Word: clinched
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Whether the lessons of Nixonian history were applied a bit too exactly in this case is unclear. What is more significant about Clinch River is the symbol it represents--a symbol not only of continued support for a strong nuclear program, but of Congress's determination to be the guiding force in the creation of a national energy policy...
What happened next suggests how much has changed 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...
...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 in an attempt to discredit the catch-phrases used against Clinch River development. Anderson, like many others, voted for proceeding with Clinch River as "an insurance policy...
...DISTRESSING to find that the Carter administration, for all the lip service it has paid to non-proliferation, now finds itself endorsing precisely the same position. The President still objects to the Clinch River project, but the arguments are now phrased in economic terms. Secretary of Energy James R. Schlesinger '50, who stood beside Nixon when he first announced plans for Clinch River and has since consistently surrounded himself with pro-nuclear staffers from the old Atomic Energy Commission, goes before Congress to speak against Clinch River on the economic terms he believes to be the government's best strategy...
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...