On June 23, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $17.5 billion conditional loan commitment to build up to 10 conventional nuclear reactors.

The largescale conditional commitment could support up to five taxpayer-backed loans, with each loan financing two Westinghouse AP1000® nuclear reactors at a power plant. Each project would be jointly owned by Westinghouse and a utility or energy company partner, with both Westinghouse and its partner required to commit $500 million before accessing the DOE loan guarantees. Westinghouse announced last year that it plans to deploy 10 AP1000 reactors and will prioritize sites in states like Texas, where electricity demand is increasing because of AI data centers.

Taxpayers should be skeptical. Nuclear projects have tied up taxpayer funds for decades, and the industry has relied on public support since its inception, from royalty-free uranium mining and DOE-funded research, development, and demonstration to loan guarantees and decommissioning funds. This latest commitment once again puts taxpayers on the hook for enormous financial risk because the nuclear industry and its investors are unwilling to shoulder that risk on their own.

The loans would be issued through DOE’s Title 17 Loan Guarantee Program, created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Inflation Reduction Act created a new Section 1706 program within Title 17, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act later expanded the program to support electricity supply at times needed to “maintain or enhance grid reliability,” a provision generally understood to encompass coal and nuclear power.

Title 17 has a poor track record of backing risky projects, particularly in the nuclear sector, and American taxpayers have seen this story before. In the 2010s, the DOE offered Southern Company and its partners a combined $12 billion in taxpayer backed loan guarantees to construct the Vogtle 3 and 4 nuclear reactors in Georgia. The project was plagued by cost overruns and schedule delays, and Westinghouse Electric Company filed for its bankruptcy in 2017.

Even as the project’s risks mounted, DOE reduced the credit subsidy cost, the fee intended to reflect the risks financial risk of the loan guarantee, to $0. Taxpayers were bearing the full risk of a project that ultimately ran five years behind schedule and roughly $14 billion over budget, yet Southern Company and its partners paid nothing for the federal guarantee that taxpayers would step in if the loans defaulted.

Title 17 has repeatedly supported projects that private investors have been unwilling to finance without federal backing. Even when companies are prepared to move forward, they are eager to take advantage of government guarantees that lower borrowing costs while shifting more financial risk onto taxpayers.

Now, instead of learning from history, DOE is doubling down on risky and expensive nuclear projects at the taxpayers’ expense.