david lockbaum and edward lyman, members of the union of concerned scientists recount the 2011 nuclear emergency in japan at the fukushima nuclear power reactor, the story of a nuclear disaster. in "the news: a user's manual," 25 news stories are analyzed to better understand their effect on readers and viewers. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and book tv.org. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2. here's our prime time lineup for tonight. at 7 eastern, rachel sheldon talks about washington brotherhood. at 7:30, robert moraldi profiles seymour hersh. at 9 p.m. eastern, ishmael beah follows up his memoir with his novel, "radiance of tomorrow." and at 10 p.m., "after words," with john rizzo. he talks about the 30 years he sent with the cia. and we wrap up tonight's prime time programming at 11 eastern with co-authors of "the second machine age." they talk about the technological advancements that have taken other our -- over our lives and our economy. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> i was a candid

climate plan and angela anderson director of the climate energy program with the union of concerned scientists and let's get back to this. the energy transmission infrastructure of the united states was if not built certainly designed in the late nineteenth century early twentieth century. how do we move from one thousand eight hundred twentieth century energy infrastructure whether it be pipelines or trucks transporting gasoline or the electric grid is the obvious you know system to twenty first century energy systems to distribute energy appropriately twenty first century it's a great question and i think in a lot of ways we already are i think the major question is will washington in our bureaucrats catch up with the change that's going under way right now. our energy infrastructure is democratizing in a way that's starting to make it look more like the internet which you talked about in your last segment like the monopolies that existed in the past century and with with these changes where communities are take control of their own power whether it's through wind farms or solar panels on ho

even announce that the leak had happened in fact edward lyman a nuclear expert at the union of concerned scientists told the l.a. times that quote if there is airborne contamination and it involves plutonium they are going to need to get cam to decontaminate excuse me services it was in the ventilation system it could have spread to other areas and it's not just nuclear waste storage sites that are vulnerable to these types of leaks in fact just last year the same organization released a report stating that over the past three years forty of the hundred four u.s. nuclear reactors sustained at least one near miss now a near miss is when an event such as a failure of a cooling system occurs that increases the chance of a core melt down by a factor of ten forcing the nuclear regulatory commission to investigate further more last april former chairman of the n.r.c. gregory yachts co told the new york times that all of america's one hundred four reactors have safety problems that cannot be fixed and must be replaced with new technology interesting only he waited until after his time as head of the n.r.c

edwin lyman is one of the leading experts and senior global security scientist with the union of concernedtists. susan stranahan is with this. she has covered nuclear energy since she was the lead reporter for the philadelphia inquirer's coverage of the three mile island accident. talk about these parallel nuclear developments, japan with ,ts conservative prime minister despite the polls showing overwhelming opposition to anti-nuclear threat growth of nuclear power reliance is announcing up in this, and the united states is also moving this direction. >> i think these are both symptoms of the same phenomenon, which is the complacency about the nuclear industry and its dangers that was prevalent and stillushima exists today. we have japan, the new government, which is helping the people will eventually forget about the crisis they went through so they can restart the nuclear power plants that were shut down after the accident, and he united states. we have the governments all of the above energy policy, which includes more government subsidies for nuclear power. we are very concerned if the

of conservation voters, the national women's law center, the national resources defense council, people for the american way, public citizen, the sierra club, service employees international union, the union of concerned scientists, and the united steel workers, just to name a few. likewise, the administration has issued a strongly worded veto threat against this bill. it warns that the bill would impose unneeded and costly analytical and procedural requirements on agencies that would prevent them from performing their startory -- statutory duties. and for those reasons i strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time? mr. johnson: the gentleman would yield back. the chair: the gentleman from georgia yields back the remainder of his time. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. brady: just taking whatever time i may consume, very briefly, i'm surprised my friend in georgia is a good man, i'm surprised there aren't regulations about when you can send your kids up to clean their room again. look, this is just saying to washington, tell us what your goal is, how you're going to measure it, and if you achieve it, before you put this red tape on our

thank my friends at the national center for science education, the planetary society, the union of concerned scientistmy academic colleagues who helped me prepare this material. >> oh, you had help. okay, that explains it. during the debate, i tweeted, does bill nye know everything? because it sure sounds like you do. >> well, these are classic questions. and i graduate level, get your ph.d. science. this is largely elementary school science. these are not extraordinary claims -- rather, these are not extraordinary propositions. these are things that i want every elementary school graduate in the united states, and indeed in the world to be familiar with, to understand. so that he and she can move us forward. thanks very much. >> it was great to watch. you can watch the debate by going to our website, lastword.msnbc.com. or bill's website. you must watch this. and bill again, i just applaud the way you handled it, especially in the way i think you very effectively communicated with people who do not agree with you. bill, thank you very much. for joining us tonight. >> thank you, lawrence. >> coming up

environmental organization, green for all, and jeremy richardson, senior energy analyst at the union of concerned scientistss for having me. >> let me start in west virginia. how bad is it? >> awful. it's as awful as it has ever been. but then again, it's, awful for a hundred years, melissa. we've got to understand that this is a problem that the right questions haven't even gun being asked yet. what if this entire water system is compromised all the way from the water supply system to the very last hot water heater? we have no idea. what about -- and even though there's a tank regulation bill that's been introduced, what do we -- and we're going to let the industry regulate the tanks once again. i think freedom industry was inspecting their tanks, right? >> right, yeah. >> and even that tank bill doesn't take into account the 126 open seas of toxic waste that exist in west virginia, 19 in two counties alone that hold back more than -- well, one of these toxic seas holds back nearly 9 billion gallons of open toxic waste. so we're putting band-aids on cesspo cesspools. >> so this point of putting band aids o