Some Prominent Environmental Veterans Are Talking Up Nuclear Power as a Climate Change Solution

In recent years, some major science and environmental players have come forward to endorse nuclear power.  Former EPA Administrator and Obama climate czar Carol Browner is one of the glitziest.

Browner signed up for the newest and shiniest effort to sell nuke plants, the year-old Nuclear Matters, founded by electric giant Exelon in 2014.

Nuclear Matters is run by public relations agency Sloane & Associates.  Critics call it a nuclear front group, but Sloane prefers to bill it as “starting a national conversation on nuclear power,” and adds that other utilities, nuke builders and suppliers have joined Exelon as sponsors.

The group recruited several other bipartisan political heavyweights as paid spokespeople but none that are catnip for the environmental community, where opposition to nuclear power is the rule, not the exception.

So when Nuclear Matters hauled in Browner as a spokesperson of its Leadership Council last year, she was a big catch.

Browner said she typically devotes a few hours a week to Nuclear Matters and is compensated for her time, but neither she nor Nuclear Matters will discuss her fee.  In late January, she appeared at a Nuclear Matters event in Chicago.

Browner said her conversion to nukes is entirely based on climate change concerns, and began shortly after she left the EPA in 2001.  “Climate is the biggest challenge in the world,” she said.  “We cannot take nuclear off the table.”

Read more at Atomic Balm:  Some Prominent Environmental Veterans Are Talking Up Nuclear Power as a Climate Change Solution