U.S. nuclear lobbyists bury safety and financial concerns under mountains of cash

With a little help from their friends, like U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (Democrat-New Mexico) and his staff on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee which he chairs, the Nuclear Energy Institute's lobbyists were out in force on Capitol Hill within days of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, downplaying any safety significance for the U.S., the Center for Public Integrity's iwatch news reported. The article reported NEI's federal lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions: an average of $2 million per year since 2008 on the former, and $323,000 for the latter in the 2010 election cycle alone.

But that is but the tip of the iceberg. NEI's many individual member corporations spend on lobbying and campaign contributions as well. Judy Pasternak at American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop revealed in Jan., 2010 that from 1999 to 2009, the nuclear power industry as a whole had spent $645 million lobbying at the federal level, and another $64 million in campaign contributions, making it one of the biggest players in town when it comes to Inside the Beltway political influence.

The Associated Press recently reported that in the first quarter of 2011 alone, NEI spent $545,000 lobbying the U.S. Congress and numerous federal executive branch agencies, including the White House on a long list of "asks" for taxpayer-backed subsidies and "regulatory relief."