FLOOD CAPITOL HILL (WITH PHONE CALLS) TONITE

12/11/07

FLOOD CAPITOL HILL (WITH PHONE CALLS) TONITE

Action Alert from Beyond Nuclear

December 11, 2007

Urge Congress to Block Nuclear Loan Guarantees

Please Call Right Away!

Last week we celebrated when U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) was forced to withdraw his unlimited federal loan guarantees for new atomic reactors from the energy bill. This week – maybe as soon as today – we have a new fight on our hands.

As early as tonight, December 11, on the House floor, a similar provision could be voted on in the energy & water appropriations bill. It could go to the Senate floor tomorrow. After his failure to push this boondoggle through the energy bill, Domenici is now "just asking" his appropriations committee colleagues in the House and Senate for approval of the first $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees for Fiscal Year 2008. The energy and water appropriations bill will almost certainly be folded into the omnibus appropriations bill, making it even more difficult to extricate the nuclear loan guarantees.

All of this is going on behind closed doors. But we must expect the worst so please keep making those phone calls!

Please immediately call the chairmen of the House and Senate appropriations committees, as well as the chairmen of the House and Senate energy and water development appropriations subcommittees, and urge them to strip the $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees from their imminent FY08 spending bills:

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI), (202) 225-2771

House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Peter Visclosky (D-IN), (202) 225-3421

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV), (202) 224-7363

Senate Energy and Water Development Subcommittee Chairman Byron Dorgan (D-ND), (202) 224-8119.

Also, please call your two U.S. senators and your U.S. representative immediately, and urge them to do all they can to block the $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees for fiscal year 2008, no matter what bill it's attached to.

This may be our last chance to stop these massive nuclear loan guarantees from being enacted. We blocked them in the energy bill, now we need to block them in the appropriations bill!

We need to flood Capitol Hill with phone calls. Call your senators and representatives via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Urge them to speak with their party leaders, as well as the leaders of the appropriations committees and energy and water appropriations subcommittees, and to express their opposition to these gigantic nuclear loan guarantees.

Please pass this on! Send this alert to as many of your family and friends as you can and urge them to do the same. We don’t need risky new nuclear reactors at all, but especially not if all the financial liability is heaped onto the backs of the American taxpayers!

Thank you. Without your calls we wouldn’t have won the first time. Now we have to ensure that lightning really can strike twice. Let’s knock out these loan guarantees permanently. Together we have the power!

Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog
Beyond Nuclear
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400
Takoma Park, MD 20912
Office phone: (301) 270-2209, Cell phone: (240) 462-3216, Fax: (301) 270-400

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Ten Reasons To Say No To Nuclear Power

1. Climate change is underway. Renewable energy can be brought online faster, more cheaply and more safely than nuclear power. 2. Reactors are sitting-duck targets and are not even defended to the ferocity of the 9/11 attacks. 3. Nuclear power is not emissions-free. Reactors routinely release radioactivity and use fossil fuels at every step from uranium mining to waste storage. 4. Building more reactors in the U.S. sends the wrong message abroad. Commercial nuclear technology inevitably leads to nuclear weapons capability. 5. The Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive dump is unsound and even if opened could not accommodate all wastes if generation continues. 6. Evacuation plans are unrealistic. Hurricane Katrina taught us that a mass evacuation during a serious radiological release would be a chaotic catastrophe. 7. A typical 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor produces enough plutonium each year to make 40 atomic bombs, an unacceptable risk. 8. New and old reactors are most prone to break down. U.S. reactors are old. New ones increase the risk of accident. 9. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission—mandated to watchdog the nuclear industry – chooses to protect industry profit over public health and safety. 10. The most defenseless are at the greatest risk—children, the elderly, minorities, the poor and animals—at every phase of the nuclear fuel chain. Ten Brighter Ideas 1. If every U.S. household installed one compact fluorescent light bulb, the power savings would equal the power produced by one nuclear reactor. 1=1! 2. Twenty compact fluorescents in every U.S. home could displace at least 25% of U.S. nuclear reactors. 3. Updated lighting, appliances, heating, cooling and other electrical systems can save more energy than all 103 U.S. reactors produce annually. 4. Cost-effective energy efficiency measures for homes and businesses can save at least 20% of electricity use. 5. Turning off and unplugging electrical equipment not in use and line-drying clothes seem like small measures but can make a big difference. 6. Homeowners and renters alike can choose to buy green power instead of nuclear generated electricity. 7. Properly sealing and insulating your home can save 25%-40% of building heat loss. 8. Renewable energy sources can meet 25% of U.S. energy needs by 2025. 9. Shifting to locally-generated electricity avoids waste, reduces brownouts and blackouts, increases efficiency of service and creates jobs. 10. Every dollar spent on nuclear power instead of fossil fuels results in releasing six times more carbon than if the same dollar is spent on efficiency. www.nirs.org 301.270.6477

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12/11/07