Monday, April 12, 2010
Fwd: Energy & Environment Update: NRC Decision Game Changer for Nuclear Blue Ribbon Commission
NRC Decision Game Changer for Nuclear Blue Ribbon Commission
By Jack Spencer
The Secretary of Energy's request that the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future not consider Yucca Mountain has been debatable from the beginning. After all, America's electricity ratepayers have already invested over $10 billion into the repository. And besides that, federal statute clearly states that Yucca Mountain will be the nation's repository. Whether or not that is the best policy, it is the law. Ignoring this investment and federal statute seemed like bad policy from the start.
However, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission changed what seemed to be bad policy to definitive bad policy on April 6 when it announced that it will not consider the Department of Energy's motion to withdraw its application to construct Yucca until related lawsuits, which question the legality of DOE's motion, are settled. Given that such lawsuits could take years to resolve, ignoring Yucca in light of this development would undermine the Commission's credibility. The fact is that the Commission could well finish its safety review and be prepared to authorize Yucca's construction by the time the courts finish their business and if the courts decide that DOE's motion is illegal, then any Commission recommendation that ignores Yucca would be moot.
That is not to say that the Commission was not going to consider Yucca anyway. It is made up of inquisitive professionals who clearly want to resolve a decade old problem and it is staffed by extremely intelligent and able individuals. That said, the Secretary's charge to not consider Yucca comes with considerable weight and the Commission surely would prefer to follow his guidance. However, the NRC's decision should provide the Commission with adequate justification to respectfully decline the Secretary's request to ignore Yucca.
>> Click here to read Jack Spencer's full report
Global Warming on the Hill
An Update from Heritage's Senate Relations Deputy Dan Holler
Retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens may have wiped out any momentum advocates of global warming legislation had hoped to generate. Secret negotiations continue between Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), but their plan to advance a cap-and-trade could be sidelined by a tough fight over who will replace Justice Stevens. The trio still hopes to unveil their plan by April 22, but the odds of advancing significant (and devastating) legislation seem to be slipping by the day.
For information on cap and trade, visit Heritage's Rapid Response page, which features research, commentary, blog posts, charts and additional policy resources.
Tap into your network on Facebook and invite your friends and family to join The Heritage Foundation as we educate more Americans about the dangers of a cap-and-trade system that will tax most forms of energy. Get started today at NoEnergyTax.com.
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Fwd: National Security Update - "Obama's Nuclear Agenda"
Issue in Depth:
Obama's Nuclear Agenda
On Tuesday, April 6, the Obama Administration unveiled its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), outlining America's overall nuclear strategy. While the highly anticipated NPR emphasizes updating the U.S. nuclear policy to confront the threats of nuclear terrorism and proliferation, the overarching vision of a world without nuclear weapons raises serious questions about the document's value for U.S. national security. The Obama Administration believes the NPR and recently signed New START agreement bolster its legitimacy to lead the world along the "road to zero" at this week's Nuclear Security Summit in Washington and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference next month. However, little evidence exists that U.S. arms reductions, restrictive nuclear thresholds, and questionable modernization efforts prevent the threat of nuclear proliferation. See our recent research in this week's National Security Update to see how these policies are undermining U.S. national security.
Latest Research:The Heritage Foundation: The Obama Administration's Ballistic Missile Defense Program: Treading Water in Shark-Infested Seas
The Obama Administration's plan for ballistic missile defense and its proposed FY 2011 budget for the missile defense program would leave the program treading water. At the same time, the threat of ballistic missile attack on the U.S. and its allies will continue to increase as more state and non-state actors gain and improve the missile capabilities.The Heritage Foundation: The START Treaty: Undermining National Security
After more than a year of negotiations on a follow-on to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev reached an agreement. While many arms control advocates are jubilant about a 30% reduction in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, larger questions linger.The Heritage Foundation: The START Follow-on Treaty: Questions the Senate Needs to Ask
On April 8, President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Mevedev are scheduled to sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) follow-on treaty in Prague. The new treaty will require each side to reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 and the number of strategic nuclear missile launchers and bombers to 800.The Heritage Foundation: Politics of Well-Known Japanese "Secrets" Risk American Nuclear Umbrella
On March 9, a Japanese foreign ministry panel revealed that several military agreements between Tokyo and Washington had been kept secret from the Japanese legislature and public for decades. The panel was created ostensibly to fulfill a Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) campaign pledge to improve government transparency.More Blogs:
The Foundry: New START Would Render U.S. Vulnerable to Missile Attack The Obama Administration, while acknowledging that there would be language in the preamble of New START alluding to a link between strategic offensive arms and missile defenses, asserted flatly that it would not impose any restrictions on U.S. missile defense options. The assertions have turned out to be misrepresentations.
The Foundry: Nuclear Posturing In NRO's symposium today, Clifford May notes that Iran's leaders will view the Nuclear Posture Review "as one more sign of a weakening America," and Jamie Fly argues that our self-imposed nuclear limitations will not convince Iran or North Korea to change their behavior.
The Foundry: President Obama, Why Won't You Defend Us? President Barack Obama today released five specific objectives regarding the United States' future nuclear force, but the most important objective of all – defending the United States and its allies against strategic attack – was not among them.
More Events: April 14, 2010, 12:00 PM
Location: Washington, DC
The Heritage Foundation: Iran's Nuclear Program: What Do We Know?
Iran has spurned the Obama Administration's diplomatic engagement efforts and declared itself a "nuclear state." How close is Iran to acquiring a nuclear weapons capability? How good is U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear efforts? What can be done to prevent Iran from acquiring one of the world's most terrifying weapons?
April 14, 2010, 9:00 AM
Location: Washington, DC
The Hudson Institute: Assessing the Nuclear Security Summit
This event will discuss the Nuclear Security Summit held this week in Washington, DC and its implications for the security of the world's nuclear materials.The Heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002 | 202.546.4400
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Fwd: Morning Bell: Obama is No Reagan on Nuclear Strategy
04/12/2010
Obama is No Reagan on Nuclear Strategy
Leaders from 46 nations, the most gathered together since the United Nations was formed in San Francisco in 1945, will meet over the next two days in Washington, DC. The stated goal of this Obama administration-hosted summit is laudable: keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands. Who could argue with that? And this Nuclear Security Summit comes less than a week after President Barack Obama released a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and just days after he signed a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. As many of the White House's allies pointed out last week, President Ronald Reagan wanted a world without nuclear weapons, and he also signed an arms treaty with the Soviet Union. President Obama's policy goals are just like President Reagan's. So why is anyone criticizing the White House's nuclear strategy? Because how we get to a nuke-free world matters.
Reagan knew that to eliminate the need for large nuclear arsenals, you must first start to eliminate the dependence -- both ours and others' -- on massive nuclear attack as the guarantor of security. That is why Reagan's first priority was to build up U.S. conventional forces and introduce missile defense. That allowed his negotiators to approach arms control agreements from a position of strength.
President Obama has done the exact opposite. He has cut our national defense, including acquisition of the F-22, removed missile defense installations in Eastern Europe, and cut missile defense development programs. His lawyer-like NPR weakens America's deterrence credibility by broadcasting our intention not to respond in kind if we are hit by weapons of mass destruction. And his New START agreement not only clearly links our missile defense shield with Russian missile reduction, but it also limits our own conventional weapons capabilities as well.
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