Leadership Quote by Judy Biggert

Biggert’s line is a politician’s neat two-step: dress an industrial policy argument in the sober language of risk management, then anchor it in household economics. The sentence doesn’t lead with climate virtue; it leads with dependence and cost. That’s deliberate. By framing “alternative, emissions-free” energy as a hedge against “costly natural gas,” she’s courting audiences who might tune out environmental appeals but perk up at price spikes, reliability fears, and the vague sense that the U.S. keeps getting played by energy markets.

The choice of “continue” is a quiet tell. It implies nuclear is not a radical pivot but an ongoing, responsible project already underway, something only negligence would interrupt. Pairing nuclear with “emissions-free” is similarly strategic: it borrows the moral capital of decarbonization while sidestepping nuclear’s cultural baggage (waste, safety, disasters) by not naming any of it. The subtext is: stop litigating the controversies; treat nuclear like infrastructure.

Contextually, this rhetoric fits the mid-2000s to early-2010s energy landscape: volatile gas prices, anxieties about import dependence, and climate politics that rewarded “clean energy” branding without requiring a direct carbon-tax fight. It also signals a coalition play. Nuclear is offered as a technocratic compromise between environmental priorities and pro-industry pragmatism, sold less as salvation than as insurance against the next fuel shock.