Pro-Nuclear Environmentalists Refuse To Recognize Center's Role in Supporting Nuclear Power

PRESIDENT’S CORNER

By Norris McDonald

The Center was the first environmental group to support nuclear power in the United States.  I was the first environmentalist in the United States to support nuclear power.  This support started in 2000 and continues to this day.  But you would never know that if you listened to environmentalists who followed in my footsteps.  Other environmentalists started coming out in support of nuclear power around 2005.  By then, I had carved a significant path of supporting nuclear power, from testifying at NRC hearings and meetings to touring nuclear power plants all over the United States.

I isolated Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York right away as the central domino of the anti-nuclear movement.  If this plant could be closed, the other dominoes would fall too.  I spoke all over New York, from the New York City Council to churches to county and civic meetings to the New York State legislature to the National Governor’s Association to national and international forums.  The Center, through its outreach arm, African American Environmentalist Association  (AAEA), currently has full party status in the water permit adjudication and I intend to assure that Indian Point Energy Center gets its water permit(s) and license renewal(s).  I also testified at the water permit hearing for the James Fitzpatrick nuclear plant in upstate New York.  They received their water permit(s) and license renewal. 

I toured the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor facility 40 miles northwest of Beijing in China in 2007.  And I toured the Daya Bay nuclear facility in Guangdong, China.  I toured France’s newest nuclear plant in Civaux, France and toured France’s LaHague reprocessing facility near Normandy in 2007.  I toured Yucca Mountain in 2005.  I have toured 12 nuclear power plants throughout the United States, China and France.  All of this before most environmentalists ever publicly supported nuclear power. But do they recognize the Center’s groundbreaking work?  No.  In fact, they go out of their way to avoid recognizing the Center’s work.

Why?  And I have to be brutal here. It is part of the environmental movement’s ethic of elitism and racism.  They exclude blacks in hiring and in their distribution of resources.  Plus, they thought (think) that support might lead to notoriety and financial benefits if nuclear power is adopted as a significant global warming mitigation tool. 

The Center has led the documentation of this elitism and racism.  The old school environmentalists relish this elistist status and give lip service to diversity as, well, smug, exclusive country club-oriented lip service.  They are privately very proud of their elitism.  And very good at denying their racism.  They like to hear minorities whine about their exclusivity (as I am doing right now).  Even new school environmentalists and a recent film are intent upon keeping the Center and me invisible on the nuclear scene.  I suspect they want us to stay in the Negro sections of weatherization, green jobs and renewable energy.

Ahhh.  That felt good.  I have been meaning to get that off my chest for some time.  Oh, and nuclear power is an environmental justice issue.  The emission free nature of nuclear power mitigates air pollution issues in environmental justice communities.  {Videos} [More Videos]