obama on right track, partially
Obama held a chart about oil usage at the school. | Doug Mills/The New York Times
NYTimes.com: NASHUA, N.H. — With his re-election fate increasingly tied to the price Americans are paying at the gas pump, President Obama asked Congress on Thursday to end $4 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies and vowed to tackle the country’s long-term energy issues while shunning “phony election-year promises about lower gas prices...”
“You can either stand up for the oil companies, or you can stand up for the American people,” Mr. Obama said. “You can keep subsidizing a fossil fuel that’s been getting taxpayer dollars for a century, or you can place your bets on a clean-energy future.”
The president criticized Republicans who have called for the country to increase its own oil production, declaring that “anyone who tells you we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they’re talking about.” With the United States consuming more than 20 percent of the world’s oil while having only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, Mr. Obama said “we can’t rely on fossil fuels from the last century...”
Obama Calls for an End to Subsidies for Oil and Gas Companies - NYTimes.com
Obama administration calls for no expansion to nuclear loan guarantee program in FY2013 budget, but US is still building new nukes with taxpayer money
February 16: As reported in the Huffington Post, for the first time in three years, the Obama administration has not called for a major expansion in the nuclear loan guarantee program. In fact, it has called for no expansion at all.
In his Fiscal Year 2011 and Fiscal Year 2012 budget requests, fresh on the heels of explicitly promoting nuclear power in his State of the Union addresses, President Obama called for a major expansion of the nuclear loan guarantee program, to the tune of $36 billion. However, as a testament to people power over nuclear power, the nuclear lobbyists didn't get away with it -- we stopped them time and again on Capitol Hill, through tireless concerned citizen pressure! It's a huge grassroots environmental victory!
The program already had $22.5 billion, however, mostly authorized during the George W. Bush administration, snuck through on December 23, 2007 when most Americans were more tuned into holiday celebrations with family and friends, rather than the backroom wheeling and dealing by dirty energy industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill. Of that $22.5 billion already authorized, $18.5 billion was set aside for new atomic reactors, while $4 billion was set aside for new uranium enrichment facilities.
In Feb. 2010, President Obama announced the first nuclear loan guarantee himself -- $8.3 billion for two new atomic reactors at Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. On December 30, 2011, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the Toshiba-Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design, despite lingering concerns about major safety flaws. Just this month, by a 4 to 1 vote (with NRC Chairman Jaczko dissenting), the NRC Commissioners approved the combined Construction and Operating License Application (COLA) for Vogtle Units 3 and 4.
Another leg up for Vogtle 3 & 4, this time at ratepayer expense, is Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charges on ordinary family's electricity bills, making them pay for the reactors in advance. CWIP is illegal in most states. Yet another leg up, at federal taxpayer expense: the AP1000, along with the General Electric Hitachi ESBWR (so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor") has benefitted from U.S. Department of Energy "Nuclear Power 2010" research and development 50/50 cost sharing...
more > Beyond Nuclear - Loan Guarantees - Obama administration calls for no expansion to nuclear loan guarantee program in FY2013 budget!
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