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Senators Inhofe and Sanders weigh in on nukes

 July 16, 2008

More from the nuclear hearing.

Sen. Sanders (I): Public safety must be job #1. I must express serious concerns about aging fleet of 104 plants. Need more oversight of those first. Oversight is quite weak. I think many people don’t know what is going on. Nuclear plant in VT. “Failure of NRC oversight.” August 21, 2007 — a water tower collapsed. How much did Entergy pay for that mishap? None.

Then Aug. 30 emergency shutdown. Last week — leaking coolant pipe. End result. Confidence is not high. People have concerns. I share them. Inexplicable there were no fines. Confidence requires more oversight. We are grossly underestimating the role of energy efficiency and renewables. Within 15 years, 20% of power could be from solar thermal alone.

And then we have everybody’s favorite global warming denier.

Sen. Inhofe (R): Associate myself with Carper’s remarks. U.S. electricity demand projected to grow 30% by 2030. Critical of NRC permitting process as too slow. No schedule discipline. Streamlining necessary. T. Boone conference — [never mentions wind, Inhofe wants to use nukes to displace gas] — run our cars on natural gas.

Sen. Isalkson (R): I’ll be brief. The solution to America’s energy problem rest on a variety of sources, including nukes. Must have nukes to get where we need to go.

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This entry was posted by Joe on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “Senators Inhofe and Sanders weigh in on nukes”

  1. Zach says:
    July 16, 2008 at 10:51 am

    Just FYI, Sanders is an independent (socialist to be exact) who caucuses with the Democrats.

  2. Joe says:
    July 16, 2008 at 11:28 am

    You are very correct!

  3. Earl Killian says:
    July 16, 2008 at 11:38 am

    It is sad to see the 30% increase line when efficiency could lead to a large decrease instead. They just don’t get it, do they? Negawatts are 1-2 cents per kWh: the cheapest electricity there is.

  4. modview says:
    July 16, 2008 at 11:56 am

    Do our Senators really not know how to speak in complete sentences or is this journalistic editing?

    Personally, I find it much easier to derive meaning from sentences when they have the minimal constituent parts of subject and verb.

  5. Joe says:
    July 16, 2008 at 2:09 pm

    I am doing live blogging from the Senate committee hearing room where I’m about to be a witness. I tend to do stream of consciousness, focusing on the key points.

  6. Jay Alt says:
    July 17, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    Links to Real Player witness testimony and .pdf statements –

    Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety hearing, Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Licensing and Relicensing Processes for Nuclear Plants.
    July 16, 2008 EPW Hearing Room – 406 Dirksen