Exelon Nuke Lobbyists Earn 100,000 % Return On Investment

Just think if you could earn more than a 100,000 % (1,000 times) return on investment! (in one year, no less).

According to PolitickerNJ, that’s what nuclear giant Exelon got.

According to NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission records, corporate energy giant Exelon spent over $860,000 on lobbying.

Gee, so what did they get for all that money?

By investing $860,000 in NJ politicians, Exelon saved $800 million in costs of installing cooling towers at their Oyster Creek nuclear power plant, the nation’s oldest and unsafe zombie nuclear plant.

In December 2009, the NJ Department of Evironmental Protection issued a draft water pollution control permit to mandate that Exelon install cooling towers. (click here to view permit)

Exelon then claimed that the $800 million cost of cooling towers would force them to close the plant. Sounds good to me!

But pro-business Governor Chris Christie’s DEP Commissioner Bob Martin – a former energy consultant with no environmental experience – reversed that December DEP permit decision.

Martin reversed the prior DEP “Best Technology Available” determination and signed an agreement with Exelon that allowed the plant to operate for 10 more years WITHOUT the expensive cooling towers.

According to the the December 21, 2010 Asbury Park Press story: “Critics Blast Agreement That Avoids Cooling Towers At Oyster Creek”

Allowing the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor to operate through 2019 without cooling towers will undermine efforts to reduce fish losses and thermal impacts at other power stations and could conflict with forthcoming federal rules for cooling towers, critics contend. …

The result “is a horrible precedent, reversing the draft NJPDES permit’s best available technology determination,” said Bill Wolfe of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a former DEP employee and agency critic.

So, in addition to the avoiding an $800 milllion cooling tower cost, Exelon gets 10 years more of profits – hundreds of millions of dollars more.

Not a bad return on an $860,000 investment!

Remarkably, so called ‘grassroots environmental advocate” Dave Pringle of the NJ Environmental Federation STILL defends Christie for this corrupt deal:

Dave Pringle, campaign director for the New Jersey Envronmental Federation, lands somewhere between his colleague and the administration. According to Pringle, the administration played the hand it was dealt in dealing with Exelon.  The only stick available to the DEP was the cooling towers, which Pringle agreed would likely have landed the state in court with an uncertain future.

The resulting deal, Pringle said, is about the best that could be expected.

Please stop feeding this beast.