Urge Congress Members to block rushed $9 billion nuclear power loan guarantee expansion attached to emergency supplemental war funding bill!

Calls are urgently needed to Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, especially Members of the House Appropriations Committee, urging opposition to $9 billion of new nuclear power loan guarantees being rushed into law as a rider on the emergency supplemental war spending bill. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and House Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey met at the White House with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, White House Climate and Energy Czar Carol Browner, and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag. Reportedly, a deal was struck allowing for $9 billion in expanded nuclear power loan guarantee authority to be enacted as part of the emergency supplemental war spending bill, along with an equal amount of loan guarantee authority for renewable energy sources, especially solar. The $9 billion in expanded nuclear power loan guarantees is actually a first installment on the $36 billion nuclear loan guarantee expansion that President Obama and Energy Secretary Chu called for earlier this year on the Fiscal Year 2011 Department of Energy Budget Request to Congress. But instead of waiting for next fiscal year, they are rushing to assist new reactor projects in Fiscal Year 2010. The most likely recipients for the $10.2 billion currently remaining in the nuclear loan guarantee program fund, and now this proposed $9 billion expansion, are: the French Areva “Evolutionary Power Reactor” at Constellation/Electricite de France’s Calvert Cliffs 3 site in Maryland (which happens to be in House Majority Leader Hoyer's own district); two Toshiba-Westinghouse “Advanced Passive” AP1000 reactors at South Carolina Electric and Gas's Summer Nuclear Power Plant; and the South Texas Project Units 3 and 4 Hitachi-General Electric “Advanced Boiling Water Reactors,” proposed by NRG Energy and its partners, the Japanese atomic reactor vendor Toshiba and nuclear utility Tokyo Electric Power Company. The solar/nuclear Faustian bargain is not even as good as it sounds, for renewables industries already have authority for more loan guarantees than they can presently use, and are actually reluctant to pay the relatively steep credit subsidy fees required to apply for such loan guarantees. The nuclear power industry, on the other hand, hopes to expand its loan guarantee authority as much as it can, to finance the growing number of astronomically expensive new reactors it hopes to build in the U.S., largely at taxpayer risk. The vote on the emergency supplemental war spending bill is already upon us, and could happen as early as 5 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, May 27th. ASAP, call your U.S. Representative via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and urge them to act quickly to block $9 billion in new nuclear power taxpayer-backed loan guarantees from being added to an emergency supplemental war funding bill, by weighing in with their colleagues on the House Appropriations Committee. Then call the House Appropriations Committee Majority Staff, at (202) 225-2771 and urge that House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey (Democrat-Wisconsin) block the nuclear loan guarantee expansion. Taxpayers for Common Sense has objected to the legislative shenanigans of attaching nuclear power loan guarantees to such a bill. NIRS has put out an action alert with helpful background information.

EESI briefing on Hill warns of financial and proliferation risks of nuclear power expansion

Victoria Stulgis, graduate intern for Scott Sklar of the Stella Group, Ltd. (http://www.thestellagroupltd.com/) compiled a summary of an EESI (Environmental and Energy Study Institute, http://www.eesi.org/) briefing on Capitol Hill regarding “Nuclear Power and Proliferation Challenges” held May 20, 2010. The briefing featured Mark Cooper and Peter Bradford of Vermont Law School on financial risks, and Alex Glaser of Princeton Univeristy on nuclear weapons proliferation risks.

"Nuclear Socialism"

Dr. Bob Allen, a professor of chemistry at Arkansas Tech University, writes in an op-ed published in Arkansas's Courier News that the entire history of nuclear power in the U.S., from federal R&D subsidies to catastrophic accident liability coverage provided by taxpayers, represents "European Style Socialism." He concludes that "Nuclear power may have a future, but only with a massive federal bureaucracy to control it and massive taxpayer subsidization to sustain it. This is definitely not a prescription for limited government and low taxes..."

"Nuclear Expansion is a Proven Market Failure"

An op-ed with this title was penned by Mark Cooper, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School, and Nancy Young Wright, an Arizona state representative (D-District 26) and was published in Arizona's American Forum.

TCS to Feds: "War Spending Bill is No Place for More Nuclear Loan Guarantees"

Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) has objected to the Obama administration and congressional Democratic leaders agreeing to add energy loan guarantees -- including to support the building of new atomic reators -- on the emergency supplemental war spending bill. TCS stated "The emergency spending bill is supposed to address urgent, unforeseen war and disaster related items - adding risky loan guarantees for projects that won’t be built for years is little more than a cynical political ploy to jam it through Congress without adequate scrutiny."