Task force’s leanings questioned

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, May 17, 2001 | 11:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney that created President Bush's energy strategy has been dogged by critics.

Bush allies say the criticism of the group that it worked in secret and was cozy with energy industry executives is unfair.

"There is a level of mystique around how the energy policy was developed, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that (the energy plan) is a bill of sale to the industry that helped get Bush and Cheney elected," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst for Public Citizen.

And that worries Nevada lawmakers because nuclear utility officials are goading the new administration and Congress to haul their highly radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

More nuclear power means more waste with no good place to put it, they say.

"Yucca Mountain is not safe, and the industry will not be able to dump its waste there," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., has warned.

Indeed, Cheney's task force, which worked for four months, was described by the Washington Post as something of a "secret society," in which members were expected not to talk to the media in an effort to curb criticism.

Who served on the task force and how much did they rely on industry input?

The task force officially included secretaries of energy, interior, transportation, agriculture, commerce and treasury; heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency; Bush deputy chief-of-staff Joshua Bolten; intergovernmental affairs adviser Ruben Barrales; Budget Director Mitchell Daniels Jr.; and Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey.

But lower-level staffers reportedly handled much of the grunt work. The group's day-to-day staff director was Andrew Lundquist, who worked as a top aide to the Senate's leading proponent of the Yucca plan, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, Energy Committee chairman.

Another task force staffer was Energy official Joe Kelliher, a former nuclear power lobbyist, Newsweek magazine reported.

Nuclear company executives said the task force allowed them to make their pitch.

Joe Colvin, president and chief executive of the nuclear power industry's leading lobby group, Nuclear Energy Institute, met at the White House with Lindsey and top Bush adviser Karl Rove in March, NEI spokesman Mitchell Singer told the Sun.

Singer didn't reveal details, but said it was more of a general lesson on nuclear power than a presentation of the industry's wish list.

"It was an information session about the industry, about how well it has done and how it contributes to the nation's energy mix," Singer said.

Other nuclear connections to the Bush administration have surfaced:

* Roy Coffee, a trusted Bush adviser and his former Texas lobbyist in Washington, now works for NEI.

* Exelon Corp. Co-chairman John Rowe also met personally with Cheney in March. In a two-page follow-up letter obtained by the Sun, he outlined some of the industry's wide-ranging wish list. Exelon owns nuclear power plants and hopes to build new plants in America. The letter included a call for "decisive action" on Yucca Mountain.

Exelon spokesman Donald Kirchoffner said resolving the nuclear waste issue was one of the biggest problems facing electric utilities in America.

"We believe the right place is probably Yucca Mountain," he said in a Sun interview.

* Earlier this month the Democratic National Committee charged that Tom Kuhn, a former Yale classmate of Bush's and president of Edison Electric Institute, is a case study of money-for-access politics. The institute, an electricity trade group, is another leading supporter of the Yucca plan.

The committee on its website said Kuhn has "unfettered" access to top Bush officials in exchange for being a top Bush fund-raiser.

But an EEI spokesman said that was unfair. Kuhn has not abused his relationship with Bush, EEI spokesman Jim Owen said. Cheney also met with about 10 or 15 electric utility chief executives at an EEI meeting in March, Owen said.

One of their messages to Cheney has been that nuclear waste is the biggest obstacle to expanding nuclear power in America, Owen said.

Other clues are found on the task force itself, anti-nuclear activists say: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham voted for Yucca Mountain legislation when he was a senator and has vowed to spur Yucca development.

Still, Cheney has denied suggestions that the task force was overly influenced by industry officials who gave money to Republicans.

"Just because somebody makes a campaign contribution doesn't mean that they should be denied the opportunity to express their views to government officials," Cheney said in an Associated Press interview this week.

Cheney has said he did not meet with any environmental representatives, although a group of green spokespeople met en masse once with task force staffers.

"When you go behind closed doors and write the nation's energy policy with industry lobbyists, what you get is a plan that benefits corporations, not consumers," National Environmental Trust President Phil Clapp said in a press statement.

Still, no special interest "had the ear" of Bush and Cheney more than another, Cheney spokeswoman Juleanna Glover Weiss told the Sun.

She added, "Clearly, nuclear energy is facing a resurgence in support. It's something we have seen in polls recently. Given the conversations about global warming and greenhouse gases, nuclear energy appears to have more public support, and the administration is willing to consider that."

Sun wire reports

contributed to this article.