R Street Institute

Op-Eds

Promising signs for energy policy after a long winter

by William Murray
May 31, 2018
Print
issues: Energy and Environment, Energy Regulatory Reform
originally published in The Hill
Growing among the weeds of Congress’ policy garden are a few sprouts of nuclear energy legislation that, if properly tended to, could lead to the blossoming of America’s carbon-free and high-tech future.

On May 24, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a 2019 spending bill that included both language on, and money for, nuclear energy research, which could help reanimate an industry that has been trapped in an overly long winter.

The Obama years were not kind to the nuclear power industry. Nuclear power was excluded from the $100 billion in tax credits spent on competing wind and solar technologies. It bore the competitive brunt of historically cheap natural gas prices and endured the adverse attention brought about by the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

 

[Read the rest of the op-ed over at The Hill]

 

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