Nuclear Power Relapse - NIRS

Nuclear Power Relapse - NIRS: "The Bush administration is the most aggressively pro-nuclear government since the days of Richard Nixon. From Vice-President Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force, which met with nuclear industry officials more than any other industry, to President Bush’s approval of the scientifically-indefensible Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump, the Bush administration appears intent on rebuilding the nuclear power industry. Or, as we see it, creating a Nuclear Power Relapse.

Bush allies in Congress, led by Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), have mounted repeated attempts to force taxpayer funding of new reactor construction. And the supposedly independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission has undertaken numerous rules and policy changes designed to undercut meaningful public participation in licensing decisions and weaken environmental justice and nuclear safety and security policies.

Given this climate, the nuclear industry has responded with three applications for Early Site Permits to build new reactors (see Reactor Watchdog Project), an application to build a new private uranium enrichment plant (see Louisiana Energy Services) and has created three new consortiums to soon apply for new reactor construction permits."