[Sustain] Act now: Stop $54 Billion Nuclear Loan Guarantees

[Eric Brooks]

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6930 Carroll Avenue, #340, Takoma Park, MD 20912; 301-270-6477; 
nirsnet at nirs.org <mailto:nirsnet at nirs.org>; www.nirs.org 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=H1VS9ZBIuUOzWnbLtCwzU38ydlv%2BadB6>


*HELP STOP TRIPLING OF NUCLEAR LOAN GUARANTEE PROGRAM!

WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TODAY AND JOIN IN ON NATIONAL CALL-CONGRESS 
DAY WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24!*



February 18, 2010

Dear Friends,

By now you probably know that on Tuesday President Obama personally 
announced conditional approval of an $8.3 billion loan guarantee for the 
construction of two new reactors at the Vogtle site in Georgia.

And you also probably know that Obama has proposed tripling the loan 
guarantee program for new reactors in his FY 2011 budget, to $54 billion.

*What you may not know about the Vogtle deal is that we taxpayers are 
not just providing loan guarantees, _we're providing the actual loans_, 
through the Federal Financing Bank.* And you also may not know that the 
Southern Company has not yet accepted the conditions of the loan--and 
for various reasons, it may not. In other words, it's not a done deal.

*And neither is a $54 billion loan guarantee program a done deal.* 
Congress has to approve this proposal. Twice last year, with your help, 
we beat back efforts to increase the loan guarantee program. We can do 
it again!

**The first step is to send a letter to your Representative now. 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2Fy3Mx096dOsJAhLLJUuuRym7szlpwJ8W>

*The second step is to spread the word and encourage as many people as 
possible to send in letters*. We need to speak very LOUDLY on this one!

**The third step is to get ready for National Call-Congress Day on 
Wednesday, February 24.* We've done this before and thousands of you 
have called. This time it will be even bigger, because this is a 
coordinated effort with many groups: NIRS, Physicians for Social 
Responsibility, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Beyond Nuclear, 
Friends of the Earth, and you!

So prepare yourself (and we'll send some new talking points early next 
week), activate your e-mail lists and phone trees, tell your friends and 
family members. Let's keep the phones ringing in both the House and 
Senate all day long next Wednesday.

Reaction to the Vogtle loan guarantee, and to the proposed tripling of 
the program, already has been strong. You can see NIRS' press releases, 
and statements by Ralph Nader, Sierra Club, PSR, etc. on the front page 
of our website: www.nirs.org 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=9tUxwdsz3PwzrY%2F6J3Ma9Sm7szlpwJ8W>.

Here is a link to a story in today's New York Times 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=qPXCtf551eyh3DI4DexB6im7szlpwJ8W> 
titled/ Environmental Advocates Are Cooling on Obama/. Here is a link to 
a story on the Facing South 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cINl4hBkbXP9FD5FQ0Fh3Sm7szlpwJ8W> 
site. And here is a very good piece from Time Magazine 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=vkFgVnLz4pyFr9JkcnWzOym7szlpwJ8W>. 
These are typical of the kinds of stories we've been seeing.

Now we need to follow up the strong reaction to Obama's nuclear plans 
with strong action:

*P**lease write your representatives here.* 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=IfNyXx%2FznRqjCfkqtLzJkCm7szlpwJ8W>*

Plan to be part of National Call-Congress Day Wednesday, February 24.*

And if there is anything we can do to help you, let us know.

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet at nirs.org
www.nirs.org

*P.S. Some big THANK YOUs!* Thanks to _everyone_ who contributed for my 
25th anniversary outreach fund. We're using those funds to supplement 
and support this Alert and Call-Congress Day with Google adwords and an 
action ad on Alternet.org (where coincidentally I've also started a new 
blog called Energy Progress 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=dAiaujpRtnMKF9CVrXMKTim7szlpwJ8W>) 
to bring more people to this effort. You can still contribute to this 
fund here, 
<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=StobwDR2PifsuyRRpe9hqim7szlpwJ8W> 
and we'll thank you just as profusely. We'll use your donations to 
continue expanding our outreach efforts.

And thank you to everyone who filled out our questionnaire on our 
Alerts. As soon as things slow down just a little, we'll post a summary 
of your responses (without your names of course!). Winners of /The 
Critical Question/ (10 of you chosen at random) will receive your books 
soon.

In the meantime, several people said they don't forward our Alerts to 
others. Most said this was due to privacy reasons and/or not wanting to 
be perceived as a spammer. We can respect that, and we do want to make 
clear that we do _NOT_ ask anyone to forward any of our materials to 
anyone you _don't_ know.

But we also know that the only way to build an effective movement is 
with outreach. Thus, we ask grassroots groups with mailing lists to 
please forward our Alerts to your lists. And we encourage people to 
forward our materials to people you do know who might be interested and 
to post our Alerts on Facebook and other social networking sites (after 
all, what is a social networking site but a form of outreach?). If you 
don't feel like forwarding our entire Alert, we'd suggest just sending 
your friends/family/colleagues a link to our action page, with a 
sentence saying something like, "Here is an issue I really care about. 
If you do too, I hope you'll take action." For this action, the action 
page link is: 
http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5502/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1821


<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Q9OsB8wmaxI1gHMWauberCm7szlpwJ8W>

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