"In the energy bill Congress passed in December, lawmakers gave the industry $18 billion in loan guarantees. But the industry says that to finance eight plants and put them into service by 2016, it would need double that amount."
This is incorrect. The Energy Bill had zilch for nuclear power. Likewise the Omnibus Appropriations bill. The Report of the bill Appropriations bill had "langauge"--but that is non-binding language--what lawyers call "dicta."
So--there is currently no more appropriated for nuclear than there was in the 2005 EPACT bill. Moreover, the actual statutory langauge in the Appropriations bill (the "law" part, not the dicta) requires both the DOE to (1) come back to the Appropriations Committee for approval of its solicitations for projects to receive loan guarantees before issuing such notices and (2) come back if it makes any changes in the solicitation.
The bill only extends the period for getting a guaranteed loan to FY2009---not long enough for DOE to get more than one or maybe two guaranteed loan solicitations out.
(I'd be happy to send you the Bill and Report as PDFs if you'd like to read them.)
This situation is the reason that the nuclear industry is still desperate to get more loan guarantee money put into the budget and into some kind of specific authorization.
Jon Block of DC @ Feb 21, 2008 17:15:04 PM
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