Free-Market Conservatives and Other Oxymorons

The Senate just rejected an effort to strip loan guarantees to the nuclear power industry, estimated at $16 billion, from the current energy bill. The loan-guarantee provision will put taxpayers on the hook for 50% of the cost of new nuclear plants in the event of default. The 50-48 vote was largely party line.

Why does the nuclear industry deserve this, you ask? Why, it's simple:

Industry representatives have argued that the government safety net is needed at least for the first group of reactors now that the electric power industry is in transition from highly regulated to competitive markets.

Got that? Because the energy industry got what it wanted--deregulation--we now have to protect them from the effects of deregulation.

Meanwhile, critics point out that, aside from the potential costs of the loan guarantees, this provision costs taxpayers $3.7 billion over 5 years in outright subsidies.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a private advocacy group on tax issues... called the bill "one of the largest corporate welfare handouts in our nation's history."

Those of us without attention-deficit disorder may recall that sums of this magnitude made Trent Lott gag as he voted on the recent Child Tax Credit Extension, and were intolerable handouts to the undeserving poor in the view of Don Nickles and James M. Inhofe. All three voted for the loan guarantees.

It was not reported whether Trent made a gagging gesture while extending this handout to an industry that has never been able to survive unprotected in the marketplace.