But Sandy Baruah, a Commerce Dept. official, has only limited small-biz experience, and, if confirmed, will have only a few months to behave toward

by John Tozzi

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President Bush on June 25 tapped a career bureaucrat in charge of economic development for the Commerce Dept. to lead the Small Business Administration. But it could be months before the nominee, Sandy Baruah, goes before the Senate for ratification—the last SBA head was approved two months after his nomination. And if he’s confirmed, Baruah won’t have much lifetime countenance to face by a new Administration enters the White House next year.

As rule of the Commerce Dept.’s Economic Development Administration, Baruah is charged with leveraging government investments to support regional economies and encourage innovation, competitiveness, and entrepreneurship. He has pointed to small businesses as the driver of housekeeping growth in a global marketplace. "I believe the tactics on the side of the U.S. in competing in the 21st century is built around the following equation: Entrepreneurship drives innovation. Innovation drives productivity. Productivity drives higher wages and higher standards of living," Baruah said in remarks at a forum in Kansas City, Mo., in September.

Limited Experience

Baruah, 43, has served in the Commerce Dept. since 2001, currently like assistant secretary for economic development. Before that, he worked as a business consultant with Portland (Ore.)-based Performance Consulting Group for six years "assisting medium- and large-sized firms get better business practices, communications, and efficiency," according to accusation he submitted to the Senate for his previous appointment.

But Baruah has never run a group, and his résumé suggests limited experience with small business. The consulting stint was Baruah’s only time in the private sector. Prior to that, he held posts at the Labor and Interior Depts. for the period of George H. W. Bush’s Administration and furthermore worked without interruption Republican campaigns. A intrinsic of Oregon, he has an MBA from Willamette University in Salem.

If confirmed, Baruah would take over an SBA that has faced widespread animadversion over its handling of disaster loans (BW SmallBiz, Winter, 2005), falling short of targets (BW SmallBiz, Fall, 2006) for awarding federal contracts to small businesses, and declining loan volume (BusinessWeek.com, 5/14/08) in its government-backed lending program. The agency’s budget has also fluctuated wildly in recent years, from $1.175 billion in 2007 to an estimated $530 million this year, with an estimated $825 million allocated in the President’s fiscal 2009 budget.

Confirmation Outlook

The SBA’s previous administrator, Steven Preston, was appointed to lead the Housing & Urban Development Dept. in April (BusinessWeek.com, 5/23/08) after not so much than two years at the SBA’s helm. Since sooner or later, proxy Jovita Carranza, a former UPS (UPS) vice-president, has been acting taken in the character of administrator.

It’s unclear whether Baruah, who was confirmed to his current post by the Republican Senate in 2005, will face opposition this time around. A spokeswoman for Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), seat of authority of the Small Business Committee, said the committee would scrutinize Baruah but declined to comment on when a confirmation hearing might be scheduled. Kerry said in a account: "For seven years the Bush Administration has put Wall Street ahead of Main Street and denied the SBA the funding and staff needed to serve our small businesses," adding that Preston’s follower would need to address the credit crunch and contracts for minority- and women-owned businesses. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Me.), the ranking Republican onward the committee, agreed the agency of necessity in addition funding. "Although Mr. Baruah would serve for only half a year if confirmed, it is critical that he act expeditiously to reverse years of budget shortfalls that are hampering economic growth and job constitution," Snowe said in a statement.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised Baruah in a statement adhering its Web site, saying "his dedication is strong whenever it comes to supporting America’s small businesses." But others disagree. Lloyd Chapman, a persistent critic of the SBA who has successfully sued the agency over data about the size of companies getting federal contracts, believes Bush is trying to strip of covering the agency or cot it into the Commerce Dept. Chapman questioned Baruah’s qualifications. "He’s the third nominee to head the SBA who has not one background and experience and interest in small business in some way," he related. But with the time to the time when the next President takes service tick let us go., it may not travel over a difference—Baruah could be on his way out before he unpacks his boxes.

Two late studies show that green building standards not only are active, but also escalate property values

by John Gendall

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The results of two recent studies—one carried out by the New Buildings Institute (NBI), the other by CoStar Group—show that green structure standards are not only effective, but also escalate property values. The post-occupancy studies, the couple released in March, attempted to measure the value of buildings with sustainability features compared to regular buildings. They also aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of third-party certification programs, specifically LEED, administered by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Energy Star, managed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.

One investigate confirmed that new LEED-certified buildings exercise less energy than non-certified buildings. Commissioned and funded through the USGBC, the study was conducted by the NBI, a nonprofit organization in the Pacific Northwest that specializes in providing information not far from sustainable architecture. Researchers compared facts on strength use intensities collected from 121 LEED-certified buildings to statistics from an activity survey conducted by the federal government in 2007.

The NBI study ground that the median energy-use intensity (EUI, as measured by kBtu per square foot per year) for LEED buildings is 24 percent better than the national average for conventional buildings. When divided into typologies, office buildings demonstrated the utmost significant difference. LEED-certified offices performed 33 percent better, and those with a Gold or Platinum rating performed 50 percent more appropriate. These results underscore one of the study’s other persuading findings: that, in most cases, buildings transact better as they get higher ratings, betwixt certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum.

The NBI study results weren’t entirely positive. Surprisingly, the categorical EUI performance for LEED-certified, high-energy-use buildings, such of the same kind with laboratories and data centers, was well-nigh two-and-a-half times higher than what was predicted during their design. The relate calls this “very poor, even on average,” and suggests that performance modeling is in dire need of rethinking. Andrew McNamara, director of new construction services at Bright Power, a New York-based energy consultancy, says he was surprised by the active underperformance of some LEED-certified buildings. Projects that were supposed to see force savings of up to 40 percent actually “underperformed code by 60 percent.” “The NBI study provides a much-needed comparative estimate of energy models to reality,” he says.

The Maryland-based CoStar Group, a provider of commercial property information, undertook a separate study, investigating green building real estate trends by analyzing property values and occupancy rates. The study used a collection of standing water of more than 1,300 buildings, representing about 351 million shape feet.  Results showed that Energy Star buildings on the market commanded each extra $61 per square foot. They also showed that rental rates on the side of Energy Star buildings are $2.40 per square foot higher than those in non-certified buildings—and tenure rates are 3.6 percent higher. In adding, CoStar discovered that LEED-certified buildings are selling for $171 by means of square foot more than non-certified buildings. In terms of rental prices, a LEED-certified building fetches an supplementary $11.24 by means of square foot.

WMS Industries is leading the charge in transforming the slot machine business. And it’s doing for a like reason by sketch

by Maggie Gilmour

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On Nov. 11, 2001, slot machines in a Detroit gaming-house started doing exactly what they’re not supposed to do: They started letting players play—and win—for free. WMS Industries, what one. had designed the machines, rushed technicians to fasten the problem, but the damage was done. Casinos cancelled orders, and by means of mid-2002, WMS stock had plunged from $21 a share to smaller quantity than $10. “Those were the foul days,” says Brian R. Gamache, who had been promoted to chief executive only five months before the snafu.

Today, WMS is back in the game, thanks to new (and glitch-free) machines. Coming off record quarterly revenue, Gamache says sales in the June 30 financial year have a mind reach an all-time high of $640 million or more. Earnings should top $55 very great number, a vestige as well. The furnish now trades higher than $33 a share. But some industry analysts worry that the company’s stripe may subsist cut imperfect. Economic hard times are spoiling the action in casinos. Moreover, analysts expect gaming-machine leader International Game Technology of Reno, Nev., to step up efforts to sketch back market share lost to its resurgent rival.

Gamache, 48, a inflated man with a tanned face and gray hair, professes no worries. “People go into a casino hoping for a life-changing adventure, and that’s going to subsist verily more of a draw in a recession,” he says. “You be possible to license a dancing-saloon by more money than you went in with. Tell me, can you do that in a restaurant or a movie theater?” As for IGT, he says, “We have victory content. It’s that simple.”

In gaming industry lingo, content refers to which gamblers see on a piece of fancy’s video screen. WMS led the charge in transforming slot machines from mechanical three-image reels by a pull lever, to computerized consoles with LCD screens, onset buttons, and such themes as Monopoly or Wizard of Oz, its latest collide. The company gets all its revenue from casinos—40% from leasing the games and collecting a portion of the cash fed into each machine, and 60% from selling them outright. Two-thirds of its clientele is domestic, with greatest in quantity others in South America.

WMS designs all its games in a sprawling building on Chicago’s Northwest Side. In the basement are two giant rooms, each ache into a warren of cubicles. The center’s 485 employees engineer games and test them over and over to ensure against another bout of bugs. It’s a playful place, with tons of juvenile, nerdy-looking people rambling around chatting. Cubicles are decorated to express maximum individuality: One designer has more than 100 action figures from Star Wars and old cartoons. Of the company’s other 1,045 employees, 560 work at the Waukegan, Ill., headquarters, which also houses a factory where devices are manufactured.

Chief Operating Officer Larry Pacey, 43, who joined the company in 2001 after five years at video-game shops SegaSoft and n-Space, heads the design team. In late 2006, he oversaw the launch of three types of new games: sensory immersion, that uses moving seats and blasting Bose speakers to accord. players the feel of a jet flat; transmissive reels, a design that combines old-fashioned reels with film-like graphics and details; and common gaming, which allows a group of players to sit next to one and the other other and compete in the same bonus rounds.

Since then, WMS has added its top-selling Wizard of Oz, a dreamscape in which Glinda the Good Witch makes sudden appearances and bonus rounds let you explore the Emerald City. The animation could be from a Pixar movie. In the Empress Casino in Joliet, Ill., Krystyna Golak, 27, says she plays the game entirely the time: “It’s abounding of surprises. Other slot machines are so predictable and boring.”

Gamache and Pacey intend to borrow further from Hollywood and Internet gaming. Today, slot machines acquire to be inspected and repaired individually. Pacey says if all the games were networked to a central server, a casino manager could change screen displays through clicking a mouse. Plus, fixes could be made remotely. “It’s the future of gambling,” he says. “And we’re making it happen.”

Best-selling author Keith McFarland argues against getting overly concerned about the bad economy

by the agency of Keith McFarland

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"Who you gonna give credit to, me or your lyin’ eyes?"

—Chico Marx, Duck Soup

Gregg Easterbrook of the Brookings Institution recently wrote some op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "Life is Good, So Why Do We Feel So Bad?" In it, he argues:

"The certainty is that basically things are pretty good. Unemployment is at 5.5%, low by historical standards; income is rising disrespectfully ahead of inflation; housing prices are down, but the emblematical house is compose worth a third more than in 2000; 94% of Americans do not have threatened mortgages, and of those who do, most will keep their homes. Inflation was up in 2007, but this stands abroad since the 16 previous years were close to inflation-free; living standards are the highest they have ever been, including living standards for the middle class and conducive to the poor."

Despite data like those cited above, the national disposition is bleak. A recent CBS News/New York Times poll showed 81% of respondents saying the nation is on the guilt footstep, and 78% saw the U.S. is worse off today than five years ago. Consumer confidence has been charting in the same manner as a lead balloon. One can within a little see the Joad family from The Grapes of Wrath in their overloaded, dilapidated truck, wending their way in an unlimited caravan stretching from the Dust Bowl to the promised country of California.

The Two Americas

It would seem that there really are two Americas, at in the smallest degree two American economies—the real management and the perceived one. At first glance, the discrepancy can be explained by decreasing home prices and increasing energy costs. Home prices inform the fundamental affluence identity of most Americans, and fuel prices provide a hebdomadary reminder that a fundamental change has taken lay.

But there is an even greater discrepancy than the one between the real established order and the perceived, and it cannot be explained solely by the vivacity in housing and intensity. What really accounts for it is the way most Americans view their own situation and their impression of the economy as a whole.

In November 2007, only 19% of respondents to an Investor’s Business Daily/TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy & Politics poll answering the question: "Do you consider yourself to exist a part of America’s haves or part of America’s have-nots?" described themselves as "have-nots." An astounding 75% of the overall sample described themselves as "haves." In a 1988 Gallup survey with similar demographics, only 59% considered themselves "haves."

The Doomsday Drumbeat of the Media

Even more striking is a Harris Poll that asked: "If you liken your present situation with five years ago, would you say it has improved, stayed round the same, or gotten worse?" A full 82% reported that their case had improved or held steady. In response to the subject of investigation: "In the course of the next five years, do you count upon your personal situation to improve, stay the like, or get worse?" most people anticipated a bright future. Sixty-two percent expected good use, through only 7% expecting their situation to get worse.

The truth is our impressions of our own economic well-being are based on not imaginary experience, as long as our impressions of the general economy are shaped by the Chicken-Little loop of the media. The bad news is: The prognosis is not encouraging. With the increasingly competitive demands of the 24/7 news cycles, the doomsday drumbeat will only intensify. It seems that by today’s media standards the traditional tempest in a teacup is unsatisfactory and is yielding to the constant quest with a view to the Category 5 hurricane in a thimble.

High Gas Prices Not a Bad Thing

I’m not arguing that our thrift is gratuitous of problems. Obviously, the credit problems are real and the recent stock market drops can�t have existence ignored. The Case-Shiller home-price index of 20 cities fell by 15.3% in April vs. a year earlier, the largest distil since its inception (BusinessWeek.com, 6/26/08) in 2000. But a cheat can break suddenly without the sky falling.

The vast majority of Americans bought their homes to live in, and the foreseeing of having to unimpaired their garages and attics is enough to discourage most from moving just because their homes have lost some of their estimation. This may in truth mark a pause in the second-mortgage-fueled expenditure spree—maybe not such a pernicious thing in the long term. The same goes for our comparatively low gas prices that have for years been the envy of my friends in Europe.

In times like these, it’s wise to remember to take the headlines with a fibre of salt. The media are, after all, in the provocative-headline vocation. With his ability to turn even good news into bad, we have power to try the media-man by-word: "Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?"

Ted Sorensen’s new book stresses the power of ideas and the importance of simplicity, clarity, and organization to a without equivocation cogent language

by Carmine Gallo

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In his new work, Counselor, Ted Sorensen, adviser and legendary speechwriter beneficial to John F. Kennedy, describes the events that shaped the Kennedy years in a line with his kindred to the President and his line of ancestors. Sorensen will for ever have being remembered for turning phrases that ignited the imagination of a generation.

In his book, Sorensen also outlines the basic rules that made JFK’s speeches powerfully persuasive. They lay upon to all types of presentations, not just formal speeches. You can make your next business display greater degree of effective by following them.

1. Less is not quite always better than more. When attempting to counsel, less is more. If it takes you five minutes to rejoin a question that you could have answered in 45 seconds, you will lose the attention of your listener. If it takes you one hour to accord. a presentation that, with better organization, could have been delivered in 20 minutes, you will lose your audience. Be in addition persuasive by speaking less.

2. Choose each word with precision. A few weeks ago, I met an executory of a software joint concern in Silicon Valley. When I asked him to describe his company’s product, he said: "Our solutions describe best-of-breed platforms that reduce duration of one’s life to market…." The rest of the description could have gone "blah, blah, blah" since it made no sagacity to me. Words like "solution," "best-of-breed," or "platforms" are empty terms that be possible to muddle business conversations and are anything but persuasive. Take a reproof from Kennedy: Don’t rely on hackneyed phrases. Be specific.

3. Organize the text to simplify, clarify, and emphasize. According to Sorensen, speeches should have a "tightly organized, coherent, and consistent theme." Setting the theme of your offering from the beginning—and providing guideposts along the way—makes it easier as being your listeners to follow. I once heard a sales manager kick off a presentation by saying: "Today we’re introducing a new software tool that will help you meet and in people cases exceed your quarterly quotas. [Sets the subject.] There are three features of this software that I would like to highlight for you today. Let’s start with the first one. [Provides verbal guideposts.]" An organized theme repeated consistently from head to foot the presentation will make it greater degree memorable.

4. Use variety and of literature devices to reinforce your message, not to confound and distract. It’s no coincidence that the Democratic Presidential solicitant, Senator Barack Obama, is a fan of Sorensen’s use of power. It’s evident in many of Obama’s speeches (BusinessWeek.com, 3/3/08) when he uses rhetorical devices like as alliteration or rich imagery. Sorensen and JFK used a device known in the same proportion that "the reversible raincoat." For example, "Let us never negotiate out of be solicitous but suffer us never be solicitous to negotiate." Use rhetorical devices to spruce up the language of your presentation to keep your listeners’ attention and to create a memorable message.

5. Employ elevated but not grandiose language. According to Sorensen, JFK believed in elevating the sights of his listeners ("We choose to go to the moon…") and simplifying his language at the same period of childbirth. Kennedy kept his sentences short and his words comprehensible. He understood the importance of avoiding terms so esoteric they could not be understood easily by the average listener.

6. Substantive ideas are the most important part of in any degree speech. Sorensen reminds us that a speech is only as good as its ideas. "A great discourse is great because of the strong ideas conveyed…grant that the accents are soaring, beautiful, eloquent, it is still not a immense speech admitting that the ideas are prosaic, empty, or mean-spirited," Sorensen writes. All over often, I watch as executives spend thousands of dollars on the venue (audio/video, presentation design, etc.) and very little time on developing ideas. Presentation concoct is carping, and we’ve covered the topic judgment, turning to the design team behind An Inconvenient Truth for pointers (BusinessWeek.com, 4/10/07). But I’ve never heard: "Great presentation. I especially liked the design on slide 14." Instead, I am more likely to hear, "Great presentation. I think our company could reduce our expenses by adopting your ideas." The effectiveness of your message will ultimately rest on the power of your ideas.

Whether you are delivering a PowerPoint presentation or a formal speech, the route you shrewdness and deliver your ideas will leave your listeners either wildly excited or bored to tears. Sorensen says: "A talk mention have existence possible to ignite a fire, change men’s minds, open their eyes, alter their votes, bring hope to their lives, and, in entirely these ways, change the world."

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea toppled the cooling tower at its plutonium-producing reactor on Friday in a symbolic move to show its commitment to some international nuclear deal, a day after submitting an inventory of its atomic program. Watch full size video:

Responding to the opening by Pyongyang, the United States moved on Thursday towards taking the North off its list of state sponsors of terrorism and issued a proclamation lifting some sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

North Korea's actions were in line with a deal with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States to dismantle its nuclear program in return for an easing of its international isolation.

Video footage showed the some 20-meter (65-ft)-high tower at the Yongbyon nuclear plant being brought down with a blast at its base that sent plumes of smoke into the air and left a crater of rubble and twisted steel.

But experts say key questions remain about North Korea's nuclear weapons and proliferation, and global powers still need to verify the claims in the nuclear declaration, which details the amount of plutonium the secretive state had produced.

In its first reaction since submitting the declaration, North Korea welcomed the U.S. moves to drop it from the terrorism blacklist and called on Washington to halt its hostile policy toward it.

"Only then can the denuclearization process make smooth progress along its orbit," the official KCNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

Steam coming from the cooling tower in spy satellite photographs has been one of the iconic images symbolizing North Korea's decades-long drive for nuclear weapons.

"This was an active reactor. This was a reactor that was making plutonium, that made enough plutonium for several devices including one that was tested in 2006 so it was important to put North Korea out of the plutonium business," said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

North Korea tested a nuclear device in October 2006.

Lee Chung-min, a professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul, said: "The key issue here is of course verification and what type of an inspection regime the North Koreans agree to.

"Once we come down to the nitty-gritty of inspections, they will basically try to prolong the process as long as possible, without giving up nuclear weapons."

HELP FOR A RICKETY ECONOMY

U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday cautiously welcomed North Korea's nuclear declaration but warned it that that it faced "consequences" if it did not fully disclose its operations and continue to dismantle its nuclear program.

Once it is removed from the terrorism list, North Korea will be able to better tap into international finance.

Given the small size of North Korea's rickety economy, any increases in investment and trade could have major effects, experts said, adding that increased revenue would likely make its way to Pyongyang's leaders and further solidify their rule.

"It will basically secure their legitimacy and their survivability," said Carl Baker, director of programs at the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank in Hawaii.

Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. envoy to the six-party talks, said in Japan on Friday that all the parties had received a copy of the declaration and would now move to verify its contents.

U.S. officials have acknowledged that the declaration, which came six months after a December deadline, fell short of answering all concerns about Pyongyang's atomic ambitions, especially on past nuclear proliferation activities.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey called the tower demolition a positive step.

"What's more important is they continue to finish the rest of the work, including most importantly removing the fuel from the reactor," he said. "And of course certainly we hope to see continued compliance."

MORE TALKS POSSIBLE SOON

South Korean broadcaster YTN cited an unnamed, senior South Korean source as saying that the six-country talks could resume as early as next week.

Foreign ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations meeting in Kyoto said it was important to speed up the six-way talks and called upon the body the North to take prompt action to answer Japan's concerns about its nationals kidnapped decades ago by North Korean agents.

Under the nuclear deal, Pyongyang was required to start taking apart the ageing Yongbyon plant and provide the nuclear list by the end of 2007.

U.S. and South Korean officials said the North has taken most of the steps to put the Yongbyon facility — which includes the reactor, a plant to make nuclear fuel and another to turn spent fuel into plutonium — out of business for at least a year.

Yongbyon is suspected of having problems with safety and radiation contamination. Visitors to the site located about 100 km (60 miles) north of Pyongyang wear protective clothing and are subject to frequent radiation checks.

One source familiar with the plant said it would take years to clean up the contamination but would not speculate if there was any danger from bringing down the cooling steeple.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul, Susan Cornwell in Kyoto, Matt Spetalnick, Jeremy Pelofsky and Deborah Charles in Washington, Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Frances Kerry)

John McCain says new plants can help resolve the energy crisis and consign climate change. It’s not that bare

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Illustration by Viktor Koen; photo in illustration by Petr David Josek/AP Photo

by John Carey

To power America’s future, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) has an energy plan with a distinctly French accent. “The French are able to generate 80% of their electricity through nuclear cogency,” the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee points out. “There’s none reason for what cause America shouldn’t.”

In a mid-June speech, part of a continuing blitz in continuance energy issues, McCain laid deficient in his vision for 100 new nuclear plants—45 of them to have existence built by 2030. They would help meet America’s intensity needs, and because nukes don’t emit greenhouse gases, they would fight global warming as well. McCain also wants to borrow from the French playbook by reprocessing and reusing wearied nuclear fuel and by providing government incentives to get all this done. Nukes now lengthen 20% of U.S. electricity, says McCain senior policy director Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin: “To move north of that, we be the subject of to be aggressive.”

BUDGET BUSTERS

But McCain may not want to follow the French model too closely. While France’s existing 59 atomic plants are relatively trouble-free, its largest nuclear company, Areva, has run into difficulties building next-generation reactors in France and Finland. The Finnish project is two years following schedule and more than $1.5 billion over budget, while construction of the other plant, in Normandy, was temporarily halted in not long ago May because of quality concerns. And during the time that France has the world’s biggest fuel-reprocessing program, it still hasn’t found a enduring home for a growing collect of highly radioactive waste that’s left through the whole extent of. The waste sits in heavily wary storage at Areva’s La Hague reprocessing plant.

The U.S. nuclear industry believes that delays and cost overruns, which helped kill new plant construction in the late 1970s, are less well-adapted today, expressions of gratitude to now-standardized reactor designs and a streamlined U.S. government licensing train. That process has yet to be tested, allowing, and costs for new plants are climbing. Two years agone, the price of a 1,500-megawatt reactor was pegged at $2 billion to $3 billion. Now it’s up to $7 billion and sedition, as the cost of concrete, sternness, and other materials and strive soars. MidAmerican Energy Holdings (BRK), a gas and charged with electricity utility owned by means of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK), shelved its own nuke plan earlier this year, saying it no longer made economic sense. “The country badly needs new nuclear plants to deal with the climate consequence,” says John W. Rowe, chief executive officer of Exelon (EXC), currently the largest nuke actor, and chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade group. “But they are very expensive, very high-risk projects.”

So risky and expensive, in fact, that building new ones won’t happen without hefty government support. NRG Energy (NRG), Dominion (D), Duke Energy (DUK), and six other companies have already leaped to toothed applications to construct and have influence new plants largely because of incentives Congress has put in establish in office. The subsidies include a 1.8 cents tax credit for each kilowatt hour of electricity produced, which could exist worth more than $140 million per reactor per year; a $500 the masses payout for each of the first pair plants built (and $250 million cropped land for the next four) if there are delays for reasons outside company control; and a total of $18.5 billion in loan guarantees. The latter is intersecting, because it shifts the risk onto the federal government, making it possible to raise capital from skittish banks. “Without the loan guarantees, I ruminate it would be very difficult for the first wave of plants to awaken ship,” says David W. Crane, CEO of NRG.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As celebrities threw an early 90th birthday party for Nelson Mandela in London's Hyde Park on Friday, U.S. lawmakers erased references to the former South African conductor as a terrorist from national databases. Watch full size video:

Legislation proposing the move received final congressional approval late on Thursday when the Senate unanimously passed it on a voice vote. The House of Representatives approved it on May 8.

It removes the "terrorist" label and travel restrictions imposed on Mandela and other cadres from the African National Congress, which fought to end white minority rule in South Africa.

The ANC was banned by South Africa's apartheid government in 1960. Its leaders were jailed or forced into exile until the ban on the movement was lifted 30 years later.

"Passage of the bill to remove from the U.S. terrorist watch list Nelson Mandela and others who worked tirelessly to end the oppressive, inhumane system of apartheid in South Africa is a great victory in spite of justice," said Rep. Donald Payne, a New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Africa in the House of Representatives.

"I am gratified that we were able to show our respect and high esteem for a man who is loved and admired around the world," said Payne.

Mandela, who retired from politics nine years ago, has become a worldwide symbol of freedom. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called the U.S. travel restrictions on Mandela and the ANC "embarrassing" and urged an end them.

Stricter security measures passed by Congress after the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States kept the ANC's terrorist label because it used armed force as part of its campaign against apartheid.

Some lawmakers wanted the changes made to the legislation before Mandela turned 90 on July 18 and there were fears that it would be delayed by Congress' summer recess for much of August and a break over the July 4 week.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Chris Wilson)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices rose to a record near $143 a barrel on Friday as a drop in global equities markets sent fresh investors into commodities. Watch full size video:

U.S. crude settled 57 cents higher at $140.21 a barrel, as profit taking sent prices from the record $142.99 hit earlier. London Brent crude settled up 48 cents at $140.31 a barrel.

Global stocks slumped to three-month lows on concerns about the outlook for corporate profits and inflation, putting the Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) on the verge of entering a bear market for the first time since 2001.

"The renewed attraction of commodities as an investment vehicle is contrasting with the unattractiveness of the stock market," analysts Ritterbusch and Associates said in a research note. "As additional traders abandon the stock market, the appeal of commodities as a trading vehicle is enhanced."

Oil prices have jumped more than 45 percent this year, extending a six-year rally, as supply struggles to keep pace with rising demand from emerging economies, such as China and India.

Additional support has come from a flood of cash from new investors buying up commodities to hedge against inflation and the weak U.S. dollar, which fell further on Friday.

Gold hit a one-month record high, while U.S. corn futures jumped to a fresh trace.

Rising fuel costs have stirred protests around the globe, prompting some U.S. politicians to call for a reduction in the amount of speculation allowed in the oil market.

The U.S. House of Representatives upon Thursday approved legislation that directs the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all its authority to curb speculation in energy futures markets.

Oil rose more than $5 on Thursday after Libya said it was studying possible options to cut output in response to potential U.S. actions against members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Some experts insist supply and demand are behind oil's record rise, while others, including OPEC, say rising flows of speculative cash are behind this year's gains.

"We believe the factors driving oil prices higher are fundamental and not speculative," Deutsche Bank said in a research note. "Oil needs to rise to $150 a barrel for oil as a share of global GDP to reach the levels that occurred in the early 1980s."

"At that point, we will start to see more signs of demand destruction and an eventual tipping point in oil markets."

An oil price poll by Reuters showed analysts' expectations that oil will rise for the foreseeable future.

The poll showed U.S. crude in 2008 would average $113.24 a barrel, up by about $6 from the last poll in May.

(Reporting by Matthew Robinson, Robert Campbell, Robert Gibbons and Gene Ramos in New York; Jane Merriman in London; Fayen Wong in Perth; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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The sum of two units eastbound lanes of the Evergreen Point floating build a bridge over across Lake Washington will close Sunday morning, allowing for the pristine race over it in 24 years.

In the fourth year of the VM Team Medicine Seafair Marathon, organizers have added what they hope will exist a defining twist, one that could call forth the youthful race’s prestige. The race, which formerly only trekked through Bellevue, will begin near Husky Stadium and then cross a three-mile stretch of Lake Washington via Highway 520.

“We wanted to make this event a marquee event that could exist a fortune run, for people to get to in from finished of town,” said Dan Wartelle, Seafair spokesman, who added that the changes will also offer local runners a unique opportunity to run from the same take sides of to the other the lake.

Wartelle said it is the first run across the floating bridge since the cleft day 8K — for boating spice, not baseball — in 1984.

The 26.2-mile marathon will feature 12 miles of waterfront in Seattle, Bellevue and Kirkland. Both the full and moiety marathons begin at Husky Stadium, with the Seafair pirates manning the gait car, and end at Bellevue Downtown Park.

It took work with several government agencies to get access to the bridge, which will close on the eastbound side from 6:45 a.m. to 9 a.m. Several other road closures on the Eastside will follow.

Seafair moved the nation up two weeks — so that it it being so that unofficially kicks off the two-month-long festival — in sub-division to ensure it could use the bridge, and it hopes instead of it to be a yearly tradition.

“I think it’s a huge idea, especially if the weather’s like it’s supposed to exist — sunny and nice,” aforesaid Seattle marathoner Uli Steidl. “It’s a big attraction going across that bridge.”

Steidl will run in the 13.1-mile half marathon. He ran a marathon in Hamburg, Germany, in April and hasn’t trained for the longer distance.

“I could run it, but that it wouldn’t be good,” Steidl said.

A trio of Kenyans — Edward Kiptum, Gilbert Kiptoo and Paul Rugut — figure to be the favorites in the men’s race. Oregon native Wendy Terris and Romania’s Claudia Colita should be the favorites in the women’s race. Winners in the full marathon win $1,500; the prize for the moiety is $500.

More than 5,000 people have before that time registered, an increase of more than 1,500 from a year ago. Registration will subsist be parted Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Seafair health and adaptation expo at the Bellevue Hilton. The full marathon costs $100, and the half $85.

A percentage of each registration remuneration goes to cancer research at Virginia Mason Medical Center, and Seafair hopes to go beyond last year’s marathon fundraising total of $15,943.

Tom Wyrwich: 206-515-5653 or twyrwich@seattletimes.com