Sen. Pete Domenici receives Henry DeWolf Smyth Award
During the ANS/ENS International Meeting in Washington, DC, Senator Pete V. Domenici received the Henry DeWolf Smyth Nuclear Statesman Award. This award is presented by ANS and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) to recognize outstanding service in developing and guiding peaceful uses of nuclear energy. After receiving the award, Sen. Domenici offered encouraging remarks about future U.S. economic growth. He also reaffirmed that he is on board by saying, "Let's move ahead with nuclear power."
Senator Pete V. Domenici
2000 Henry De Wolf Smyth Award Acceptance Speech
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC
November 15, 2000
2000 Henry De Wolf Smyth Award Acceptance Speech
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC
November 15, 2000
First, let me thank you for this wonderful Henry De Wolf Smyth Award. From time to time, as I look back at what I have done since that speech I made at Harvard in 1997, I'm not sure I deserve it.
You have a copy of my prepared speech, but I want to supplement that tonight with other key points.
Let me tell you that there is a fascinating new concept impacting America and the rest of the world called globalization. American economic leaders are predicting a rather long and sustained American economic growth era. But they aren't too sure why it's going to be that way. Some talk about very local fiscal policy issues in America; some talk about monetary policy in America; some even talk about national budgets and how budget policies are shaping our future.
But just to show you that we really don't quite understand what we're doing, we got a big surprise about 10 days ago when we got a preliminary staff-level report from the Congressional Budget Office. They're re- evaluating the growth for America's economy for the next decade. They've moved their estimates of our real growth rate - in your terms as scientists, rather significantly - even though the changes don't sound like much. The CBO moved that rate from about 2.7 percent annually for the next decade to 3.3 percent.
Do you know what that little change does to the surpluses you've been hearing about? It adds $1 trillion to the surplus that America will have in our budgeting for the next decade. Just think of that. We thought we were in terrible shape when we were looking at an economy that had us $300 or $250 billion a year in the red. Then we were expecting $5.6 trillion in the black, and now we've got another trillion dollars added after this preliminary re-evaluation of America's economy by CBO and their economists. And you know, nobody has quite figured it out. But, I think Alan Greenspan is getting close!
I think we're witnessing a dramatic change in our productivity. We're using so many new machines, with such excellent technology, that our productivity is increasing faster than we can measure it. In any case, these changes from CBO indicate that we are not measuring it right.
As you know, we rely on our productivity to keep inflation under control. In America, we need that high productivity to have sustained growth without harming the economy. Productivity is a measure of the economic impact of a unit of a person's time.
Through globalization we have a real chance of dramatically impacting and raising the standards of living for many of the world's people. Today, far too many people live in countries with deplorable economic conditions. Perhaps two-thirds of all people exist with miserable standards of living, so low, that they don't even come close to what we would regard as rational or reasonable for human beings. Globalization has a real chance of affecting their standards of living, substantially, dramatically, and consistently - way beyond anything we have ever understood.
Now globalization doesn't guarantee that we'll be successful in impacting the world's standards of living, it only provides the opportunity. But we should all want to have America right out on the front lines, applying its businesses, its technology, and its workers to supplying the needs of an economically prosperous world. We should want our companies innovating and expanding to serve these new markets.
But will these new markets really exist? Will the rest of the world develop the standards of living to benefit from our advanced technologies? One of the biggest factors in determining their success will be their access to energy.
It is very plausible to assume that the environment and globalization will come into conflict. As globalization leads to economic growth in developing nations, there will be heightened concern with environmental issues, like air quality or pollution of water supplies. These tensions will be inevitable as we experience significant economic growth globally. But in my book, these tensions are fine, we just need to convince ourselves and everyone else that we want our world to experience economic growth, that we want poor people all over the world to share in our levels of economic prosperity. And, if we set our minds to it, we can ensure that they realize these goals with energy sources and other appropriate technologies that we've developed, which do not insult the environment.
We won't realize this vision without an energy source that is clean - that will supply basic energy needs without running headlong into environmental opposition. But if we continue to rely on the same mix of energy sources and technologies that we use today, we will all run into two problems. Namely, the world will be controlled by those who have oil under their happy ground, and further controlled by those who decide how much fossil energy can be used for growth and prosperity without crossing limits they've set on environmental damage.
I could spend my time with you tonight going through the progress on our efforts for a rebirth of nuclear energy since my speech at Harvard three years ago. I'm very, very thrilled to know that so many of you read and know about that speech. But you probably know a fair bit about that progress anyway, or you can read it in the prepared speech for tonight. So, I'm not going to go though those accomplishments because I want to leave you with one big idea tonight, namely, that nuclear is coming back.
Nuclear is coming back because we are moving ahead in the science, and the technology, and the practicality of nuclear energy in this very, very difficult economic world. In the audience here tonight there are entrepreneurs, serious business people, whom you should really welcome. That's because, for a change, there are business people here in America talking about making an economic "go" of nuclear power. They're talking about how they might be seriously interested in getting the next generation of nuclear power plants on line. They are seriously working through our regulatory processes to get approval for new business arrangements.
This is dynamite, friends, especially as compared to three or four years ago when everyone in this business was under the table, frightened to death. At least, that was true here in America. It wasn't true in France, or Japan, or other places, only here. Now we've got some American investors that are out, front and center, talking about the future of nuclear power. That future may involve some new technology, something radically different from a light water reactor, although there are people who think the light water reactors are still the ones of choice. I'm not choosing sides. I'm merely saying, let's move ahead and let's be bold about it. Let's not apologize for what we have to contribute to a great new era, not just for America, but for the world. If we succeed, America can help the whole world grow in prosperity and we'll maintain our global leadership!
Do you know what could happen? The next CBO Director, seven years from now, in their ten-year cycle, may re-estimate the growth rate in America and say it's not going to grow at 3.3 percent. No, I think that director will say it's growing at a 4 to 4.5 percent rate, because our prosperity will be driven by the world's economic growth. This will be true, if we just don't let our country get entangled in whether or not globalization and our participation in it is good or not.
Now I'd bet that you chose the date for this conference very carefully, so we could be discussing here tonight the role that the new President will play in the vision I've outlined. I'm very sorry, that you have to hear my speech without knowing whether we're going to have a President who's not interested in nuclear power at all.
I want to recommit to you that, in spite of my responsibilities in many areas that take a lot of my time and energy, I'm on board saying , "Let's move ahead with nuclear power." There's not a big group of people in the Congress that are anxious to stick their necks out with me on this statement. But I can tell you that it's getting better. There are a number of Senators who have walked up to me after we've talked about this and said, "count me in." In fact, I think Congress might be ready to approve some really major nuclear energy programs.
The people who have received this award ahead of me are, for the most part, much more knowledgeable on nuclear engineering and physics then I am. But I believe we would all agree that what we need now are national advocates to lead Americans away from their fears of anything that involves nuclear technology and that produces radiation. This is really an inordinate fear based upon the real risks of so many events in daily life and the real benefits that nuclear technologies provide for all of us.
Nevertheless, we have to move ahead. I think maybe the most important one of all those things we talked about at Harvard was the need for a new standard for the risks of low level radiation. We are living in a fairyland when it comes to the impact of low level radiation and what we have to do as a nation to protect ourselves from low level radiation.
I was in a hospital the other day as we walked through a big laboratory, past a sign that said "Nuclear Medicine." And I thought, "My God, if those who attack us regularly for low level radiation happened to walk through those doors, with one of the dread diseases that can be cured only with significant doses of radiation - anything but low level doses - what would they wonder?" What an irony it is that we've been talking this way about radiation for so long, and we're so frightened to confront real scientific information. But we're working on getting better radiation standards through a new DOE program that's now in its third year.
We know we're close to the Achilles heel of the anti-nuclear movement because they have come out in droves to oppose new looks at radiation standards. They come out in force on this one because if two key issues were to go our way in the next two years or so - with new radiation standards for low doses and construction of temporary storage of nuclear waste - we would make a huge stride in the direction of progress and in common sense about the world's future and the role of nuclear energy in that future. That could mean that we would have sustained growth, great jobs, and maybe our biggest issue might be where will we find all the workers we'd need in America.
In closing, I thank you again for this great award.
