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The U.S. Senate Dear Senator: Taxpayers for Common Sense Action strongly urges you to support funding cuts for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) in the FY 2007 Energy & Water Appropriations bill. This initiative to develop a large-scale nuclear reprocessing waste program is a fiscal nightmare that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars and will do nothing to solve the nation’s nuclear waste concerns. Nuclear reprocessing is a very expensive and complex process to separate uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. Reprocessing does not solve our nuclear waste headaches and as the President has said, it would not lessen the need for a national repository. The National Academy of Sciences estimated a reprocessing program to deal only with the nuclear waste from U.S. reactors would cost more than $100 billion. The nuclear industry has been unwilling to invest in reprocessing technology; and the government should be wary too. The bottom line on reprocessing is that it has not gotten any cheaper or safer than when we abandoned it more than 30 years ago. Furthermore, scientists and economists argue this technology may never work or be commercially viable. In addition to relying on a costly, questionable technology, the GNEP program envisions importing foreign nuclear waste for reprocessing in the United States. The costs and national security concerns of transporting and storing high-level radioactive waste and weapons grade plutonium would be tremendous. Furthermore, the Department of Energy has yet to provide comprehensive cost analyses for the GNEP program. Instead they are attempting to fast-track millions in funding for the program this year. We urge you to cut funding for GNEP. At a time of record deficits, the federal government can ill-afford to heavily invest in a program that relies on an unreliable technology, lacks sufficient information and cost analyses and jeopardizes our national security. If you have any questions, please contact Autumn Hanna, Taxpayers for Common Sense Action, 202-546-8500 or autumn@taxpayer.net. Sincerely, Jill Lancelot President/Co-Founder |
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