Several Iowa elected officials commented on expanding nuclear energy production Monday in light of the deteriorating situation at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. Two Iowa Republicans and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal indicated that they don’t want the cascade of events at Fukushima to derail efforts to build new nuclear power plants in Iowa. However, Democratic State Senator Joe Bolkcom called for a “pause” to more closely scrutinize the impact of a nuclear energy bill that has been on a fast track in the Iowa House and Senate.

Details and context are below, along with Representative Steve King’s comments about federal policy on nuclear power.

Companion bills in the Iowa House and Senate would allow MidAmerican Energy to start charging ratepayers for possible construction of a new nuclear power plant in Iowa. At a March 14 press conference, a reporter asked Iowa Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds whether the crisis at Fukushima could put the brakes on nuclear power development in the U.S., as happened after the Three Mile Island incident in 1979:

Reynolds said she doesn’t think that will happen again.

“No, I hope not,” Reynolds said. “I think it’s a different day. Technology is different. We’re looking at smaller facilities across the state of Iowa, so there’s a lot of opportunity there. And we need to continually research that.”

Reynolds added,

“I think we continue to move forward with that. We started this process last year with legislation. We’re taking it the next step this year,” Reynolds told reporters during a morning news conference. She said technology has changed since America faced a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island more than three decades ago, and she believes research should continue regarding the feasibility of a nuclear-generated power in Iowa.

“I think it’s a different day,” she said. “They (nuclear plants) don’t happen overnight. It’s a seven- to eight-year process in order to move towards nuclear production. I think we need to continue to look at all alternative fuels and that’s one of them. We’re doing it in a thoughtful and sustainable manner.”

In the decade or more it could take to get a nuclear power plant up and running in Iowa, we could bring more new generating capacity on line through cheaper, faster and safer methods. But I digress.

Senate Majority Leader Gronstal said today that he isn’t concerned about the Fukushima experience repeating in Iowa:

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, said the situation in Japan will probably encourage additional consideration, and if adjustments need to be made, they will be made.

There might be calls for adequate safeguards, he said this morning.

But Gronstal said the earthquake-related problems in Japan don’t cause him trepidation. The severe flooding in Cedar Rapids and Palo didn’t cause concerns for the existing plant there, he said.

Iowa is not in a high-risk earthquake or tsunami zone, so the sequence of catastrophes at Fukushima are not going to be repeated here exactly. But State Senator Joe Bolkcom called on policy-makers to look at the big picture:

Bolkcom said he agrees with U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who sits with the Democratic caucus, that there should be a temporary halt in building new U.S. nuclear power plants until the situation in Japan can be examined. He questioned whether state lawmakers should move ahead with enabling legislation for the proposed MidAmerican project given that the Iowa utility is just in the first year of a three-year feasibility study.

“This thing appears to be on a fast track. I don’t think that there’s any real rush,” Bolkcom said. “Clearly what’s happened in Japan gives people pause for the safety and, frankly, the liability for who is going to pay when there are problems.”

The Iowa City Democrat said another unanswered question regarding the building a nuclear power plant in Iowa that MidAmerican Energy officials project will cost between $2 billion and $3 billion is “what kind of rate increases are seniors and working people and businesses going to undergo to do this potentially very expensive project.”

“I think that we should pause and take a breath here and continue to pay attention to what’s going on in Japan and look at the facts on the ground here,” Bolkcom added. “The United States’ nuclear industry has been run rather safely. On the other hand, when you do have a problem, it has the potential to be catastrophic problems.”

During the first Senate subcommittee discussion on Senate Study Bill 1144, MidAmerican Energy spokesman John Davis said the proposed Iowa law changes are needed to help the company attract potential investors and spread out costs to avoid a “rate shock” that would come if customers saw a spike on their monthly utility bills once the proposed project became operational by 2020.

Private investors will never agree to foot the bill for building a new nuclear power plant without government or the public (ratepayers) covering significant costs and risks. That’s one reason nuclear power is so expensive compared to alternatives. Yet notice how self-styled taxpayer defenders like Iowans for Tax Relief are missing in action as this ripoff bill looks set to advance in the Iowa House and Senate. We’re talking about letting MidAmerican charge its customers (who are a captive market) millions or billions of dollars in rate increases before any nuclear power plant comes online. The public will cover MidAmerican’s costs whether the plant eventually is successful, or becomes a boondoggle, or never gets built at all.

According to an action alert I received yesterday from the Iowa Renewable Energy Association, the key senators leading the charge for MidAmerican’s bill are Gronstal (D, Senate district 50), Brian Schoenjahn (D, district 12), Matt McCoy (D, district 31) and Swati Dandekar (D, district 18). I-Renew notes that the bill (Senate File 390) has support from both parties, while renewable energy bills have languished this session.

The bill was written by Mid American for Mid American. […] It allows MidAm to start collecting money from ratepayers now…long before a plant may or may not be built.  It holds MidAm harmless from any negative shareholder impacts, putting the risks directly on Iowans…and much much more.  This is a very bad bill.

Senators can be reached through the Iowa Senate switchboard (515-281-3371).

On the federal level, Representative Steve King discussed nuclear power in an interview with ABC News today:

King said that while the nuclear energy crisis in Japan raises important questions about safety, it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to shelve plans to build new facilities.”This tragedy is just mammoth proportions, and America will step up to support Japan. But … I think this: I’m not with Joe Lieberman on this, that we should put a freeze on what we do. But while this is going on, our people who are experts, the engineers who engineer and design these nuclear plants — those that can go back and go through the drawings of those plants that are 40 years old and older should, I think, be giving us their professional opinions as to the risks that we might have.”

“But I wouldn’t if I were the president sign an executive order to freeze all construction of nuclear plants, as the president froze all drilling in the Gulf Coast after the [BP oil spill] disaster down there. We need to move forward, but while we’re moving forward we can also do the analysis so that we’re doing the prudent thing in the long term.”

King is among 64 U.S. House Republican cosponsors of a bill that would instruct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to “issue operating permits for 200 new commercial nuclear reactors, enough to triple current megawatt capacity, by 2040, if there are a sufficient number of qualified applicants.”

Share any relevant thoughts in this thread.

UPDATE: From the Iowa Environmental Council’s legislative news bulletin:

The Iowa House and Senate are moving quickly on legislation to promote new nuclear power in Iowa. Identical bill language has been introduced in the House (HSB 124) and Senate (SSB 1144). The legislation would require MidAmerican Energy to submit an application to build a new nuclear reactor and would provide extensive special treatment for nuclear power, including the following partial list:

– Allows MidAmerican to raise rates to pay for the plant during the application and construction process;

– Exempts nuclear power from the ‘reasonable alternative’ planning and review process that applies to all other forms of electrical generation;

– Allows MidAmerican to keep all the money it gets from increased rates, even if the company never builds the plant;

– Constrains how the regulators at the Iowa Utilities Board, and the courts, can review MidAmerican’s proposed nuclear plant.

One of the concerns about this legislation is that it creates such favorable policy for new nuclear power that it will disadvantage clean energy, including wind, solar, and energy efficiency. Iowa has made great progress realizing the economic and environmental benefits of clean energy in recent years, but there remains great untapped potential, if we can stay focused and advance the right mix of energy policy.

SECOND UPDATE: Rod Boshart reports,

Sen. Swati Dandekar, D-Marion, chairwoman of the Senate Commerce Committee, denied that Senate File 390 was on a fast track for passage, noting that a Senate subcommittee was slated to discuss the proposed measure on Thursday and she expected a third meeting would take place before the bill advances to full committee. […]

On Monday, [MidAmerican Energy spokesman John] Davis said the difference between what is happening at traditional nuclear-powered plants in Japan and the small modular reactors being envisioned for operation in Iowa epitomize the progress that has taken place in more than 40 years of technology advancements. The units that would be built in Iowa would be smaller, self-contained modules that are underground, under water and would not require active controls or human intervention to shut them down should there be a problem, he said.

Given the timing of the disaster in Japan, Davis said he was hopeful the discussion over Iowa’s future nuclear development could proceed without emotion or politics affecting the outcome. […]

Dandekar said she has received emails and telephone calls after the nuclear energy bill since the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan from Iowans concerned that the proposed legislation provide adequate authority to the Iowa Utilities Board in regulating nuclear facilities in Iowa.

“We have to be practical and look at it from a big-picture point of view,” said Dandekar, who lives about 10 miles from the Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant in Palo. “We have to be cautious and do what’s right for our citizens in protecting them. We’ll make sure that all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed.”

Even if the risk of a catastrophic failure were zero, this bill would not be a good deal for Iowa ratepayers.