nuclear-news

How the nuclear lobby buys politicians and media

$600 Million Lipstick for a Dead Radioactive Pig THE HUFFINGTON POST, Harvey Wasserman February 22, 2010The mystery has been solved.Where is this “new reactor renaissance” coming from?There has been no deep, thoughtful re-making or re-evaluation of atomic technology. No solution to the nuke waste problem. No making reactors economically sound. No private insurance against radioactive disasters by terror or error. No grassroots citizens now desperate to live near fragile containment domes and outtake pipes spewing radioactive tritium at 27 US reactors.No, nothing about atomic energy has really changed.Except this: $645 million spent on lobbying and media manipulation.
That’s a minimum estimate on how much the Nuclear Energy Institute and its fellow reactor backers have spent in the past decade to sell the public on nukes and grab taxpayer money to build them, as compiled by Judy Pasternak and a team of reporters at American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop.
Think AIG and Goldman Sachs gone radioactive.

Think $64.5 million, just for political arm twisting and media bloviation, every year since the coming of George W. Bush.

That’s $1 million per every US Senator and Representative, plus another, say $100 million for the White House, courts and media.

Noam Chomsky’s “manufacturing consent” is now just “outright purchase.”

How has National Public Radio become Nuclear Proliferation Redux? Think: corporate sponsorships….

How can disgraced ex-Greenpeacer Patrick Moore (who also sells clear-cut forests and genetically modified food) shill for new reactors? Examine the check stubs……………

$645 million — Six Hundred Forty-Five Million — buys a lot of opinion going one way, and suppresses a lot going the other. Op-eds, air time, “independent” reports, phony claims that “green” nukes can solve global warming … not to mention campaign “donations,” fact-finding junkets, political fundraisers, K-Street dinners … all can be had for a trifling drip from a $645M slush fund.

The first payback came this week, delivered by Barack Obama. The president promised $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for two new nukes proposed in Georgia, where two old ones came in at 3000% over budget, and where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warns the proposed new ones might crumble in an earthquake or hurricane.

Harvey Wasserman: $600 Million Lipstick for a Dead Radioactive Pig

February 23, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, spinbuster, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear spin