McCain's Gripe: Climate change bills don't include nuclear power

by Emily Gertz

categories: Clean Energy, Nuclear Energy, Policy & Legislation, Science

Published October 01, 2009 @ 04:25PM PT

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) used a morning yak with NBC's David Gregory to slam the Boxer-Kerry climate and energy bill, as well as the Waxman-Markey House bill that squeaked to passage in June, for not including nuclear energy in their mandates on "renewable," "clean" power.  

Neither bill allows nuclear energy to count toward fulfilling mandated renewable energy generation goals, which arguably could dampen enthusiasm for nukes by states trying to meet these "renewable energy standards," or RES. 

"It’s the left-wing environmental organizations that are not allowing us to move forward with nuclear power," groused the senator, at the "First Draft of History" forum sponsored by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute.

Writing on the Rose Law Group pc blog, Amy Harder reports that McCain "noted that France generates roughly 80 percent of its power from nuclear energy. 'So, what are we doing up here? Nothing,' the senator scoffed. 'To me, that is an offense to my intellect and what we need to do to' address climate change."

Since President Obama has expressed support for both bills, McCain's comment could be taken as a backhanded swipe at the White House, as well as a full frontal slap of his House and Senate colleagues.

Well, whether you believe that nuclear power has no place in the nation's solutions to climate change,  or that it's an essential component in our transition to a low-carbon economy, there's one thing it isn't:  lacking funding under the Obama administration.

Upon doing some cursory research, I've found that the Department of Energy has already spent many times more on expanding nuclear power research, development, and deployment in its first eight months, than it got for nuke programs the year before under President George Bush:

• In mid-September, the DOE announced that it is providing $40 million in funding "to support design and planning work for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)."
• Back in June, the Energy Department released $18.5 billion in loan guarantees to four power companies, which will allow each to start building new reactors as early as 2011, with the plants likely to come online by 2015 or 2016.
• In May, the Energy Department selected 71 university research projects to receive $44 million over three years to "advance new nuclear technologies in support of the nation's energy goals."
• In March, the department announced that $2.5 million in funding would be made available to universities to upgrade equipment and infrastructure intrinsic to conducting "cutting-edge nuclear research and development."

In his Fiscal Year 2008 budget, Bush asked for $1.3 billion for nuclear power programs at the Energy Department, and got $961.7 million.  Toting up the numbers above, the Obama administration has already committed $18.915 billion, and the year's not even done yet.

To sum up, Obama administration is throwing quite a lot of money at re-vivifying the nuclear power industry in the US, even if that's not happening via the House or Senate climate bills.  Hopefully someone will tell Sen. McCain.