Tech | May 20, 2008 | 5 comments

Pelosi, Clinton, Obama Favor More Nuclear Plants

source: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/09/399/

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JanforGore
The renewed push for legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions could falter over an old debate: whether nuclear power should play a role in any federal attack on climate change.Congress, with added impetus from a Supreme Court ruling last week, appears more likely to pass comprehensive energy legislation. But nuclear power sharply divides lawmakers who agree on mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions. And it has pitted some on Capitol Hill against their usual allies, environmentalists, who largely oppose any expansion of nuclear power.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Barbara Boxer - Bay Area Democrats with similar political views - are on opposite sides.

Pelosi used to be an ardent foe of nuclear power but now holds a different view. “I think it has to be on the table,” she said.

Boxer, head of the Senate committee that will take the lead in writing global warming legislation, said that turning from fossil fuels to nuclear power was “trading one problem for another.”

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) - all presidential candidates - support legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions and provide incentives to power companies to build more nuclear plants.

Opponents of nuclear power say that because a terrorist attack on a plant could be catastrophic, it makes no sense to build more potential targets. And radioactive waste still has no permanent burial site, they say, despite officials’ three decades of trying to find one.

But attitudes toward nuclear power may be shifting as a consensus emerges that greenhouse gases are causing the world to heat up.

The Supreme Court added its voice, criticizing the Bush administration for not acting to control greenhouse gases.

Max Schulz, a former Energy Department staff member who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said the ruling could help “spur the revival of nuclear power.”
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5 comments // Pelosi, Clinton, Obama Favor More Nuclear Plants

  • EbahDyke
    • 0
      EbahDyke  

    • Right, it seems so many politicians don't put actually taking care of this country as a priority. It disgusts and disturbs me.

    • 3 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • riverdeer: ask the author of the article. But you're right... McCain and Obama and Clinton and Pelosi and others as well on both sides of the aisle agree on nuclear's viability as was also pointed out in the article which mentions his name in the original post here which I excerpted. Did you read it? Matters not what party you belong to. If you are for nuclear power you are not for this planet. Have a nice day.

    • 3 years ago
  • riverdeer
    • 0
      riverdeer  

    • qoute from mccain

      … the French are able to generate 80% of their electricity with nuclear power. There’s no reason why America shouldn’t.

    • 3 years ago
  • riverdeer
    • 0
      riverdeer  

    • oh yeah why didnt you put mccains name in the headlines i wonder

      McCain Calls for 700+ New Nuclear Plants (and 7 Yucca Mountains) Costing $4 Trillion

    • 3 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • So, are politicians, in particular all of the candidates using climate change simply to spur this "revival" of nuclear power to keep their interests happy? If they are, then they surely do not put this planet first. Also, how can you say you wish to see a nuclear free world regarding weapons, and yet be for building new nuclear plants? A nuclear power plant IS a nuclear weapon.

    • 3 years ago
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