In tiny Hollywood, Ala., stands one of the government's biggest white elephants, the still-unfinished Bellefonte nuclear power plant. Erected in fits and starts by the Tennessee Valley Authority over a 20-year period, Bellefonte was cursed with enormous cost overruns. By the time the TVA stopped construction of the plant, the cost had ballooned to $4.2 billion. Although the plant has yet to produce a single kilowatt of electricity, it's generating plenty of lobbying fees.
TVA's Bellefonte plant and the Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear facility in South Carolina are locked in a bitter battle over which one will win the federal government's approval to manufacture tritium, a radioactive hydrogen isotope that enhances the explosive yield of nuclear weapons. The brawl has dragged in anti-nuclear activists, numerous members of Congress, major government contractors, dozens of high-priced lobbyists and several Cabinet officials. A House-Senate conference charged with the job of crafting a defense appropriations bill must decide whether to include a House provision that would prevent Energy from considering Bellefonte as the site for making tritium.
The TVA has hired two Washington heavyweights from the Chicago-based law and lobbying firm of Winston & Strawn: ex-Rep. Beryl F. Anthony Jr., D-Ark., and Charles L. Kinney, a onetime floor counsel to two Senate Majority Leaders, George J. Mitchell, D-Maine, and Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va. Winston & Strawn joins several other Washington firms working for TVA, including Lent & Scrivner, headed by ex-Rep. Norman F. Lent, R-N.Y., and Alcalde & Fay, where Richard H. Rosenzweig, who was the chief of staff to former Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary, is a partner. Two Arnold & Porter partners who usually represent TVA--Martha L. Cochran and former Clinton White House counsel John M. "Jack" Quinn--have a conflict on the Bellefonte issue and are not involved in the case, a TVA source said.
Vice President Gore, a Tennessean and longtime TVA supporter, has not taken a position on the issue. But Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and acting Energy Secretary Elizabeth A. Moler have said that they oppose language that would preclude government consideration of the Bellefonte site.
Alabama's seven House members and two senators strongly support Bellefonte's bid. The members predict that the tritium-production and power-generation operations would employ as many as 800 workers and provide 1,700 to 1,900 construction jobs over five years.
Meanwhile, South Carolina's six-member congressional delegation is pushing just as hard for the Savannah River plant. Joined by Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., South Carolina lawmakers succeeded in inserting into the defense bill language that would block Energy from considering the TVA facility for the tritium assignment.
Supporters of the South Carolina site contend that operating the Bellefonte plant would violate the spirit of nuclear nonproliferation treaties if it produced tritium, because it would then be both a commercial reactor and a weapons plant. Uncertainties over the commercial permitting process could delay Bellefonte's tritium production, they add.
Burns and Roe Enterprises Inc., the construction firm that would help build the multibillion-dollar Savannah River project, has hired Hogan & Hartson and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. The Akin, Gump team includes former Reagan White House aide Frank J. Donatelli and Henry A. Terhune, who was a legislative aide to former Rep. Butler Derrick, D-S.C.
The two firms are joining forces with Burns & Roe's longtime lobby firms, Johnston & Associates, which is headed by former Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., and Van Scoyoc Associates Inc., which includes as a vice president Paul Grimm, a former acting assistant Energy secretary for environmental management. The construction firm has also signed up DMT Public Affairs Limited, which has offices in Colorado Springs, Colo., Richmond, Va., and Mesa, Ariz.
Other companies with a stake in the South Carolina site, such as San Diego-based General Atomics, have also joined the fray. Westinghouse Electric Corp., which has a sizable Washington office and retains numerous outside firms, is also participating in the lobbying effort because one of its subsidiaries manages the Savannah River site. Among Westinghouse's in-house lobbyists is Laurie C. Harrison, formerly legislative director to Derrick. Tongour & Scott represents SCANA Corp., a South Carolina-based utility that would benefit from the project.
In addition, traditional antagonists of TVA have spoken out against the Bellefonte option. The Northeast-Midwest Coalition and the New England Council, both of which have a history of challenging subsidies TVA receives, have criticized the Bellefonte plan. So has Taxpayers for Common Sense, a "green scissors" alliance between fiscal conservatives and environmentalists. The Council on Superconductivity for American Competitiveness, a group of high-technology research companies, is lobbying for the Savannah River option because it would "represent a pretty big opportunity" for civilian spinoffs, said Lawrence Grossman, who is a senior vice president at Cassidy & Associates Inc. and heads the council.
Perhaps the oddest bedfellows on the South Carolina side are anti-nuclear groups. While these groups aren't wild about the Savannah River plan, they argue that Bellefonte's challenges to the nonproliferation treaties make it the riskier proposal. In early August, about 60 such groups--led by Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Public Citizen--sent a letter to Gore outlining their concerns.
Grass-roots activists in Alabama are telling the public about TVA's past safety violations and alleged intimidation of whistle-blowers. Washington attorney Lynne Bernabei helped organize a conference on the issue at the National Press Club earlier this year, and Ralph Nader has spoken out against the Bellefonte plan.
But a Hill aide who favors Bellefonte counters that local opinion is "99 to 1" in favor. "Over the years, Bellefonte has been a shining monument to government incompetence," the aide said. "So people are very, very excited about the prospect that it can be put to good use." The House-Senate conference will probably make its decision by the end of September. If the anti-Bellefonte language is eliminated, it will be up to the Energy Department to investigate both alternatives and decide between them by December.
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