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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Erin Jensen,Email:,EJensen@foe.org

Ads Slam Sen. Bennet for Nuclear Bailout

New Friends of the Earth ads also ask Majority Leader Reid and Appropriations Chair Inouye to pull up-to-$50 billion nuclear giveaway from stimulus

WASHINGTON

Friends of the Earth released a TV ad today slamming Senator Robert
Bennett (R-UT) for adding an up-to-$50-billion bailout for the nuclear
power industry to the Senate's stimulus package. The group released
similar ads demanding that Senate leaders eliminate this bailout.

(Click to view versions of the ad pertaining to Bennett, Senator Harry Reid [D-NV] and Senator Daniel Inouye [D-HI].)

"It is nothing short of outrageous that in the middle of an
economic crisis, with families suffering, senators are trying to curry
lobbyists' favor with yet another multibillion dollar bailout," said
Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder. "Taxpayers should not
be forced to foot the bill for the nuclear industry's failures. This
bailout has nothing to do with stimulating the economy. It must be
eliminated."
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The bailout was added to the Senate stimulus package when Bennett
offered an amendment authorizing $50 billion in loan guarantees for
"advanced low-carbon technology" in the Appropriations Committee. If
history--and nuclear industry lobbyists' fervor in defending these loan
guarantees--are any guide, much of this money would likely go to the
nuclear industry.

Blackwelder said the best opportunity to defeat this bailout
may arise when House and Senate leaders meet to work out the
differences between their stimulus bills; the House bill did not
include the nuclear bailout.

"These ads are intended to send a clear message," Blackwelder
said. "It is unacceptable for senators to display the bald
obsequiousness to lobbyists that Bennett has shown here. And it's
unclear why Senate leaders allowed Bennett to sneak this bailout into
their bill, since he says the stimulus 'is not going to work' and plans
to vote against it. Senate leaders should remedy this situation."

More information about the proposed nuclear industry bailout can be found here: https://action.foe.org/t/6545/pressRelease.jsp?press_release_KEY=480

Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.

(202) 783-7400