*** UPDATED SUNDAY ***

If you are covering the White House budget loan guarantee provision … please be aware of the fact that there is widespread concern about this highly controversial taxpayer-backed bailout for the nuclear power industry. We can put you in touch with leading experts to discuss this. To speak to experts who can tell you the other side of this story, please call Leslie Anderson, (703) 276-3256 or landerson@hastingsgroup.com.

In addition to the links highlighted below in our Friday email (see below), please review these new signs of the widespread and growing opposition to the White House plan for more taxpayer-backed nuclear loan guarantee bailouts:

Joint letter to the White House opposing additional loan guarantees, National Taxpayers Union, Taxpayers for Common Sense, George Marshall Institute and the Non-Proliferation Policy Education Center.

Top Nuclear Loan Guarantee Contenders in Financial Shambles, Taxpayers for Common Sense.

SOTU Update: Cost Estimate for Nuclear Energy Loan Guarantees, National Taxpayers Union.

Tripling Loan Guarantees for Nuclear Power Would Shift Unacceptable Risks From Industry to Taxpayers, Science Group Says, Union of Concerned Scientists.

Department of Energy Nuclear Loan Guarantees Will Set Back Race Against Global Warming, Environment America.

For more on the nuclear power industry's stunning setbacks in January 2010, see:

NRG Might Exit (TX) Nuclear Project.

Florida Power and Light Billion-Dollar Rate Hike Denied.

Leaks imperil nuclear industry, Vermont Yankee among troubled.


*** FROM FRIDAY ***

More loan guarantees are not a "non controversial" matter. Many experts believe:

1. The only reason that taxpayer-backed loan guarantees are needed is because Wall Street has sent a clear signal that it won't invest in these projects since they are too risky and too prone to default; as such, no reactors will be built without a hefty dose of "nuclear socialism" in the form of government subsidies;
2. Taxpayers are, in fact, very likely to end up on the hook to pay back billions in loans when financially unviable nuclear reactor projects inevitably go into default;
3. There are no attractive loan guarantee candidate reactor reactors projects among the four projects currently under consideration by DOE; and
4. Far from being "ready for take-off", the so-called nuclear "renaissance" is already imploding as the result of major recent setbacks in Texas, Florida, Vermont, and elsewhere around the globe

Who are the experts cautioning against more loan guarantees for nuclear? Among this diverse group are the following

Industry Must Pay For Its Renaissance, Ryan Alexander, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Subsidies Are Addictive, David Kreutzer, Senior Policy Analyst in Energy Economics and Climate Change, Heritage Foundation.

Massive nuclear subsidies won't solve climate change, Peter A. Bradford, Adjunct Professor at the Vermont Law School and a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

New Loan-Guarantee Bailout for New Nuclear Reactors Puts U.S. Taxpayers at Risk as Department of Energy Hands Over Billions of Dollars to "Poster Child for Cost Overruns" (see experts cited in text).

Experts: 3 Latest Industry Setbacks Further Dim Nuclear "Renaissance," Taxpayer-Backed Loan Guarantees Can't Fix Fundamental Problems With New Reactors (see experts cited in text).

Cooper Study Shows Trillions of Dollars in Excess Costs if US Builds 100 Nuclear Reactors (full text of study), Mark Cooper, senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School.

Leslie Anderson
(703) 276-3256
landerson@hastingsgroup.com.