The Bush administration is the most aggressively pro-nuclear government since the days of Richard Nixon. From Vice-President Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force, which met with nuclear industry officials more than any other industry, to President Bush’s approval of the scientifically-indefensible Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump to its push to provide billions of taxpayer dollars to wealthy nuclear utilities, the Bush administration appears intent on rebuilding the nuclear power industry. Or, as we see it, creating a Nuclear Power Relapse.

Bush allies in Congress, led by Senate Energy Committee Ranking Member Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), have mounted repeated attempts to force taxpayer funding of new reactor construction, resulting in Congressional approval of $18.5 billion in loan guarantees in December 2007. And the supposedly independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission has undertaken numerous rules and policy changes designed to undercut meaningful public participation in licensing decisions and weaken environmental justice and nuclear safety and security policies.

Given this climate, the nuclear industry has responded with several applications to build new reactors while the sustainable energy movement is responding with opposition to all of them. Here you’ll find background information, links to license applications, legal filings from grassroots groups, and more.