News from the 2007 Nuclear Energy Assembly

While we've got a skeleton crew working at NEI's offices in Washington, D.C., a significant portion of our staff has spent this week in Miami working at the 2007 Nuclear Energy Assembly, the annual meeting of the nuclear energy industry.

While the meeting concludes today, there was a lot of action yesterday, including the two speeches that traditionally serve as the centerpiece of the event. This year's theme is "The Changing Climate for Nuclear Energy," and it's more than adequately reflected in the remarks delivered by John W. Rowe and NEI's Chairman and Skip Bowman, NEI's President and CEO.

Here's an excerpt from Skip's remarks that should give you a flavor of where things are headed:

Discussion and debate over how to address climate change is dominating the policy agenda in Washington and across the country. The Nuclear Energy Institute has never taken a position on climate issues but we will, over the next several months, be working with the NEI Executive Committee and our member companies to define an appropriate policy position for the only carbon-free technology that’s available today and capable of large-scale expansion.

It may well be past time to abandon the notion that a voluntary, “best effort” approach, by itself, represents a viable policy. As the world’s largest economy and most powerful nation, the United States has a responsibility to provide leadership on critical issues with major geopolitical implications.

Click here for a press release that summarizes both speeches. For other news from NEA 2007, click here and here.

Putting together this meeting takes a tremendous amount of effort, and I want to take a moment to congratulate all of my colleagues who worked so hard to put on this event. Congratulations on a job well done.