U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, seized Friday on a comment Republican challenger Bill Flores made at a primary event that Edwards said proves Flores isn’t committed to expanding nuclear power production.

Flores, a retired oil and gas executive from Bryan, told an audience at a Feb. 20 event sponsored by the Waco Tea Party that “it’s not the federal government’s responsibility to be building those plants, or to even be loaning the money for those plants or guaranteeing the debt on those plants.”

In the week leading up to the event, the Obama administration announced a multibillion-dollar package of loan guarantees it was going to direct toward nuclear-plant construction.

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards (left) says nuclear power is a clean energy option. Bill Flores’ spokesman says Flores has changed his opinion on nuclear-power loans.

In a conference call Friday, Edwards said Flores’ remark amounted to an opposition to nuclear projects, including the planned expansion of the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Glen Rose.

Edwards said if Flores’ statement were acted upon legislatively, it would halt a national resurgence in nuclear-plant construction because new projects, by and large, were dependent on the new federal loans.

In a statement, Flores’ spokesman Matt Mackowiak said Flores changed his opinion about the federally backed loans.

Mackowiak also said government-backed loans wouldn’t be necessary if congressional Democrats had passed a comprehensive energy plan.

‘Lack of leadership’

However “as a result of their lack of leadership, federal loan guarantees are now necessary to finance some nuclear power plant projects,” Mackowiak’s statement said.

Though the Obama administration pumped money into the loan program this year, the program was created in 2005 during the Bush administration.

Edwards spokeswoman Megan Jacobs said the Flores campaign’s attempt to cast the loan program as a Democratic failure was misleading.

Nuclear companies, including Luminant, which owns Comanche Peak, have said the guaranteed loans are crucial to the industry’s expansion, which has taken shape in recent years.

“An essential part of the planning for the possible expansion of the plant is the availability of federal loan guarantees,” Luminant CEO David Campbell said in a letter to Edwards, which the campaign provided Friday.

The facility sits in the northwest corner of the congressional district, which stretches from Fort Worth’s southern suburbs through Waco and down to College Station.

Luminant officials seek a license to add two new nuclear reactors to the two already in operation, and they’ve predicted such an expansion would lead to 5,000 construction jobs and 500 permanent jobs at the facility.

Comanche Peak is one of 18 sites nationally where power companies seek to build or expand nuclear plants.

Some critics

Some environmental groups oppose new nuclear plants because of fears associated with radioactive accidents, questions about the long-term storage of radioactive waste and the possibility of getting new energy instead from renewable sources, like wind.

Opponents of Comanche Peak have also cited concerns about a terrorist strike on the facility.

Vocal supporters

Both Edwards and Flores have been vocal supporters of the expansion of nuclear power.

During a February interview before the Waco Tea Party event, Flores talked about how America could meet its growing energy needs.

“My preference would be to go more toward nuclear because it has the smallest footprint of anything and the cheapest cost in the long run,” he said.

Edwards described himself Friday as “a strong advocate of nuclear power.”

“It’s safe, and it’s clean. And it doesn’t contribute to pollution,” he said.

mshapiro@wacotrib.com

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