President Obama and Nuclear Power

Dear Friends,

In a prior post I referred to President Obama's $8 billion loan guarantee for the first nuclear power plant to be built in over 30 years.  I was not happy with that decision, but given the other things that he was doing, it didn't make me really angry.  Now, however, I am really angry.

My wife is a faithful fan of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now program.  One of the segments on her show today was entitled: " 'A Bad Day for America': Anti-Nuclear Activist Harvey Wasserman Criticizes Obama Plan to Fund Nuclear Reactors".  (here)  After my wife told me about the segment, there were a couple of things that got my attention.

First, is the odd bedfellows against building more nuclear power plants.

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.

Second, is speculation about why President Obama has made this decision to pursue additional nuclear power plants.  Harvey Wasserman again,

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...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.

So I decided to see what the relationship between President Obama and Exelon is.  Google is an amazing tool.  I found many references to the various ways that the Obama Administration is tied to Exelon and its CEO John Rowe.  The most succinct article I found was at Counterpunch (here) by Karl Grossman entitled "Obama Goes Nuclear".

The beginning of the article points out candidate Obama's position on nuclear power which seemed very reasonable to many of us:

Before taking office, including as a candidate for president, Obama not only was negative about atomic energy but—unusual for a politician—indicated a detailed knowledge of its threat to life.
“I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal and so I am not a nuclear energy proponent,” Obama said at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa on December 30, 2007. “My general view is that until we can make certain that nuclear power plants are safe, that they have solved the storage problem—because I’m opposed to Yucca Mountain and just dumping…in one state, in Nevada particularly, since there’s potentially an earthquake line there—until we solve those problems and the whole nuclear industry can show that they can produce clean, safe energy without enormous subsidies from the U.S. government, I don’t think that’s the best option. I am much more interested in solar and wind and bio-diesel and strategies [for] alternative fuels.”

So President Obama had it right - no nuclear power until (1) they are safe, (2) the waste storage problem is solved, and (3) they do not need huge government subsidies.  So how is he doing with the $8 billion of guarantees.  Nuclear power plants are no safer now than they were in December 2007.  There is no solution for the storage of the nuclear waste.  The huge ($8 billion of loan guarantees) government subsidies are necessary for the project to move forward.

What happened to candidate Obama?  Here is the answer that Karl Grossman gives:

In his first year as president, nuclear power proponents worked to influence him. Among nuclear opponents, there has been anxiety regarding Obama’s two top aides, both of whom have been involved with what is now the utility operating more nuclear power plants than any other in the United States, Exelon.
Rahm Emanuel, now Obama’s chief of staff, as an investment banker was in the middle of the $8.2 billion merger in 1999 of Unicom, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, and Peco Energy to put together Exelon. David Axelrod, now a senior Obama advisor and formerly chief campaign strategist, was an Exelon consultant. Candidate Obama received sizeable contributions from Exelon executives including from John Rowe, its president and chief executive officer who in 2007 also became chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the U.S. nuclear industry’s main trade group.
It’s not only been nuclear opponents who have seen a link between Exelon and the Obama administration. Forbes magazine, in its January 18th issue, in an article on John Rowe and how he has “focused the company on nuclear,” displayed a sidebar headlined, “The President’s Utility.”  It read: “Ties are tight between Exelon and the Obama administration,” noting Exelon political contributions and featuring Emanuel and Axelrod with photos and descriptions of their Exelon connections.
The Forbes article spoke of how last year “Emanuel e-mailed Rowe on the eve of the House vote on global warming legislation and asked that he reach out to some uncommitted Democrats. ‘We are proud to be the President’s utility,’ says Elizabeth Moler, Exelon’s chief lobbyist,” the article went on. “It’s nice for John to be able to go to the White House and they know his name.’”
Chicago-based Exelon’s website boasts of its operating “the largest nuclear fleet in the nation and the third largest in the world.” It owns 17 nuclear power plants which “represent approximately 20 percent of the U.S. nuclear industry’s power capacity.”

If you want to read the Forbes article it is here.

Whatever happened to "Change we can believe in" candidate Obama?

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Why Can't President Obama Communicate?

Dear Friends,

I have been struggling with why President Obama does not go to the American people and gain their support for his policies and programs.  I came across an interesting poll today which when placed next to some factual information shows that President Obama has failed to communicate with the American people and probably also shows what a difficult job it is to communicate with the American people.

First, the poll (here):  It is a CBS/New York Times poll taken in the first part of February 2010.  It has lots of very interesting results so you should read it all, but here is the part that I am referring to:

When it comes to job creation, just 6% say the stimulus package has created jobs, but another 41% expect it will do so. 48% think it won’t. These views have not changed much in recent months, but optimism about the impact of the stimulus package was much higher last summer.

So only 6% of the American public thinks that the stimulus package has created jobs.  Here is what the experts think from an article in the New York Times today by David Leonhardt entitled "Judging Stimulus by Job Data Reveals Success":

Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.

How can you reconcile the unbelievable difference between reality and the perception of the American people? 

It would be easy to say that the Republicans continue to lie (in addition to be hypocritical) about the results of the stimulus.  For example this statement from Representative Cantor's office today:

the fact remains that your stimulus program has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on pork, passed on tremendous debt to young Americans who will be forced to pay your tab, and has utterly failed to get Americans back to work in any meaningful way. 

Or this quote via CBS News (here):

And Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price's (R-Ga.) statement pretty much summed up most Republicans' take on the package that did not garner a single House Republican vote: "At age one, stimulus still struggles to crawl: Experiment Officially Failed."

But the lies and hypocrisy from the Republicans do not excuse the lack of communication from the Obama Administration to the American people.  Apparently, they were waiting for the one year anniversary of the passage of the stimulus package and now claim that they will be in 35 States this week talking about how many jobs the stimulus package has created. 

President Obama seems to feel that he can every now and then go out to the American people and drum up support.  That is not the correct approach.  He needs to be out there every day telling the American people what his administration has accomplished and what new policies and programs he supports and why.  He has failed to do that and the result is the constant sound bites and spin from the Republican party is carrying the day.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Former Vice President Cheney

Dear Friends,

I must comment on former Vice President Cheney's admission once again of being a war criminal and President Obama's reluctance to investigate.

First, waterboarding is torture.  The United States tried and convicted members of the Japanese military and government after WWII for torture which included waterboarding.  Here is a good article on the issue.

Torture is a war crime.

The United States is bound by its treaty obligations, if not our own laws to prosecute war crimes.

The Attorney General of the United States must investigate this potential war crime and if justified prosecute the war criminals.

Why is Attorney General Holder not investigating and why is President Obama not requiring him to investigate?

President Obama is not bringing change to Washington.  He is covering up the criminal activities of his predecessors.

Want to write the President to see if you will get an answer, here is the link.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Where is President Obama?

Dear Friends,

Have any of the rest of you noticed that for the last week or so President Obama has been absent from the news?

Lately, I have seen him on TV or in the newspaper for two reasons.  One is a skit on The Daily Show where Jon Stewart uses the name of a questioner at a Town Hall meeting with President Obama to make fun of people's names. 

The second is that he is guaranteeing an $8 billion loan to build a new nuclear power plant.  Given the pros and cons of nuclear power, is that really the place where President Obama should be using his time?  The health care reform has been so watered down as to raise the issue of its significance, and he is not doing anything to even get that passed.

The Senate can't even pass the most simple form of jobs bill.  We need a jobs bill now.  We need to rebuild our infrastructure now.  The great thing is that rebuilding our infrastructure will create lots of private sector jobs.  See Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times today (here).

But President Obama can't even seem to get the Democrats to get a start at that.  He needs to get out of Washington and get in front of the American people and sell an infrastructure rebuilding bill that will create lots of great jobs. If you want to tell something to the President, here is the place to go.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Vice President Biden

Dear Friends,

After watching Meet the Press this morning, I could write another post about what a terrible job David Gregory does.  He would rather use the talking points from the left and right than do the work and use actual facts as the basis for his questions.

However, the most important take away from today's program was that Vice President Biden did a great job.  He made sure that David Gregory and the audience were told what the facts are, and he forcefully made clear that he will not permit others to change history or deny the facts.  Here is a clip dealing with some recent comments by Vice President Cheney:

In case you decide not to view the clip, here are a couple of quotes.
"All I know is he's factually, substantively wrong,"
Vice President Cheney "is trying to rewrite history".

You really should watch the clip.  In fact while you are at the Meet the Press site, you should watch the entire interview.  While you are watching think about a couple of things.  First, how would Vice President Cheney or President George W. Bush or Senator McCain or Governor Palin have responded to questions like the ones posed by David Gregory.  Vice President Biden was in full command of the facts.  He was straight forward and articulate and did not put his foot in his mouth.  The other thing to think about is which questions by David Gregory did not contain an inaccurate statement of the facts or an inaccurate assumed factual basis.  Vice President Biden did a good job correcting the facts and attacking the inaccurate assumptions.


I am proud of Vice President Biden.


Thanks for reading and please comment,


The Unabashed Liberal

The Savvy Mom

Dear Friends,
A couple of days ago my daughter-in-law at the Savvy Mom (or now the Savvy Word) (here), mentioned my blog favorably on Twitter.   Since that time I have had many more readers for which I am very grateful.  Thanks Savvy Mom.  I will try to live up to your expectations and those of your readers who I hope will continue to check in here.
Thank you for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal