A ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee sparked a turf war with Republicans yesterday by accusing a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee of attacking loan guarantees for renewable energy firms while overlooking the more ominous federal assistance for American's nuclear and oil sectors.

Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey accused the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of narrowly zeroing in on the unfolding controversy surrounding the government's pledge of more than a half billion dollars to bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra Inc. Meanwhile, House Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of rushing its review of the California-based company's loan guarantee.

The House panel, Markey said, is following a tight agenda of attacking wind and solar generators while ignoring the billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees that the nation's oil and nuclear industries receive.

"I'll just note first of all that if you want to waste Americans taxpayers dollars, let's talk about the oil industry at record high profits getting $41 billion worth of tax money from taxpayers," Markey said. "And secondly if you want to talk about loan guarantees, the Southern Company has received a loan guarantee 15 times larger than Solyndra."

The Energy Department has pledged a federal loan guarantee of more than $8 billion for Southern Co.'s proposal to add two new nuclear reactors to its Vogtle plant in Georgia. The Obama administration hopes to expand the loan guarantee program and is asking for $36 billion in its fiscal 2012 budget request.

Markey, a vocal skeptic of nuclear power and the loan guarantee program, questioned whether the federal government should help finance the construction of new nuclear plants following the March 11 disaster in Japan. A magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami rocked the country, critically damaging the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, triggering explosions, radioactive leaks and raising concerns about nuclear safety around the globe.

"If we're going to re-examine whether or not that's a good investment, after Fukushima, after the earthquake near the North Anna plant, let's have that hearing because I think that money is in jeopardy if you're really concerned," Markey said.

But Markey said the subpanel would never hold a hearing to investigate federal loan guarantees for the oil and nuclear industries because "this is all part of the agenda here that deals with the solar industry, the wind industry."

'A little disingenuous'?

The congressman's comments drew a rebuttal from Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia, who took issue with any comparison between Solyndra and its "unproven technology" to that of Southern Co.'s nuclear fleet. He called such a comparison "a little disingenuous." Notably, Southern is based in Atlanta and its proposed plants near Waynesboro, Ga., could attract jobs to the state.

"Southern Company owns Mississippi Power, Alabama Power, Georgia Power, among others, and employs literally thousands of people, is closely regulated by the Georgia Public Service Commission, has three nuclear power facilities, two in Georgia, one in Alabama, with five reactors that have been in production for years," Gingrey said.

Gingrey pointed out that nuclear plants shut safely after a magnitude-5.8 earthquake rattled the East Coast last month and after California experienced a blackout earlier this month.

"As somebody who has a nuclear facility in his county, I am more confident now of the safety of our technology than I was beforehand, and remind the gentleman from Massachusetts that the beautiful bay of San Diego Bay is full of nuclear reactors being run by 20-something-year-old kids, and it's safer and cleaner because we have those reactors in San Diego Bay," he said.

Gingrey said the issue underlying the federal loan program and Solyndra debacle was the "inappropriate application of political influence or perception," whether intentional or not. "I think it is a much deeper problem that this was a prejudice for a broad definition of technology, as if somehow this was going to be the answer for everything," he said.

Despite their disagreement, Gingrey and Markey joined to call for a hearing on federal loan guarantees for nuclear power plants.

Questioning a nuclear resurgence

Markey has repeatedly questioned whether the federal government should support nuclear loan guarantees for nuclear power plants.

Under the program, the federal government backs loans to companies investing in nuclear energy projects to spur investment in the technologies. In return, DOE charges the project credit subsidy fees, which work as an insurance premium to protect taxpayers against the risk of the project's default or failure.

The Energy Department currently has $18 billion in nuclear loan guarantee authority but has used $8 billion of that for a conditional loan guarantee to the partners building a new reactor at Southern's Vogtle plant in Georgia. The agency has requested $36 billion more in the president's fiscal 2012 budget request (E&E Daily, July 26).

Markey has repeatedly said Congress should calculate any risk associated with nuclear power and potential accidents into the loan guarantees, especially in light of Japan's nuclear crisis (E&ENews PM, May 6). He has also said new nuclear power plant designs, namely the AP1000, could shatter during an earthquake or if struck by an airplane or missile (Greenwire, March 10).

Markey again pressed the issues yesterday, noting that Germany and other countries have since retreated from expanding their nuclear fleets, all of which is injecting risk into America's domestic nuclear industry, and therefore taxpayer-backed federal loan guarantees.

"Those loan guarantees could come back to haunt the taxpayers in our country," he said. "I hope that we see a similar interest in that subject because that's happening right now, and now is the time for this committee to exercise the due diligence to protect the taxpayer."

Markey wrote the White House Office of Management and Budget earlier this year, saying taxpayers are facing considerable risk as co-signers on $22.5 billion in loan guarantees under the DOE program.

House Democrats also called for a meeting with the Obama administration in August to discuss a Congressional Budget Office report that found the Energy Department has been undercharging energy companies for federal loan guarantees to build new reactors. The report found the government is underestimating the actual costs for guaranteeing the construction of hypothetical nuclear plants (Greenwire, Aug. 5).

Industry representatives disagreed with the report, saying it used a model that is outside of what is used for other federal loan guarantees.