Nuclear Power Convention Applauds Cheney, Energy Programhttp://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0523-01.htmThe nuclear power convention sported the bold slogan "A Flourishing Renaissance," and Vice President Cheney went before the reactor executives yesterday to accept their adulation and underline the administration's enthusiasm for nuclear power.
The energy policy President Bush released last week includes promises to speed up relicensing for safe and efficient nuclear reactors and take a number of other steps to encourage production of nuclear power. The report refers to it as a "clean and unlimited source of energy."
Cheney was the policy's architect, and was greeted by two standing ovations from the crowd of 375 at the Nuclear Energy Assembly. The annual conference is sponsored at a Washington hotel by the industry's major trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Cheney said the nuclear industry is allowing electricity to be generated "efficiently, safely, with no discharge of the greenhouse gases or emissions."
<more>
Data Shows Industry had Extensive Access to Cheney's Energy Task Forcehttp://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020521.aspWASHINGTON, DC (May 21, 2002) -- A close examination of more than 12,000 pages of documents provided by the Energy Department confirms that energy industry lobbyists enjoyed extraordinary access to Vice President Cheney's energy task force. NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) has finally compiled from Energy Department documents a comprehensive, quantitative analysis of outside contacts during formulation of the Bush administration's national energy plan. (Contact NRDC's press office for a copy.)
<snip>
"A year ago the Cheney task force issued recommendations that read like a wish list for energy companies," said NRDC senior attorney Sharon Buccino. "When it came to developing the administration's environmentally and fiscally reckless energy policy, it was all industry all the time."
The representatives tallying the most direct contacts with the energy task force were from some of the nation's largest and most influential energy companies and trade associations. Not surprisingly, these industries stood to benefit from the president's policies to boost domestic energy production. Some of them also are major donors to President Bush and Republican congressional candidates. For example:
Nuclear Energy Institute had contact with the task force 19 times. (NEI contributed $437,404 to Republican candidates and the GOP from 1999 to 2002.)<more>