April 27, 2011 San Francisco

California Senator Dianne Feinstein appeared at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco on Wednesday and was interviewed by Greg Dalton of Climate One at the Commonwealth Club. The video features excerpts from her comments covering several interrelated environmental issues including global warming, fossil fuels, clean energy, nuclear power, national parks, water, and agriculture.

Partial transcript of excerpts:

Global Warming
“I happen to believe that global warming is real. I have a constituent breakfast … and I’m surprised how many people don’t know that the atmosphere around the earth is limited, and when you put fossil fuels and carbon dioxide and methane or other things into that atmosphere they don’t dissipate, they warm the atmosphere. And we’ve had a degree of change in the last century, ever since the industrial revolution. And so the temperature of the earth is warming. And I look up at the map at the arctic, and you see for the first time in history the northwest passage open year round. You see the oceans beginning to rise, you see the weather changing which is a product too of global warming. More tornadoes, more heavy hurricanes, raindrops bigger. And you know that if we do nothing, in the next one hundred years the earth will warm from 4 to 7 degrees. It’s catastrophic if that happens.”

“And people believe that the earth is immutable, that it doesn’t change. And I say you know go back 250 million years and look at the fact that the likelihood is that there were just a single land mass, and that land mass all split apart. Based on earthquakes, based on volcanoes that the earth can change, and we can destroy the earth, unless we’re sensitive to these changes.”

“So there is no question in my mind that we need to pay attention. And the way that we need to pay attention is the development of alternatives to fossil fuels, and that can be done. And just the other day the governor signed legislation coming out of the legislature which requires a 33% renewable standard for California energy. That’s positive. And we have led the way. And California will have a cap and trade system, and I think the United States can well learn from that system.”

California’s Clean Energy Policy and Jobs
“I think that energy is the largest source of new jobs for this state. The estimate is that it can create produce a hundred thousand additional jobs. Whether its solar or wind or biofuels, a lot of experimentation at the University of California at the labs to come up with additional fuels. I went over to see the old Toyota factory which is now a Tesla factory, an all electric automobile which is very smart looking and things are happening and we have to support them, and see that the programs are in place that enable solar and wind to really develop to be a substantial share of our energy production.

Gas Tax?
“..this is not the time, when gasoline is this high, when the nation is trying to pull itself out of recession. We need to keep gasoline below the four dollar mark right now.”
…
Nuclear Power:

“We have 104 nuclear plants in this country. Two in California. About twenty three I think have the same nuclear system as the Daiichi system. I think there should be deep concern over what happened in Japan. It’s a big learning lesson.”

“I visited now the two nuclear plants. Both Diablo run by PG&E and San Onofre run by Southern California Edision and what I found there was staff very much concerned about safety. Really good staff. 1100 staff at Diablo, and 3000 staff and San Onofre, each one producing about the same amount of megawatts. ”

“However what we have is a lack of attention to the whole fuel cycle, and particularly the spent fuel cycle. Hot rods are put in pools where they remain for up to 24 years now in our state. They should remain there for five to seven years. Then they can be transferred to what are called dry casks, which are like cylinders that are made to survive – they were made as transfer products for the fuel rods to be put in and transferred into permanent nuclear storage somewhere. That was going to be Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain is no more. I believe very strongly that we need either regional or centralized nuclear fuel storage. I think it’s asking for trouble to keep hot rods in spent pools for decades and dry casks right on the site of nuclear reactors. I think they should be moved away.”
…
“What they’re finding in Japan now is that corners were cut and things were not done that should have been done.”

Offshore Drilling
[21:10] “The people of California have spoken through initiative. They do not want oil drilling off the coast. And both Senator Boxer and I respect that, and we will fight anything that’s going to put oil drilling off the coast of California.”

Ethanol Subsidies
[21:50] “Corn ethanol is not the best thing as we know, and there’s a big subsidy for ethanol. You don’t need to have these subsidies and they cost billions of dollars a year. In this respect I agree with Senator Coburn who also has a bill. We will come together and hopefully do away with the ethanol subsidies”

Report by James George