Anti-Nuclear Renaissance: A Powerful but Partial and Tentative Victory Over Atomic Energy

[bananas]

A good article about the battle against the nuclear bail-out,
and how Pete Domenici kept sneaking it into different bills.
I'm always amazed at the sleazy tactics used by Republicans and the nuclear industry.

It's called a bail-out because the risk of default is well above 50 percent,
expect at least half of them to meltdown financially before they're even turned on.


http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/05/6191/

Published on Saturday, January 5, 2008 by CommonDreams.org

Anti-Nuclear Renaissance: A Powerful but Partial and Tentative Victory Over Atomic Energy
by Harvey Wasserman


As the presidential primary season heats up, an “anti-nuclear renaissance” against loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants will escalate, with the future of American energy policy and global warming hanging in the balance.

In the last days of 2007, grassroots activism ran up a stunning and improbably victory. But the triumph is both partial and tentative, and will be fiercely contested throughout 2008, with the basic direction of US energy policy hanging in the balance.

<snip>

The industry has gone to great lengths to assert that it has widespread “green” support. But no major national ecological organization has endorsed nuclear power, and the core of the movement—including scores of national, grassroots and internet-based groups—rallied to fight the subsidies.

<snip>

Free market advocates joined in from Forbes Magazine and the Cato Institute, which objects to billions in taxpayer funds going to support what Forbes has called “the largest managerial disaster in business history.”

<snip>

The Appropriations Bill finally passed both houses of Congress in late December. But the legislative standing and ultimate outcome for the loan guarantees is murky at best, with legal and procedural experts still debating over what exactly has been done.

Ostensibly, the DOE has been authorized to grant $18.5 billion in reactor loan guarantees over the next two years, plus another $2 billion for uranium enrichment. There is also some $10 billion for renewable energy projects (though the definition of exactly what “renewable” means in the eyes of the Bush DOE remains to be seen). And there is apparently money for coal liquification and gasification. The DOE is also required to submit the specific guarantees to Congress for review 45 days before they can be authorized.

But there agreement ends. Based on the 2005 Energy Act, the $18.5 billion can be seen as just a benchmark number, with the DOE technically capable of issuing all the guarantees it wants. Long-standing Congressional procedures may also be used to interpret the submission requirement as merely informational, granting Congress no power to stop the DOE from issuing the guarantees once they’re reviewed.

<snip>

[losthills]

1. It's not nice to use the word "Republican....."