Sunday, March 5, 2006 | 7:18 a.m.
Sometimes in politics, the best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is to shut up.
Take the case of Dawn Gibbons, the ex-assemblywoman who hopes to replace her governorship-seeking husband, Rep. Jim Gibbons, in the House. I recently reported that Ms. Gibbons is having a fundraiser this month headlined by House Transportation boss Don Young. He is a potent force in Congress and has helped Nevada on some issues over the years, and Nevada has reciprocated by raising money for him over the years.
But that's not what makes this March 29 fundraiser so noteworthy. What makes the event interesting is that it is being hosted at the offices of The Capitol Hill Consulting Group, which has a panoply of clients, among them the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), whose boss, Tom Kuhn, just loves Yucca Mountain.
Kuhn is also an intimate of President Bush, and that relationship was widely seen as one of the reasons the president gave short shrift to sound science and accelerated the project. Kuhn came to EEI after a stint as the head of the American Nuclear Energy Council (ANEC), which morphed into the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which is the major lobbying outfit on Yucca.
When I raised the issue of these connections last week, the Gibbons campaign tried the best offense. The Capitol Hill Consulting Group is only letting the campaign use its offices, not contributing money to the event, and its members have never talked about the dump with EEI, the pitch went. Rep. Young voted right once on the dump and he chose the location, the spin continued. And, as her consultant wrote to me in an e-mail, "Dawn Gibbons opposes the Yucca Mountain project. Period."
Ah, if only I could just put a period there, as that supposedly inarguable air of finality implied I should. If only I could just let it go.
Alas, I can't.
I suppose I could just forget that EEI, despite protestations to the contrary, has been an advocate for burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain for many years. In fact, according to the NEI Web site, NEI was formed by merging ANEC with other entities, including "the nuclear division of the Edison Electric Institute." Any attempt by the Gibbons folks to distance EEI from NEI or its agenda is disingenuous at best and a flat-out falsehood at worst.
I suppose I could also forget that six years ago, the chairman of EEI, John Rowe, and who not coincidentally is a board member of NEI, testified in favor of accelerating the opening of the dump at Yucca Mountain. And I suppose I could just forget that if you lobby for a trade group such as EEI, which has an agenda often coincident with NEI, you have to wear the entire agenda, not just parts of it.
Let's suppose, for the sake of Ms. Gibbons, that I agree to overlook all of that. Fine. But the tie that binds often are ties that bind . The Capitol Hill Consulting Group also has represented a company called Entergy, which is the second largest nuclear plant operator in the country and a fervent advocate of the dump. Entergy has applied to build one of the first new nuclear power plants, so my guess is the company will be supporting the new push to bust the cap on the amount of waste that can be stored at Yucca Mountain.
I suppose I could wonder if The Capitol Hill Consulting Group might be helping with that effort. I suppose I could wonder if the outfit hosting the Gibbons event might talk to its client about nuclear waste issues that it claims it never raised with EEI. I suppose I could even wonder if any of the company folks who might pass by the room where the March 29 event is taking place might put a few "Nuclear Waste is OK" brochures inside the event.
But I won't. I'm perfectly content to shut up about this issue now and not even mention any of the poor lobbying company's other clients that might be of interest to Gibbons' potential constituents. Really, I am happy to shut up.
I wonder if the Gibbons campaign is, too.
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