NEI Nuclear Notes

Here’s House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) during the Q&A following his economic speech yesterday: QUESTION: The only repository for nuclear waste planned or conceived or developed for this country is Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and it is stopped dead in its tracks by [Sen.] Harry Reid (R-Nev.). If the Republicans can take back Congress, what position would the party take on opening Yucca Mountain so our nuclear reactors have someplace to put their waste? BOEHNER: Most Republicans have supported Yucca Mountain for the twenty years that I've been here and the American people would be shocked to know how much nuclear waste is laying just miles from their home. It's laying at every nuclear plant in the country and why? Because we can't get Yucca Mountain finished because it's not politically correct. We've invested tens of billions of dollars in a storage facility that's as safe as anything we're going to find. Rep. Boehner is 100% corre...

We’ve noticed several times an argument against regulating carbon emissions without actually noticing that it’s the same argument with different examples. For example, Here’s House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio): The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide. And Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.): It's plant food ... So if we decrease the use of carbon dioxide, are we not taking away plant food from the atmosphere? ... So all our good intentions could be for naught. In fact, we could be doing just the opposite of what the people who want to save the world are saying. At the time, we noted these comments lacked much in the way of logic or responsiveness to the issue. But this quote from Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) cinched it for us: “So if you put 20,000 marathoners ...

So we understand that issues around cap-and-trade are complex and those trying to wrap their minds around it – we mean legislators – may not have completely coherent positions yet. But climate change, which cap-and-trade means to mitigate, has only two major poles: either humankind is contributing to it or humankind is not contributing to it. Presumably, another perspective might be that there is a human contribution but it is not determinative, but you don’t hear that one so much. We found House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) rather endearing in his attempt, on ABC’s This Week , to pound all these poles efficiently into the ground. [George] STEPHANOPOULOS: So what is the responsible way? That's my question. What is the Republican plan to deal with carbon emissions, which every major scientific organization has said is contributing to climate change? BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost com...