Let the Obama Administration Know What You Think

NIRS set up a meeting for DC-based safe energy groups and the Obama energy transition team that was held on Monday, December 15. The role of the transition team is to learn about the issues the new administration will face, and especially those issues that the outgoing Bush administration is not likely to tell them about or is likely to distort.

Joining NIRS in the meeting were representatives from Physicans for Social Responsibility, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environment America, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Beyond Nuclear, and Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Representatives from Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen were unable to attend for various reasons.

We talked to six transition team leaders about a variety of issues Obama will face early in his administration, including loan guarantees for new reactors; Yucca Mountain, reprocessing and the GNEP program, the disarray in the NRC's reactor licensing process and nuclear power and climate issues, among others.

The meeting went well, the transition team was interested in everything we had to say and took copious notes, and hopefully we've opened the door for future meaningful communication with the Obama administration.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: let the Obama administration know what you think about these and other important issues. Go to change.gov (or use this link: http://change.gov/agenda/energy_and_environment_agenda /) and tell them your energy and environmental priorities. Many of you have written long, thoughtful comments on our various online petitions. Now go straight to the administration and leave your comments there too. So far, not a lot of people have commented on nuclear-related issues--let's change that now!