FACT SHEET - Removing Congressional Oversight over Unlimited Nuclear Loan Guarantees Undermines Constitutional Safeguards

Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution states that, “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury except for in consequence of appropriations made by law.” This gives Congress the explicit power of the purse and represents one of the most powerful checks on the federal bureaucracy. Through the annual budget process, Congress utilizes its prerogatives over spending to provide critical direction and oversight over federal agencies. Without this tool, many of the government’s programs would simply operate on auto-pilot without budget or staffing constraints or policy direction. The nuclear power industry and its allies in Congress are attempting to circumvent this Constitutional prerogative in order to gain lucrative subsidies for their industry. These subsidies come in the form of low-risk loan guarantees for expensive new nuclear projects that they are trying to exempt from the safeguards and requirements typically associated with federal credit programs.

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