TVA’s revival of nuclear power plant construction can’t come soon enough, Tennessee Valley lawmakers said today.

 

“Time is a wastin,’ “ U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told nearly 500 business and government leaders gathered here for this year’s Tennessee Valley Corridor summit. “I think we’re in a period where we need to have a renewal of new nuclear power in America.”

 

Sen. Sessions praised the Tennessee Valley Authority for restarting its oldest reactor last year at the nearby Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, claiming it should be “a cash register” for the federal utility. He also urged that TVA not only follow through with plans to build two new reactors at the Bellefonte site in Hollywood, Ala., but he also urged TVA to finish the old reactors it scrapped two years ago.

 

Sen. Sessions support for more nuclear power generation was echoed during the 2-day conference here by U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and by U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Chattanooga, who started the Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor after he was first elected to Congress in 1995.

 

Rep. Wamp also said TVA is uniquely positioned as a federal agency to work with the U.S. Department of Energy for a nuclear fuel recycling facility in Oak Ridge.

 

“We can be a leader in this Valley in not only producing nuclear power but in recycling its wastes,” Rep. Wamp said today.