Perry wrote to Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman on July 29, 2008, asking him to take “this endorsement into consideration as you consider NRG Texas’ loan guarantee application.”
“I am writing to express my strong support for the proposed nuclear power generating facility in Matagorda County,” Perry wrote.
Paul wrote to Bodman the next day, saying: “I am writing in support of the loan guarantee application filed by NRG Energy, Inc. for two new nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project.” He later added: “Additionally, the construction and operation of STP 3 and 4 will lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs.”
The NRG plant had been among 15 finalists for part of the nuclear loan guarantees, but the project ran into internal financing disputes. The Energy Department decided to grant its first round of loan guarantees to a nuclear plant in Georgia.
Last spring, after the Japanese tsunami and the ensuing nuclear crisis chilled the appetite for nuclear investment, NRG Energy abandoned its five-year pursuit of a plant expansion.
Last month, in reaction to the Solyndra bankruptcy filing, Paul said that loan guarantees “worked for a short time for Solyndra” but that they covered up the real market problems. “Real venture capitalists make decisions based not on politics and photo opportunities, but on complex economic estimations of risk and reward. They don’t simply throw piles of other people’s money at a factory and expect magic to happen,” he said.
Instead of federal loan support or subsidies, Perry cites Texas’s “enterprise fund” for emerging energy companies as a model. He said it has created nearly 55,000 jobs in the state for the energy industry.
On Tuesday, Perry said the issue of federal-state involvement in the energy sector needs to be addressed in a national discussion.
“We need to have a discussion in this country about our 10th Amendment and the appropriateness of it, as it’s been eroded by Washington, D.C., for all these many years, whether it’s health care, whether it’s education, or whether it’s dealing with energy. We don’t need to be subsidizing energy in any form or fashion, allow the states to make the decision,” he said.
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