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C00002 00002	.bb California needs the energy provided by nuclear plants.
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.bb California needs the energy provided by nuclear plants.

	Oil and natural gas provide 70% of the nation's energy.  The
production peaked in 1970 and has declined since despite intensified
search.  In April 1976, for the first time, the U.S. imported more
than half its oil.  Both morality and prudence require that we not
outbid poorer countries for the world's remaining oil.  The U.S. of
all countries, has the ability and obligation to be independent in
energy.  Nuclear energy and coal are the two currently available
methods of compensating for the decline in oil and natural gas.
Both must be developed.


.bb Nuclear energy is safe enough for use.

	There are 56 nuclear plants in the U.S. some operating
since the late 1950s and a similar number in other countries.
%3No%1 member of the public or employee of these plants has been
killed by radiation.  The perfect record cannot be guaranteed to
continue forever, but nuclear energy has so far been the safest
form of energy.  Remember the 26 miners killed in March and the
13 oil workers drowned in April.

	There is a possibility of an accident causing a few thousand
deaths, but this is far smaller than the 10,000 killed by a
hydroelectric dam break in Italy a few years ago or the 160,000
that might be killed if an earthquake broke Folsom Dam above
Sacramento.

	Nuclear safety has received more research and is better
understood than the safety of any other technology used today.

.bb Proposition 15 is a bad law.

	Nuclear safety is now regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission created by Congress.  It has spent hundreds of millions
of dollars on safety and it has obliged the nuclear and power
industries to spend further hundreds of millions.  It is closely
supervised by Congress and further improvements will be required
in a nationally co-ordinated program.

	In contrast, Proposition 15 requires a "full scale test"
of emergency core cooling systems, but provides no way that
whoever spent hundreds of millions on such a test could
be sure that a successful outcome would not be followed by
a suit (from anyone) declaring that test inadequate and demanding
a different one.

	Government by initiative and lawsuit is sure to be a disaster.