A mailing list that I subscribe to sent out a link to a document that should be required reading – with a later test – for all presidential hopefuls. It is a comprehensive statement on nuclear policies issued by President Gerald Ford on October 28, 1976. For those without an immediate understanding of the importance of that date, it was just about a week before the fateful – for the nuclear power enterprise – 1976 election.
President Ford, whose historical legacy was cut short by doing the right thing for the country, lost that election to the “nuclear trained” engineer from Georgia. President Carter proceeded to implement every policy suggested by President Ford that limited the development of nuclear power and nuclear fuel recycling, but he ignored every policy and statement that emphasized the importance of balancing the limitations required against the enormous benefits that could be gained by continued development and encouraged construction.
You can find a scanned copy of the document at http://www.nci.org/new/pu-repro/ford76/index.htm
Since I think that all important documents deserve to be eventually placed on the web in a format that can be searched, I practiced my typing skills by transcribing the document for the Atomic Insights Guest column. Since the original is a U.S. Government document, I figured that the copyright issue was not a big deal. You can find the typed version at http://www.atomicinsights.com/Guests/PF_10-28-1976.html
