Don't use tax-exempt
bonds for coal plants: N.Y. official
Mon Jun 16, 2008
8:29pm BST
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN1626705420080616?sp=true
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Building coal-fired power plants has "significant and
unprecedented financial and environmental risks," and construction should
not be funded by tax-exempt bonds, New
York City's comptroller wrote in a letter released on
Monday.
"Though the energy sector constitutes a relatively small percentage of the
tax-exempt program, they are clearly among the most costly on a
project-by-project basis and fast becoming more expensive," William
Thompson wrote to the U.S. Treasury Department in a letter dated June 6.
Thompson called on the federal government to investigate how tax-exempt bonds
are used in building the plants because current plans are "based on
outdated assumptions and a suspension of disbelief that the risks will be
managed or wished away."
-SNIP-