Politico first reported the plan Thursday and it was confirmed by the aide, who was present at a meeting Wednesday at the Capitol between Energy Secretary Steven Chu, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, White House climate czar Carol Browner, House Spekaer Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Representative Edward Markey, who chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

DOE still has $10.2 billion in remaining loan guarantee authority for nuclear projects, after having awarded a conditional $8.3 billion guarantee in February to Southern Company and two partners for a nuclear power plant in Georgia.

But in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Chu said DOE was seeking an additional $9 billion in loan-guarantee authority, so it could quickly approve three applications that large electric utilities submitted before the current fiscal year ends on September 30.

If it is approved by Congress, the White House's plan would pave the way for that to happen, but it is unclear what that would mean for the additional $36 billion in nuclear loan guarantee authority that DOE has requested for its fiscal 2011 budget.

DOE Press Secretary Stephanie Mueller declined to comment on the reported plan, but she said DOE has moved the three nuclear applications -- NRG and Toshiba's South Texas Project, UniStar's Calvert Cliffs project in Maryland, and South Carolina Electric & Gas' Summer project in South Carolina -- to the "due diligence" stage, which is the final step before a conditional loan guarantee is issued.

Without the additional $9 billion in loan guarantee authority, DOE's existing authority would not be enough to support all three, she said.

Under the reported plan, nuclear projects would receive half of the $180 million funding request for credit subsidies to support the $9 billion in loan guarantees, with renewable energy projects receiving the other half for credit subsidies. Because the less-mature renewable energy industry generally cannot afford projects as large as the nuclear industry, the $90 million for renewable energy credit subsidies will support about $1 billion in loan guarantees, sources said.

Separately, the aide said the Obama administration pledged to restore the $2 billion that had been taken from the DOE's loan guarantee program last summer for an extension of the popular auto trade-in Cash for Clunkers program. At the time the money was borrowed, administration officials said the funding would be restored at a later date, but they have yet to commit to doing so.

White House spokesman Ben LaBolt did not deny the report when asked to confirm it, referring questions to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not return a message seeking comment.

But tacking on the additional funding to the war funding bill may cause friction in Congress, with many fiscal hawks decrying the level of deficit spending. Republicans already have been attacking the war supplemental bill for being larded with several other non-military spending provisions, when the bill's ostensible purpose is to fund military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other defense-related needs.

The Senate will take up the war-funding bill next week, and the House of Representatives will soon after.

Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, on Thursday said he is drafting an amendment to the bill to offset its cost through cuts elsewhere in the budget.

"This bill will be an important test of whether politicians in Washington are ready to listen to the American people and do their job of budgeting," Coburn said in a statement. "The emergency designation of this bill is a farce designed to evade budget rules that require Congress to pay for new spending.

This legislation is designed to bail out career politicians who want to avoid the hard work of prioritizing spending."

-- Herman Wang, herman_wang@platts.com