Condi, Renaissance Woman

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a great asset to the US. We are fortunate to have her represent us around the world at such a critical time.


Today in the Washington Post (via RCP) she makes the case for the recent agreement with India, on civilian nuclear cooperation. India has handled its nuclear capabilities responsibly, and as the world's largest democracy, it makes sense for us to cement our common interests.


India faces the same growing need for energy that we do, to continue to grow its economy, create jobs, and extend prosperity to more of its people. Rather than compete for energy, we can partner with India to create more.

India, a nation of a billion people, has a massive appetite for energy to meet its growing development needs. Civilian nuclear energy will make it less reliant on unstable sources of oil and gas. Our agreement will allow India to contribute to and share in the advanced technology that is needed for the future development of nuclear energy. And because nuclear energy is cleaner than fossil fuels, our agreement will also benefit the environment. A threefold increase in Indian nuclear capacity by 2015 would reduce India's projected annual CO2emissions by more than 170 million tons, about the current total emissions of the Netherlands.

Third, our agreement is good for American jobs, because it opens the door to civilian nuclear trade and cooperation between our nations. India plans to import eight nuclear reactors by 2012. If U.S. companies win just two of those reactor contracts, it will mean thousands of new jobs for American workers. We plan to expand our civilian nuclear partnership to research and development, drawing on India's technological expertise to promote a global renaissance in safe and clean nuclear power.