Consumer Energy Alliance

Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization created to help expand the dialogue between the energy and consuming sectors to improve understanding of energy security, more effectively develop and use both renewable and oil & gas energy resources in an environmentally conscious manner, create sound energy policy and maintain stable energy prices for consumers.

Ensure Nuclear Energy is Part of America’s Energy Future

President Obama’s FY 2011 budget proposal requested an additional $36 billion in loan guarantees to support the development of new nuclear plants. Given the substantial upfront cost of building a nuclear power plant, loan guarantees are needed to ease financial uncertainty and ensure enough capital is available throughout construction.

Please ask your Senator today to support the President’s full request for more loan guarantees. The Senate is currently considering significantly smaller sums and may even completely scrap the loan guarantees. Without these important financial incentives, project developers do not have the certainty that financing will be available in the near-term, and thus may be forced to cancel or delay construction on new nuclear plants, in effect jeopardizing the future of expanded U.S. nuclear energy.

It is also important to note that these loan guarantees are not grants or subsidies. Recipients are required to pay all costs for the program and to repay the loan in full.. Write your Senator now urging him or her to support the construction of new nuclear facilities.

To learn more about nuclear energy and the loan guarantees, please visit our CEA affiliate, Nuclear Energy Institute, at www.nei.org.

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July 2010

RE: Support American Nuclear Energy: Emissions-Free Energy that Generates American Jobs

Dear Senator :

I am writing to ask you to support President Obama’s FY 2011 request for $36 billion in additional federal loan guarantees under the Title XVII Loan Guarantee Program. Your support will help ensure nuclear energy remains a vital component of a clean-energy future and a strong U.S. economy.

President Obama’s request for $36 billion in loan guarantees for nuclear energy is essential to incentivizing the expansion of nuclear energy in the United States. Loan guarantees ensure the sponsors of these projects access to debt financing at reduced rates, which allows greater certainty about availability of financing in the short-term. In addition, as a result of the loan guarantees, lower interest rates will be available to developers, a cost savings that is passed on to electricity consumers like myself. Finally, it is important to understand these loan guarantees are not a subsidy provided by the government; the companies constructing the nuclear plants will incur all of the costs associated with the loan guarantees.

The need for more nuclear energy is clear: according to the Energy Information Agency, the demand for electricity is projected to increase by 23% by 2030. Furthermore, as the United States works towards cleaner energy, nuclear power already provides 70% of all emissions-free electricity in the United States. Additional nuclear power plants will also provide thousands of American jobs, a benefit that comes at a critical time in our economic recovery. During construction each plant will generate 2,400 jobs and then create up to 700 high-skill permanent jobs once construction is completed.  In effect, nuclear energy holds the potential to meet some of our greatest challenges today and in the future.

I urge you to fully support the full $36 billion in loan guarantees requested in President Obama’s FY 2011 budget proposal. I appreciate your attention to these matters.

Sincerely,

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