As President Obama backs a nuclear plan with $8 billion “conditional” loan guarantee, taxpayers across the country are taking a hit. Public Citizen is standing up for both the taxpayers and the environment, and turning a cold shoulder to the so-called “nuclear renaissance.” And in doing that, Public Citizen has been included in the top media coverage on the issue.
Allison Fisher, an energy organizer with Public Citizen’s Energy Program, was quoted in an Associated Press story on the loan guarantee, stating:
“This is a pre-emptive bailout where the government has already guaranteed to saddle taxpayers with any failure that the (nuclear) industry might run into.”
The story was picked up by big-whig media organizations like The WashingtonPost, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Huffington Post and BusinessWeek–just to name a few.
After the Texas utility CPS Energy backed out of a nuclear expansion plan, The South Texas Project (STP), at the end of January, it sent a signal to the city of San Antonio and the country as a whole that nuclear power that it is a needlessly expensive and dangerous way to meet future energy needs. Delivering a counter-punch from pro-nuclear advocates, a consortium of nuke companies will try to make up some of the difference.
Leading media coverage for that story included quotes from Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of Public Citizen’s Texas office. In the Associated Press, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Austin American-Statesman, San Antonio Express News, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and more, Smitty is quoted saying that the CPS withdrawal “demonstrates nuclear plants are too costly and risky to build.”
But Public Citizen isn’t just focusing on the nuclear industry. We’ve been busy working on trade issues, reversing the damaging Citizens United Supreme Court decision and calling attention to the dangers of weight loss medication, among other issues.
Lori Wallach, director of the Global Trade Watch division at Public Citizen, was interviewed on C-SPAN/BookTV about Joseph Stiglitz’s new book, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.
Stay tuned for more!
