The U.S. Congress, always willing to be shilling

The terrible omnibus bill

Posted by Brian Beutler (Guest Contributor) at 4:48 PM on 17 Dec 2007

Read more about: politics | legislation | energy | nuclear power | coal

Rumors began circulating late last Friday -- as the Senate was passing the much-weakened energy bill -- that some terrible provisions had made their way into the omnibus spending package, which will likely face votes in both bodies by the end of the week.

Now comes word from Friends of the Earth that "the omnibus spending bill expected to come before the House of Representatives tonight and the Senate tomorrow directs $20.5 billion in loan guarantees to nuclear power and $8 billion to the coal industry, with language that includes potential subsidies for the production of coal-to-liquid fuels."

That's (utterly unnecessary) spending on dirty energy at a rate about four times as large as (utterly crucial) spending on clean energy. So it's no surprise that environmental groups are coming out against it.

I'll be making inquiries about this tonight and tomorrow, but early word is that these handouts come from ... Democrats in Congress! If that's true, and the bill makes it through the House unchanged, then it's very unlikely that the money will be stripped from the bill before it's passed. Stay tuned in between futile bouts of wincing/screaming/crying into your beer.

For story: The U.S. Congress, always willing to be shilling
4 Comments | Post a Comment

the shills decide

who gets power in Congress and who gets to complain from the sidelines like Dennis Kucinich. Me, I'm voting for Dennis...

http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

by LegumeSam at 5:08 PM on 17 Dec 2007

Shippingport 50th anniversary tomorrow

... as Rod Adams points out --

... help the world remember that it was once possible in the United States to build a good sized nuclear plant from scratch in about 3 years.
... the original plant is nowhere to be found. In our haste to figure out what to do with nuclear power plants that may have used up their initial design life, the pioneering Shippingport reactor was destroyed twenty years ago and its site turned back into a greenfield.

People here have disgraced themselves by saying or suggesting Shippingport's heirs need protection from the market. They do still need protection from government, however, for government is a fossil fuel interest.

Each new one that government allows to be built will consume about $40 million worth of uranium per year, but if government red-tapes it to death, the natural gas that is burned instead of uranium is about $650 million per year, barring natural gas price rises.

If government guarantees the construction loans, it can't profit by betraying the environment; the natural gas revenue it would gain is offset by its having to pay off the loans.

So the very act of forcing government to guarantee the loans much reduces the risk to the citizens; not just the citizens who invest, but the ones who would have to live near gas pipelines if fossil fuel money had its way.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, boron internal combustion fan
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?

by GRLCowan at 7:44 PM on 17 Dec 2007

Party makes no difference.

The mantra will always fall on the side of keeping the power curve rising to maintain economic growth. In this, the Cheney energy policy is and will remain the policy of Washington regardless of who is in power. What does this really mean? More coal and more nuclear.

What paradigm shift?

by justlou at 3:26 AM on 18 Dec 2007

Sorry for being dense, Mr. Cowan

But your statement here is too concise for me to understand what you're getting at:

If government guarantees the construction loans, it can't profit by betraying the environment; the natural gas revenue it would gain is offset by its having to pay off the loans.

Could you please elaborate on this?

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 3:36 AM on 18 Dec 2007
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