Nuclear Reactor Loan Guarantee 15 Times Riskier Than Solyndra? DOE Stonewalling on Possible Taxpayer Hit on $8.3 Billion Vogtle

Is DOE Hiding Minuscule Credit Subsidy Fee of 1.5 Percent … Or Even Less …for New Vogtle Reactors?

(ATLANTA, Ga.) - After more than a year and a half of stonewalling by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) said this week that it will press ahead with its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation so that U.S. taxpayers can learn the full extent of the risks to which they are exposed in the massive commitment of $8.33 billion in conditional federal loan guarantees to Southern Company and their utility partners for two proposed new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in Georgia. Of particular concern: the amount of taxpayer-backed obligations for the proposed Vogtle reactors is roughly 15 times greater than the failed Solyndra loan guarantee.

In the wake of DOE’s last production of heavily redacted documents, SACE officials said they are continuing their suit in federal court in order to force the federal agency to release some of the improperly blacked-out and otherwise withheld information. Of particular interest to SACE is information revealing whether company officials played an inappropriate role in shaping the terms of the loan guarantee. Based on the limited information produced, it appears that the power companies had to put almost no “skin in the game,” promising to pay a credit subsidy fee of possibly as little as 0.5 or 1.5 percent of the total loan guarantee.

Stephen Smith, executive director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said: “Given some of the lessons learned developing from the Solyndra loan guarantee case, it’s unacceptable that the much larger Vogtle loan isn’t getting intense scrutiny when the potential risk to taxpayers is much greater. The DOE needs to operate with more transparency now – not less.”

SACE filed its FOIA request on March 25, 2010. Under FOIA, DOE was obliged to respond in full to the SACE request by April 22, 2010. On August 10, 2010, when SACE had still not received a complete response, it filed suit in the D.C. District Court. DOE recently made its final document production on September 14, 2011, nearly 17 months after the response deadline. Most of the documents produced by DOE were heavily redacted, and the loan guarantee terms and credit subsidy fee estimates were withheld as confidential information belonging to the power companies.

Taxpayers for Common Sense supports the FOIA request and urges DOE to provide the details of the agreement for the Vogtle plant—especially because taxpayers are on the hook for such an enormous amount of money. President Ryan Alexander commented, “With more than $8 billion on the line it’s time DOE start shedding some light on this program. Solyndra was the canary in the coal mine for this deeply flawed program, these defaults will continue if things don’t change.”

SACE has now posted the thousands of pages of documents on a website that is open for the concerned public to access. Accompanying the documents are highlighted examples of the egregiously and they believe, illegally, redacted materials.

Mindy Goldstein, Acting Director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic, is representing SACE in their FOIA litigation. She said: “DOE claims that the loan guarantee terms and credit subsidy fee estimates are confidential and may only be viewed by Georgia Power and its utility partners. Let’s hope DOE is wrong. For such information to be withheld as confidential, it must have been obtained from the utilities themselves. If the power companies are literally writing their own guarantees and credit subsidy fee estimates, the Loan Guarantee Program is more flawed than anyone could have imagined.”

SACE’s Stephen Smith continued: “This is too large a sum of taxpayer's money, being spent on too risky a project for there to be this much cover-up and secrecy. Obama's Department of Energy, Southern Company and the public power companies involved in the Vogtle project need to set the record straight and tell the truth about what is going on here; that they are socializing the risk and privatizing the profits for big power companies."

SACE’s March 2010 FOIA request covered such items as: the Southern Company loan guarantee; related correspondence between DOE and Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Georgia Power Company, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Municipal Authority of Georgia (MEAG), and the City of Dalton, Georgia; environmental review records related to the loan guarantee request; any credit analysis conducted by DOE in relation to the loan guarantee; all records related to the general terms and conditions of the loan guarantee; and all records related to issuance of the loan guarantee.

The continued foot dragging and improper handling by DOE of the SACE FOIA request provide the latest proof of the validity of the criticisms set out in the July 12, 2010 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, “Further Actions Are Needed to Improve DOE's Ability to Evaluate and Implement the Loan Guarantee Program.” (See http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-627.) The GAO found that the program is inadequately planned and executed, lacks objective performance goals, and provides preferential treatment to nuclear loan guarantee applications over other types of applications.

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy promotes responsible energy choices that create global warming solutions and ensure clean, safe and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Founded in 1985, SACE is the only regional organization primarily focused on developing clean energy solutions throughout the Southeast. For more information, see http://www.cleanenergy.org.