Thursday, May 24, 2001

Nuclear Power Gains in Status After Lobbying In mid-March, a cadre of seven nuclear power executives sought and won an hourlong meeting in the White House with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser. Also attending were Lawrence B. Lindsey, the president's top economic adviser, Andrew Lundquist, the executive director of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, and others involved in devising the energy plan. "We said, Look, we are an important player on this energy team and here are our vital statistics, and we think that you should start talking about nuclear when you talk about increasing the nation's supply," Christian H. Poindexter, chairman of the Constellation Energy Group, recalled today. And then a surprising thing happened. "It was shortly after that, as a matter of fact I think the next night, when the vice president was being interviewed on television, he began to talk about nuclear power for the first time," Mr. Poindexter said. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/23/politics/23NUKE.html?pagewanted=all