Sharon Squassoni, a senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program, explains the conflicts of replacing oil dependency with nuclear energy.

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“Nuclear energy is not just another way to boil water,” said Charles
Ferguson, Phillip D. Reed senior fellow for science and technology at
the Council on Foreign Relations. Ferguson was part of a panel at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussion addressing
concerns about the “Nuclear Renaissance” being “glamorized” in the
next administration.

Sharon Squassoni, a senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program,
said, “to reduce dependency on foreign oil, nuclear power is not the
way… Nuclear energy only produces electricity, for now. This
inherently limits its ability to substitute for oil. In the U.S., oil
is only used for about 1.6 percent of electricity generation. When you
look at oil producing nations in the Middle East, a lot more of their
electricity generation comes from oil—it’s about in the 30 percent
range.”

Squassoni argued that in order to pursue nuclear energy, we’ll have to
live with foreign dependence. Squassoni said this is due to “the
location of uranium and the structure of nuclear fuel supply. It’s not
just uranium mining and milling. Its conversion, fuel fabrication, and
enrichment, so the structure of the nuclear supply industry is very
much concentrated in a hand full of suppliers. ”

Dr. Alan Hanson, Executive Vice President of Technologies and Used
Fuel Management of AREVA NC Inc., believes we need to diversify our
fuel supply between countries around the world. When we build nuclear
plants in foreign countries, Hanson said we should “B.O.O.: Build,
Own, Operate,” meaning until we can train their workers adequately and
with environmentally friendly culture, we should maintain operation.
This cooperation would require global interdependence on nuclear
energy.

Hanson said since a large portion of the funding for nuclear energy
comes from financing, our economy might make it hard to accomplish
such measures. He said we won’t really know the cost, competitive or
not, until after they’re built. This requires a lot of confidence in
the next administration, whose leading candidates have somewhat
similar policies on the matter.

Ferguson explained that while Obama and McCain have rather similar
policies on the need for constructing and renewing more nuclear
reactors in the next couple of decades, McCain has more specific goals
of how many reactors and where. Ferguson said the main factor they
differ on is finding nuclear waste repositories. While McCain supports
the nuclear waste repository in the Yucca Mountain ridge, Obama does
not. Ferguson also said McCain supports a market based decision on
fuel supply, while Obama wants to put funding into diversifying fuel
sources.

Erica Williams of Campus Progress Action says that youth voters are voting based on the issues, especially college affordability (0:36).

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Heather Smith, Executive Director of Rock the Vote, says that the organization has registered 2.54 million voters and expects at least 82% of them to vote in this election (0:41)

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

John Danforth, former U.S. Senator and Co-Chair of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee held a teleconference over the ACORN scandal, and offered recommendations for a fair election (19:42).

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Common Cause Regional Director of State Operations for Western States Derek Cressman is worried that there will be voting challenges or ‘cagings’ on election day (0:25).

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Citizen advocacy organization Common Cause has identified a series of concerns surround the upcoming election.

“Probably the biggest problem we’ve seen this election is troubles with people’s voter registration, where they’ll be going to the polls thinking that they are registered and told ‘sorry, we don’t have your name on the list’,” said Derek Cressman, Regional Director of State Operations for Western States for Common Cause.

Cressman partially attributes this to new voter verification policies, such as Florida’s hardline policy which states that voter registration data must exactly match other state information.

According to Cressman, there have been some instances when voters have been wrongfully removed from registration lists.

“We’re also particularly worried that in the final days before the election we’ll see practices that are known as voter challenges, where there’ll be partisan operatives at polling places challenging a voter’s eligibility.”

Cressman said that the organization is convinced that there are thousands of legitimate voters that have been wrongfully denied the ability to vote.

President of Common Cause Bob Edgar says that the organization has mobilized against these threats by sending thousands to work for the cause of fair elections and establishing the hotline “866-OurVote”, where voters can ask questions and confirm their registration status.

John Danforth, former U.S. Senator and Co-Chair of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, described the conduct of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) as “particularly outrageous,” and offered recommendations for a fair election. These included having ACORN submit their database to election authorities, reporting canvassers who turned in false information, and having the Department of Justice send criminal lawyers along with the initially planned civil rights lawyers to battleground states.

“Some say ‘well, the presence of lawyers throughout the country is itself intimidation’. We don’t understand how it can be viewed as intimidation if lawyers from the criminal division show up, but not when lawyers from the civil division showed up,” said Danforth during a McCain-Palin conference call.

“These are not people who appear in windbreakers that say FBI on the back. These are simply attorneys who are making sure the process is working well.”

Danforth noted the seriousness of the allegations against ACORN.

“When the registration system is subverted to the tune of 400,000 applications submitted by one organization, that really undermines the whole process of conducting elections.”

According to Danforth, the McCain campaign has reached out to the Obama campaign to find a joint solution to voter fraud concerns, but have been essentially been “stiffed”.

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure discussed how funding for transportation and infrastructure might stimulate the economy.

Infrastructure investments create benefits that radiate throughout the economy, said Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.). The committee pointed out that transportation and infrastructure projects create thousands of jobs domestically and also immediate benefit small businesses, local and state governments.

We have several public transit projects that are “ready-to-go,” said Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.). The discussion centered on creating a stimulus package to fund transportation projects around the country that would begin construction in 90 to 120 days.

John Irons, research and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute, testified that “the investments would go…beyond the construction industry, they would impact a wide range of industries across the country and across industries.”

The Heritage Foundation held a discussion about the post-Bush transition period in response to Senator and Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden’s remarks expecting a crisis to occur within the first six months of an Obama administration. Giving their expert opinions were Dr. James Carafano and Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation, and Clark Ervin of the Aspen Institute who was also the first Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security.

Carafano began the discussion by expressing that he “[doesn't] actually think the government is particularly vulnerable in this transition period.” The only continuity problems that may occur, he said, will be in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) if an Obama administration comes to power. He continued with the thought that DHS would be a difficultly for the Democrats because it was created since they were last in power, so “they haven’t been there” before.

Lisa Curtis is a Senior Research Fellow of the Asian Studies Center and contextualized the discussion by focusing on recent Afghan-Pakistan relations. She believes that lately the Taliban has been “emboldened” in the tribal areas of Pakistan where they have become de facto rulers and they are spreading into Afghanistan. The United States’ response to this, she said, must be an increase in troops to the region because America must gain support of the local populations there to have any sway over the Taliban.

Clark Ervin concluded the discussion with a direct dismissal of Carafano’s belief that the transition period is not a time of vulnerability. He called the transition a “heightened threat period” that needed to “close security gaps” that have been created since Sept. 11. Ervin said that another attack on American soil, particularly in regards to the current economic crisis, “would be even greater with a new attack”, especially since America is already burdened by two wars.

Despite their differences, all three panelists agreed that the Bush administration was preparing to turnover their work of the past eight years and Ervin expected “joint table topics of the outgoing Bush team and the new incoming team.”