May 27, 2008


Senator Joe Lieberman
Senator John Warner
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Senators Lieberman and Warner:

We would like to thank you for your efforts to move the debate on global warming forward.  Your legislation, S. 3036, represents a first step toward controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

During the last year as this bill has been crafted we have reiterated that it should not seek to pick winners and losers among mature technologies in the power sector, though it should favor clean, renewable forms of energy that will allow the U.S. to become less reliant on polluting fuel sources and move toward a clean-energy economy.  In particular, we have asked that the bill not provide financial incentives for nuclear energy, about which there are serious safety, waste and reliability concerns.

We are concerned by your publicly-stated intention to include a nuclear title in the legislation, despite obvious benefits to the industry from passage of the bill.  Nuclear power already receives very significant government support in the form of production tax credits, research and development funds, the Price-Anderson Act and loan guarantees recently approved by the Congress.  Yet, the industry remains moribund.  Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 50 percent of proposed new starts will never be licensed – which would mean that any funds from this bill directed toward nuclear power would be in jeopardy of being wasted.

Please consider the value of the billions of dollars involved - solar, wind, geothermal, fuel cell and wave technologies could make great strides with that level of funding in addition to progress on efficiency and conservation goals.  Yet, using the funds to subsidize nuclear power would put valuable dollars at risk.

Nuclear power receives adequate support and is a mature industry.  There is no justification for providing additional funds or regulatory changes to shield nuclear power from the marketplace.  Please do not include a nuclear title in S. 3036 that would misappropriate funds that could be used much more wisely.

Thank you for your work on this legislation.  We hope that resolution on this issue can be achieved before debate begins on the bill in June.