Can “emergency” new nuke loans be stopped despite cover of war?
July 1, 2010 Amidst a grassroots uproar over funding for the military, the nuclear power industry has again forced $9 billion in loan guarantees onto an “emergency” war appropriations bill for Afghanistan and Iraq. Citizen opposition helped delay a similar vote scheduled last month. Now green energy advocates are again asked to call Congress immediately. The move comes as part of a larger push for federal funding for a “new generation” of reactors. Because independent investors wont fund them, the reactor industry has spent some $645 million in the last decade lobbying Congress and the White House for taxpayer money. This $9 billion is for two new reactors proposed for the South Texas site, on the Gulf of Mexico, and another at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland. Continued operations of the two reactors now at South Texas are threatened by oil gushing from BPs Deepwater Horizon. Calvert Cliffs is just 40 miles from the nations capital. French and Japanese companies are among the leading candidat
