Senate Energy Bill - Void After August 1, 2003!

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said yesterday that the Senate will resume consideration of the Energy Bill, S. 14, during the last week of July. Frist also said that he expects the Senate to finish debate and pass the bill before the beginning of the August recess, and that the recess may be delayed if final passage has not occurred.

While Frist clearly intends to try to force passage of the bill by holding up recess, thus making the poor Senators stay in Washington's August dog days, this may still be optimistic. More than 300 proposed amendments remain to be considered, and while many of these amendments will be dropped or agreed to without debate, a number of them will be quite controversial and take considerable time. It is possible that debate on S. 14 will continue into September.

Still, it is time to intensify our efforts against this fundamentally-flawed, environmentally disastrous legislation. If enacted, this bill would send our nation in the wrong direction for decades, and transfer tens of billions of your dollars to wealthy energy companies for environmentally-damaging projects--including construction of new commercial nuclear reactors. This bill MUST be defeated, and Congress needs to start over again, with a focus on promoting sustainable energy projects and practices.

We urge you, if you haven't already, to call your Senators and express your opposition to this bill. (Capitol Switchboard, 202-224-2131).

We also urge you to write a letter expressing your opposition to S. 14. A sample letter is included below, and is also available in Adobe Acrobat .pdf format on NIRS' website, http://www.nirs.org; however, your own comments weigh even stronger. Then, do NOT send your letter to your Senators--because of continuing delays in mail delivery due to the Anthrax incidents, your letters will not reach the Senate on time. Instead, send your letters to NIRS and we will hand-deliver them to your Senators (NIRS, 1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington DC 20036).

Feel free to copy and circulate the sample letter, and ask your friends and colleagues to sign it and send it to us for hand delivery to the Senate. We're also collecting signatures at Jackson Browne and Crosby, Stills and Nash concerts. Frankly, we'd like to bury the Senate in letters against S. 14!

We also encourage letters to the editor in your local newspaper against S. 14, and bringing up the issue on talk radio shows. The debate on S. 14 has not received enough media attention, and too many people don't yet realize the Senate is debating such a damaging measure. Mention the sample letter available on our website--encourage even more people to sign and send it in.

But please act quickly, because time is beginning to run out.

However, we also urge you, especially those of you in organizations, to seek appointments with your Senators while they're home for the recess, to talk about why the energy bill would be wrong for your state. The recess currently is scheduled for August 4-September 1. Even if the bill passes the Senate, there still must be a Senate-House conference committee, and then another vote on the final product in each house. We need to continue building the opposition to S.14we CAN stop it!

If you're not on our e-mail Alert list for continuing updates on S. 14 and other issues, you can join by sending your name, e-mail address, organization (if one) and address to nirsnet@nirs.org

Thanks for your help; please call upon us for whatever help we can provide you.

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

VOTE NO ON S. 14

Hon.
US Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator

I am writing to urge you to vote against S. 14, the energy bill, and to please take a leadership role to ensure the defeat of this anti-environmental waste of taxpayer money.

S. 14 would transfer billions of dollars from hard-working taxpayers to giant energy companies. It would reward the economically-failed nuclear power industry by providing federal assistance to build new reactors, and allowing taxpayers to pay above-market rates for electricity from those reactors. It would end Congressional oversight of the Price-Anderson Act, by mandating its permanent reauthorization. It poses new threats to the Outer Continental Shelf. As written, it does little to nothing to prevent future Enrons nor to expand clean renewable energy supplies.

S. 14 is fundamentally and irretrievably flawed. It would send our national energy policy in the wrong direction for decades. We need an energy policy based on sustainable, economic energy sources, not on multi-billion dollar giveaways to wealthy energy interests.

Please stop S. 14.

Sincerely

Name:

Address: