Maybe we dodged a bullet. Thank goodness for National Sierra Club staff, they earned their salary on this one.
JBK
Lyndsay Moseley wrote:
Economic Recovery Bill to exclude $50 billion in DOE Loan Guarantees
The conference agreement on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will not include a controversial $50 billion DOE loan guarantee program that could have been used for liquid coal, coal gasification, and nuclear power projects. As you all know, the House version included funding for loan guarantees only for renewable energy and efficiency projects, but Senator Bennett (R-Utah) working with Sen. Dorgan (D-ND), inserted a provision into the Senate bill authorizing $50 billion in additional loan guarantees for all eligible projects listed in Title XVII of EPACT 2005 (including liquid coal, coal gasification and nuclear power projects as well as renewable energy, efficiency, hybrid and advanced vehicles, etc.).
Mobilizing quickly, we worked with House and Senate leaders, especially Speaker Pelosi and Rep. Waxman, as well as members of the new Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) in the House, to convey the message that we should not undermine this historic investment in clean/renewable energy by investing in high-risk, expensive energy sources that will do little to promote economic recovery, and take us backward in the fight against global warming.
Given our overall support of the bill, our effort required a strategic and delicate lobbying and communications plan, but Sierra Club successfully collaborated with taxpayer, environmental and health groups on extensive lobbying, as well as rapid-response online and grassroots campaign to eliminate the $50 billion DOE loan guarantee program from the bill. We developed a community letter, fact-sheet, and made contact with over 200 offices in the House and Senate. The votes on final passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are expected today in the House and today or tomorrow in the Senate.
Moving forward, we plan to work with DOE Sec. Chu and key members of congress to ensure that funds from the DOE loan guarantee program are directed toward clean energy.
Great work everyone! -Lyndsay
Stimulus update: Adios to big nuke, coal assistance By: Bill Lambrecht Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau WASHINGTON ? Nuclear operators and clean-coal dreamers had better start looking elsewhere to finance their plants. A $50 billion Senate provision boosting government loan guarantees for energy projects was sliced away when House and Senate conferees pared down the economic recovery package to $789 billion. A conference report isn?t out yet but several sources tell us that the $50 billion proved to be a target too fat to ignore. The cut is a blow to companies in the St. Louis region looking to build so-called clean coal plants, like the $1 billion FutureGen project proposed for southern Illinois seeking a Holy Grail of energy production: burning coal with zero emissions. It?s also a bitter pill for companies like Illinois-based Exelon, the nation?s biggest nuclear operator, and AmerenUE who eyed loan guarantees to put some cash behind the frenzied planning in this era of worry about global warming. AmerenUE is looking to add another reactor at its Callaway plant in Missouri. Financing an $8-10 billion nuclear plant is all but impossible in the best of times considering all the risks. That?s one reason we haven?t seen an order for a new nuke plant in the U.S. for three decades. Budget hawks like Taxpayers for Common Sense are pleased at the reduction, noting that the loan guarantees are a chancy proposition for taxpayers, to say the least. The Government Accountability Office places the risk of default of a new nuclear plant at 50 percent and worried in a report about DOE?s ability to oversee all that loan money.
Lyndsay Moseley Washington Representative Sierra Club 408 C St. NE Washington, DC 20002 tel: 202-548-4581 fax: 202-547-6009
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