{"id":4644,"date":"2011-08-23T07:43:04","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T11:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4644"},"modified":"2011-08-23T07:55:34","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T11:55:34","slug":"morning-read-north-country-lawmakers-in-retreat-on-obama-nuke-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/08\/23\/morning-read-north-country-lawmakers-in-retreat-on-obama-nuke-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read: North Country lawmakers in retreat on Obama, nuke power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congressmen Bill Owens and Chris Gibson are both doing a bit of backpedaling this week on issues once near and dear to their hearts.\u00a0 For Owens, it is his allegiance to President Barack Obama that is now in play, as the Watertown Daily Times reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy view of this is that the election is going to come down to the economy and who has the better jobs plan,\u201d Mr. Owens said. \u201cThat\u2019s ultimately what people are concerned about. I\u2019m going to wait and see what everybody comes forward with.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s a remarkable posture for one of the few members of congress who, arguably, arrived in Washington on Barack Obama’s coattails.\u00a0 Owens won his first (special) election when the tide of Obamamania was still running high.<\/p>\n

The Democrat from Plattsburgh still offered guarded praise for the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s done a good job under very, very difficult circumstances. I think that, again, what I would have changed is the emphasis on the working activity inside the administration.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, now the president’s poll numbers are plummeting, as sour economic news continues…<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Glens Falls Post Star is reporting that Rep. Chris Gibson<\/a> is backing away from his embrace of a new nuclear power plant in his district, which stretches from Poughkeepsie to Saranac Lake.<\/p>\n

“After I studied this in detail, it was clear to me that where we can make an impact at the federal, state and local level is with transmission,” Gibson said during an interview at his Glens Falls district office on Monday.<\/p>\n

Limited transmission capacity, which causes connectivity congestion in transmitting electricity to and around the region, is a large contributor to high electric costs locally, economic development officials have said.<\/p>\n

“So if you were to build a plant, and you don’t have a means to convey it, you are nowhere,” Gibson said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nuclear power was one of Gibson’s signature issues during his campaign, and in the months that followed his victory.\u00a0 But then the tsunami hit Japan’s Fukushima reactor and the momentum for nuke power in the US faltered.<\/p>\n

The Republican from Kinderhook says he still supports construction of reactors in southern states.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressmen Bill Owens and Chris Gibson are both doing a bit of backpedaling this week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4645,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4644\/revisions\/4645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}