No More Taxpayer Bailouts!

In September, Warren Buffett bailed out Constellation Energy for $4.7 billion.

In purchasing Constellation, Buffett has inherited a partnership with French government-owned, Electricite de France. The 50-50 partnership, known as UniStar,  will be building four new nuclear reactors in four states that will cost nearly $10 billion each!! AND, UniStar wants to pay for them with loan guarantees subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. Under the company’s plan, outlined at Maryland Public Service Commission hearings in July, U.S. taxpayers could be at risk for 80 percent of the cost of the reactors.

Loan guarantees are promises that U.S. taxpayers will pay back the loans when the project fails, and the risk of loan defaults is extraordinarily high.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 50 percent of all new reactor projects are likely to default - that's worse than anything AIG ever insured, or anything Lehman Brothers experienced on its worst day.

It's not too late, to let Buffett know what we think about UniStar's business model that commits taxpayers to cover more risky loans. 

Sign the petition below.  Then forward the petition to five of your friends!

We owe it to ourselves to demand cleaner, safer and more efficient energy so we can achieve true energy independence. 

Dear Warren Buffett, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. Congratulations on your purchase of Constellation Energy! Unfortunately, when you bought Constellation, you also got 50% of UniStar Nuclear LLC—not much more than a front corporation for France’s nuclear power industry, which is proliferating nuclear technology worldwide. Not only is UniStar itself an undercapitalized limited liability corporation, in Maryland, it has set up an even smaller subsidiary to build and operate a new nuclear reactor, relying on U.S. taxpayer loan guarantees and money from the French export-import bank. Two layers of protection for Constellation if it fails — but there is no protection at all for consumers and ratepayers. UniStar intends to use that same model in New York, Pennsylvania and Missouri. We hope that’s not the way you want to do business. Please shut down UniStar, cancel its plans for dangerous new atomic reactors, more radioactive waste and higher electricity costs, and instead support new energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. That’s where the green jobs are that our state and entire nation need.

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0-25 of 3893 signatures

Number	Date	Name	Personalize your signature by adding a comment.
3893	November 13, 2009	Anonymous	What's wrong with the people in power don't they live on the same Planet? When we all die they will die also why are they in such a hurry to die?
3892	August 05, 2009	Kristen Zehner	I urge you not to subsidize more corporate interference in government affairs, which shut out average Americans while making American taxpayers the sucker for bad policy.
3891	May 10, 2009	Ginny Schneider	No nuclear energy or associated waste unless it is stored in your backyare.
3890	April 22, 2009	Zachary Sand
3889	March 22, 2009	zigurds jakovics	I agree with you.Just another form of American greed.Forget the average working class people
3888	March 21, 2009	Ginny Schneider
3887	March 21, 2009	Karen Huggins
3886	March 19, 2009	Karen Johnson	If only nuclear energy were safe and we had a sure-fire way to store the waste, then I would be for two new nuclear reactors. Alas, it is NOT safe as ther have been multiple instances of reactor cracks, effulent full of radiated water, etc. I will not turst nuclear energy until man has created a pure and infallible mode of the best engineering and materials. Also, I do not turst an mody of transporting spent fuel rods safely.
3885	March 14, 2009	D A Smith	EVOLVE!
3884	March 14, 2009	Dia Redman	EVOLVE!
3883	February 13, 2009	Marilyn Mayers
3882	February 04, 2009	Arline Bolvin
3881	February 01, 2009	John W. McManus, ULC	The courtesy of a written response is requested.
3880	January 27, 2009	Mike Antone
3879	January 25, 2009	Toni Lubofsky
3878	January 22, 2009	John Mammoser
3877	January 21, 2009	Holly Chisholm
3876	January 21, 2009	Maureen Wheeler
3875	January 20, 2009	Willis G. Farner
3874	January 20, 2009	Daniel Belachew
3873	January 19, 2009	Christine LeBeau
3872	January 19, 2009	Anonymous	Make it right with the people of the United States. It's our money, and we should have a voice in the decision.
3871	January 19, 2009	Elizabeth Tomlinson
3870	January 19, 2009	Craig Bradley
3869	January 19, 2009	Mary Prange

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