, and which continually loses margin against these booming green technologies.

Amidst all the hype, there is a “new generation” reactor under construction in Finland. It is two years and $2 billion over budget. As at Perry, Davis-Besse and Zimmer, the entire history of atomic power is one of cost-overruns, bailouts and high electric rates.

No nuke plant in Ohio is now proposed. Just obtaining a construction license could require five years. Then will come the endless litigation and clearing the protestors off the proposed site. Assuming construction went even reasonably on time, no new reactor could conceivably come on line here in less than fifteen years.

By then, renewables and efficiency will have priced this old technology so far out of the market as to make it laughable. Even today, a dollar invested in efficiency saves seven times as much energy as a dollar invested in nukes can produce.

In short, that 12.5% allowed for nukes and coal needs to go green. There is nothing advanced about atomic power. That loophole will cripple our role in the renewable revolution as surely as we missed the dot-com.

A final reality: In 1994, amidst a huge state-wide political battle, the Minnesota Legislature required Northern States Power to build 400 megawatts of windmills. The state’s PUC has since ruled that windpower is that state’s least cost alternative. Hundreds more windmills are being built there, and component manufacturing is booming. Much of this “cash crop” is owned by individuals, coops and communities. It is saving family farms throughout the state. It is massively profitable and hugely popular.

Provisions for community ownership, added to this bill, are essential to our energy future. Already, rights to our wind resource are being grabbed away by foreign firms like Spain’s Gamesa, and by out-of-state speculators. Grassroots, in-state ownership of our native green power is essential to local job creation and our future prosperity. It is issues like these, rather than the folly of nuclear power, that should be the focus of our attention.

Just this week, Warren Buffett’s Iowa-based utility backed out of a nuke project proposed for Idaho because it was too expensive. And another earthquake has rumbled near Perry.

It’s time for Ohio to choose technology for this century, not the last one. And it’s time we make sure our renewable energy resources are owned by Ohioans.

There is no room in any meaningful portfolio standard for anything but technologies that are profitable, that can compete, that can get financing independent of the government, that can be controlled by the people of Ohio, and that will not threaten the planet with radioactive catastrophe.

This world will be green-powered. The decision is now yours: will Ohio help lead the parade, or be left behind?

--
Harvey Wasserman is Senior Advisor, Greenpeace USA / Nuclear Information & Resource Service.
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After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton Charity

After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton Charity - New York TimesPHOTO …Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times
DONATING MILLIONS Former President Bill Clinton with Sir Tom Hunter, left, and Frank Giustra, major donors to Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation.
Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

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Mitt Romney's Lobbyist Connections

MotherJones Blog: Mitt Romney's Lobbyist Connections
The truth is that Romney is tied closely with many lobbyists. The AP reporter Romney exchanged sharp words with later reported that several Romney aides and advisers are lobbyists. Additionally, as the Nation first reported, Romney has accepted the second most money from lobbyists of any Republican presidential candidate, and has received the most endorsements from lobbyists.

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New Hampshire's Nuclear Primary

New Hampshire's Nuclear Primary
The Granite State horse race between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could turn on an issue that's topped the primary agenda here ever since the bicentennial--atomic energy.

HARVEY WASSERMAN- The Nation

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NEI Nuclear Notes: Barack Obama on Nuclear Energy

NEI Nuclear Notes: Barack Obama on Nuclear Energy
Exelon is the the second most important contributor to the Obama campaign...

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The Swamp: Edwards keeps humming while others change tune

The Swamp: Edwards keeps humming while others change tune: "Elizabeth Edwards said her husband had reacted more presidentially to the assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto, telephoning the Pakistani president to plead for democratic progress while his rivals 'raced for the microphone'. She said he was the most dependable to negotiate fairer trade and the only one of the trio to oppose new nuclear power plants."

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Nuclear power gets boost from candidates

Nuclear power gets boost from candidates - Los Angeles Times: "WASHINGTON -- On the brink of a nuclear power resurgence in America, the once-vilified industry is buoyed by a slate of presidential candidates who seem ready to embrace -- or at least consider -- a nuclear energy future."

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Call for Cheney Hearings

Join Wexler's Call for Cheney Hearings

Dear Friends,
As we prepare to celebrate the New Year, my resolution is to hold George Bush and Dick Cheney accountable for their abuses of power.

In the last days, we have made real progress:
The mainstream media has awakened to this movement and to the extraordinary support you have given it. Your calls, letters, and emails have clearly made a difference. Already 140,000 people have joined us in demanding impeachment hearings for Vice President Dick Cheney by signing up at WexlerWantsHearings.com.

The power of these combined voices are already shaking up the established order on Capitol Hill and throughout the mainstream media:

This week, the Miami Herald printed an article on our efforts that was syndicated in papers across the country, including the Detroit Free Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, Fort Worth Telegram, Contra Costa Times, Sacramento Bee, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, NC News & Observer, and others. (Click HERE to read the article.)

In addition, CBS4 in Miami became the first station we know of to run a television segment about the call for hearings. Video of that can be found HERE.)

Perhaps most importantly, just this morning the Philadelphia Inquirer courageously ran the full editorial I drafted along with my fellow Judiciary Committee members Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Rep. Tammy Baldwin (R-WI). (View it HERE .) Congratulations to the Inquirer for their willingness to publish a viewpoint that is so widely held by Americans – yet one that other leading national newspapers refused to publish.


We have come so far in just a few weeks. No longer can the mainstream media ignore our efforts and dismiss this cause as only part of the fringe left.


Already we are seeing tangible results from our combined effort. As you already know, Congress is well behind the American people on this issue. This is an uphill battle, but it's one that has to be fought. It should not be the whole agenda, but it needs be *on* the agenda.


When Congress reconvenes in January, I plan to present a list to my Judiciary Committee colleagues of every single person that signed up at WexlerWantsHearings.com. I will go to more of my colleagues and ask them to join a letter in support of hearings. We will build on the momentum you have given us.

Last week, I spent an hour on Blog Talk Radio outlining thoughts and answering questions in regards to this work. So many people hit their site that their servers temporarily went down. If you'd like to hear the archived audio, please click HERE.

Let's do our best to further spread the message so that list will be up to a quarter million. Please continue to blog, email friends, and insist that your family and friends sign up!


Thanks for your commitment.


Congressman Robert Wexler

P.S. I have been running online ads to make more people aware of our impeachment campaign. If you are interested in making a contribution to this effort you can click here.

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Senate Blocks Energy Bill

Senate Blocks Energy Bill The House vote was 235 to 181, with 14 Republicans voting for it and 7 Democrats voting against. But the measure was blocked in the Senate this morning, as it attracted 53 "yes" votes - 7 short of the number needed to advance it. Forty-two senators voted against it.

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