Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate
By MIKE McINTIRE
When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.
Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”
“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.
A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.
Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.
“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.
The Obama campaign said in written responses to questions that Mr. Obama “never discussed this issue or this bill” with Mr. Axelrod. The campaign acknowledged that Exelon executives had met with Mr. Obama’s staff about the bill, as had concerned residents, environmentalists and regulators. It said the revisions resulted not from any influence by Exelon, but as a necessary response to a legislative roadblock put up by Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time.
“If Senator Obama had listened to industry demands, he wouldn’t have repeatedly criticized Exelon in the press, introduced the bill and then fought for months to get action on it,” the campaign said. “Since he has over a decade of legislative experience, Senator Obama knows that it’s very difficult to pass a perfect bill.”
Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.
Nuclear safety advocates are divided on whether Mr. Obama’s efforts yielded any lasting benefits. David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed that “it took the introduction of the bill in the first place to get a reaction from the industry.”
“But of course because it is all voluntary,” Mr. Lochbaum said, “who’s to say where things will be a few years from now?”
Others say that turning the whole matter over to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as Mr. Obama’s revised bill would have done, played into the hands of the nuclear power industry, which they say has little to fear from the regulators. Mr. Obama seemed to share those concerns when he told a New Hampshire newspaper last year that the commission “is a moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become a captive of the industry it regulates.”
Read more here:
www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03...exelon.html
By MIKE McINTIRE
When residents in Illinois voiced outrage two years ago upon learning that the Exelon Corporation had not disclosed radioactive leaks at one of its nuclear plants, the state’s freshman senator, Barack Obama, took up their cause.
Mr. Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed.”
“I just did that last year,” he said, to murmurs of approval.
A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks.
Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama’s comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate.
“Senator Obama’s staff was sending us copies of the bill to review, and we could see it weakening with each successive draft,” said Joe Cosgrove, a park district director in Will County, Ill., where low-level radioactive runoff had turned up in groundwater. “The teeth were just taken out of it.”
The history of the bill shows Mr. Obama navigating a home-state controversy that pitted two important constituencies against each other and tested his skills as a legislative infighter. On one side were neighbors of several nuclear plants upset that low-level radioactive leaks had gone unreported for years; on the other was Exelon, the country’s largest nuclear plant operator and one of Mr. Obama’s largest sources of campaign money.
Since 2003, executives and employees of Exelon, which is based in Illinois, have contributed at least $227,000 to Mr. Obama’s campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fund-raisers.
Another Obama donor, John W. Rowe, chairman of Exelon, is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying group, based in Washington. Exelon’s support for Mr. Obama far exceeds its support for any other presidential candidate.
In addition, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, has worked as a consultant to Exelon. A spokeswoman for Exelon said Mr. Axelrod’s company had helped an Exelon subsidiary, Commonwealth Edison, with communications strategy periodically since 2002, but had no involvement in the leak controversy or other nuclear issues.
The Obama campaign said in written responses to questions that Mr. Obama “never discussed this issue or this bill” with Mr. Axelrod. The campaign acknowledged that Exelon executives had met with Mr. Obama’s staff about the bill, as had concerned residents, environmentalists and regulators. It said the revisions resulted not from any influence by Exelon, but as a necessary response to a legislative roadblock put up by Republicans, who controlled the Senate at the time.
“If Senator Obama had listened to industry demands, he wouldn’t have repeatedly criticized Exelon in the press, introduced the bill and then fought for months to get action on it,” the campaign said. “Since he has over a decade of legislative experience, Senator Obama knows that it’s very difficult to pass a perfect bill.”
Asked why Mr. Obama had cited it as an accomplishment while campaigning for president, the campaign noted that after the senator introduced his bill, nuclear plants started making such reports on a voluntary basis. The campaign did not directly address the question of why Mr. Obama had told Iowa voters that the legislation had passed.
Nuclear safety advocates are divided on whether Mr. Obama’s efforts yielded any lasting benefits. David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists agreed that “it took the introduction of the bill in the first place to get a reaction from the industry.”
“But of course because it is all voluntary,” Mr. Lochbaum said, “who’s to say where things will be a few years from now?”
Others say that turning the whole matter over to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as Mr. Obama’s revised bill would have done, played into the hands of the nuclear power industry, which they say has little to fear from the regulators. Mr. Obama seemed to share those concerns when he told a New Hampshire newspaper last year that the commission “is a moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become a captive of the industry it regulates.”
Read more here:
www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03...exelon.html
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Obama the Pawn
Sat, February 2, 2008 - 10:00 PMOf course. Obama is a pawn too.
Obama enjoys a popular image as a liberal democrat, and his harsh criticism of the Iraq war has earned him support from a population united in it's discontent with the current government. To a select crowd of Americans, Obama preaches against the handling of the Iraq war. To other more private groups, Obama advocates military strikes on new middle eastern countries. Obama has aligned himself with several lobbying firms and nongovernmental organizations who seek further US militarization of the world. In several speeches and essays, Obama makes his foreign policy goals clear – and he is not anti-war. Is Obama intentionally sending a deceptive message to his constituency?
In a recent speech given to the American Israeli Political Action Committee, Obama outlines a plan for U.S. hegemony. He suggests polarizing political alignments that are already breeding anti-U.S. sentiment. Specifically, Obama pledges unfaltering military support to Israel. The U.S. has long supported Israel – this year they were given $30 billion for defense of the young state. To put this in perspective, less than $7 billion has been federally granted to rebuild homes destroyed after hurricane Katrina. Although the U.S. has always given billions in aid to Israel, his alliance backs preemptive strikes against countries deemed a threat. Israel is unpopular in the region, and is threatened by Iran's desire for modern nuclear energy in the future. Regarding Iran's nuclear program, Obama states “We should take no option, including military action, off the table”.
David you said, "take my word for it that Obama will work toward exposing the truth about 9/11 even if he can't talk about that right now."
Do you really believe that?
Obama outlined his ambitious geopolitical plans in a recent essay for Foreign Affairs magazine. Foreign Affairs is published by the CFR, council on Foreign Relations, which describes itself as a non-partisan group of which he is a member. Established in the 1920's and headquartered in New York, its membership includes prominent politicians and business elite, including heads of academia and media. The organization seeks to centralize both political power and market power to craft legislation outside the checks and balances of democracy. The CFR is rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, making it difficult to fully gauge its influence. When it is mentioned in he press, it is likely whitewashed as trivial or irrelevant. Notable members of the CFR include:
Dick Cheney
John Kerry
Bill Clinton
Al Gore
Ronald Reagan
George H. W. Bush
Gerald Ford
Richard Nixon
John, David & Nelson Rockefeller
Condolezza Rice
Paul Wolfowitz
Alan Greenspan
Colon Powell
Henry Kissinger
Most presidential candidates in the 2008 election are CFR members. Candidates do not advertise their CFR membership to the public. They pose as “liberals” and “conservatives” to control all aspects of the debate. The CFR has stacked the deck for the 2008 election with several members in the race from both sides of the isle:
Democrat CFR
Candidates:
Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
John Edwards
Chris Dodd
Bill Richardson
Republican CFR
Candidates:
Mitt Romney
Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Fred Thompson
Newt Gingrich
The mainstream media's self-proclaimed “top tier” candidates are united in their CFR membership, while an unwitting public perceives political diversity.
Presidential Candidate & Congressman Ron Paul is the only “top tier” candidate who is not a member of the CFR.
Although many politicians hold membership, It must be noted that the Council on Foreign Relations is a non-governmental organization. The CFR's membership is a union of politicians, bankers, and scholars, with several large businesses holding additional corporate memberships. Corporate members include:
Halliburton of Dubai
British Petroleum
Dutch Royal Shell
Exxon Mobile
General Electric
(NBC)
Chevron
Lockheed Martin
Merck Pharmaceuticals
News Corp (FOX)
Bloomberg
IBM
Time Warner
JP Morgan/ Chase Manhattan
& several other
major financial institutions
Members are united in their interventionist intentions with the goal of a consolidated global governance. The CFR's mission is to influence policy through the reach of its members and publications. Those who study the CFR ideology are recruited and cultured for membership. The best and brightest university students are taught to propagate the CFR model. Individuals who both subscribe to the CFR ideology and can bring an element of capital (political status, business influence, money) to the group will be given membership. Members meet at the CFR headquarters in Manhattan and Washington DC, and round-table style discussions are held for its membership to discuss foreign affairs and make recommendations on policy. The CFR often creates “task forces” to report “findings and policy prescriptions” cfr.org) for specific current world events, and also publishes the periodical Foreign Affairs magazine. CFR authors are often found in mainstream media publications. In a recent issue of TIME magazine, one CFR member writes: “The US should make (Pakistani President & US intelligence asset) Musharraf the best dictator he can be”.
Obama is just part of the elite game. Fame & Fortune. That's what it's all about. -
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Re: Obama the Pawn
Sat, February 2, 2008 - 10:13 PMDont start making sense all of a sudden, Mystica!
:)
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Re: Obama and Exelon Corporation
Sun, February 3, 2008 - 9:04 AMAHHHhhh so now it emerges that Obama Bin Jesus has sold off bits of his soul here and there.
I knew that the old adage "If it looks too good to be true ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ " hadn't lost any substance.
Ahhh the dreams of youth how quickly they become the regrets of maturity.
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Re: Obama and Exelon Corporation
Sun, February 3, 2008 - 9:19 PM
Ha. I love it.
All of the far-lefties here love a guy for the same reason that they hate Hillary.
Love it.
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Re: Obama and Exelon Corporation
Sat, November 8, 2008 - 1:04 PMAhhh the dreams of youth how quickly they become the regrets of maturity. -
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Re: Obama and Exelon Corporation
Sat, November 8, 2008 - 1:06 PMObama Bin Jesus has sold off bits of his soul here and there
Well, Cliffie, can't argue with ya here... but... it's the system... anyone in that job... in order to even be in that position... has got to... part of the job description... at least that was we got as system right now, no? So that's the problem...... Hey, it will be like that for every friggin' President... so... what to do?
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