Nuclear Utilities Redefine One Word to Bulldoze for New Plants

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- On tree-lined bluffs overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, where anti-nuclear activists won a landmark environmental victory 36 years ago, Constellation Energy Group Inc. is engineering atomic power's comeback.

This time, even if there are protests, bulldozers will roll.

That's because the Baltimore-based utility and its allies have found a way around a longstanding regulatory policy they say added a year or more to construction times for nuclear plants.

In April, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed to industry demands that it reduce its oversight of initial work at reactor sites. By narrowing its definition of the word ``construction'' in agency rules, the NRC put off the required public hearings and permits that have waylaid past projects.

The untold story of how the energy lobby and the federal government worked to clear a path for new reactors -- backed by an NRC commissioner seeking a job in the industry -- reveals one way pro-nuclear forces have stolen a march on environmentalists.

``It was a very smart, strategic move to work in the background before ever submitting a new proposal for a plant,'' says Steve Warner, 42, founder of the anti-nuclear Chesapeake Safe Energy Coalition, who says he was caught flat-footed.

Utilities and the administration of President George W. Bush say they want new reactors on line by 2015. Power companies are rushing to take advantage of federal tax credits and loan guarantees in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, some of which begin to expire next year. The NRC says it expects to receive as many as 21 applications to build 32 new reactors, the first of which will be filed today by NRG Energy Inc. of Princeton, New Jersey.