Obama: No nuke dump
NEVADA | Jabbed by Clinton for taking donations from Exelon, a major supporter of Yucca Mountain site
LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Yucca Mountain is a battle cry in this state.
Congress has been wrestling for years over whether nuclear waste from other states -- Illinois is one of them -- should be stored at Yucca.
Nevadans, to put it mildly, are against designating Yucca as a permanent waste repository, putting the state at odds with Chicago-based Exelon Corp., the nation's largest nuclear operator, supporting a Yucca dump.
Yucca is more than a hot-button issue here. Yucca is radioactive.
Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards all pledged the Yucca site would never be developed, reinforcing those pledges at Tuesday's debate.
Now, days before the Saturday caucus vote in Nevada, Clinton, at the debate and in a new paid radio spot running statewide, is highlighting the campaign donations Obama has taken from employees of Exelon.
"So who will shut down Yucca Mountain once and for all? Hillary Clinton," a narrator said. Her spot said, "And Barack Obama? The Las Vegas Review Journal said Obama was, quote, "hip deep in financial ties" to one of America's biggest Yucca Mountain promoters ... nuclear giant Exelon."
According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics of donations over $250, Obama's presidential war chest has received $194,750 from 150 Exelon employees, with top executives sending in the checks. Exelon workers, bundled together, rank sixth in Obama's top donor groups.
Though Exelon is a national company, almost all of the Obama contributors live in the Chicago area. Much of the money came in during the first months of the Obama campaign. The money from Exelon executives handed ammunition to Clinton.
The Obama campaign, realizing the potential damage of being seen as waffling on Yucca, organized a conference call Thursday morning to push back. Anti-Yucca activist Bob Fulkerson said "it is completely ludicrous and disingenuous to suggest that somehow Sen. Obama is soft on Yucca Mountain."
At a rally Thursday night at Rancho High School here, Obama brought up Clinton taking him on over Yucca. "I have said over and over again I am against Yucca," Obama said. "What part of 'I am not for Yucca' do you not understand?"