GOP gains put nuclear power back on the table

Republicans and the nuclear power sector are hopeful that GOP control of the Senate will improve the political landscape for an industry that hasn’t opened a new generator in nearly two decades.
As Senate Democrats this week held their tenth hearing on nuclear safety since Japan’s Fukushima Daichii meltdown three years ago, Republicans and observers looked forward to a future with a more business-friendly approach to the industry.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), long a champion of nuclear power and a critic of environmental rules, is set to become chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees nuclear safety. The committee is also likely to retain nuclear fans like Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.).

“It’ll be clearly a more favorable committee, and there may be some things that we can do” to help the industry," Sessions said.

An Inhofe aide said the Obama administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have been far too adversarial to nuclear energy, hurting the industry and making it difficult to justify investments in new plants.

“When you think about federal regulations on the nuclear industry, they’ve certainly had a chilling effect lately,” the staffer said. “The NRC has been very aggressive in their regulatory agenda, proposing a number of regulations that aren’t justified from a cost-benefit standpoint and are duplicative of other regulations that are already in place.”

The aide drew a contrast between Inhofe, who wants to set a high bar for new regulations to prove they are beneficial and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the current chairwoman of the environment panel. Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have also made names for themselves as diligent advocates for nuclear safety.

Boxer has pushed for years for NRC to improve its rules on storing spent nuclear fuel, emergency response procedures for plants and seismic requirements, among other protections. Republicans and the industry have characterized her response to the Fukushima earthquake, tsunami and meltdown as an overreaction.

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