"Senator Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors, Exelon, a big nuclear power company. Apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure in the nuclear industry."
--Hillary Clinton, ABC-Politico Forum, Feb. 11, 2008.
This is a very serious charge.
The WashingtonPost.com's Fact Checker blog looked into this charge and found it lacking substance.
After summarizing the history of Obama and Exelon the post described that Exelon had leaked waste water containing low levels of radioactive tritium.
From the blog:
On January 1, 2006, Obama introduced a bill, S. 2348, to help allay the concerns of Illinois citizens. The original draft of the legislation required nuclear plant operators to "immediately notify" local communities of any "unplanned release" of radioactive substances in excess of federal limits. The legislation was subsequently modified in committee over the objections of some environmental activists. The new draft shifted responsibility for drafting the regulations away from Congress itself to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the goverment's nuclear watchdog. Both drafts are available here.
The blog goes on to describe Exelon's attempts to get Senator Obama to water down the bill but shows that then Environment Committee Chair Senator Inhofe was largely responsible for easing the language (bolded text by me):
Although Obama had initially introduced the legislation, Inhofe had the decisive say on whether it would move forward. Two other Democratic senators on the committee, Barbara Boxer (CA), and Richard Durbin (IL), said that Obama had little choice except to go along with Inhofe, in order to keep his legislation alive. Both scoffed at Clinton's claims of a "backroom deal" between Obama and Exelon.
"The choice came down to no bill or a weaker bill," said Boxer, who said she is "neutral" in the presidential campaign. "Barack tried desperately to get it through, but got the best thing he could."
When the revised bill was introduced on September 13, it met with unanimous consent. Senator Clinton issued a press release hailing "this important legislation," saying that it would ensure that the public received "prompt notification" of future leaks at nuclear reactors. On September 25, she signed on as a co-sponsor of the revised bill.
Uhm... What was that last part again???
The fact checker goes on to report:
The Clinton campaign did not respond to several e-mail messages and telephone calls. The campaign website cites a Feb. 3, 2008 New York Times article as the source for the senator's claims about a backroom deal between Obama and Exelon. No other member of the committee has come forward to support the Clinton version of events.
Fact Checker gave this two Pinocchio's concluding:
the Clinton campaign has failed to provide evidence to support the New York senator's claim of a secret deal between Obama and the nuclear power plant operator "to protect them from full disclosure." Exelon lobbied Obama over the nuclear notification bill, but it expressed the same concerns to other senators. Had Obama not agreed to the drafting changes, the bill would almost certainly have been blocked by the Republican majority on the Environment Committee.
This is just another example of the 'she'll do or say anything to win' narrative that Kos describes.