Unfortunately, that’s not what you need for a lobbying organization. It’s more important that they know how to lobby, are familiar with the organizations involved (the American Association of Political Consultants, for example) and are well connected to candidates and parties.

A nuclear engineer does not necessarily make a good advocate for it or a good political person. It’s like sending an automotive engineer to sell cars at a dealership – technical expertise and experience is less important than people skills and salesmanship.

I get the impression they don’t consider political outreach very important. At the very least they need to return the phone calls and emails of anyone reaching out to them.

Apparently one of his major “successes” is in the storage and disposal of nuclear waste … in a country that still hasn’t restarted reprocessing. He personally has a lot riding on the belief that what he got was a success.

Here’s the Chairman:
http://www.energyfutureholdings.com/about/john_young.aspx He’s not a professional lobbyist. He has a full-time day-job.

Their communications-director, Scott Peterson, seems to be focused on speaking directly to voters to change the culture, rather than try to get pro-nuclear legislators into office despite a hostile culture.

Then there is the other, other problem with the relevant politics. I have seen another major political organization run into this problem: They believed that since the facts and figures were so thoroughly on their side, they did not need a media-campaign. Their PR is easily among the world’s worst. (I have not identified the other organization because, with its PR so bad, its issues quickly become political hot-buttons and can dominate discussions.)

The other thing is I really think more money would help. $13M is just not a lot in the energy lobby sector. They spent billions on R&D, they can afford a few million more in lobbying. Before anyone says “but it’s expensive,” remember that companies don’t spend a lot lobbying because they expect that money to just go away. There is a return on it. Every dollar spent lobbying should, in theory, make you back even more money in the long run as a result of more favorable policy. It’s how the system works.

One of the problems may be that few companies have a strong vested interest in nuclear energy but not other competitors. But there are a few. Companies like GE have nuclear energy subsidiaries with discretionary budgets. Then there is Areva, which is primarily nuclear energy, USEG, General Atomics, which has nuclear energy systems.

To be frank, nuclear power is a secure longterm investment but does not generate the profits seen in other industries like oil/gas/coal. There is a huge turnaround of money yes, but it ends up in the pockets of the industry that is dependent on cheap and reliable electricity. The industry itself does not generate the profits that allows it to spend like mad on political influence and lobbying, 10-15% of invested capital seems to be pretty good and average for the industry but is far off what the fossil industry gets (this is from my local knowledge from Europe). And the fossil industry does not have the same amount of legal hoops to jump through to build an energy generating plant.

However, lack of funds is one thing, wasting it on people that are not able to make the best of it is a waste, better off not bothering if they are as inept as you describe!?

        drbuzz0 said:

I’m just damn concerned that they are not doing a better job, because these industry groups really do matter. They have a legitimate purpose, which is to present the concerns of an industry to politicians.

And so you should be. Again this is not a minor issue, and certainly it deserves to be questioned and answers produced. If this is the only thing that your attempt at becoming a candidate for office has accomplished, exposing this shortcoming is a very important result and one that should be pursued.

It is not my place to tell any American how to act in regards to the behaviour of lobby groups active in your country, but I would think that it is obvious that this matter should not be ignored.

        Anon said:

The anti-nuclear industry often accuses anyone who doesn’t believe their nonsense of being on the payroll of the nuclear industry, maybe the people running the nuclear lobbies are unjustifiably scared of that accusation.

Though the possibility that the big nuclear companies could get more money from their other interests if nuclear weren’t an option could go a long way to explaining things.

To give some context to this: The primary lobbying organization for nuclear energy in the US had, as of a couple years ago, an annual budget of 13-14 million dollars for all political activities. This includes everything from campaign contributions to fees for political events they attend to printing up pamphlets.

By industry standards, this is very small. The oil industry spends a lot more (although it depends on how you could it, since it’s more per company than from a single group and there’s overlap with oil and gas.) In fact, I believe I read that the cement industry spends a bit more on their major trade organization.

In addition to the industry group (I may as well just say it, since it’s obviously NEI) there are a few company PACS. USEC (The United States Enrichment Corp) has one, but their really only focused on securing loan guarantees and building permits for their enrichment plants. Areva has one and there are others from GE and Westinghouse, but these are not nuclear energy pacs – they are pacs that are run by companies that make a variety of products, including nuclear products.

As I said 13 million is not a lot of money in this game. But NEI can and does make some contributions to candidates friendly to their cause.

I was disipointed they didn’t give any to me. The thing is I’m the kind of candidate who is very much on their side. Not only that, I tried to make it clear to them that even if I do not make it in a given race, I will go to bat for nuclear energy. I will work my contacts (and I’ve made a few) to promote it. I will run again. I’m just the kind of person they should *WANT* to be as politically involved as possible.

But it’s not that they didn’t give me money. If they had said “Look, we appreciate what you are doing, but we have limited funds and we are concentrated on a few key races and candidates who have pending legislation we like.” That would have been ok. I could have accepted being turned down.

It’s not that. They didn’t return calls. They didn’t return e-mails. They gave the runaround to me and to my consultants. My consultants told me they had trouble making inroads to them for other candidates as well.

That’s just not a good way for a PAC to behave. It’s unprofessional. It makes politicians and consultants think “Screw these guys. I’m not going to waste my time with a PAC who won’t even give me a solid yes/no answer when there are plenty of others who are a lot more receptive.”

One of the main jobs of these trade organization PACS is to try to make inroads to as many elected leaders as possible and to make as many friends in Washington as possible. Even if they don’t end up supporting a candidate, they are usually still very diplomatic and responsive, because, again, it’s part of their job to be well liked and known.

I’m just damn concerned that they are not doing a better job, because these industry groups really do matter. They have a legitimate purpose, which is to present the concerns of an industry to politicians.

        Anon said:

Though the possibility that the big nuclear companies could get more money from their other interests if nuclear weren’t an option could go a long way to explaining things.

This is more likely. Owing to the rather bizarre way the hourly price for power is set in most North American electric markets, nuclear is actually at a disadvantage and that may be at the root of this.

Though the possibility that the big nuclear companies could get more money from their other interests if nuclear weren’t an option could go a long way to explaining things.

        Anon said:

So if they aren’t inept what could be going on?

Generally speaking, I am loath to ascribe to subterfuge that which can be adequately explained by incompetence, however the only other explanation I can come up with is that the official industry organs in North America have a death wish. Frankly I do not understand the indifference and I am open to suggestions as to why this is so.