Following a resounding primary win Tuesday, Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, is running for a third term in November against state Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile.

A frequent visitor to Huntsville, Sessions was here recently calling for more nuclear power plant construction and a national Apollo-like effort to transform national energy policy.

A native of Hybart in South Alabama, Sessions earned a law degree from the University of Alabama in 1973. He later served for 12 years as U.S. attorney and then as Alabama's attorney general, before being elected to the Senate in 1996.

His committee assignments include work on the armed services, budget, judiciary and energy and natural resources committees. He has been outspoken on issues ranging from the confirmation process for judicial candidates to repealing the estate tax to immigration.

Business writer Brian Lawson spoke with Sessions, 61, recently at the Von Braun Center during the Tennessee Valley Corridor National Summit. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

You've talked about a nuclear power renaissance in the U.S. That may be upon us. Why?

Nothing clears the mind so well as the absence of alternatives. Nuclear power is American-based. It helps our national security. It's competitive cost-wise. It emits no pollutants in the air, whether NOx (nitrogen oxide) and SOx (sulfur dioxide) and mercury. And it 100 percent meets our global warming goals, which is to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide).

Twenty percent of our electricity today is nuclear, and we haven't built a new plant in 30 years. France, Japan are heavily committed to nuclear power, and it's paying off for them. Britain just announced five new nuclear plants.

We're running behind here. And there's this tremendous possibility that baseload nuclear power, particularly in the night off-peak time, could charge automobile batteries, so we would run our automobiles without any fossil fuel being burned. And could create hydrogen that could be in a new fuel-cell hydrogen automobile.

Are we at that tipping point where those new plants are going to happen?

Yeah. I think the American people are far more supportive of nuclear power than politicians think. Polling data show that. And it's not even "not in my backyard," because all the people around Scottsboro want to see the NuStart (Bellefonte) plant built.

There's no real sizable opposition to that locally. We passed legislation two years ago that really helped. We now look forward to a formal licensing request for as many as 30 new plants. Two years ago there were zero requests for licensing for new plants.

You've also spoken in favor of building a nuclear materials reprocessing facility in the Tennessee Valley. Some question the wisdom of bringing radioactive waste here. What's the advantage of building such a plant?

Reprocessing facilities are proven to be safe. They're being utilized in Russia, France, England and Japan right now. It is a technologically advanced process that could have 2,000 jobs, and the waste would not be thrown out on the ground. It will be carefully handled.

It doesn't blow up. It has no ability - if you're not real close to it - to harm anyone. When it's properly secured, it would not be dangerous. It's a proven procedure.

I'm pleased TVA has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Energy to look to some new methods of processing spent nuclear fuel. That's the only thing they're committed to. But we do need to have reprocessing in America. I think it's fair to say it would be safer than a nuclear plant.

What are you seeing here and other parts of Alabama regarding the economy?

I'd say people are worried, which is probably driven primarily by what they're hearing on TV and media. I think people are uneasy. Another major factor of their unease is rising energy prices, particularly gasoline. They know that this threatens their budget, and it will hurt the American economy to be heavily dependent on foreign oil that is ever increasing in price.

It's important to note in April that the national unemployment rate fell from 5.1 percent to 5 percent. Alabama is a full percentage point below the national average in unemployment.

We are weathering the storm better than most areas of the country.

Can Madison County's success be duplicated in other places in Alabama, or do the natural advantages - Marshall Space Flight Center and Redstone Arsenal - give this area a permanent head start?

It can be replicated, but the truth is we've reached a level of development here that feeds on itself. A lot of businesses don't want to be in a remote area. They want to be in an area where there's already a lot of technology, that they can subcontract to or work with and their employees like being in this kind of environment.

So for a whole host of reasons, beginning with NASA, Huntsville-Madison has become a very unique and special technological center for America.

Does Congress need to help address challenges in the economy, in housing, energy and the credit markets? Or should you wait to see how this will shake out?

Often Congress takes steps that make things worse rather than better. There are things we probably need to do. Sen. (Richard) Shelby believes Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need more reform and need to be put on a sounder basis. I think he's making progress on that.

There are probably other actions we can take, but fundamentally in a lot of areas in this country housing prices ballooned out of reality, and they're inevitably going to fall. And when they fall, some people are going to be hurt. And I don't think a frugal, middle-class Huntsville citizen ought to pay for speculation in some suburb of Phoenix.

If you want to ... gamble - a lot of people got rich in this housing binge - they knew they were taking a risk.

Are you concerned about the Republican Party's prospects for the fall elections?

I don't know. I think people are gradually coming around to understanding the Senate and the House are controlled by Democratic leaders. Some of their frustration at Washington will begin to spill more now to the people in charge instead of Republicans.

It's going to be a fascinating presidential election. I assume (Barack) Obama will be the Democractic nominee and (John) McCain the Republican. I've clearly disagreed with McCain on several issues, but I've always admired him. He is a true patriot, he loves his country, he wants America to succeed, and he probably has traveled more and been more engaged in international relations than almost any other member of the House or Senate in the last 20 or 30 years.

I think he's ready to lead.

Obama is very attractive. He's really won friends everywhere he goes, and he's certainly an excellent speaker. But the biggest part of his resume is that he was a state senator in Illinois. He's had very little exposure to the difficult choices that a president must face up close.

It really does help if you have an understanding - if you've been to Russia many times and may have met or at least you understand where (Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin is coming from, the historical forces at work, and you felt them by personal experience over the years - (instead of) just reading them in a book or being briefed on them right before a meeting.

Does the GOP have an image problem? If so, how do you address that?

I think the Republican Party has an image problem, and it has a substantive problem. Maybe the enthusiasm of '94 sort of has run its course. People want real solutions to serious problems facing the country. And the party or the groups of senators, perhaps from both parties, that produce solutions are the ones who are going to find favor with the voters.

Energy is a good example. The Republicans are putting together a far more realistic set of proposals to produce clean American energy at a reasonable cost. What the Democrats are doing is a fantastic cap and trade bureaucracy that really amounts to a massive tax increase on energy.

For people who just want us to use less and less, I guess that makes them happy, but in the long run it must be a goal of our economy to have readily available, low-cost, clean energy - energy that's American-made.

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06/02/2008 (12:00PM)  Delta Regional Authority hosts conference June 23-25.  Click here for conference details

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03/27/2008 (5:00PM)  Sessions Wraps Up Week of State Travel
                                           Meeting with Constituents the Focus during 16 County Swing

WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) wraps up a weeklong tour of Alabama today with a town hall meeting in Enterprise and a speech to the Alabama-Florida Council of Boy Scouts in Dothan.

In all, Sessions will have visited 16 counties in the state, speaking with constituents, hosting numerous town hall meetings, and touring the industrial and manufacturing facilities that are keeping Alabama’s economy moving.

Sessions has visited each of Alabama’s 67 counties each year since being elected to the Senate in 1996. Sessions enjoys the opportunity to discuss local issues with constituents and share his thoughts on issues pending before Congress.

On Monday, Sessions visited the CIBA chemical production facility in Washington County, met with the Choctaw County Chamber of Commerce and toured Foster Farms plant in Marengo County.

Foster Farms, which produces food products at their Demopolis factory, recently completed a $10 million expansion. Praising employees at the plant, Sessions said, “At the end of the day you can be proud that you make a good product, and it’s good for the community to see you grow.”

On Tuesday, Sessions toured the Innovation Depot in Birmingham, a public-private partnership affiliated with the University of Alabama-Birmingham that focuses on the development of information and science technology businesses. Sessions noted that the Innovation Depot can play an important role in the future of Birmingham’s economy. “We need to see more companies move to the medical and technology field. We need to do a better job exploiting UAB’s research.”

Later that day, Sessions highlighted the importance of faith and Christian values during a speech to an audience of more than 150 members of the United Church of Christ’s convention.

Wednesday’s travel schedule included a speech to the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce’s "Eggs and Issues” breakfast. Sessions told the crowd of business leaders that the Northrop Grumman/EADS team will likely hold onto the important air refueling tanker contract recently awarded by the Air Force. The award to build the tanker, which will be assembled in Mobile, means more than 2,000 new high paying manufacturing jobs in Alabama. “We believed from the beginning in the merit of the aircraft that Northrop Grumman/EADS proposed,” said Sessions.

Wednesday also took Sessions to the Prattville Chamber of Commerce, where he shared his thoughts on a number of important national issues and answered questions from constituent at a town hall meeting.

Additionally, Sessions had the honor of presenting the Bullock County High School ‘Stinging Hornets’ the Class 4-A boys varsity basketball state championship trophy Wednesday afternoon. The boys team finished the season with a 31 – 3 record and took top honors at the state championship basketball tournament last month.

Sessions will meet with peanut farmers in Pike County today to discuss this year’s crop, the effects of last year’s severe drought, and the impact of the next farm bill before moving on to Enterprise and Dothan.

He is scheduled to return to Washington next week when the Senate begins work after the Easter recess.