Ramming Nuclear Power Subsidies Into War Appropriations Bill Is Inappropriate and Should Be Blocked

[bananas]

http://texasvox.org/2010/05/24/ramming-nuclear-power-subsidies-into-war-appropriations-bill-is-inappropriate-and-should-be-blocked/

Ramming Nuclear Power Subsidies Into War Appropriations Bill Is Inappropriate and Should Be Blocked

May 24, 2010 by cgeiger1303

A Deal is Struck to Add $9 Billion in Risky Nuclear Loan Guarantees for Failing South Texas Nuclear Project.

In a deal between the Obama administration and House of Representatives leadership, struck last week behind closed doors, taxpayers would be on the hook for lending $9 billion to build two new nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project site in Bay City, Texas.

It is highly inappropriate for the Obama administration to stuff subsidies for nuclear power into an emergency war appropriations bill and lawmakers should strip this nuclear utility pork out of the war funding bill. Subsidizing new reactors that will take a decade or more to build cannot be considered an emergency and it is a stretch of the imagination to see how exactly it is related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Public Citizen and the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition are challenging the South Texas nuclear reactors’ license before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, and Karen Hadden of the SEED Coalition said, “It is clear that the only emergency here is the fact that the South Texas plant doesn’t have sufficient investors to make this a viable project.”

After the estimated cost of the project more than tripled in three years to a whopping $18.2 billion, the city of San Antonio wisely pulled out of 85 percent of its investment. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has since offered a measly 10 percent investment. NRG, the primary stakeholder in the Texas project, has been financially shaky in recent years and filed for bankruptcy in 2003, making it incomprehensible how the U.S. government can justify backing this lemon of a project with $9 billion of taxpayer money.

The nuclear loan guarantees not only commit taxpayers to underwrite risky nuclear reactor projects but also allow wealthy nuclear utilities to borrow the money from the government’s Federal Financing Bank. Funds for this bank come directly from the U.S Treasury. When federal loans are defaulted on, U.S. taxpayers pay are on the hook to pay back the loan. These guarantees are a pre-emptive nuclear industry bailout.

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[kristopher]

1. Check the contributions to Steny Hoyer and Byron Dorgan...

They are snakes in the woodpile.

[Nihil]

2. They should cut the entire bill.

Talk about pork?

I give you "Emergency war appropriations" for two unnecessary wars
that have been going on for years (hence not even slightly "emergency")
and only achieving death, destruction and damning the futures of even
more people for the sake of profits.

I see your point (and even agree that it is valid) but think you are
focussing too much on your pet subject rather than the elephant that
is neverending war for no reason other than profit for the few.

:shrug:

[madokie]

3. Get the peoples money any way they can

if not by crook then by hook.
Not only is the nuclear power industies proponents liars as a whole they're shysters as well, as this clearly shows.

[Soylent Brice]

4. K&R