Nuclear power companies are asking the Obama administration to set up a blue-ribbon panel to consider new ways to handle the 58,000 metric tons of U.S. commercial nuclear waste now piling up at power plants across the nation.
By law, the Energy Department was required to take possession of the radioactive waste beginning in 1998. But work on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada has been repeatedly delayed. Now aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid say that Obama has promised to "help kill" the Yucca facility. Is reprocessing part of the answer?
-- Margaret Kriz, NationalJournal.com
13 responses: Margaret Kriz, Kevin Knobloch, Marvin Fertel, Margaret Kriz, Paul Portney, David Kreutzer, Barry Russell, Margaret Kriz, Jim Kerr, Chuck Gray, David Kreutzer, Thomas Gibson, Marvin Fertel
NOTE: This week's discussion is taking place in conjunction with NationalJournal.com's Transportation expert blog.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is promising to pass global warming legislation through his panel by Memorial Day. As lawmakers begin to craft a climate change package, how should they design a cap-and-trade program to control greenhouse gases from the transportation sector?
What part of the fuel chain should be forced to obtain emission allowances? Should revenues from transportation sources be returned to the industry to help companies reduce their greenhouse gases? And if so, how?
-- Margaret Kriz and Lisa Caruso, NationalJournal.com
Should Congress require electric companies to use more renewable sources of power?
President Obama favors requiring electric generating companies to produce 25 percent of their power from renewable sources like wind and solar by 2025. House and Senate Democratic leaders are outlining their own renewable electricity bills. But more than half the states already have state-specific renewable mandates.
Is a national renewable electricity standard needed? What percentage of electricity should be renewable? What types of energy sources should be eligible to fill the standard? Should nuclear power be included in the mix? Should a federal standard replace the state programs?
-- Margaret Kriz, NationalJournal.com
16 responses: Skip Horvath, Bob Bendick, Kevin Knobloch, Marvin Fertel, Cal Dooley, Jim Kerr, Donna Harman, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Denise Bode, Bill Meadows, Chuck Gray, Thomas Gibson, Richard Revesz, Paul Dickerson, Jay Apt, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.
Should the Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency begin regulating carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, since the Supreme Court's 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling declared that the agency has that authority? Or should regulators wait for a law that explicitly controls CO2 and other greenhouse gases?
-- Margaret Kriz, NationalJournal.com
13 responses: Frances Beinecke, Kevin Knobloch, Barry Russell, Bill Meadows, David Kreutzer, Eileen Claussen, Paul Portney, Jim Kerr, Bill Kovacs, Hal Quinn, Rich Wells, Margo Thorning, Jon A. Anda
