The $9 billion in nuclear power loan guarantees had been requested by the Obama administration in June to allow the Department of Energy to award conditional guarantees to three more nuclear projects before the end of the fiscal year.

DOE gave conditional loan guarantees to three companies building a two-unit nuclear project at the Vogtle plant in Georgia earlier this year.

"Construction of these new nuclear plants will enable the nation to meet rising electricity demand and challenging environmental goals," said Alex Flint, senior vice president of governmental affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, in a statement Friday. NEI urged the Senate to pass the provision "expeditiously."

The three other new nuclear power projects in negotiations with DOE for a conditional loan guarantee are UniStar for its Calvert Cliffs reactor in Maryland, South Carolina Electric & Gas for the two-unit Summer station expansion and NRG's South Texas Project, which would also be a two unit expansion.

The bill would require DOE to disclose to the House and Senate appropriations committees the credit subsidy fee costs paid by nuclear loan guarantee recipients.

DOE has said that information is proprietary, but Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, has called on them to be made public, as have environmental organizations.

The nuclear industry is "OK" with that language, NEI spokesman John Keeley said in an e-mail response to questions.

The amendment containing the nuclear and renewable loan guarantee language passed 239-182, with the overall supplemental appropriations bill, which included funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as money for teachers and Macondo oil spill clean-up, passing 215-210 in an evening session before the House adjourned for a holiday weekend break.

--William Freebairn, william_freebairn@platts.com