News

In the wake of the nuclear reactor crisis in Japan, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill says the United States should re-evaluate the risks of nuclear energy and make smart decisions going forward.

Workers in Japan are trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown by cooling overheating reactors damaged by Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

McCaskill says Ameren Missouri's Callaway Nuclear Plant is safer because it's a "pressurized water reactor", not a "boiling water reactor" like the one in Japan.

Updated 12:16 p.m. March 16, 2011 with comments from McCaskill.

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill says she is embarrassed by the recent revelation that she was reimbursed for using a private airplane to attend a political event in 2007.

The democrat's comments come a day after the Missouri Republican Party filed an ethics complaint against her.

• The Missouri House took only an hour to debate and pass the state's budget for next year. The $23 billion spending plan holds K-through-12 spending in place while cutting higher education funding by seven percent. The full Missouri House is scheduled to take up the state budget the week of March 28th, right after lawmakers return from spring break.
•  A task force focused on rural Missouri crime has recovered more than $2.5 million worth of stolen property in the past year and a half.

The House Budget Committee has quickly wrapped up work on Missouri’s state budget for Fiscal Year 2012.

The process of voting 13 budget bills out of committee is often raucous and can take several days to do.  This year, it only took an hour, with each budget bill passing overwhelmingly.

Ameren Missouri is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the company by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The suit filed in January alleges that Ameren violated the Clean Air Act by making multi-million-dollar modifications to its coal-fired power plant in Festus without installing required pollution controls and obtaining the necessary permits.