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Originally Posted by Undertoad
We are.
Funny thing about innovation... the Chinese will soon have the safest, most innovative nuclear power facilities in the world.
But the two major players building them are the US company Westinghouse and the French company Areva. Due to regulations the US hasn't built a plant in 30 years, but GE and Westinghouse are still major players.
(The economy for nuclear changed slightly under the B*sh administration when the B*sh DOE offered grants to recover high initial costs to build a nuke plant. They threw money at the problem, and several new plants will be built soon. But that's a temporary and expensive fix.)
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We are?
Then why arent our auto emissions standards as tough as China's? or our regulations for new coal-fired power plants?
I'm not suggesting that China is doing a better job than the US. Rather, than China is beginning to act in a reasonable manner and that it is a convenient political cop out when some of those opposed to a comprehensive, yet reasonable, US emission control regulatory program take the position that the US should not act because China is the major polluter.
I also think nuclear power should be in the mix but not at the expense of developing cleaner and renewable energy resources. And it should also regulated more than the Bush admin proposed.
BTW, it was a Bush OMB study in 2003 that found that the benefits of environmental (and other) regulations were 5 to 7 times greater than costs.:
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OMB reviewed 107 major Federal rulemakings finalized over the previous ten years (October 1, 1992 to September 30, 2002). The estimated total annual quantified benefits of these rules range from $146 billion to $230 billion, while the estimated total annual quantified costs range from $36 billion to $42 billion. The majority of the quantified benefits are attributable to a handful of clean-air rules issued by EPA pursuant to the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. (Chapter I)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/infore..._final_rpt.pdf
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But of course, the Bush EPA, DOE......ignored this OMB study in pursuit of a policy of voluntary industry self-regulation.