Monday, May 23, 2011

North Bay Candidates for Congress Differ on Nuclear Power

May 23, 2011

North Bay congressional candidate Norman Solomon said Monday (May 23) that his position for closure of California’s two nuclear power plants means that voters will have “a clear alternative to nuclear business as usual.”

Solomon, a longtime opponent of nuclear power, has called for closure of the state’s Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear power plants.

In contrast, Solomon’s only declared opponent for Congress, Assemblyman Jared Huffman, has been equivocal about California’s nuclear power plants, saying he’d support closing them “if studies reveal that there is a risk that would warrant immediate closure” (Marin IJ, 5/8/11).

In a full-page ad that appears in the current Pacific Sun weekly newspaper, the Solomon campaign asks: “Do we really need more ‘studies’ from nuclear-friendly agencies in Washington to tell us whether nuclear power is an acceptable ‘risk’ -- particularly in earthquake country?”

The ad includes a photo of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant next to a picture of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where radioactive emissions are continuing more than two months after the accident began.

“Nuclear power is not safe or green,” the Solomon ad says. “It’s not sustainable. And its radioactive waste is not an acceptable legacy for future generations. We need a serious commitment to conservation and renewables like wind and solar.”

The full-page ad is posted here.
 

Solomon, who recently co-chaired the Commission on a Green New Deal for the North Bay, co-authored the landmark 1982 book “Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America’s Experience with Atomic Radiation,” which included an introduction by the famed pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Previously, Solomon was director of the National Citizens Hearings for Radiation Victims, held in Washington, D.C. He has been a strong opponent of nuclear power since the late 1970s, when he was a leader of a long-term campaign of public education and nonviolent civil disobedience, at one point serving 30 days in jail.

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