Ugh! The U.S. goes nuclear again

In 2008, then presidential candidate Barack Obama supported “clean coal” technology as a means of powering America, much to the chagrin of many environmentalists. Shocked, shocked, they were.

His support wasn’t all that surprising, though. Pennsylvania is the fourth-largest producer of coal in the U.S., according to the Lehigh Earth Observatory. In 2008, Obama desperately needed to win the Keystone State to ensure victory in what appeared to be a tight race. So, politics being what it is — a game of cat and mouse — Obama supported “clean coal,” even though, in reality, the technology doesn’t exist. It’s simply an ingenious marketing ploy on the part of the coal industry.

Now, in the hope of gaining Republican support for climate change legislation that would limit greenhouse gas emissions, Obama is supporting nuclear energy, the bane of environmentalists ever since the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor melted down in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the Chernobyl plant blew up in the Soviet Union in 1986.

With health reform apparently rebuffed by the insurance industry, Obama desperately needs a political victory that Democratic members of Congress can sell to their constituencies in the midterm elections this fall.

The jobs picture looks grim this year, even though the federal government is working overtime to improve it. In the economic meltdown wrought by the recent recession, too many jobs — hundreds of thousands of them — were lost, so employment is likely to remain troubling for years to come.

Democrats’ other major initiative, aside from health care reform, has for several years been climate change. Many Democratic members of Congress would like to pass legislation to limit carbon dioxide emissions from industry in order to help stave off the worst effects of global warming, like sea level rise and desertification. But, as has been the case with health reform, Democrats face stiff opposition from their Republican colleagues.