Nuke industry donated $30 million to lawmakers

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, March 14, 2002 | 11:09 a.m.

Nuclear industry companies gave nearly $30 million to congressional lawmakers in the last decade, according to a new public interest group report.

Washington-based Common Cause, which sponsored the report, decried the $28.6 million in soft-money donations made by the Nuclear Energy Institute's 260 member corporations and their executives in the last 10 years.

That money is significant because Congress is expected to vote this year on the Yucca Mountain project, which the nuclear industry has urged lawmakers to support, Common Cause officials said.

The Yucca project, opposed by Nevada officials, proposes to make the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas a burial ground for the nation's most radioactive nuclear waste.

"How can anyone in Nevada, or anywhere in the nation, be expected to believe that Yucca Mountain is being driven by the public interest, and not the special interest, with so much money changing hands?" asked Common Cause's Andy Draheim.

Sixty-three percent of NEI's soft-money contributions went to Republicans, according to the report. NEI's political action committee donated an additional $643,202 and spent $10.8 million on lobbying, the report said. NEI is the top lobby and trade group in Washington representing nuclear power plant operators and other nuclear-related companies.

Nuclear energy industry officials argue that for 20 years Congress and federal agencies have been driving the nuclear waste project -- not industry money.

About $7 billion has been spent on the project. Most of the money comes from a special tax paid by ratepayers nationwide who use nuclear-generated electricity.

"The Nuclear Waste Policy Act paid for Yucca Mountain" not NEI campaign money, NEI spokesman Mitch Singer said.

He also said that Yucca Mountain is a relatively low priority for some of NEI's members, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP, making it hard to argue that their campaign donations were made to buy votes on the Yucca project.

Singer added, "The last time I checked this was a democracy. We do (give soft money), but so do a lot of other groups. The system operates this way."

Common Cause tracks campaign money and has been a strong advocate of the McCain-Feingold bill in Congress that would limit soft-money contributions -- unrestricted cash donations made to national political parties and often used to pay for advertising. The House passed the bill and the Senate is debating it.

"We have an outstanding opportunity now to ban the scandalous and corrupting soft money system," Common Cause Nevada Chairman Jim Hulse said.

Representatives of Common Cause, Citizen Alert, National Environmental Trust, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the Sierra Club held a press conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday to discuss the report, using it not only to criticize Yucca Mountain but to also support campaign finance reform.