McCain May Add Nuke Subsidies to Climate Change Bill! Act Now to Prevent More Nuclear Pork and To Keep the Climate Bill Relevant!
Dear Friends:
Below is an urgent Action Alert from our friends at US PIRG. The Problem: Senator McCain is threatening to add incentives for expensive and risky nuclear power to global warming bill.
NIRS has not previously taken a position on the McCain-Lieberman climate change legislation; however, we will be forced to actively oppose the bill if McCain proceeds with apparent plans to add nuclear subsidies to its language.
Please call your Senators today—as soon as you receive this message—at 202-224-3121!
Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Despite the fact that we can reduce global warming pollution and save consumers money by increasing energy efficiency and clean renewable energy, Senator Mccain (R-AZ) is considering adding incentives for expensive and risky nuclear power to his Climate Stewardship Act. PIRG had supported the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act as a good first step to combating global warming since it put a cap on global warming pollution and required that we reduce emissions to 2000 levels by 2010. However, we have just learned that Senator McCain may re-introduce the legislation with the addition of massive taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear power plants.
For at least thirty years, the public, policy-makers and private investors have viewed nuclear power as uneconomical, unsafe, and unnecessary. This is why no new plants have been ordered in this country. With respect to these serious concerns, nothing has changed. Nuclear power plants are extremely expensive despite decades of federal subsidies. The nuclear power plants around the country put surrounding communities at risk for radiation exposure in case of a terrorist attack or accident, and these plants produce highly lethal radioactive waste which remains dangerous to humans for at least a quarter million years. While we urgently need to reduce our global warming emissions, nuclear power still remains the least attractive, least economic, and least safe avenue to pursue.
We can reduce global warming pollution cleaner, faster and more cheaply by using energy efficiency and clean renewable energy. A 2004 study by Synapse Energy Economics found that America could reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide from electricity generation by more than 20 percent while saving $36 billion annually by 2025. And we could do it while, at the same time, cutting our reliance on nuclear power by nearly half.
The Solution: Convince Senators McCain and Lieberman that they will lose support for their legislation by adding expensive and risky nuclear subsidies. We need to convince the senators that they will lose critical support from the public interest community and key Senators by adding nuclear incentives to their global warming bill.
Please call your Senator today, and ask him/her to oppose adding expensive and risky nuclear power to the global warming bill (S. 342). We can reduce global warming with clean energy solutions; nuclear power is too dangerous and expensive.
Again: the number is 202-224-3121. Unfortunately, we do not currently know of a working 800 number for the Senate.
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Finally, if you haven't already: don't forget to sign the Petition for a Sustainable Energy Future at http://www.nirs.org and ask your friends and colleagues to sign it as well!
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