Obama's Bad Nuclear Day At Democracy Now!
JUAN GONZALEZ: President Obama on Tuesday pledged $8.3 billion in loan guarantees needed to build the first nuclear reactors in nearly
three decades. The move, along with a tripling of nuclear loan guarantees in the President’s budget, represents a new
federal commitment to the nuclear power industry. Obama made the announcement after touring a Maryland training facility
for energy jobs.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We are announcing roughly $8 billion in loan guarantees to break ground on the first new nuclear plant in our country in
three decades, the first new nuclear power plant in nearly three decades.
To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply
of nuclear power. It’s that simple. This one plant, for example, will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year
when compared to a similar coal plant. That’s like taking 3.5 million cars off the road.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The $8.3 billion loan guarantee will help the Atlanta-based Southern Company build two more nuclear reactors in Burke
County, Georgia, near the city of Augusta. The loan guarantees will cover up to 70 percent of the company’s portion of
the project’s costs.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorized the Department of Energy to issue up to $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for
new nuclear plants and other energy projects. President Obama wants to triple the size of the loan guarantees to $54
billion.
AMY GOODMAN: Harvey Wasserman is an independent journalist, longtime anti-nuclear activist. In the ‘70s, he helped found the
grassroots movement against nuclear power in the United States. He’s editor ofnukefree.org and is a senior adviser to Greenpeace USA, joining us byDemocracy Now! video stream from his home in Ohio.
Harvey, welcome to Democracy Now! What is your response to President Obama’s proposal?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, basically, complete horror. This is a terrible decision. It’s a bad day for America, a bad day for Obama. There’s
nothing that’s happened with nuclear power in the last thirty years that’s made it any more palatable, any more
reasonable economically. There’s no solution to the nuclear waste problem. We were on a path for a green revolution,
where the jobs really are for the future of this country and where our energy supply can come from without ecological
disaster. And here, the Obama administration is going with a failed twentieth century technology. It’s completely
counterintuitive. And it’s a very, very bad day for America.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Harvey, the issue both of the disposal of nuclear waste from these plants as well as the safety of the plants
themselves?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: The plants are no safer than they’ve ever been, and there is no solution to the nuclear waste problem. So, you know,
it’s a double whammy here. We have technologies that will work, that will provide the jobs that we need for this
country. And Obama has gone in completely the opposite direction.
And I will tell you that the environmental movement, in general, is very unhappy about this. There will be tremendous
resistance to this plant and to all the other ones that this administration may try to build.
It’s quite indicative that, after all these years, the nuclear industry cannot get private financing for these reactors.
They have to go to the federal government. And they can’t find Wall Street support or other independent support to build
these reactors, because the reactors are not economically viable. And you’d think, after all these years, they’d have
made enough progress at least to get even private insurance. The reality is that these reactors will be underwritten, in
terms of liability, by the taxpayer. God forbid if there’s a mass accident at any nuclear power plant, including these,
there will be only the federal government as an insurer, in case of liability.
An astonishing statement on the technology—can’t work and will never work. And it’s a terrible mystery as to why the
administration has taken this bad step.
AMY GOODMAN: Harvey, we’re calling you on the telephone just to get a line going. Harvey Wasserman is editor of nukefree.org and senior adviser of Greenpeace USA. He’s written the book Solartopia!: Our Green-Powered Earth, among other
stories—among other books that he’s written. And we’re talking about President Obama’s announcement of the initial $8
billion in loan guarantees for construction of the first new nuclear power plants in the United States in close to three
decades.
Why do you think, Harvey Wasserman, that President Obama has done this? Who is he serving here? I mean, even the
Heritage Foundation remarked, “Expansive loan guarantee programs are wrought with problems. At a minimum, they create
taxpayer liabilities, give recipients preferential treatment, and distort capital markets.” So you’ve got progressives,
you’ve got anti-nuclear activists, you’ve got the right-wing Heritage Foundation—they’re all opposed here. Who is he
serving?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, this is a big difference now. Not only the Heritage Foundation, but the Cato Institute and the National Taxpayers
Union, these have all come out against these loan guarantees for fiscal reasons. And the fact is that the economic
reasons, the economic basis for building nuclear plants, is worse than it ever has been. So we really have no
explanation for this.
You have to remember that the Obama administration started off with Van Jones and a whole program for green jobs, and
it’s abandoned that now in favor of going with a failed technology, nuclear power.
The environmental movement is committed to stopping this. And we will do the best we can. The reality is that we’re in
the midst of a green power revolution. Solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, ocean thermal—all these technologies and, most
importantly, increased efficiency—are moving ahead tremendously. And yet, there’s just no, you know, indication here
that the administration has gotten the message that these are the technologies that need to go ahead.
And it’s interesting, because we started off with Van Jones. We started off with an industry that was going to make
these strides forward. And now we see a complete reversal on the part of the Obama administration. The only explanation
we have is that Obama was an Illinois politician. He was backed by Exelon, which is a major nuclear utility. And he
seems to have basically completely abandoned the premise on which he was elected, that he would lead a green power
revolution. And now he’s gone to an obsolete, dangerous technology with no solution to the nuclear waste problem. You
know, Amy, he’s established a commission.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Harvey?
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Yes.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Harvey, if I can, you mentioned the issue of Exelon, and I think that when you say that folks in the progressive
movement are surprised, I wonder how surprised they should be, because I remember back during the presidential primary
writing a column about the close ties between Exelon—Exelon is not just a nuclear power industry generator, it’s the
largest operator of nuclear power plants in the United States. I think it has seventeen. And the firm was a major—has
historically been a major backer of President Obama. And two of his chief aides have ties to Exelon. Rahm Emanuel, as an
investment banker, helped put together the deal that eventually merged, created Exelon. And David Axelrod was a lobbyist
for Exelon. So there are very close ties between the chairman of Exelon, John Rowe, and the Obama administration. I
think even Forbes Magazine listed it, talked about those ties. So I think that the President was very equivocal on the
issue of nuclear power during the campaign, but that there was no—there seemed to be—the industry believed he was going
to be their salvation.
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Well, he’s certainly come through for his backers at Exelon there. And it’s a tragedy for him and for the
administration, but most importantly, for the American people. We’re seeing the corporate interests flooding through
this administration, getting pretty much what they want. And in this case, Obama has done a tremendously destructive
about-face of taking the technology of the failed—of a failed technology from the twentieth century and trying to use
taxpayer, ratepayer money to foist this on the economy.
One thing about the selection of the Georgia site is that this—the reason they’re doing this in Georgia is because the
ratepayers in Georgia are being forced to pay their share or the state’s share of this plant in advance. And so, you
have ratepayers being essentially taxed by their rate-setting administrations to pay in advance for reactors that may
never be built. The minimum that these plants will take to build is six or seven years, probably more than that. We’re
seeing massive overruns already in a construction project in Finland and another one in France. It really boggles the
mind to see this administration going down this path.
But we will resist, and we will fight them. There’s a huge fight going on, by the way, in Vermont right now, where the
people of the state of Vermont are trying to shut the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, which has been leaking tritium. And
if you’re not aware of this, twenty-seven of the 104 nuclear plants in the United States have been confirmed to be
leaking tritium now. These are plants that have been around for twenty, thirty years. If they can’t control more than a
quarter of the operating reactors in the United States and prevent them from leaking tritium, what are they doing
turning around with this technology and pouring many more billions of dollars of our money into it? It’s an absolute
catastrophe, and we will stand up to it.
AMY GOODMAN: Is this a done deal? And we have fifteen seconds.
HARVEY WASSERMAN: Absolutely not. We will be resisting these reactors. We will resist this funding. We will do our very best to prevent
this construction from going ahead. The environmental movement is very focused on this. And this is—no way, shape or
form—a done deal.
AMY GOODMAN: Harvey Wasserman, I want to thank you for being with us, editor of nukefree.org, senior adviser to Greenpeace, book Solartopia!: Our Green-Powered Earth.
ENDS