Nuclear industry won’t ease up

Benjamin Grove

Sunday, April 23, 2000 | 9:15 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The nuclear power industry's relentless lobbying effort continues on a bill that would send nuclear waste to Nevada, despite President's Clinton's plan to veto it this week.

Most recently, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's aggressive lobbying arm, has spent thousands on an advertising blitz in the Washington Post and in Capitol Hill publications.

"The House and Senate have demonstrated leadership on the Nuclear Waste Bill," one ad says. "Now it's President Clinton's turn. Mr. President: Sign the Nuclear Waste Bill."

And last week, NEI officials huddled in Washington with lobbyists for the nation's governors, urging the governors to launch a last-minute campaign to pressure Clinton.

"Most of the governors are opposed to us on this issue," Nevada lobbyist Mike Pieper said. "(NEI) still believes they have a chance to get the president to sign the bill, so they are working it hard."

The bill establishes Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the nation's nuclear waste burial ground. Nuclear power plant officials, who operate 103 reactors nationwide, want to ship their highly radioactive spent fuel rods to Nevada.

NEI celebrated when the Senate passed the bill in February and the House followed in March. But President Clinton has voiced objections to the bill and vowed to veto it before a Wednesday deadline.

After that the bill is likely dead for this year, but Nevada officials expect another fight when NEI regroups to push the legislation again in 2001.

The new ads are just the latest tactic in NEI's well-orchestrated, well-financed lobbying campaign to pass the bill. NEI formed in 1994 when three nuclear industry groups organized under one umbrella. Now the Washington-based, 130-employee organization speaks for all 42 of the nation's nuclear utility companies on a number of nuclear issues.

"The Goliath on the block is NEI," Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said. "They're very powerful. They have a phalanx of lobbyists covering Capitol Hill from one end to the other. They're heavyweights, and they have a lot of dough."

The group has become a powerful voice on Capitol Hill, sometimes drowning out its opposition, which consists of a few Nevada officials and a handful of environmental groups with relatively meager budgets.

NEI officials would not say how much they have spent on advertising this year. But the institute earlier this month ran several half-page ads inside the front section of the Washington Post at a cost between $30,000 and $40,000 each, according to the Post. Another color ad that ran April 10 in the Post was more than $80,000.

And NEI ads touting that "2 of 3 Americans support nuclear energy" ran for two weeks in National Journal's CongressDaily, a 24-page Capitol Hill newsletter that sells color full-page ads at a weekly $9,600 rate. NEI also ran two ads in the April 8 edition of Congressional Quarterly Weekly Magazine.

NEI's message: The nation's nuclear power plants can no longer afford storing nuclear waste that has been piling up on their properties for years. The lobbyists also point to a contract signed by the Department of Energy, which reneged on a promise to haul their waste away to a single repository by 1998. They stress that homeowners who have used nuclear-generated electricity for years have been paying special taxes in order to finance the Yucca project.

"There are fundamental reasons why this is a priority for NEI," NEI spokesman Steve Unglesbee said.

Utility companies and other nuclear-related industries nationwide pay their top lobbyist well: NEI's budget in 1999 was $26.5 million.

NEI uses some of that money -- $320,000 from 1997 through 1999 -- to make donations to congressional campaigns; another slice of the NEI budget is spent on travel for members of Congress, including free trips to Las Vegas to visit Yucca Mountain.

A more sizeable chunk of NEI's budget is spent on lobbyists and lobbying campaigns.

For instance, NEI spent $670,000 to pay 22 lobbyists during the first six months of 1999, the most recent period available, according to FECInfo, a Washington group that tracks lobby money.

During those six months, NEI spent another $940,000 on its own in-house lobbying efforts.

Several of NEI's contracted lobbyists offered some insight into how they do their jobs.

Bill Carney has worked the halls of Congress for NEI and nuclear industry groups for 14 years. Carney has met with 200 Congress members on the waste issue, he estimated.

"We'll show the merits of the bill to anyone who is willing to listen," Carney said. "I think we provide a service for Congress by showing them the various aspects of the bill."

Carney, who had a $60,000 contract with NEI in the first six months of 1999, according to FECInfo, also lobbies on a host of other nuclear issues for NEI, such as appropriations bills. Mostly he meets with members and staffers on their turf, in their offices on Capitol Hill.

"You go to them," he said.

Carney said one key to selling the Yucca Mountain proposal is keeping Congress members and staffers up to speed as waste bills get revised and amended. Persistence pays, Carney said.

Like Carney, lobbyist Wayne Valis said he had lobbied both Republicans and Democrats; those who support or oppose the Yucca plan. He worked for NEI for four years, but not during this Congressional session. Valis also had a $60,000 contract, according to FECInfo.

Valis said he has developed relationships with certain members of Congress. He targets those lawmakers on a variety of issues for several clients. For four years, nuclear waste was a regular topic of conversation.

Congress members sometimes told Valis they would support the bill if it carried certain amendments. Valis communicated that to NEI officials, who provided that information to the bill's sponsors.

Valis said that at one point he heavily lobbied one undecided senator -- visiting him in person six or eight times, once with NEI president Joe Colvin -- only to lose the senator's vote in the end.

"He kept saying, 'Well, maybe.' Then, 'I don't think so.' Then, 'I think maybe I'm going to be a no,' " Valis said. "At the end of the day you have to be civil. You have to be honest. You say, 'I understand your concerns. I hope we can address your concerns, but if you can't get there, we understand.' At the end of the day, you don't want to burn any bridges."

Federal law requires lobbyists to register their names and issues with Congress. But little other information is required. Lobbyists are not required to itemize expenses on the reports.

"These are the guys who really move the money in Washington," said Tony Raymond, co-founder of FECInfo. "They attend the fund-raisers. Sometimes they set up the fund-raisers. They know the influential members. They know the issues; sometimes they even draft legislation."

Lobbyists wield tremendous influence, often behind the scenes, Raymond said.

"They don't like to be put in the limelight," he said. "But (lawmakers) know them by their first names."

NEI's numerous lobbyists contrast with a small band of environmental groups in Washington that are active on the nuclear waste issue. Several activists said an equivalent of about just three or four of them in Washington work full time on the Yucca issue. None of the groups make campaign donations like NEI.

"We certainly don't have 22 lobbyists, we don't even have one," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of Nuclear Information Resource Service. "Mostly we're not going door-to-door on the Hill. We're not playing golf with any legislators or anything like that. What we have on our side is the right position."

The environmentalists are vastly outspent, said Wenonah Hauter, who follows a number of energy issues for Public Citizen. She and one other activist at Public Citizen keep tabs on the Yucca Mountain issue, spending roughly $75,000 a year, which includes their salaries and materials.

"We work with a grass-roots network of people across the country who at times are able to influence their members of Congress, but when you look at the amount of money, the number of votes, what (NEI) has accomplished -- this is basically legalized bribery," Hauter said.

Nevada's four members of Congress say they are acutely aware of nuclear industry lobbyists criss-crossing Capitol Hill.

"It completely skews the dynamics of politics," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "The nuclear power industry is pouring millions of dollars into lobbying to buy pro-nuke Congress people."

"It gives you an idea of how strong these forces are against the state of Nevada and just how hard our job is," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. "This is a David-and-Goliath issue here. The Nevada delegation is left to do what it can in its opposition in these bills.

"It seems to me it's an enormous waste of money. If I was a rate-payer to one of these utilities, I would be very upset that they were spending all this money (on lobbying)."

But NEI won't ease up. Next year brings the promise of a new president, which has stirred speculation about how Al Gore and George Bush would handle a nuclear waste bill. Gore, like Clinton, objects to the current bill, but neither he nor Bush has said much beyond that.

"We're doing it because it's the right thing to do," NEI's Unglesbee said of the organization's dogged push. "The government entered into an agreement with our member companies and the customers of our member companies to manage the used fuel, and that was 18 years ago now. For 17 years our members' customers have paid into the fund $16 billion and haven't received anything in return for their investment."

Benjamin Grove covers Washington for the Sun. He can be reached at (202) 628-3100 ext. 269 or by e-mail at grove@lasvegassun.com.

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