The Department of Energy gave $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to the companies for the nuclear reactor construction project in 2014 and 2015.

The recent move comes just months after Westinghouse Electric Co., the project contractor, announced plans to file for bankruptcy in March, citing the cost overruns at Plant Vogtle and the V.C. Summer Plan in South Carolina. Since then, the Vogtle owners have revealed the project financial state is more grim than previously known, at more than $11 billion over budget and as much as six years behind schedule.

“Taxpayers cannot afford to be further entangled in the Vogtle debacle. Department of Energy officials should be exercising more caution now, with billions of taxpayer dollars already on the line for the ill-fated nuclear reactor project. Instead, they’ve doubled down on a bad decision, and the consequences for taxpayers could be dire. Jumping at the chance to sink billions more into the failing project on such short notice, at the behest of Vogtle lobbyists, raises very real questions of whose interest the Department of Energy is really protecting.”