[NukeNet] Urgent! Sign-on deadline moved up; Congress on verge of approving loan guarantees. Act now.

Mon Dec 10 18:15:22 EST 2007

URGENT!

Congress may vote on appropriations/nuclear loan guarantees Tuesday
night!

ACT NOW! Stop $25 billion in nuclear loan guarantees!

Friends,

We are hearing today that there is behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the
House and Senate appropriations committees to approve a giant loan
guarantee package in the omnibus appropriations bill, and that this bill
could reach the House floor as early as Tuesday night. The Senate would
then vote on the bill as early as Wednesday. According to some reports,
the appropriators are considering as much as $45 Billion in loan
guarantees for energy projects, with $25 Billion of that being allocated
for new nuclear reactors.

This is the worst type of legislation. Not only would it pay for the
Iraq war in exchange for a few billion dollars in domestic projects, but
it is being done almost covertly, in a mammoth spending bill that
virtually no Congressmember would actually have the chance to read
before voting. We need to let Congress know this type of spending bill,
with these types of priorities, is simply unacceptable.

Your actions kept the nuclear loan guarantees out of the House energy
bill. Now we all need to act again, louder and stronger than ever.

*We have moved up the deadline for signing on to the letter below (which
has more than 65 organizational signers so far). If your organization
has not yet signed, please do so by 11 am Eastern time tomorrow,
Tuesday, December 11. We intend to put out a press release on it
tomorrow afternoon.

To sign, please send your name, organization, city and state to
nirsnet at nirs.org. 

*And everyone: please call both of your Senators and your House
representative on Tuesday-Republican, Democrat, Independent. Every
member needs to hear the message: NO TAXPAYER LOAN GUARANTEES FOR NEW
NUCLEAR REACTORS. Period.

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Thank you for all you do!

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

nirsnet at nirs.org; 301-270-6477

Text of the Sign-on Letter

December 11, 2007

Dear Congressmember:

We urge you to keep costly loan guarantees for nuclear power out of the
Energy and Water and omnibus appropriations bills. 

The Administration proposed $9 billion for all energy loan guarantees
and the House approved $7 billion for all energy loan guarantees in FY
2008.  Yet, the media has reported that the Energy and Water
Appropriations conferees are considering $25 billion in loan guarantees
exclusively to the nuclear industry. 

There has been little to no Congressional debate on this large sum of
money. There has also been no discussion or hearings on the implications
for other energy projects, if the $25 billion nuclear loan guarantee
package is passed. $25 billion is more than the entire annual budget for
the Department of Energy. Doesn't Congress have the obligation to debate
the ramifications of risking $25 billion?

Moreover, there is no hurry for a nuclear loan guarantee package: no
nuclear utilities will be in a position in 2008 to use any federal funds
for new reactor construction. Only four utilities so far have submitted
applications for new reactors and the NRC licensing process is expected
to take a minimum of 30 months for complete applications referencing
certified standardized reactor designs. But none of the applications has
been certified as complete by the NRC (Constellation Energy so far is
missing half its application; NRG Energy's application has deficiencies
the NRC projects will take a year to correct), and none of the
applications references a certified standardized reactor design (while
the NRC Energy application references a standardized design, NRG is
seeking 16 changes from the design as certified; TVA is seeking major
changes from its standardized design; while Constellation and Dominion
Resources are both seeking licensing of reactor designs that have not
yet gone through the certification process). It will be at least 2011,
and probably later, before any utility can begin reactor construction. 

The cost of new atomic reactors, and thus the usefulness of loan
guarantees, is an issue that Congress has not yet fully explored. Cost
estimates by nuclear utilities for new reactors have essentially doubled
over the past two years, and are far above the $1,500-$2,000/kilowatt
price the Nuclear Energy Institute said in 2005 was necessary to make
nuclear power economically competitive. In October 2007, Moody's
Investor Service estimated that new reactors will cost far more than the
nuclear utilities have estimated. Indeed, Moody's estimates that new
U.S. reactors will cost from $5,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt. If Moody's
is correct, a 1,600 MW reactor such as that proposed by Constellation
for the Calvert Cliffs, Maryland site would cost from $8 to nearly $10
billion. Risking taxpayer funds on a project with such dubious
cost-effectiveness would be unwise-especially years before the funds
could actually be used. A full Congressional examination of nuclear
construction costs should be undertaken before large amounts of taxpayer
funds are risked.

The Energy Department's Office of Inspector General warned in September
that even $9 billion in loan guarantees proposed by the Department for
FY 2008 "will result in significant risk to the American taxpayer."
What would $25 billion mean to the American taxpayer, especially given
the skyrocketing cost estimates for new nuclear reactors?

Not only is the nuclear industry not ready to use loan guarantees, it is
far from clear that the Department of Energy is yet capable of managing
such an enormous program. By way of comparison, the U.S. Export-Import
Bank-staffed with recognized experts in banking and lending--reported
guaranteeing 736 loans valued at $8.2 billion in FY 2006. The Department
of Energy does not have a similar expertise.

We urge you to accept this summer's decision of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Energy and Water, which determined that no loan
guarantee funding should go for nuclear power projects in FY 2008. 

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