American Forum

Pam Solo

AMERICAN FORUM
By Pam Solo and Grant Smith

The reactor disaster in Fukushima is so fresh in our memories that it may seem incomprehensible to think that the history of that tragic (and still unfolding) event in Japan could ever be rewritten and distorted. But history tells us that the nuclear power industry is very adept at revising the facts about every major reactor disaster.

Consider the Three Mile Island (TMI) reactor crisis in the United States. Thanks to years of industry propaganda, many Americans now assume that the panic that followed in the wake of this near-disaster situation derailed the nuclear power industry in the United States, halting its forward momentum in its prime. (Just watch: If the industry falters after Fukushima, it will once again pin the blame on “unreasoning panic” by the public.)

Panic was not the issue after the Three Mile Island. In reality, the U.S. nuclear power industry was already dead in the water by the time of the TMI accident. The culprit was not unreasoning panic on the part of the public. What killed nuclear power more than a quarter of a century ago was cold, hard economics: Nuclear power was just too expensive to build.

Remember the promises made about nuclear power?

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AMERICAN FORUM

By Susan Shaer

The partisan split in politics is getting old and stale. Real people want real solutions to real issues, and one of the gravest is within our grasp to solve. For decades, we have been under a nuclear cloud, but world and U.S. leaders have risen to the occasion to provide safeguards.

The United States and Russia maintain over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal of some 23,000 nuclear weapons. The original Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between our two countries that has provided for inspections and monitoring of these weapons expired nearly a year ago. The Senate now must ratify the New START treaty by a 2/3 margin (67 votes) to preserve the security protections of on-the-ground intelligence we have relied upon.

You may well ask what is taking our Senators so long? Sometimes the only solutions can be provided by government at the highest levels. The old START treaty was backed by Ronald Reagan, Bush I, Clinton. and now President Obama backs New START. Kennedy and Nixon supported efforts to curb nuclear proliferation. Bush II relied on START verification issues for his treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions (SORT), better known as the Moscow Treaty. The mandate for strategic arms reduction appears to be bi-partisan and firm.


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