Did the Nuclear Energy Lobby Derail 'Atomic Train'?

[Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

More silliness . . .

Did the Nuclear Energy Lobby Derail 'Atomic Train'?

By Lisa de Moraes
Thursday, May 13, 1999; Washington Post, Page C07 

NBC's "Atomic Train" controversy is now officially out of control and
careening to the floor of the U.S. Senate, where it might explode this
morning.

Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.) will blast NBC for removing all references
to "nuclear waste" from the disaster miniseries, which debuts Sunday
night, and charge that NBC parent General Electric caved in to pressure
from the Nuclear Energy Institute. He says the main lobbying
organization of the nuclear industry will stop at nothing to keep
information about nuclear danger from the public--even to the extent of
manipulating the content of a fictional TV movie. Bryan is currently
battling two pieces of legislation that would allow thousands of tons of
nuclear waste to be deposited in Nevada.

"My sense is the network did an 'el foldo,' " the senator said late
yesterday. "I cannot in all honesty prove that, but the circumstantial
evidence is pretty strong--just days before the program was to air!" The
circumstantial evidence is as follows: NBC is owned by General Electric.
GE has a nuclear energy division. Its president is Steven Specker.
Specker is on the executive board of the NEI. 

The NEI about two weeks ago issued a status report on the miniseries,
which, until this week, was about a train--loaded with nuclear waste and
a
nuclear bomb--that goes out of control and careens toward Denver. 

The report detailed the "containment strategy" for the movie that it had
adopted in consultation with representatives of the Energy Department
and
the American Association of Railroads. The strategy "is not a passive
one," the NEI said, but an "aggressive effort prior to the broadcast" to
"validate our point of view."

"We certainly do not want to provide news outlets a reason to air a
'could
this happen in our town?' story," NEI added.

After heavily promoting the miniseries as an "it-could-happen" disaster
flick, NBC announced earlier this week that it had decided to remove any
references to "nuclear waste," changing them to "hazardous material,"
and
that it would take the extraordinary step of running a disclaimer at the
beginning of the miniseries saying that the events depicted are "pure
fiction."

"We were not pressured into this," an NBC spokeswoman said yesterday.
"It was an internal NBC decision which arose from key executives in the
company who had not seen the miniseries and saw it for the first time
last
week" when NBC decided to make the changes.

NBC CEO Bob Wright and other East Coast executives were in Los
Angeles last week to look at pilots for next season's prime-time
schedule.

Bryan wasn't the only one up in arms yesterday that "Atomic Train" had
become Hazardous Material Train. His hue and cry was joined by a
multitude of equally outraged nuclear watchdog groups. 

"One suspects that since GE has a nuclear arm and is not only on the
board of the NEI but operates reactors, someone at GE may have been
napping and then said, 'Hang on a sec,' " said Linda Gunter, spokeswoman
for the Safe Energy Communication Council.

"The fact that [the transportation of nuclear materials] is portrayed
inaccurately is less important than the issue of dialogue. . . . NBC
reaches a large audience and the NEI is trying to suppress dialogue by a
'containment strategy.' The movie is fantasy and they've done some silly
things for the sake of drama, but the fact is nuclear waste is being
moved
around."

Adds Anna Aurilio, staff scientist for the U.S. Public Interest Research
Group: "The scariest thing about this movie is that now the nuclear
industry is trying to cover up any hint that transporting nuclear waste
could be dangerous."

An NEI spokesman dismisses their charge and says that his organization
had nothing to do with the changes to the miniseries. Besides, he said,
"I'm not aware that we shape public policy by what is sweeps-month
special
effects."

-- 
==================================================
Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director
Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, Inc.
136 South Illinois Avenue, Suite 208
Oak Ridge, Tennessee  37830
Phone (423) 483-1333; Fax (423) 482-6572; E-mail loc@icx.net
VISIT OUR UPDATED WEB SITE:  http://www.local-oversight.org
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