THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: NUCLEAR TO THE CORE

The fiasco that was the U.S. presidential election is now resolved, if not exactly forgotten: according to one public opinion poll, an astonishing 32% of the American people still did not recognize George W. Bush as a legitimate President-elect before Inauguration Day.

But, whether anyone likes it or not, the second Bush Administration took the reigns of power in Washington on January 20^th. And despite the controversy over the election results, it is Bush and his Administration who will be setting the agenda for the U.S. over the next four years.

If early statements and posturing are any indication, this will be the most actively pro-energy industry Administration in history. That shouldn’t be too surprising, considering that this is the first U.S. presidency with two former oilmen, Bush and Vice-President-Elect Dick Cheney, running the country.

During the election campaign, and since, Bush has made clear his view that the U.S. needs a national energy policy, and that his energy policy relies upon increased energy production. While Bush always mentions environmental protection in passing when he speaks of energy production, it is evident that environmental concerns will take a backseat to new oil drilling and exploration and construction of new power plants.

Most overtly, Bush plans a major effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to oil drilling, something his father could not get through Congress, and which President Bill Clinton steadfastly resisted. That Bush goal is most evident in his choice of Gail Norton, an avowed proponent of ANWR oil drilling, to be Interior Secretary, and Spencer Abraham, a little-known Michigan Senator with close ties to the automobile industry, to be Energy Secretary.

On nuclear power policy, Bush can be expected to support the nuclear industry. Indeed, unlike his father, who offered verbal support to nuclear interests, Bush may seek to help the industry in more substantial ways. Clearly, that’s what the nuclear industry is hoping, and it is well-represented on his energy presidential "transition" team.

The Bush administration’s energy transition advisors included every possible nuclear and energy industry interest. Among them were Joseph Colvin, chief of the Nuclear Energy Institute; Thomas Kuhn, head of the industry’s Edison Electric Institute; former Senator and nuclear champion J. Bennett Johnston, now head of his own consulting firm Johnston & Associates and considered for Energy Secretary until he withdrew his name following strong protests from environmental groups and Nevada politicians from both parties. Also included were former Department of Energy officials Leo Duffy and Henson Moore, and representatives of major nuclear utilities such as Dominion Energy, Southern Company and Southern California Edison, as well as numerous representatives from oil, coal, gas and mining interests.

The only organization even remotely speaking for environmental interests on the energy transition team was a single representative from the Alliance to Save Energy.

Bush’s appointment of former Michigan Senator Spence Abraham to be energy secretary may also provide clues into how the new Administration intends to handle energy policy—and that may well be at the top.

Abraham has virtually no background in either energy policy nor nuclear weapons production/clean-up issues—the two main functions of the U.S. Department of Energy. Instead, Abraham was a steadfast Republican party functionary, rising from chairman of the Michigan GOP to a top position in former Vice President Dan Quayle’s office to his one-term stint as Michigan Senator.

His voting record as Senator was solidly conservative and pro-nuclear, although he did send a letter expressing reservations about the DOE’s shipment of plutonium-based MOX fuel from Los Alamos, New Mexico to Canada, via Michigan. Otherwise, he supported the nuclear industry 100% of the time, and compiled a lifetime League of Conservation Voters rating (which rates Congressmembers on their environmental votes, with 100% being the top score) of just six percent. Three times, Abraham co-sponsored legislation—that went nowhere—to abolish the Department of Energy entirely. The only apparent political mission Abraham conducted on energy issues—apart from being a steadfast friend to Michigan’s auto industry—was as a Senate observer to the COP6 climate change negotiations in The Hague, where like his other Republican counterparts he did his best to undercut any climate change agreement between the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Despite his lack of energy credentials and the fact that he did not sit on a committee with jurisdiction on energy issues, Abraham reaped more in energy industry campaign contributions for his failed re-election bid than any other Senate candidate during 2000—more than $150,000. More than $43,000 of that came from nuclear power interests.

Still, Abraham’s lack of experience on energy issues has led many to believe that President Bush, and perhaps even more so Vice-President Cheney, plan to make the major decisions on energy policy themselves, leaving Abraham to carry out their directives. Already, Cheney has been appointed to lead a new White House task force on energy development; the lead staff member of that task force comes from Senator Frank Murkoswki’s pro-industry Senate Energy Committee.

Their direction seems clear: boost energy production and power plant construction of all types, including nuclear power. Although the Bush Administration has not yet formally endorsed the new Senate energy bill, we can expect to see governmental efforts to pave the way for new nuclear reactors, by further reducing public participation in reactor licensing and providing economic incentives for new power plant construction. A major effort to re-license existing reactors also is expected.

But the key issue likely will be high-level radioactive waste storage. The Department of Energy is scheduled to issue a legal suitability assessment of the proposed Yucca Mountain atomic waste dump by the end of the year. While the Clinton administration was on course to issue this assessment, there was at least a small amount of question about whether it would approve this site, which has been the subject of increasing scientific questions over its suitability. Now there is no question that the DOE will approve the site.

The biggest question now is whether, without President Clinton’s veto pen, the U.S. Senate will vote to begin moving high-level waste to Yucca Mountain before the site is actually constructed. Such a vote—dubbed the "Mobile Chernobyl" legislation--has passed every Senate since 1995, but has never been enacted into law. The nuclear industry will certainly prevail upon its backers to promote this legislation again, but given changes in the Senate, there may be, for the first time, 40 votes to defeat the bill. Under U.S. Senate rules, a minority of 40 Senators can "filibuster" any bill, and prevent it from being voted upon.

But environmentalists cannot count on politicians anymore. Already, they are gearing up to engage in massive protests and civil disobedience if high-level waste casks start moving to Yucca Mountain, or to an alternative, private site on Native American land in Utah. As in the often-successful protests in Germany against high-level waste transport, their goal is to make the transports so expensive and controversial that the government can no longer afford—either economically or politically—to conduct them.

American activists have been preparing for several years for this campaign. The difference between this year and last is that this year, the transports may be coming far sooner than anyone might have believed.