Politicians, especially democrats, bemoan america's loss of manufacturing jobs. Yet most Democrats, notably senators Obama and Biden, refuse to support two initiatives that would create hundreds of thousands of highly skilled, well-paying U.S. manufacturing and construction jobs: a new push for nuclear power plants and more oil and gas exploration and production. These jobs are not pie-in-the-sky like Obamas promise of manufacturing jobs to come from his will-o'-the-wisp calls for "alternative" non-nuclear energy sources.rnSenator McCain is supporting the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors over the next two decades. Congress has authorized $18.5 billion in loan guarantees to restart the building of nuclear power plants. Those guarantees would partially fund only three to four reactors, and even those would be problematical if construction consortiums felt Washington was getting cold feet. The concern is real: Senator Obama is opposed to doing anything new with nuclear power. Yet a renewed nuclear power program would create some 700,000 jobs in building and operating the new nuclear reactors.
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