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Tell the White House and Congress:

Don’t Sacrifice Environmental Justice to a Nuclear Bailout

Proposals from the White House and Congress would invest up to $50 billion dollars in subsidies for aging, uneconomical nuclear power plants over the next decade. These nuclear bailouts would perpetuate environmental injustices while blocking effective progress towards climate action. Senators Cardin (D-MD), Whitehouse (D-RI), and Carper (D-DE) want Congress to include a massive subsidy for nuclear power plants in the infrastructure package, instead of investing those resources in climate action, jobs, and a just transition. This would be a huge mistake and it would violate the commitments leaders in Congress and the White House have made to climate and environmental justice.

Nuclear power has no place in the American Jobs Plan. Nuclear power is dirty energy, from start to finish. From uranium mining, milling, and enrichment, to radioactive emissions and nuclear waste, it produces vast amounts of pollution for which there is no solution. Throughout that process, pollution and health impacts are systematically and disproportionately visited on Indigenous peoples, Black and Latino communities, and poor, rural communities.

Send a message to your members of Congress, President Biden, and Vice-President Harris telling them to honor their commitments to environmental justice. Let your leaders know that subsidizing nuclear power - and the entire dirty fuel cycle and waste stream involved in nuclear power - is an unjust and unjustifiable waste of money and resources in the critical work of climate action.

Tell President Biden, Vice-President Harris, and your representatives in Congress: “No Nuclear Bailouts in America's Clean Energy Plans – We Need 100% Renewable Energy by 2035!

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Background:

Reuters: U.S. eyes nuclear reactor tax credit to meet climate goals -sources

Friends of the Earth: Biden backs $195 billion nuke bailout

US Climate Action Network: Vision for Equitable Climate Action

Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung-NYC: Nuclear Power and Climate Action

NIRS:

President and Vice President

Subject: Don’t Sacrifice Environmental Justice in the American Jobs Plan to a Nuclear Bailout

Message:

As a July 2021 report (https://bit.ly/3iQUs9G) shows, the best investments to reduce emissions are the same in the short-term, medium-term, and long-term: solar, wind, efficiency, and storage. They are affordable, rapidly deployed, job-intensive, and supportive of environmental justice communities. Proposed nuclear subsidies would funnel as much as $5-$10 billion each year to aging, uneconomical nuclear power reactors. Over a ten-year period, that would add up to at least $50 billion, a major diversion of taxpayer dollars from clean, safe, affordable renewable energy sources that we need to replace old fossil fuel and nuclear power plants and combat climate change. This would be a huge mistake, and it would violate the commitments leaders in Congress and the White House have made to climate and environmental justice. Nuclear power has no place in a “clean” energy standard (CES). Nuclear power is dirty energy, from start to finish. From uranium mining, milling, and enrichment, to radioactive emissions and nuclear waste, it produces vast amounts of pollution for which there is no solution. Throughout that process, pollution and health impacts are systematically and disproportionately visited on Indigenous peoples, Black and Latino communities, and poor, rural communities. The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) issued a report in May ruling out nuclear power under the council’s criteria for federal investments that maximize benefits and avoid harm in environmental justice communities. WHEJAC concluded that nuclear power is not beneficial to environmental justice communities, who are on the frontlines of radioactive exposure, contamination, and environmental degradation across the entire nuclear fuel chain and radioactive waste streams. In order to follow through with commitments to climate action and environmental justice, instead of propping up aging reactors and perpetuating the injustices of nuclear power, we must implement policies that end the environmental injustices of the nuclear era. Commit to phasing out nuclear power, cleaning up radioactive sites, and making reparations to impacted communities harmed by the nuclear fuel chain’s toxic and perpetual legacy. We must ensure that the nation’s goal is 100% renewable energy by 2035 – fossil fuel-free and nuclear-free. The American Jobs Plan will produce more jobs, more justice, more economic opportunity, and greater emissions reductions. But not if it becomes a bailout for dirty, dangerous, unjust, uneconomical nuclear power.

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US House of Reps

Subject: Don’t Sacrifice Environmental Justice in the American Jobs Plan to a Nuclear Bailout

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US Senate

Subject: Don’t Sacrifice Environmental Justice in the American Jobs Plan to a Nuclear Bailout

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Tell the White House and Congress:

Don’t Sacrifice Environmental Justice to a Nuclear Bailout

Tell President Biden, Vice-President Harris, and your representatives in Congress: “No Nuclear Bailouts in America's Clean Energy Plans – We Need 100% Renewable Energy by 2035!

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