nuclear-news

And now, according to the Wall Street Journal, he has the help of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and political fixer, Michael Cohen, with designs on bringing online a nuclear power plant in northeast Alabama.

Two years ago, when I first wrote about Haney’s dream to buy a half-finished nuclear power plant in north Alabama and bring it online, I didn’t take his plans seriously for a couple of reasons.

Even if Haney could convince TVA to sell him the Bellefonte plant, even he — a billionaire — probably couldn’t afford to finish it, could he? Haney’s own projection was that the project would cost about $13 billion to complete. By most accounts, including Haney’s company’s website, he is worth less than that.

And even if he managed to finish it, there was no way the federal government would allow him to turn the thing on, would they?

The logistics and regulation of nuclear power make it nearly impossible to stop a project and then restart it again, which was a big reason the TVA never finished the job.

I wasn’t alone in that assessment.

Stephen Smith, the executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said then that Haney’s plans for Bellefonte were delusional.

“The first concrete was poured in 1974,” he said. “That reactor is approaching 50 years old. Do you think the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is going give a license for a reactor that has been sitting around for 50 years?”

But Haney didn’t give up.

Once a door-to-door Bible salesman, Haney became a self-made billionaire through working as the government’s landlord. He acquires and develops property, which he leases to local, state and federal agencies.

And he makes connections first with political donations. He’s donated to Democrats and Republicans. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have benefited from his largess, as have Republicans, including Alabama Gov. Bob Riley………

TVA agreed to sell the power plant to Haney, but he still had those two hurdles left — regulation and capital.

Enter Donald Trump.

After the president’s victory in 2016, Haney donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, and last summer Bloomberg reported that Haney had bragged about dining with Trump about a dozen times during the president’s first six months in office. Haney could have had those opportunities because he’s a member of Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago.

And it turns out, the Wall Street Journal reports, Haney had another connection, too. He is a client of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and political fixer, who appears to have turned his proximity to the president into a lucrative business opportunity.

According to the Journal, Haney hired Cohen to help him solicit investments for the Bellefonte project, and in April, the two met in Miami with Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim bin Mohammed al-Thani, the minister of economy and commerce of Qatar and the vice chairman of the Qatar Investment Authority.

Previously, Cohen had solicited $1 million from Qatar for access to the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported last month. The Qatar government declined that solicitation.

It’s unclear whether the meeting was fruitful for Haney, but what is clear is that the law might not allow significant foreign investment in the Bellefonte project. Under the  Atomic Energy Act, the NRC may not issue licenses for projects owned or controlled by a foreign entity.

But laws change, especially when men with money need them fixed, and if the Trump administration has shown anything, it’s that it cares little about regulations, environmental protections and foreign influence in domestic affairs.

Haney’s hurdles are still high. They are still there. But his money is working harder than ever to tear them down.

And anyone who cares about the safety of northeast Alabama should take him very seriously. https://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/05/cohen_opens_doors_for_alabama.html