To access this article on-line: http://levine.assembly-enews.com/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=1999907113.33716.33&gen=1

Here we go again. The issue of renewing the development of nuclear power is rearing its ugly head under the guise of making California the happiest, greenest place on Earth. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing this Disney-like scenario and it needs a reality check. Nuclear power simply has no future in California's new energy era.

If Californians give nuclear power a new lease on life, we will be moving in the wrong direction and relying on false promises. Today, even during a housing and economic slump, homeowners and businesses are turning to affordable, safe, clean and dependable energy in record numbers.

The governor believes nuclear power is the answer to global warming, but nothing could be further from the truth. Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous, too expensive and cannot exist without massive taxpayer subsidies.

A vicious pollution cycle also comes with the nuclear-power package. The production process of mining uranium to fuel nuclear plants requires massive, diesel-powered machinery that grossly pollutes the air. The mined uranium would then have to be shipped to the United States in large, diesel-powered ships and reprocessed into nuclear fuel in pollution-producing coke ovens.

In the meantime, uranium resources within the United States are growing scarce and driving up prices.

We already import most of the uranium needed to run existing plants. New plants would require even more imported uranium and, for much of that, we would need to become vulnerable to unstable African dictatorships.

If that weren't enough reason to turn away from the nuclear option, there's also the massive cost — $10 billion or more — to construct a single nuclear power plant. Construction is so expensive that no utility is willing to undertake the costs and the Bush administration recently pushed through a $50 billion subsidy to assist utilities in covering the costs.

Today it would take more than a decade to get a new nuclear plant in California, factoring in the approval process, construction and getting it online. That's certainly no prescription for meeting our energy needs.

The California Legislature enacted nuclear power plant safety laws in 1976 — before the disastrous accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear plants. Those laws have served us well. Before new nuclear plants could be built in California, we would need to repeal those laws and give up the protection they provide. One of those laws prohibits construction of new nuclear plants until there is a proven means for safe disposal of the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel the plants produce.

In the 28 years since those safety laws were enacted, we have come no nearer to a solution to the nuclear-waste disposal problem today than we were then. And remember, that spent fuel has a lethal half-life of 500,000 years.

Nuclear power plants are so risky that, for the last 50 years, the federal government has had to provide liability protection for plant operators to cover potential disasters. That's not very comforting in a state like California that is laced with earthquake faults.

Nuclear power has many of the same negatives as the liquefied natural gas plant that was recently proposed off the coast of Ventura County. Both are expensive, dangerous and would divert funds from the development of safer, cleaner alternatives like geothermal, solar and wind power. I strongly opposed the LNG plant and I will strongly oppose the governor's nuclear endorsement.

— Lloyd Levine, D-Woodland Hills, Los Angeles County, is chairman of the state Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee.