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TELL PRESIDENT OBAMA:
USE NEW BUDGET TO END TAXPAYER LOANS FOR NUCLEAR REACTORS!
January 13, 2012
Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! And our first Alert of the new year is on an old subject--taxpayer loans to wealthy utilities to build new nuclear reactors. It's once again time to act!
For each of the past two years, the Obama administration has asked Congress to approve $36.5 Billion in new taxpayer loans for reactor construction. But thanks to your activism and the work of an ongoing informal coalition of DC groups (NIRS, PSR, FoE, UCS, NRDC & TCS), he didn't get it.
This year, the administration shouldn't even ask for it. Let's tell President Obama that now.
The new FY 2013 budget is scheduled to be released on February 7. Now is the time--before it's in print--to tell President Obama to stop trying to bail out the nuclear power industry at taxpayer expense and instead to use this new budget to end this program entirely.
That $36.5 Billion previously requested would have been on top of the $18.5 Billion provided during the Bush Administration (along with $4 Billion for unneeded uranium enrichment plants). $8.2 Billion of that has been conditionally approved for the Vogtle nuclear project in Georgia; $10.3 Billion remains in the pot.
But as the Solyndra solar collapse shows, these loan programs are inherently financially risky. And no energy project is riskier than nuclear power. Add to that the fact that the Vogtle loan alone is about 15 times more taxpayer money than Solyndra ever received!
Not only should President Obama request no more money for nuclear loans, he should end the entire nuclear loan program and withdraw the approval of the Vogtle loan. Now that would be a budget move that makes a lot of sense--and would make Americans safer to boot! Tell him that now.
After Fukushima, there is simply no excuse to continue this loan program. Fukshima showed the world that nuclear power is simply too dangerous to continue. Germany, Italy, Switzerland and others have gotten the message. It's time the U.S. got the message too. The first step is to end taxpayer funding for new reactors. President Obama can do that with the eraser at the end of his pencil. Tell him now is the time to use that eraser.
Note to our international friends: the White House accepts international e-mails, so please participate in this action!
Thanks for all you do,
Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org
www.nirs.org
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