Hefty Bush Administration Budget Makes Big Cuts to Environmental Initiatives, Funds Nuclear Power
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 02. 8.08
Lost amidst the general kerfuffle over the Bush administration's latest budget - ringing in at a hefty $3.1 trillion - has been a clear-eyed assessment of its environmental provisions, or, more accurately, lack thereof (unless you're a fan of nuclear energy). Chief among it are requests to fund the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, the first such nuclear weapons program in 2 decades, and to begin construction of a new plutonium pit facility (necessary for building new bombs) - at the tune of $10m and $100m, respectively.
The DOE is also seeking a 79% increase in funding for its Nuclear Power 2010 program, an industry-government partnership designed to foster the construction of nuclear power facilities. The budget request would extend the period during which businesses can receive financial support for new "clean energy" plants under the 2005 energy bill's loan guarantee program - amounting to up to 80% of the incurred costs.
Unfortunately, most of the country's other environmental initiatives and monitoring programs won't be benefiting from such largess - in fact, quite the contrary:
"President Bush again has cut the budget of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, this time by $330 million to a total of $7.14 billion.
The cuts include over $270 million dollars from EPA programs that would clean up and restore lakes, rivers and streams. Global climate change research comes in at $16 million.
...
The Bush budget eliminates a $5 million EPA program to restore the San Francisco Bay. It cuts air pollution programs, including over $31 million dollars for grants to states, and eliminates a $10 million dollar program that would help clean up the air in some of California’s most polluted communities.
It eliminates funding for a new national registry to track global warming pollution."
Even Stephen Johnson, EPA Administrator and the administration's willing stooge, had trouble casting the record-cutting budget in a glowing light. Boasting that it would provide the "largest enforcement budget ever" - thanks to an (anemic) $9m bump to a $563m budget - he claimed it would help the EPA "deliver a cleaner, healthier tomorrow" and represented "government at its best" (we're not kidding).
The new budget will provide some modest boosts to nanotechnology research, an international goods tracking system and environmental reviews for new energy projects. In addition to making cuts to the Department of Interior and other government agencies, Bush's proposal would also starve funding for infrastructure projects around the country, particularly critically needed water resources infrastructure.
Via ::Environmental News Service: Bush Record-Splitting Budget Cuts Environment, Funds Nuclear Weapons (news website)
See also: ::Federal Funding for "Green Pathways Out of Poverty", ::Bush Administration Actively Gutting Environmental "Magna Carta"
At least the nuclear energy part is good; there aren't any other power sources that can deliver tremendous quantities of power with consistency, while producing very few carbon emissions.
How does he condemn Iran for its nuclear programs while funding new plutonium pits?
What about the toxic emissions?
"Plutonium 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to humans, is so toxic that one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. More than 200kg is made annually in each 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Plutonium is handled like iron in the body, and is therefore stored in the liver, where it causes liver cancer, and in the bone, where it can induce bone cancer and blood malignancies. On inhalation it causes lung cancer. It also crosses the placenta, where, like the drug thalidomide, it can cause severe congenital deformities. Plutonium has a predisposition for the testicle, where it can cause testicular cancer and induce genetic diseases in future generations. Plutonium lasts for 500,000 years, living on to induce cancer and genetic diseases in future generations of plants, animals and humans."
Source: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0415-23.htm
We need more funds for new technology research..
Funding nuclear power and 'clean coal' is exactly the wrong place to be making investments and providing incentives. Not to mention we have no need to waste yet more money on nuclear warheads, in any form.
They've also drastically cut solar and wind incentives, which can cripple these industries - again - just when they are needed most.
The invasion of Iraq has managed to double the price of oil. That's had a lot more effect than any gas tax increase would have done to focus people on conservation, efficiency and sustainable, defensible sources of power.
is nuclear power really a tremendous source of consistant energy when you factor in the strip mining of uranium, storage and transport of spent fuel(thousands of freakin years), massive energy investment in the construction of the plant itself? how much uranium is there anyways? when the price of crude climbs higher how will that affect mining? how much energy is used when something gos wrong?
The by products nuclear power produces far outweigh the benefits of using such energy!
:D
Mike
CIO - NeverBeFiredAgain.com
@matt
Nuclear power plants don't create plutonium emissions.
I do like nuclear energy... (Obvious benefits, etc...) But there is something seriously wrong here. I'm sure everyone is tired of pointing out the obvious and ENDLESS mistakes made by the bush administration. I sincerely hope history remembers their sins, and that they justly get what's coming to them.
$330 million less to the EPA...
Criminal.
True Weee; it seems the real message is getting buried under the No Nukes debate (didn't we settle that one a few decades back?)
The real crime here is the agenda of fuel that you can't make yourself and need to buy from some rich guy. YOU can harness wind, YOU can put a turbine in a stream or panels on your house, but you need a CORPORATION to make hydrogen cells or nuke plants. That's why the Bush plans always focus on nuclear, clean coal, and energy cells. They do not want easy, small energy; they want big corporate energy that pays dividends to their stock portfolios.
Until we devolve away from grid supported power to individual models, away from mass production to local sources, we continue to build in environmental issues like strip mines and holding pools. There are ways to build healthy vibrant economies around green models, but not for industrialists and corporations. Small local industries can produce niche products and thanks to the Web, market worldwide. You needn't ship worldwide; just license a new producer in areas of demand. It is this decentralization of capital that really has these guys nervous...