Oppose Subsidizing Chinese Nuclear Plants with U.S. Tax Dollars

Dear Representative: 

We urge you to support the Sanders-Rohrabacher-Tim Ryan-Paul-Kucinich amendment to H.R. 3057, the FY 2006 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. This amendment will prohibit the Export-Import Bank of the United States from issuing loans or loan guarantees to fund the construction of nuclear power plants in China. We strongly believe that U.S. taxpayers should not be forced the bear the default risk of billions of dollars of loans and loan guarantees, particularly for the benefit of foreign companies.

The Export-Import Bank has made a preliminary commitment to lend nearly $5 billion (almost 3 times more than any of the Bank’s previous lending ventures) to Westinghouse Electric Corporation to sell U.S.-developed nuclear technology to China for the construction of four nuclear plants. Westinghouse, a company that is owned by the British government, is hoping to use these loans to win a lucrative bid from the Chinese government to develop that nation’s state-run nuclear program. There is no reason why U.S. taxpayers should be forced to subsidize a business deal between two foreign countries – and given that the nuclear industry is prone to cost overruns and loan defaults, taxpayers may very well be forced to foot the bill when these plans fail.

Again, we urge you to support the Sanders-Rohrabacher-Tim Ryan-Paul-Kucinich amendment to H.R. 3057, to prohibit the Export-Import Bank from issuing loans and loan guarantees for nuclear power plant construction in China by a British-owned company. This is a commonsense amendment to keep taxpayers out of harm’s way. If you have any questions, please contact Autumn Hanna at (202) 546-8500 x112.

Sincerely,

Jill Lancelot
President / Co-founder