Word: breeders
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...reversal of the previous administration's policy on the breeder was extraordinarily sharp. It seemed as if things might really be different. The Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) ordered more than 25,000 pro-breeder pamphlets destroyed. The speeches coming out of the administration made frequent mention of alternative energy sources...
...against non-proliferation. Church called Carter's policy "a formula for nuclear isolation." Tennessee's pork-barreling delegation plus other, more conservative members of Congress who don't seem to find plutonium all that dangerous, took more blatantly pro-nuclear positions. Rep. Mike McCormick (D-Wash.), a big breeder booster, said "not developing the breeder is like saying we shouldn't have automobiles because somebody can make a Molotov cocktail out of gasoline...
...since the days of the so-called Imperial Presidency: Carter vetoed the bill in November (his first exercise of that power), but Clinch River ended up with $150 million for 1978 anyway, almost twice as much as had been voted, then vetoed. An override hadn't even been necessary. Breeder-backers Sens. Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) and Howard Baker (D-Tenn.) easily subverted the veto--and got extra appropriations to boot--by securing a General Accounting Office (GAO) report saying Carter's termination of Clinch River was "substantially inconsistent" with the project's original long-term authorization. In other words...
Particularly unsettling for those who hope to kill the breeder is the dawning understanding that the majorities that make up that guiding force are not comprised solely of members responding to special interests. Neither is it a conservative coalition. To the chagrin of anti-nuke activists, not even the breeder and its hated plutonium--much less the conventional, safer reactors--can shake up the moderates who control Congress. "We are not going to, pell-mell, rush into a 'breeder age' or 'plutonium economy' or anything else," argued classic middle-of-the-roader, Rep. John Anderson (D-Ill.) recently...
Meanwhile, the administration has given the go-ahead to studying the possibility of building a 600-900 megawatt breeder, much bigger than Clinch River. The plans include the requisite "non-proliferation study" and a Department of Energy spokesman says the government is "deferring large-scale commitment until all the facts are in," but one can't help wondering what changed Carter's attitude towards breeder technology in the space of a year. As on other energy issues, the concessions by the administration have been substantial. It seems the relationship between branches has come full circle in recent years. The President...