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For Immediate Release:
9:30 am Eastern October 11, 2007

Contact:
Sam Boykin, 212.584.5000, email
Joel Finkelstein, 202.822.5200, email
 
No-Nukes Musicians Launch Campaign to Stop the Nuclear Bailout
Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt Spark Effort
Energy Bill Would Subsidize New Nuclear Reactors with Taxpayer Billions
YouTube Video and Petition Released at www.nukefree.org
 
LOS ANGELES and WASHINGTON, DC – Musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash announced today a new campaign to stop Congress from bailing out the nuclear power industry.  They launched the campaign with the release of a YouTube video and national petition effort all available at www.nukefree.org. The artists will deliver the petitions to Congress at a press conference and Lobby Day in Washington D.C. on October 23rd.

Initial petition signers include Ben Harper, Natalie Maines and Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks, Melissa Etheridge, Maroon 5, Keb’ Mo’, Patti Smith, Pearl Jam, Herbie Hancock and dozens of others.  Already the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, U.S. PIRG, Environmental Working Group, TrueMajority.org and Working Assets Wireless have joined the effort.  The musicians are urging the public to sign the petition.

The Senate version of the Energy Bill, currently before Congress, authorizes the Department of Energy to provide virtually unlimited loan guarantees for funding of new nuclear reactors.  The nuclear energy industry has already indicated it wants $25 billion in guarantees for 2008, and another $25 billion for 2009, with untold billions more to come after that.

The petition states: “We ask that all members of Congress join us in working to remove from the pending Energy Bill massively expensive loan guarantees---potentially a virtual blank check from taxpayers--- for the building of many more nuclear power plants. We strongly support those parts of this Energy Bill that advance Renewable Portfolio Standards, increased fuel efficiency for automobiles, and other safe, clean solutions to global warming.”

The YouTube video, produced by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Foundation, integrates an adapted version of the Stephen Stills song, “For What It’s Worth,” with information about both the problems of nuclear power and the potential of safe, green energy, including:

-The vulnerability to attack, or accident, of both the reactors and the thousands of shipments of radioactive nuclear waste moving through neighborhoods across the country.

-How subsidies to nuclear power would depress investment in sustainable safe sources of energy.

-The global warming pollution produced in reactor construction, and in the mining, milling and transport of nuclear fuel and waste.

Graham, Bonnie and Jackson worked, with many others, on the issue of nuclear power throughout the 1970’s, culminating with the 1979 series of five “No Nukes” concerts at Madison Square Garden.  The Rally, feature film and triple album based on those concerts along with the ongoing work of grassroots organizations helped catalyze overwhelming public opposition to nuclear power.  There have been no new atomic reactors ordered and built in the U.S. since then.

Instead of new nuclear reactors, the artists are urging Congress to get behind those parts of the Energy Bill that advance safe, economically viable solutions to global warming.

PETITION TO STOP THE NUCLEAR BAILOUT
To: The 110th United States Congress

We ask that all members of Congress join us in working to remove from the pending Energy Bill massively expensive loan guarantees---potentially a virtual blank check from taxpayers--- for the building of many more nuclear power plants.

We strongly support those parts of this Energy Bill that advance Renewable Portfolio Standards, increased fuel efficiency for automobiles, and other safe, clean solutions to global warming.

The tragedies of September 11th, 2001, underscore how vulnerable atomic reactors are to terror attacks by airplanes and missiles. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island remind us that major nuclear accidents can also be caused by human error.
 
The problem of radioactive waste remains unsolved. All reactors create deadly by-products that must be isolated for centuries. These wastes will have to be moved throughout the nation on trucks and trains, which could themselves have accidents and become terror and proliferation targets. There is no storage site even planned for the wastes that would come from new reactors. The controversial dump under construction at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which may never open, cannot handle even the waste from reactors already in existence.

Huge quantities of energy are used for nuclear fuel enrichment, transportation, construction and waste storage. This is no solution to global warming. Reactors in Alabama and France have already shut because they are super-heating nearby rivers and streams.

The "new generation" nuclear plant now being built in Finland is already 18 months behind schedule and $900 million over budget. This is a design planned for our country. If construction begins here, tax and ratepayers will be stuck with the bill.

The Senate version of the Energy Bill could authorize the Department of Energy to provide virtually unlimited guarantees for backers of new reactors. The industry indicates it wants $25 billion in guarantees for 2008, and another $25 billion for 2009, with untold billions more to come after that.

The industry wants these subsidies because after fifty years, atomic power has been rejected by the marketplace. The first commercial nuclear reactor opened in 1957. But after fifty years of proven failure, Wall Street will not independently invest in more of them, and still no private insurance company will underwrite the possibility of a major reactor disaster.

In fact, nuclear power has been left behind by a profitable revolution in safe, clean, renewable energy sources, and in energy efficiency. Wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal and more are shaping a green-powered Earth that produces jobs and sustainability. This is the true solution to global warming.

These wasteful reactor loan guarantees would siphon away resources better spent on truly competitive sources of power.

So we ask that they be removed from the Energy Bill. Higher auto mileage standards, biofuels, energy efficiency and requirements for renewable energy are what we need to survive and prosper, not more taxpayer bailouts for the proven failure that is atomic energy.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

Jackson Browne, Musician/Activist
Graham Nash, Musician/Activist
Bonnie Raitt, Musician/Activist
Keb' Mo’, Musician/Activist
Ozomatli, Musicians/Activists
Ben Harper, Musician/Activist
Harvey Wasserman, Author/Activist
Tom Campbell, The Guacamole Fund
Herbie Hancock, Musician/Activist
Patti Smith, Musician/Activist
David Crosby, Musician/Activist
Emily Saliers, Indigo Girls
Amy Ray, Indigo Girls
Pearl Jam, Musicians/Activists
Bruce Hornsby, Musician
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Environmental Attorney
Pete Seeger, Songwriter
Maroon 5, Musicians Activists
Emily Robison, Musician
Natalie Maines, Musician
Winona LaDuke, Author/Activist
Henry, JoJo and Ringo Garza, Los Lonely Boys
Melissa Etheridge, Musician/Activist
Dave Stewart, Musician/Cultural Engineer/Activist
David Fenton, CEO Fenton Communications
Shawn Colvin, Singer/Songwriter
Robert Cray, Musician
Dave Marsh, Author/Activist
Mudhoney, Musicians/Activists
System of a Down, Musicians/Activists
Nanci Griffith, Musician/Activist
Danny O’ Keefe, Musician/Activist
Cris Williamson, Musician/Activist
Dar Williams, Musician/Activist
David Lindley, Musician
Adam Gardner, Musician/Activist
Holly Near, Musician/Activist
Peter Coyote, Actor/Activist
Joel Rafael, Musician/Activist
Brett Dennen, Musician/Activist
Michelle Branch, Musician/Activist
Paul Hawken, Author/Activist
Kenny Ausubel, Founder and Co-President, Bioneers
Dan Shugar, President, Sunpower Corp.
Randy Hayes, Founder, Rainforest Action Network
Thomas Van Dyck, RBC SRI Wealth Mgmt
Larry Fahn, Former President Sierra Club
Conrad Mackerron, As You Sow Foundation
Natural Resources Defense Council
Greenpeace USA
The Sierra Club
League of Conservation Voters
Environmental Working Group
TrueMajority.com
The Vote Solar Initiative
Physicians for Human Rights
Working Assets Wireless
Nuclear Energy Information Service
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
U.S.PIRG: Federation of State PIRGs














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