USA funding Chinese Nuclear plant!! This should get Californians raging mad

NewsMax.com Sunday, May 20, 2001

Just What The Hell Is Going on Here?

Americans facing blackouts and skyrocketing energy costs this summer will be happy to know their tax dollars helped pay for a nuclear power plant now providing electricity for a Chinese shipyard building warships that someday could be used against the United States.

The Export-Import Bank of the United States coughed up almost $360 million in two low-interest loans to China to help the Red Chinese build the Quinshan nuclear power plant near Shanghai despite US law that specifically bans the financing of loans to "Marxist-Leninist" countries, including the People's Republic of China (PRC) unless the loans are considered to be in the national interest.

President Clinton obligingly declared the loans to be in the US national interest according to Human Events, which uncovered the shocking scandal. Moreover, the Republican controlled congress stood quietly by and allowed the loans to go forward.

Among the customers of the nuclear plant is the Jiangnan Shipyards which builds ships for the rapidly expanding Chinese navy.

The Ex-Im loans put up the funding that allowed two American companies - Westinghouse Electric and Bechtel Power - to help the PRC build the strategically important nuclear power plant. The loans were made at an interest rate of 7.49%. at a time when the prime rate in the United States was 8.25% - a rate even lower that the 7.8% then being paid by Americans for a home mortgage.

The first loan guarantee of $36,347,390 ) to help the Chinese buy "steam turbines and auxiliaries" from Westinghouse for the second phase of Qinshan was approved by the Ex-Im bank's directors in July of 1996, The second, for $323 million covered Bechtel's sale of non-nuclear plant components to the China National Nuclear Corp. It was used for the third phase of the Qinshan plant and was approved by the Bank's board of directors on Jan. 14, 1997.

The notification of both loans that the Ex-Im Bank was required to send to Congress were transmitted in the form of a letter to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga.) and then-Vice President Al Gore in his constitutional role as president of the Senate. According to Human Events Gingrich and Gore forwarded the messages to the banking committees in their respective chambers where the matters languished without any apparent further action.

In addition to helping the PRC build a nuclear power plant that supplies electricity to a key part of their defense industry, Human Events notes that "building the later phases of Qinshan - with financing from U.S. taxpayers - helped the PRC develop its nuclear-reactor-building expertise."

The magazine quotes Xinhua, the Chinese government's official news agency, as having boasted earlier this year that "through the development of . . . Qinshan Phase 3 [and other plants] the corporation has basically mastered the advanced modern methodology for the management of nuclear power development projects."

Both Westinghouse and Bechtel are heavy financial contributors to the Democrat and Republican parties.

The law requires that three of the five Ex-Im Bank's directors must approve a loan to Communist China. At the time of the two loans, there were two vacancies on the board, and the three remaining members - Board Chairman Martin A. Kamarck and Maria Haley and Julie Belaga voted unanimously to send the money to China. Kamarck is the husband of former Gore aide Elaine Kamarck.

According to the NY Times On Feb. 14, 1997, a month after she voted to approve the Bechtel-related loan, "Ms. Haley's first job in Washington was in the White House personnel office, where she helped John Huang, the Riady family's senior American executive, get a job at the Commerce Department."

It was Huang, who helped funnel tens of thousands of dollars in illegal foreign contributions to President Clinton and the Democrats. Riady recently pleaded guilty to violating US campaign finance laws.

Julie Belaga was a regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency and an executive in a public relations firm. She was recommended for the Ex-Im job by Sen. Chris Dodd (D.-Conn.).

When your lights begin to flicker this summer and your energy bill begins to look like your mortgage payment, be comforted in the knowledge that China is enjoying nuclear power at your expense at a time when Democrats and environmentalists battle against building any nuclear plants in the US.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Answers

typical, huh?

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Our Attorney General made this comment about what he would like to do with some energy company exec..

SACRAMENTO--In a dramatic escalation of energy crisis rhetoric, California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer this week suggested the chairman of a Houston-based power company should be locked in a prison cell with an amorous, tattooed inmate named Spike.

Lockyer, who is investigating whether energy firms have manipulated prices on the wholesale electricity market, made the comment in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that appeared Tuesday.

"I would love to personally escort [Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth] Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi my name is Spike, honey,' " Lockyer said.

Enron spokesman Mark Palmer called the comment "counterproductive rhetoric" that "does not merit a response."

Good Idea!

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

Lockyer is just jealous that he didn't get to do it to California as well as ENRON did.

I wonder how he knows Spike?

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001

LOL!

Did we really fund this nuke station? Is this a legit source?

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2001