Read Our Lips.

Enviro groups have a new/old fight

Three Mile Island.

Chalk River, near Ottawa, Canada.

Chernobyl.

It appears that the Bush administration has developed a new China policy and that is to burn a hole down to it. The idea that nuclear energy is the way to make the United States less oil-and natural gas-dependant is simply dangerous.

If they are serious and such initiatives are brought forward, all of the safety issues -- from potential meltdown to incidental exposure to disposal of the waste -- are again flash points for arguments.

Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview on CNN that a single location would need to be established as a national waste dump should more plants go online. May I suggest Crawford, Texas.

Of course, there's the challenge of getting the waste safely to Crawford. Perhaps the new plants could be built there as well, and the energy sent via power lines to distribution sites. This way we'll have the power and dump sites in the same location.

President Bush should not have a problem with these facilities being in his literal backyard. After all, there's no better way to lead than to prove that something you're proposing is not harmful. It would be just like when then-New York governor Hugh Carey drank a glass of PCB-laced water from the Hudson River to prove he wouldn't drop instantly from the exposure.

Something more sinister is afoot here, and environmental groups need to be gearing for the battle.

It should be obvious to anyone that just because the French have been somewhat successful and accepting of nuclear energy -- the example cited by Cheney -- Americans will not. stand for it. Vive La Difference.

What's going on here is this administration attempting to scare Americans into letting them drill for oil and gas on pristine land.

While this administration wants to develop new technology for a missile defense system, it's reaching back for old technology to secure the nation's energy future.

Environmental groups should be leading more forcefully toward renewable and alternate sources of energy. You'd think that after the energy crises of the 1970s and all of the money raised by such groups since then, that multiple, marketable and economical sources would be available by now. Conspiracy theorists can claim that one industry or another will sabotage attempts at New Age energy concepts. It's time for environmental groups to use the tax code to their advantage and bring several products of a mass scale to the marketplace.

The Bush administration claims that innovation doesn't come from government. Well, it's time the environmental lobby proved him right.