On Wednesday December 2nd, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a markup to consider S. 4897, the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act of 2020. The committee approved an amendment in the form of a substitute for the bill 16-5.

With Senator Barrasso (R-WY) leaving his post as chairman of the committee to be the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, much of the markup was spent praising his four years at the helm rather than debating the substance of the bill or offering amendments.

Senator Barrasso opened the hearing lauding the bill he introduced as a way to “preserve America’s nuclear fuel supply chain” and prevent more carbon emissions. Bill cosponsors, including Senators Booker (D-NJ) and Whitehouse (D-RI), argued that the nuclear incentive program could help the premature shutdown of nuclear plants in an ’unfair’ market the doesn’t value low carbon energy and allows natural gas to continue to increase its market share.

But these claims are misleading at best.

In reality, the bill does little more than provide a litany of handouts in the form of awards, grants, and cash to the nuclear energy industry furthering skewing energy markets —adding to the layers of taxpayer supports nuclear power has received for decades. The most costly and wasteful program is the nuclear reactor incentive program which would give two-year financial “credits” to nuclear power plants at risk of shutting down due to economic factors. Once awarded, the “credits” can be renewed through fiscal year 2026. The bill would authorize appropriations of “such sums as are necessary” to carry out the incentive program, essentially writing a blank check for the cash bailouts to uneconomical and uncompetitive nuclear facilities.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the U.S. will have added a total of 36,000 megawatts of wind and solar energy capacity by the end of 2020, making renewable energy the fastest growing source of electricity. Meanwhile, no new nuclear reactor has been finished in the United States in the last 30 years. “This is a bailout that could cost more than $1 billion”, said Sen. Markey (D-MA), who voted against the bill along with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

The substance of the bill aside, the committee process itself was an affront to taxpayers. Before and during the markup and at the time of writing, the text of the bill that would authorize billions of dollars in spending was not available for public review. The committee did not post a draft of the underlying bill or the substitute amendment. The markup may not have been behind closed doors, but the Committee’s process was still opaque. Whichever senator takes the gavel for the committee in January, improving accountability to taxpayers by posting all committee documents to the committee website should be a top priority.