Nuclear Secrecy With $8 Billion On the Line

[kristopher]

Nuclear Secrecy With $8 Billion On the Line: SACE Continues Fight To Force Disclosure of U.S. Taxpayer-Backed Federal Loan Guarantees to Risky Vogtle Reactor Project

ATLANTA, Feb. 6, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- As Final Arguments Are Filed, Southern Co., Obama Administration Fight FOIA Request to Figure Out Danger to Taxpayers in the Event of Default in Deal More Than 12 Times the Size of Solyndra.

With the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) believed to be within days of announcing the final federal approval of the controversial Vogtle nuclear project, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) has asked a court to stop more than two years of stonewalling by Southern Co. and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which are resisting any meaningful public disclosure to taxpayers of the risks to which they are exposed in the massive commitment of $8.33 billion in conditional federal loan guarantees to Southern Company and their utility partners for two proposed new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia.

Of particular concern in the SACE Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proceeding is the fact that the amount of taxpayer-backed obligations for the proposed Vogtle reactors is more than a dozen times greater than the failed Solyndra loan guarantee.

To date, DOE has produced heavily censored documents that have provided little or no information in an effort to frustrate any analysis that would be useful to taxpayers. Based on the limited information produced to date, it appears that the power companies had to put almost no "skin in the game," only promising to pay a token credit subsidy fee of what could be as little as 0.5 or 1.5 percent of the total loan principal.

Private lenders have declined to finance new reactors because ...

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nuclear-secrecy-with-8-billion-on-the-line-sace-continues-fight-to-force-disclosure-of-us-taxpayer-backed-federal-loan-guarantees-to-risky-vogtle-reactor-project-2012-02-06?reflink=MW_news_stmp

[bananas]

1. The numbers don't work - of course they're keeping it secret.

What a travesty.

[PamW]

2. DOE deals with FOIA requests all the time...

DOE deals with FOIA requests all the time. If they have redacted portions of documents,
it means that those portions are exempted from the Freedom of Information Act.

Many people naively believe that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) gives anyone "carte blanche" to
obtain information from the Government. It doesn't work that way!

The FOIA Act itself specifies a number of exemptions in which FOIA can not be used to obtain information:

http://www.osec.doc.gov/omo/foia/exemptions.htm

For example, exemption (b)(4) states that you can't compel the release of financial information that was
given to the Government in confidence. If a company has information that they don't legally have to make
public, but they give that information to the Government in confidence; then they don't lose the right to have
that information kept private just because they shared it with the Government.

Looks like a flimsy case on behalf of SACE.

Information that the DOE has redacted because of FOIA exemptions can not be released by a FOIA filing.

PamW

[kristopher]

4. Financial disclosure is clearly in the public interest.

We have transparency laws for a reason, and this situation is an obvious example of why; the public is being asked to sign a contract where the terms of sale are unknown. That is an open invitation for abuse. Here's why:



http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse

[FBaggins]

3. Last-ditch hail mary pass.

Running out of options for stopping new nuclear construction, the anti-nukes turn to attacking the funding.

Interesting to note that while this reads like a news piece... it's a press release by SACE, with their own biased spin on what constitutes "meaningful disclosure", "limited information", "foot dragging", "improper handling" etc. etc.