Going Radioactive
During Debate, Clinton Links Obama to Backer of Controversial Nuclear Waste Site
BY Sarah Laskow | January 17, 2008
In her response to a question during Tuesday’s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton made it a point to link Barack Obama to Exelon Corporation, a Chicago-based company that says it accounts for roughly a fifth of the U.S. nuclear industry’s power capacity.
“Barack has one of his biggest supporters in terms of funding, the Exelon Corporation, which has spent millions of dollars trying to make Yucca Mountain the waste depository,” Clinton said.
Yucca Mountain, an extinct volcano in Nevada, is a controversial nuclear waste-disposal site.
“I think it’s a testimony to my commitment and opposition to Yucca Mountain,” Obama replied, “that despite the fact that my state has more nuclear power plants than any other state in the country, I’ve never supported Yucca Mountain.”
A representative of Exelon said that the company does not keep track of the amounts it spends lobbying on a specific issue, but according to U.S. Senate records, Exelon has spent millions of dollars lobbying on nuclear energy issues, including Yucca Mountain.
Obama does not accept money from political action committees, but Exelon’s employees and members of their immediate families have donated at least $194,750 to his presidential campaign, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. Twenty-seven Exelon employees, including chairman John W. Rowe (who’s recently been dubbed “Mr. Nuke” by Fortune magazine), have given Obama the maximum allowable contribution of $2,300.