The Energy Bill is Back! Contact Your Representative and Tell Him/Her You Oppose it!
This bill is anti-consumer, anti-environment and backward-looking. Similar versions failed to become law in the past two sessions of Congress, but now they're back with the same policies favoring nuclear power, big oil and coal, but with even less support for energy efficiency and sustainable energy programs.
A vote by the entire House could happen as soon as the middle of next week (April 20-21). Contact your representative and urge him or her to oppose this ill-conceived energy bill! Consideration by the House is the first step in what is likely to be a summer-long debate over energy policy.
This bill is called the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (it has not yet been given a number). It would:
*Promote and fund new nuclear power reactors by authorizing the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Nuclear Power 2010 program
*Promote and fund new reactor designs through a program called Generation IV
*Put an additional $2 billion down the research and development pit of nuclear power generation and dangerous (and long-banned) waste reprocessing
*Authorize $1.1 billion for a nuclear-hydrogen cogeneration project to create hydrogen fuel using nuclear power, making a mockery of the clean energy concept
*Reauthorize the Price-Anderson Act, giving accident coverage to reactors licensed for the next 20 years, thereby encouraging new reactor construction.
CALL the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be transferred to the office of your representative. For more info, call Cindy Folkers or Michael Mariotte at NIRS, 202-328-0002 or see our website at: www.nirs.org
Don't forget to sign the Petition for a Sustainable Energy Future on NIRS' website (http://www.nirs.org). And please use the easy "Invite Your Friends to Sign" feature to encourage as many signatures as possible! Between the web and signatures obtained on paper, we have about 5,000 signers so far—but we can do a lot better! Signatures will be presented to Senators before Senate consideration of energy legislation.
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