Support for nuclear power, offshore drilling and "clean coal" are making long-time environmentalists think twice about their support of Obama. The New York Times has a piece up today, "Environmental Advocates Are Cooling on Obama," that makes just that point, quoting representatives of the Center for American Progress, Friends of the Earth and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Environmental advocates largely remained silent late last year as Mr. Obama all but abandoned his quest for sweeping climate change legislation and began to reach out to Republicans to enact less ambitious clean energy measures.
But the grumbling of the greens has grown louder in recent weeks as Mr. Obama has embraced nuclear power, offshore oil drilling and “clean coal” as keystones of his energy policy. And some environmentalists have expressed concern that the president may be sacrificing too much to placate Republicans and the well-financed energy lobbies.
Obama has been abysmal in leading on environmental issues. Talk is cheap. Money talks.
Employees of the Exelon Corporation, the Chicago-based utility that is the largest operator of nuclear plants in the United States, have been among Mr. Obama’s biggest campaign donors, giving more than $330,000 over his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
According to the Center for Biodiversity, the adminstration's failure to classify the polar bear as endangered is a critical misstep. Polar Bears International says that scientists reported :
that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, eight are declining, three are stable, one is increasing, and seven have insufficient data on which to base a decision—this is a change from five that were declining in 2005, five that were stable, and two that were increasing. During the meeting, delegates renewed their conclusion from previous meetings that the greatest conservation challenge to the polar bear is ecological change in the Arctic related to climate warming.
According to the Times, Bill Snape, senior counsel for the Center for Biodiversity, says, “You can’t get anything right, unless you get the polar bear right.”
As for clean coal, Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who has supported the administration, expressed disappointment in the president’s new focus on nuclear power and his mention in the State of the Union address of “clean coal technologies.” She knows, as do most of us, that there is no such thing as "clean coal." It does not exist.
Nuclear? Obama announced Monday $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees for two new large reactors in Georgia, power plants owned by Georgia Power, which has already stated that it will raise rates to build the plants.
Meanwhile, no one has come up with a realistic plan for storing spent nuclear fuel, which must be transported across the country on Interstate highways to reach its eventual destination. We are looking at an enormous catastrophe, potentially greater than the Tennessee coal sludge flood, but then, no one cared about that, either.
Then there's climate change, which the administration seems to have decided is too big an issue to tackle while health care is still on the table. But it's not going away. Glaciers are still melting, seas are becoming more acidic, species are dying or adapting (and not in a good way.)
I worked for Obama, I voted for Obama, I cried when Obama got elected. Now? I'm just glad I'm 54 and won't have to live to see the results of the actions of these politicians who care more about political contributions than they do about the world their children will inherit.