Action Alert - LAST CALL! Tell Congress that Nuclear Power is NOT the Solution

November 28, 2007
Beginning next week, energy and climate bills may come fast and furious in the U.S. House and Senate. While there are many good provisions that deserve support in these various bills, the nuclear power industry is attempting to sell itself as a supposed “solution” to the climate crisis, and lock in astronomical amounts of taxpayer subsidies for building the first new reactors in decades. We must expose this false "solution" for what it is, and block this taxpayer-funded nuclear power relapse from happening!

Your U.S. Representative and Senators are likely still home in district for the second half of their week-and-a-half-long Thanksgiving congressional recess. This is a great opportunity for you to contact them at their district office. Remind them that nuclear power is dirty and dangerous, risks catastrophic terrorist attacks and nuclear weapons proliferation, is exorbitantly expensive, and will not even work in a destabilized climate. Nuclear power, already heavily subsidized by taxpayers and ratepayers to the tune of many hundreds of billions of dollars over the past 50 years, certainly deserves no more subsidies.

The congressional Energy Bill is moving towards final floor votes in both Houses, perhaps as early December 4th or 5th in the House of Representatives. If passed by the House, the identical Energy Bill would then be taken up by the full Senate in short order.

The Senate Energy Bill (H.R. 6, which originated in the House because of tax provisions it contains), passed in June, would require an increase in the Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFÉ) standard for cars to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The House Energy Bill (H.R. 3221), passed in August, would require a Renewable Electricity Standard of 20% by 2020; the House bill also contains important renewable electricity tax incentives. These are good provisions that deserve support in a final Energy Bill.

But slipped into both the House and Senate versions of the Energy Bill are provisions to grant federal loan guarantees for the construction of new nuclear reactors. The Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Domenici (R-NM) is most extreme, granting unlimited loan guarantees, while removing congressional appropriations oversight from year to year. While the House version would retain congressional appropriators’ power to limit the amount of federal loan guarantees for new atomic reactors each year, it would not allow them to exclude nuclear reactors from eligibility for loan guarantees, even if such grants would make little or no sense in any particular year, or if better options other than nuclear present themselves (such as wind, solar, and efficiency projects). Incredibly, Domenici's extreme provision originated as a direct response from the nuclear industry to a reasonable position taken by bi-partisan (and pro-nuclear!) House appropriators. The House appropriators said that no new nuclear reactor project is far enough along yet to need federal loan guarantees in Fiscal Year 2008, so no such funding was going to be approved.

Now that the two versions of the Energy Bill are in “informal conference committee” (the differences being hammered out behind closed doors), and Sen. Domenici is in the room, there is the danger that his extreme provision will be included in the final bill. If enacted, this would effectively grant the U.S. Department of Energy blank check authority to provide unlimited federal loan guarantees for new atomic reactors, and without congressional oversight. Not if, but when, nuclear utilities default on their loan repayments, taxpayers would be left holding the bag, potentially to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that well over half of new reactor construction projects will default on their loans. The unlimited nuclear loan guarantee proposal represents an extreme transfer of financial risk from nuclear utilities and Wall Street investment banks onto U.S. taxpayers. The Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobby arm of the industry, has requested over $50 billion in federal loan guarantees over the next two years alone.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Call your U.S. Representative and both of your U.S. Senators as soon as possible. Urge them to oppose unlimited loan guarantees for new reactors without annual congressional appropriations oversight. Urge them to speak with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to exclude such provisions from the final Energy Bill. Urge them to sign onto any congressional “Dear Colleague” letters opposing unlimited federal loan guarantees for new atomic reactors, and rollbacks of congressional authority to oversee this program.

You can call your Rep. and Senators’ Washington, D.C. offices via the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Or, to find phone numbers for your Representative’s and Senators’ district offices, go to www.congress.org and enter your zip code in the “My Elected Officials” box in the upper left hand corner of the Web site. There you can find complete contact information for your federal Representative and Senators.

Here’s an example of what you could say:

“Hello. My name is _____________. I live in ___________. I’m calling to urge Rep./Senator __________ to block unlimited nuclear power loan guarantees without congressional oversight in the impending Energy Bill. Nuclear power is dirty and dangerous, risks catastrophic terrorist attacks and nuclear weapons proliferation, is exorbitantly expensive, and will not even work in a destabilized climate. Nuclear power has already been heavily subsidized by taxpayers and ratepayers to the tune of many hundreds of billions of dollars over the past 50 years. It certainly deserves no more subsidies. Transferring the financial risks for building new reactors from the nuclear utilities and Wall Street banks onto taxpayers is outrageous. I urge Rep./Senator ____________ to speak with [Speaker of the House Pelosi or Senate Majority Leader Reid], and ask them to strip these unacceptable provisions from the final Energy Bill. Energy efficiency and renewable sources of electricity -- such as wind and solar power – are genuinely clean, cost effective, safe, secure and reliable solutions to the climate crisis, and deserve support. Thank you.”

To learn more about the nuclear loan guarantee proposal, go to www.beyondnuclear.org.