What’s WHEJAC? The advisory group was established in January through a climate-related executive order (Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad) to increase the federal government’s efforts to address environmental injustice. The panel members were named on March 29 and include cochairs Richard Moore, cofounder and co-coordinator of the Los Jardines Institute, and Peggy Shepard, cofounder and executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice. In a statement on the WHEJAC membership announcement, Vice President Harris said, “This historic White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council will ensure that our administration’s work is informed by the insights, expertise, and lived experience of environmental justice leaders from across the nation.”
Calm down: While WHEJAC’s advice on nuclear procurement might inform, it stands little chance of being followed, given the support for nuclear stated elsewhere by the Biden administration. For instance, according to a fact sheet for the proposed American Jobs Plan, the White House will seek funding for the development of advanced reactors and for an energy efficiency and clean electricity standard aimed at “incentivizing more efficient use of existing infrastructure and continuing to leverage the carbon pollution–free energy provided by existing sources like nuclear and hydropower.”
Further, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has expressed an openness to federal subsidies for economically challenged nuclear power plants, and just this week, Gina McCarthy, President Biden’s climate advisor and the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, at a virtual event hosted by Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy said that “existing nuclear, as long as it’s environmentally sound and it’s permitted, is going to be absolutely essential.”
