Action Alert for Michiganders: Urge Your State Senator & Representative to Block another $150 Million of State Taxpayer-Funded Bailouts for Palisades Zombie Atomic Reactor Restart!

[“Burning money” image by Gene Case/Avenging Angels. It graced the cover of The Nation magazine in 2003, accompanying an article by Christian Parenti about the Bush/Cheney administration’s nuclear power relapse.]

***Urgent Action Alert***

Urge Your Michigan State Senator & Representative to Block another $150 Million of State Taxpayer-Funded Bailouts for Palisades Zombie Atomic Reactor Restart!

 

June 14, 2024

 

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

If you live in Michigan, please take direct action. If you do not live in Michigan, please spread the word to Michiganders!

On June 28, 2023 — despite widespread environmental opposition

<https://beyondnuclear.org/43-groups-to-michigan-state-legislators-oppose-300-million-bailout-to-restart-closed-palisades-zombie-atomic-reactor/> — the Michigan State Legislature rubber-stamped its approval for Governor Whitmer’s request for $150 million in bailouts for Holtec International’s unprecedented and high-risk scheme to restart the closed Palisades atomic reactor in Covert Township, Michigan near South Haven on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Just over a month later, Gov. Whitmer signed the bill into law.

Earlier this year, Whitmer requested yet another $150 million from State of Michigan taxpayers for Holtec’s Palisades restart scheme. We cannot let this happen again!

Please contact your Michigan State Representative and your Michigan State Senator as soon as possible, and repeatedly if needed. Urge them to not only vote against Gov. Whitmer’s requested second round of $150 million in state taxpayer giveaways to Holtec for the dangerous Palisades restart, but to actively work to block it within the state legislature! (Find your State Senator’s contact info. here <https://senate.michigan.gov/FindYourSenator/>; find your State Representative’s contact info. here <https://www.house.mi.gov/#findARepresentativeForm>– if need be, click on MEMBERS from the pull down menu, then click on Find Your Representative.)

You can also contact your State Senator here <https://senate.michigan.gov/senators/senatorinfo_complete.html>, and your State Representative here <https://www.house.mi.gov/AllRepresentatives>.

Here below is some sample language you could use as is (or adapt, in your own words) in your written (email/webform, or letter) or verbal (phone call or in-person meeting) communications with your Michigan State Legislators and/or their staff:

 

Sample Language —

Dear State Representative/Senator X,

I urge you to vote against, and to work actively to block, Governor Whitmer’s second request for yet another $150 million in state taxpayer funding, to bail out Holtec International’s unprecedented, extremely high-risk, and insanely expensive (for the public) scheme to restart the 53-year old Palisades atomic reactor in Van Buren County. 

Closed for good more than two years ago by its previous owner, Entergy, Palisades has been dangerous and controversial for more than a half-century, with multiple serious breakdown phase pathways to reactor core meltdown, and the consequent risk of catastrophic release of large amounts of hazardous radioactivity into the environment. We cannot risk a Fukushima- or Chornobyl-scale radioactive catastrophe on the Lake Michigan shoreline, upwind and upstream of most of the Great Lakes State!

Thank you for considering my concerns. Please vote against this second bailout request, and do all you can to block it from being approved!

Sincerely,

Your name and contact info.

 

To learn more about the nuclear nightmare of Holtec’s zombie reactor restart scheme at Palisades, and its so-called “Small Modular Reactor” new build schemes at Palisades and Big Rock Point (Palisades’ long closed and completely dismantled sibling atomic reactor, located in Hayes Township near Charlevoix and Petoskey, also on the Lake Michigan shoreline), read on below.

Thanks for taking action to protect the Great Lakes and all who call them home! Please spread the word far and wide to Michiganders!

—Kevin Kamps

Radioactive Waste Specialist

Beyond Nuclear

(240) 462-3216

BACKGROUND INFO. ON HOLTEC’S ZOMBIE REACTOR RESTART, AND “SMALL MODULAR REACTOR” NEW BUILD, SCHEMES ON THE LAKE MICHIGAN SHORE

is posted at: https://beyondnuclear.org/background-info-on-holtecs-zombie-reactor-restart-and-small-modular-reactor-new-build-schemes-on-the-lake-michigan-shore/