Urgent Letter from Bonnie Raitt/Jackson Browne/Graham Nash: Call Your Representative Today
Below is an urgent letter from some very good friends about a provision in the energy bill now being debated in the U.S. House of Representatives. This provision would prevent Congress from being able to properly oversee the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program and would thus clear the way for billions more taxpayer dollars being spent on new atomic reactors. The House Rules Committee met late into Thursday night/Friday morning and so far has been unable to determine what amendments might be allowed on the House floor. Reps. Visclosky and Tierney have introduced a good-government amendment to delete this language. If approved by the House Rules Committee later today, it is likely to be voted on Saturday!
Please take a moment to call your Representative today and urge him/her to support the Visclosky/Tierney amendment to delete Section 9202 of the Energy Bill! Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121. Tell your member that Congress must maintain proper oversight of the DOE loan guarantee program and that you don't want any loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors!
If your Representative is on the House Rules Committee (list of committee members is at http://www.rules.house.gov/rules_members.htm ), urge your Rep to approve this amendment for floor consideration.
This will be the first step in the process to delete this provision. Because it is already included in the Senate-passed energy bill, we will need to remove it during a Senate-House conference committee, likely in September. We will keep you informed about necessary actions to take.
Thanks for all you do!
Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
************
AN URGENT CALL TO STOP THE $50 BILLION NUKE POWER GIVE-AWAY
From Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash and Harvey Wasserman
Co-Founders, Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE)
As early as this Friday, Congress may approve legislation allowing the Department of Energy to approve $50 billion and more in federal loan guarantees to build new nuclear power plants.
We ask that you call your US Representative to make sure this does not happen.
The nuclear industry itself has made it clear that this astonishing taxpayer give-away is the only way new atomic reactors will be built in this country. After fifty years of proven failure, neither Wall Street nor the utility industry wants to finance new atomic construction without your taxpayer dollars to guarantee their investments.
You might think that after half a century, technology once sold on the promise of being "too cheap to meter" would be able to raise its own funding. But it can't.
By contrast, no federal guarantees are needed for the billions of dollars being invested in building new wind farms all over the world.
Now the reactor industry falsely claims that it can help solve the global warming problem, even though all reactors emit huge quantities of excess heat directly into the air and water. They also cause major CO2 emissions in the mining, milling and enriching of nuclear fuel, in the reactor construction and decommissioning process, and in the long-term management of spent radioactive fuel, for which there is no real solution.
A single dollar spent on increased efficiency saves as much energy as ten dollars spent on nuclear power can produce.
But under this phony "green" guise, the industry wants to exploit a single-sentence loophole in the Energy Bill passed by the U.S. Senate to cash in on virtually limitless federal loan guarantees. The sentence was slipped into the law without open debate.
It is essential that we stop this gargantuan nuclear rip-off from happening. This is just the first major battle in what will be a long, hard fight to stop atomic energy from once again derailing the necessary transition to a global economy based on the efficient, equitable use of natural energies provided by our Mother Earth.
Thanks.....No Nukes...Bonnie, Jackson, Graham, Harvey....
-30-
< Return to Previous Page
|
