Legislature places power plant on ice

After hours of cross-party negotiations, lawmakers ruled to shelve debates on the plant's budget and called a halt to all work on the plant besides safety testing.

No construction such as fuel rod installation is permitted on the project until a national referendum, according to Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng.

Ruling and opposition caucuses will both commission professionals to oversee the halt.

Project manager Taipower (台電公司) responded that they respect the Legislative Yuan's decision.

Earlier this week, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) called for a national referendum on the controversial public project. If the Legislative Yuan adopts the plan, a referendum can be held as early as July.

Questions

Earlier yesterday, some lawmakers were at work devising questions for the referendum.

The Kuomintang (KMT) caucus will allow three to five of its legislators to submit different questions within the next few days, in the interest of regional equality and fair representation, said KMT Secretary-General Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆).

“Specific phrasings are still under review,” but all versions will share a design: Questions will ask voters if they support shutting down the construction on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant.

The fate of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant may come down to semantics. Under the KMT's proposal, work on the plant will continue if the referendum fails due to low turnout. Since 2004, Taiwan has conducted six national referendums, all of which were rendered invalid due to low turnout.

DPP Version

Meanwhile, the major opposition party was drafting its own referendum bill.

The referendum question should be designed to terminate construction if voter turnout doesn't meet thresholds, said former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen.

Taking up Tsai's proposal, DPP Legislator Kao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) has drafted the question, “Do you believe the government should complete the construction of Taipower's Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City's Gongliao District?”

A national referendum is valid only if over 50 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. That means 9,150,000 voters must cast a ballot, said a DPP staffer yesterday.

“We didn't need 9 million voters to pick a president, who now steers major national policies like the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant,” said the staffer on condition of anonymity.

“Why is it that when the people choose a political candidate they only need a simple majority, but when it comes to important policy, they need an absolute majority of all eligible voters?” the source continued.

Earlier yesterday, the DPP caucus had boycotted the opening session of the Legislative Yuan, calling for an amendment to the Referendum Act and the immediate halt to plant construction.

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2 Comments

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February 27, 2013    ludahai_twn@

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Another KMT trick. They hold a referendum at a time of year when passage is guaranteed to fail due to the extremely high passage thresholds put in place by the KMT. Fact is, they want it to fail and maintain the unreasonably high thresholds and hold it in the summer to ensure that result. THEN, it can't be held again for another eight years. Tricky KMT.

February 27, 2013    carltanong@

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Premier Jiang Yi-huah is absolutely right to call for a referendum for the NUKE 4.

The DPP slogan says "NO NUKE HOMELAND". The brainchild of the loser 2012 Tsai Ing Wen and now her successor DPP chairman Su Tseng-chang, both bright and intelligent, should also propose to include the complete shutdown of NUKE 1-2-3 in the referendum without any timeline for poliTICKING the clock of any election season to show their sincerity to the people NOT just political deception.

Let’s see if both bright boy and girl of the well known political party of the world who care and love Taiwanese people dearly and dare to propose it in Legislative Yuan..

But both won't. They know our economy will meltdown completely and the employment will shoot up. The DPP play game without finishing their own game.

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