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News :: Miscellaneous |
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STOP THE ENERGY BILL |
Current rating: 0 |
by NIRS
(No verified email address) |
21 Jul 2002
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STOP CONGRESS FROM USING OUR TAXES TO BUILD MORE REACTORS AND MAKE EVEN MORE RADIOACTIVE WASTE |
The Federal government will PAY the owners of Clinton nuclear power plant for their costs in applying for a permit to build another plant at that location. We do NOT need another nuke there and we, the taxpayers, should NOT pay private companies to encourage them to build it.
Many of you have asked what you can do after the Yucca vote. Well, here is one thing!
1) CALL (202-224-3121; ask for your Congressperson) OR FAX your Senators and Representatives on the energy bill conference committee (for list of committee members, see below). Ask them to oppose any subsidies or tax breaks for the nuclear industry. Tell them you don't want more reactors and more deadly radioactive waste. Please see www.senate.gov for fax numbers or direct phone lines.
2) SIGN ONTO THE LETTER BELOW. Please e-mail your name, organization (if one), city and state to cindyf (at) nirs.org or fax to 202-462-2183. But please take step number one first!
As you already know, Congress passed the Yucca Mountain resolution to allow continued studied of Yucca Mountain for a High-Level radioactive waste repository. There is no justification for creating more nuclear waste when we cannot safely isolate what we've already made. Under current law, Yucca will not hold all the irradiated waste from the current reactor generation. This waste will remain on-site even if Yucca actually opens, which is questionable.
If the Bush Administration builds more reactors, that waste will also have no repository and will also remain on-site until they shove another dump site down the throat of an unwilling state. Since the choice of Yucca Mountain is being made based on politics rather than science and against the will of Nevadans, this precedent has been set. The next dump site choice will be made on the same shaky bedrock and with the same disregard for public wishes.
Despite the official recognition of nuclear waste and reactors as terrorist targets, Bush wants to build more. President Bush promised an energy policy full of tax breaks and subsidies to oil, gas and nuclear energy and with callow disregard for sustainable energy and efficiency. The House and the Senate gave him his wish.
STOP THE ENERGY BILL IN CONFERENCE COMMITTEE. Since both Houses of Congress passed different pieces of energy legislation, they must make both of the bills match. Right now they are discussing nuclear issues like Price-Anderson, tax breaks for decommissioning nuclear reactors, subsidies for new nuclear reactors and new irradiated waste generation, subsidies for reprocessing (for more details, see the sign-on letter below).
For further information, contact Cindy Folkers at Nuclear Information & Resource Service; 202-328-0002 phone; cindyf (at) nirs.org email.
HOUSE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Tauzin (LA)
Bilirakis (FL)
Barton (TX)
Upton (MI)
Stearns (FL)
Gillmor (OH)
Burr (NC)
DeLay (TX)
Stump (AZ)
Weldon (PA)
Combest (TX)
Lucas (OK)
Nussle (IA)
Gutknecht (MN)
McKeon (CA)
Norwood (GA)
Oxley (OH)
Roukema (NJ)
Sensenbrenner
Lamar Smith
Hansen (UT)
Cubin (WY)
Boehlert (NY)
Bartlett (MD)
Young (AK)
Petri (WI)
Thomas (CA)
McCrery (LA)
Dingell (MI)
Boucher (VA)
Waxman (CA)
Markey (MA)
Gordon (TN)
Rush (IL)
Rangel (NY)
Oberstar (MN)
Costello (IL)
Borski (PA)
DeFazio (OR)
Hall (TX)
Miller (CA)
Rahal (WV)
Conyers (MI)
LaFalce (NY)
Moore (KS)
Stenholm (TX)
Skelton (MO)
SENATE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Bingaman (NM)
Reid (NV)
Hollings (SC)
Jeffords (VT)
Lieberman (CT)
Kerry (MA)
Murkowski (AK)
Craig (ID)
Domenici (AZ)
Nickles (OK)
Thomas (WY)
Baucus (MT)
Rockefeller (WV)
Breaux (LA)
Grassley (IA)
Lott (MS)
SIGN-ON LETTER
We are writing to express our opposition to controversial nuclear power tax breaks and subsidies in the energy bills before your conference committee. These bills would reauthorize the Price-Anderson Act; give federal land, money and aid to the nuclear industry for construction of more nuclear reactors and more radioactive waste; and start a dangerous flirtation with banned nuclear waste reprocessing.
These bills would give tax breaks for decommissioning current nuclear reactors. This gives robber-baron corporations additional incentive to walk away with ratepayer money while the companies avoid cleaning up contaminated nuclear reactor sites. While many across the country would like reactors shut down as soon as possible, they would also like the sites cleaned up and the leftover money returned to the ratepayers; not lining the already deep pockets of CEO's.
There is no justification for creating more nuclear waste when we cannot safely isolate what we've already made. Yucca Mountain, under current law, cannot hold all irradiated waste from the current reactor generation. This waste will remain on-site even if Yucca actually opens. If more reactors are built, that waste would also have no repository and would also remain on-site.
These energy bills would reduce the public voice in nuclear reactor issues and nationalize nuclear power by giving the nuclear industry public money and lands to research, develop and deploy these new terrorist targets-without so much as a public referendum. The Bush Administration has recognized that civilian nuclear power reactors are prime terrorist targets for mass destruction. When President Bush addressed the nation on January 29, 2002 he warned "We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants" among Al Qaeda's war plans.
Through the Price-Anderson Act, which this legislation would unnecessarily reauthorize, the public could end up covering a large part of the cost for a catastrophic nuclear accident; estimates of such costs range as high as 600 billion dollars. Price-Anderson offers an insurance subsidy of about 3.4 billion dollars per year for all operating nuclear reactors. This masks the true costs of nuclear power and gives polluting nuclear electricity an undeserved competitive edge over environmentally friendly energy sources.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the lobbying group for the nuclear industry had contact with Cheney/Bush's energy task force 19 times, more than any other energy interest or lobbying group. NEI contributed $437,404 to political candidates from 1999 to 2002. Is it any wonder we face an energy policy that favors the nuclear industry over Americans?
The proposed legislation would reverse a long-standing U.S. policy against reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel. Reprocessing facilitates stealing of nuclear bomb material and has proven a health hazard to nuclear industry workers and the public. The ban on reprocessing technology must remain. Nuclear waste must be regarded as a hazard, not a commodity.
Americans overwhelmingly want renewable energy and energy efficiency measures to take center stage in any energy policy. After 9/11, this is especially true. In a November 2001, Gallup Poll people were asked whether they favor or oppose investment in solar, wind and fuel cells: 91% said they favor. Conversely, a majority rejected the idea of using nuclear reactors to wean us off foreign oil.
The people expect Congress to represent their wishes by standing up to energy interests that have consistently shown disdain for both public participation and scrutiny. The energy bills before this committee were written largely by energy industries and do not have the best interests of the American people in mind. The people of this country deserve better. We need a new energy policy: one that emphasizes energy conservation, efficiency and renewable technology as not just a "sign of personal virtue," but as a necessary basis for a sound, comprehensive energy plan.
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See also:
www.nirs.org
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