Katrina vanden Heuvel: Everybody Look What's Going Down

[marmar]

from The Nation:



BLOG | Posted 12/04/2007 @ 7:00pm
Everybody Look What's Going Down


Recently, I wrote about the No Nukes crowd fighting to remove $50 billion worth of nuclear industry subsidies from landmark energy legislation. Indeed, an upwelling of grassroots opposition – including 130,000 signatures collected by Nukefree.org – has kept the Energy Bill to be voted on in the House this week nuclear subsidy-free

"There are no subsidies for nuclear industry in the bill," Brendan Daly, spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, confirmed for me yesterday.

"We're celebrating a partial victory," said Harvey Wasserman, co-founder of Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) and editor of Freepress.org. "But we're not out of the woods yet."

That's because – like nuclear waste itself – the industry and its cronies never go away. $50 billion is enough to fund 25 plants, and despite the fact that so few people want these monstrosities that can't pay for themselves and are environmental and security nightmares to boot – Big Nuclear will not walk away from bundles of free taxpayer money without a fight.

Senator Pete Domenici is expected to fight the Energy Bill's 15 percent renewable portfolio standard (the amount of electricity utilities must produce from renewable sources) and perhaps condition his support on including the $50 billion nuclear bailout. And with every piece of legislation requiring 60 votes to overcome the seemingly permanent Republican filibuster, Domenici & Friends will wield their power like a radioactive weapon. If the Nukes fail there, there will probably be another battle on the Appropriations bill, or even the Lieberman-Warner climate legislation where the nuclear industry has already submitted a "wish list" of amendments to the bill. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=256853

[EVDebs]

1. Make sure the nuclear industry pays for its own insurance, rather than having the public subsidize

that portion of their expenses. This way the 'free market' will work and that invisible hand will slap those plants out of existence.

[dbackjon]

2. stupid

We need nuclear power - the more the better, to help the environment.