U.S. House approves $9 billion in additional new reactor loan guarantees

Thank you to everyone who, for the past several weeks, has acted on our alerts to contact your U.S. Representative to urge that they block the $9 billion in added new atomic reactor loan guarantees snuck onto the Fiscal Year 2010 Supplemental Appropriations bill, a war funding and disaster relief bill. Unfortunately, late at night on July 1st, as the House was rushing to leave for its Independence Day holiday recess, it passed the bill, containing these new atomic reactor loan guarantees. The Declaration of Independence itself holds that when government becomes inimical to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right, indeed the duty, of U.S. citizens to either alter or abolish that government. The insatiable greed of the nuclear power industry, repeatedly fed by the Congress and White House at taxpayer expense, requires all of us to stand up and make clear that enough is enough! Check to see if your Representative voted in favor of this bill, and if they did, ask them why they would vote in favor of transferring $9 billion of financial risk for new reactors onto the backs of U.S. taxpayers. Call your U.S. Representative via the Capitol Switchboard, (202) 224-3121.

Analyses reveal tens to hundreds of billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies and giveaways for nuclear industry proposed in Senate bills

A recent analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that the subsidies, tax breaks, etc. in the Kerry-Lieberman "American Power Act" (APA) and the Bingaman "American Clean Energy Leadership Act" (ACELA) proposed in the U.S. Senate could amount to a nearly $150 billion taxpayer giveaway to the over 50 year old, already heavily subsidized nuclear power industry. Another recent analysis of the Kerry-Lieberman APA, commissioned by Friends of the Earth and conducted by Doug Koplow of Earth Track, shows that the proposed tax incentives for new reactors alone could benefit the nuclear power industry by over $57 billion at taxpayer expense. As these bills could still reach the Senate floor yet this month, it is urgent that concerned citizens contact both their U.S. Senators as soon as possible to urge that they block any further subsidies for the nuclear power industry. Call your U.S. Senators via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Given the short time frame, write your Senators via their webforms, or fax them a hand-written letter. Better yet, write a letter to the editor or opinion-editorial to your local newspapers, decrying any further taxpayer largesse for the atomic industry. And best of all, work with a coalition of concerned taxpayers and environmental groups in your state to request an in-person meeting with your Senators' staff, or even the Senators themselves, as soon as possible. Contact Kevin Kamps at Beyond Nuclear (kevin@beyondnuclear.org or (301) 270-2209 ext. 1) for help with any of these ideas. Finally, you can also sign Beyond Nuclear's "ActNow!" petition, and pass word of it on to everyone you know, and urge them to do the same!

NRC licensing board ruling keeps Yucca "illusion of a solution" alive, for now

A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has ruled that the U.S. Department of Energy cannot withdraw its application for a construction and operating license at the proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada national repository for high-level radioactive waste. The ASLB ruled that "Unless Congress directs otherwise, D.O.E. may not single-handedly derail the legislated decision-making process." The ruling contradicts President Barack Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu's policy decision that Yucca Mountain is no longer an option for radioactive waste disposal. In February, Chu moved to withdraw the license application from the NRC proceeding, and also zeroed out DOE's budget request for the Yucca Mountain Project for Fiscal Year 2011. The five NRC Commissioners may now review the licensing board's ruling, and either uphold or reverse it. Please phone the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111, email it via its webform (http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact), or send a handwritten letter via fax (202-456-2461) or post (The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500). Thank President Obama for cancelling the Yucca Mountain dumpsite. Urge him to stand strong and make sure the dump is dead. For more information on the geologic unsuitability of Yucca Mountain, as well as the environmental injustice of targeting sacred Western Shoshone Indian treaty land in Nevada for radioactive waste dumping, see Beyond Nuclear's Yucca website section, as well as NIRS's Yucca website section. A vast "repository" of information about the Yucca Mountain dump, and the struggle to stop it, can also be found at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's website. Incredibly, despite them having missed the deadline by several years to apply to become parties in the Yucca licensing proceeding, the ASLB ruling has also allowed several pro-dump parties, such as the States of Washington and South Carolina, to now join the proceeding as intervening parties opposing DOE's license application withdrawal.

Water scarcity: nuclear power's Achilles' heel

Kyle Rabin, writing on the Huffington Post, points out how water shortages and nuclear power plant operation don't mix.

Australian union bans workers from nuclear facilities

"Fears of radiation exposure to uranium workers has led to the Electrical Trades Union in Brisbane, Australia, to ban members from working in uranium mines, nuclear power stations, and any part of the nuclear fuel cycle, according to a BBC report. Union leaders believe uranium exposure will replace asbestos as the high profile toxic workplace contaminant...the reasons stated for not allowing union workers in Australia be exposed to uranium recalls statements made by dying and ill workers in the United States who unknowingly made the ultimate sacrifice working at Cold War uranium diffusion and processing plants." More.