Stop Nuclear Power Loan Guarantees-Contact Congress

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_nirsnet_ (nirsnet) ; _www.nirs.org_

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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._

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*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=HAz80qux6s9ywYrewWSeTiwC1\

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_Here is a link to a story in today's New York Times_

(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2 & c=lCg0hGFlJXrSB6NSYV09SSwC1\

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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=Xi3iw7/95t8SXvuMQOgQsiwC1\

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from Time Magazine_

(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2 & c=O0HA+XCWyygC8U7SGDkFoSwC1\

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we've been seeing.

 

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

strong action:

 

_Please write your representatives here._

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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

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=ELe6ryx1Fj8q1Pt5jNtRgCwC1\

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still contribute to this fund here,_

(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2 & c=HXfonukDo8NoQsrz058LYSwC1\

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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

_Click here to from NIRS e-mail list_

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