A news release from Southern Co., “Southern Company Receives DOE Support for Nation’s First Nuclear Units in 30 Years.” Excerpt:

ATLANTA, Feb. 16 – Southern Company today announced that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has offered its subsidiary Georgia Power a conditional commitment for loan guarantees for the construction of the nation’s first nuclear power units in more than 30 years, a move designed to help spur a renaissance in America’s nuclear industry.

“We are honored by the administration’s confidence in our ability to build the nation’s first new nuclear power plant in more than three decades,” said Southern Company CEO David Ratcliffe, following an event at which President Obama and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced the award. “It’s an important endorsement in the role nuclear power must play in diversifying our nation’s energy mix and helping to curb greenhouse gas emissions.”

President Obama and Secretary Chu announced the commitment for the loan guarantees at a news conference held at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 in Lanham, Md.  Ratcliffe was joined at the event by Georgia Power CEO Mike Garrett, Southern Company COO Tom Fanning, Southern Nuclear CEO Jim Miller and Southern Company Executive Vice President Chris Womack.

President Obama’s remarks announcing the loan guarantees today in Lanham, Md.

[Through] the Department of Energy and Secretary Chu’s leadership, we are announcing roughly $8 billion in loan guarantees to break ground on the first new nuclear plant in our country in three decades — the first new nuclear power plant in nearly three decades.  (Applause.)

It’s a plant that will create thousands of construction jobs in the next few years, and some 800 permanent jobs — well-paying permanent jobs — in the years to come.  And this is only the beginning.  My budget proposes tripling the loan guarantees we provide to help finance safe, clean nuclear facilities -– and we’ll continue to provide financing for clean energy projects here in Maryland and across America.

Department of Energy news release, “Obama Administration Announces Loan Guarantees to Construct New Nuclear Power Reactors in Georgia”

UPDATE (5:10 p.m.): From Clean Skies News, video of the President’s remarks.

President Obama is expected to announce today federal loan guarantees under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 for construction of two new reactor units at Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle in Burke, Ga., south of Augusta.

From The Atlanta Journal Constitution, “Obama to announce Georgia nuke loan guarantees today“:

An Obama official … confirmed the news to the AJC on Monday, saying the president would travel to Lanham, Md., today, where he will tour a training center that includes applications for clean energy and low-carbon technologies, including the construction of nuclear plants. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu will join the president on the tour.

AP and UPI report that the President’s trip is to a jobs training center housed at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 and the National Electrical Contractors Association site.

The Senate is expected to take up a “jobs bill” when it returns from the Presidents Day recess next week. If you’re talking jobs, policies that support nuclear power are a good way to go. From Southern Company’s website on the Plant Vogtle project:

Economic Impacts

• Up to $14 billion of investment in the state of Georgia
• 3,500 quality jobs during construction
• 800 high-paying jobs for the life of the plant
• Tax dollars to the local communities and the state over the expected 60-year life

Southern has much good information at its website, the section, “Building New Plants.”

A flurry of reporting on the presidential candidates and their votes on energy legislation in 2005. Here’s a good summary of the disputations from U.S. News.com:

Energy week continued yesterday in the presidential race. On the Democratic side, Sen. Barack Obama asserted that Sen. John McCain’s energy policies were lifted from Vice President Dick Cheney. NBC Nightly News showed Obama saying, “When George Bush took office he had an energy policy. He turned to Dick Cheney and he told Cheney, go take care of this. So, John McCain has taken a page out of the Bush-Cheney playbook.” The AP reports Obama “told an audience in Youngstown, Ohio, that the Bush energy policy, crafted in large part by Vice President Dick Cheney, an ex-oilman, tilted to provide tax breaks and favorable treatment for Big Oil and that McCain would expand oil industry tax breaks by $4 billion.” Bloomberg News quotes Obama as saying during another stop, “Here in Ohio, you’re paying nearly $3.70 a gallon for gas — two and a half times what it cost when President Bush took office. Senator McCain not only wants oil companies to keep every dime of that money, he wants to give them more.”

The Washington Post adds that McCain, however, “noted that it was Obama, not he, who had voted for” President Bush’s “2005 energy bill, which included major subsidies for oil companies. NBC Nightly News showed McCain saying, “When the energy bill came to the floor of the Senate full of goodies and breaks for the oil companies, I voted against it. Senator Obama voted for it.”

That’s right. The NAM “key voted” the 2005 energy bill, with support for H.R. 6 being marked a vote in support of manufacturing. (Key Vote letter here.) The specific vote we highlighted was Senate passage of H.R. 6, on June 28, 2005, by a vote of 85-12. Senator Obama voted aye, the NAM’s preferred position; Senator McCain voted no.

Both Senators made floor statements on the day of passage, both which read today as…non-operational.

• Senator Obama’s statement
• Senator McCain’s statement

As far as NAM voting records go, their positions on H.R. 6 were outliers. Obama supported the NAM’s position 16 percent of the time on key votes in the 109th Congress; McCain’s support was 63 percent. (Grid here.)

UPDATE (5:07 p.m.): AP covered takes a look at the 2005 vote in this story.