Saturday, June 19, 2010

$Billions of New Nuke Giveaways in Kerry-Lieberman Bill Exposed

Comment:  No to nuke power plants, therefore, no uranium mining!

Submitted by NBerning
Thursday, June 17, 2010
For Immediate Release

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TAX BREAKS FOR EACH NEW REACTOR UNDER KERRY-LIEBERMAN WIPE OUT RISK FOR UTILITIES ALREADY BENEFITING FROM MASSIVE LOAN GUARANTEES

Earth Track Analysis Finds That Just Two of the Subsidies Add Another $1.3 Billion to $3 Billion in Tax Breaks Per Reactor; May Make It More Likely Taxpayers Will Face Downside Risk.

Washington, D.C. -- The nuclear industry could end up facing no risk under massive tax break subsidies in the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill, according to an important new analysis conducted for Friends of the Earth by the research organization Earth Track. These tax breaks totaling $9.7 billion to $57.3 billion (depending on the type and number of reactors) would come on top of the Kerry-Lieberman measure’s lucrative $35.5 billion addition to the more than $22.5 billion in loan guarantees already slated for nuclear power.

Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica said: “Doling out an additional $1.3-$3 billion in tax breaks per new reactor means the industry would be at the table playing almost entirely with taxpayer money. Industry will have little to lose when a reactor goes belly up.

While taxpayers are bankrolling the industry’s nuclear gamble they would share in none of the reactor’s financial returns. In fact, all taxpayers will receive if the reactors are built is responsibility for disposing of the waste. By contrast, investors stand to make billions with no risk should their reactor gambit goes belly up and enter bankruptcy.”

Earth Track Founder Doug Koplow said: “These substantial tax breaks for new reactors greatly impede market access for competing energy sources and worsen the already substantial risks to taxpayers from a nuclear build-out.

Kerry-Lieberman’s nuclear tax breaks do just this by replacing investor equity with taxpayer money, and allowing investment tax credits to be claimed even before the reactor is operating. The provision to recover credits in the event a reactor is cancelled or suspended is unlikely to be effective in the most likely cause of termination – a bankruptcy due to poor economics.”

The full Earth Track analysis is available online at http://www.foe.org/more-kerry-lieberman-nuclear-subsidies/
.