We’re used to beauty-pageant winners supporting some anodyne cause “for the sake of the children” or parroting the environmentalist movement’s narratives, but how about writing an op-ed for RealClearEnergy in support of nuclear power?
Grace Stanke, the winner of the Miss America pageant in 2023, has co-authored an article that says “nuclear energy’s role in achieving a clean energy future cannot be overlooked or understated,” but the United States’ “antiquated permitting and licensing processes” are holding the country back.
Stanke and Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions president Heather Reams write:
Just look at Georgia. It took over a decade from project conception to get Plant Vogtle Unit Three up and running, and this was the first new nuclear reactor built in the U.S. in more than 40 years. Lawmakers and the public watched as the project hit roadblock after roadblock, hindered by overburdensome regulations and licensing hurdles that translate into ballooning costs and construction delays.
Andrew Follett has written about this issue for NR in the past. Current regulations make it nearly impossible to build new nuclear reactors in the U.S., even as the need for nuclear power has become more apparent. Regulations “clearly wrecked America’s once world-leading nuclear-power industry,” Follett has written.
Stanke and Reams point to legislative efforts to cut red tape and write, “The bipartisan, bicameral focus on this matter proves what we know to be true: There is no clean future without nuclear energy, and America has an undeniable opportunity to lead the world in this nuclear energy renaissance.”
This should have been obvious all along, but the environmentalist movement has opposed nuclear energy and spread countless misconceptions about its safety record over the decades. And yet, as Kevin Williamson wrote in the cover story of the August 15, 2022 issue of National Review, “there are welcome signs of a gradual enlightenment under way.”
The latest sign: Miss America using her platform to support nuclear power. If that doesn’t make it fashionable, I don’t know what does.