Working to eliminate the barriers to development of nuclear power plants

(source : White House)

My administration is working to eliminate the barriers to development of nuclear power plants. Last year we invested more than $300 million in nuclear energy technologies. We want our people to understand that this generation of nuclear power plants is safe. We want people to feel comfortable about the expansion of nuclear power.

There’s regulatory uncertainty when it comes to permitting plants in the United States. You can’t expect somebody to invest a lot of money and have the regulatory process at the very end stop that capital from being deployed. It makes no sense. Just like tax policy has to be certain, so does regulatory policy have to create a sense of certainty in order to get people to invest.

So in the energy bill I signed in 2005, we began to address that uncertainty with federal risk insurance for those who build nuclear power plants. This insurance protects the builders of the first six new plants against lawsuits — we got a lot of them in America, by the way ; too many lawsuits, in my judgment — against bureaucratic obstacles and against delays beyond the — that would cause people to hesitate to participate in this program.

We’ve also launched a program called Nuclear Power 2010. Sam Bodman is in charge of all these. It’s a partnership between our industry and the U.S. government. Since we’ve started these programs, we’ve received six applications to build and operate new nuclear power plants in the United States. The paradigm is beginning to shift. And we anticipate that another 13 applications will be submitted this year.

Many of the construction projects will be supported by $18.5 billion in loan guarantees provided by the government. By the way, that’s part of a loan-guarantee projects that we got out of Congress — $18 billion for the nukes, $10 billion for renewable energy expansions in the United States. (Applause.) This will enable our plant owners — guys that are applying for loans — (laughter) — the whole purpose is, is we want to expand our nuclear power industry. And we’re taking specific actions to do it.

Georges W. Bush