FDR wanted the TVA to be ... "... forever a yardstick to prevent extortion against the public and to encourage the wider use of that servant of the people -- electric power." Dear Friend, In this Age of Privatization and Deregulation, it is perhaps heresy to suggest that sometimes public[government] ownership of utilities has any merit at all, but ... ... read the history! (www.tva.gov) Sometimes government -- our government -- MUST step into the free-market free-for-all just simply to get things which are in the public interest done. Dear Friend, Please permit me to commit heresy and propose an updated version of FDR's "New Deal" TVA project: A new government corporation created specifically to integrate and utilize our national nuclear energy resources for the peacetime generation of "that servant of the people -- electric power" -- nuclear power! -- [it can be] the cheapest, cleanest, and safest of our electricity generation fuel alternatives if it is so managed as such. What would the "new" government corporation do? For a start, it would assume control of the Yucca Mountain High-level Nuclear Repository project. It has been reported that the DOE has already spent more than six billion dollars just studying the Yucca Mountain site. Enough already! For six billion dollars, we could have already built the Mother of All Nuclear Storage Facilities -- plus a nuclear reprocessing plant -- plus a regional nuclear power generating complex (the low bid on the government contract to build Hoover Dam was only 48.9 million dollars -- but that was back in 1933 when times were depressed). Heresy? Is it heresy to have our Federal government get into the business of building and operating nuclear power plants? Ask the Department of Navy from whence came the money to build the Warrior-class nuclear submarines and Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers. Like it or not, the USA is a nuclear power -- we live in a nuclear world. We have just not done a very good job of applying nuclear technology to civilian uses here at home. Safety? The U.S. Navy makes the claim that the technicians who operate the power plants onboard the nuclear subs are subjected to less radiation during a two-month underwater cruise than they would have been subjected to by background (natural) radiation during the same period had they been stationed stateside! Those claims are undoubtedly true. Could the U.S. Government (the new nuclear corporation based upon the TVA example) obtain a "permit" to build a nuclear power plant complex on Federal land at Yucca Mountain? One supposes that if they wished to do so, then obtaining a permit would be almost as difficult as obtaining the harbour-master's permission to dock a nuclear sub at San Diego -- no problem. Perhaps the real problem with the lagging pace of peacetime nuclear energy usage here in the USA lies in the fact that our government has not taken a strong leadership role in getting it done -- the private sector has not had a "yardstick" by which to gauge its own progress. We complain about our dependence upon foreign oil, but we do nothing to relieve that dependence. We complain about our "dirty" air, and yet we suffer through all the smog alert days hoping for it to clear tomorrow. France, on the other hand, has today about 80% of its electricity generated by nuclear power and also has the cleanest air in Europe -- plus they have reduced their dependence upon imported oil during the same time frame (these last 20 years) in which we have increased our own dependence. Does our energy policy make better sense than the French policy? Pease, please take some time to visit the TVA website (www.tva.gov) -- and -- if after reading the TVA history you agree with me that history does repeat and that once again it is time for government action to either give OR APPLY a yardstick to the utility industry, then let your elected representatives in Congress know. Even if you may disagree with me about Yucca Mountain and nuclear energy, let us do agree to be proactive about getting our country back on track towards a rational energy policy. Like Nevada's popular Judge Mills Lane might say, "Let's get it on!" Sincerely yours, Buddy M. Beard Sparks, Nevada 03/02/01