Carol Browner

While the national media currently focus on the economic stimulus program of President Barack Obama, a major internal battle is shaping up between his environmental team, led by Carol Browner, who will seek a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program and a carbon tax, and his economic team, led by Larry Summers, who will almost certainly oppose such measures as having a significant deleterious effect on economic recovery. There is no doubt that the economic team will prevail.

President Obama, however, does not need either a cap-and-trade program or a carbon tax to attain his laudable air quality and greenhouse gas reduction goals. Over 40 per cent of all greenhouse gases generated in the United States emanate from coal fired power plants. A national program to begin the process of replacing coal plants with nuclear power plants would eliminate this greenhouse gas generation and likewise overwhelmingly reduce America's smog (ozone) and soot (particulate matter) pollution.

During the campaign, both President Obama and Vice President Biden spoke of an end to coal-fired power plants in America, but they were vague as to what would be the alternative power source. While both spoke of renewables such as solar and wind, neither was foolish enough to claim that solar and wind power could significantly meet the base load energy deficit left behind from the elimination of coal.

One would think that President Obama would thus readily embrace nuclear power as an alternative substitute for coal. The President, however, has never definitively supported the expansion of nuclear power in America. He has expressed his reluctance to do so due to his concern about the nuclear waste issue.