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Things may get “Nuclear” in coming Tennessee election politics

July 29, 2009 —             InsiderAdvantage and the Southern Political Report, while polling the potential field for governor of Tennessee for 2010, uncovered a hidden issue that may well have some politicians “aglow” by election time next year.

          Under a little-known program known as the “Bulk Survey for Release,” Tennessee has many ordinary landfills in the state where nuclear waste from other states may be dumped. In 2009 a state senator introduced legislation to ban nuclear disposal in these designated landfills or any other ordinary landfills. The bill may have seemed insignificant while the state and the nation dealt with issues of stimulus funds, unemployment and the like. Even so, the “dumping bill,” as some call it, may well put Tennessee politicians on a nuclear hot seat.

          The poll, which also surveyed the governor’s race and reaction to the death of former Tennessee Titans Quarterback Steve McNair, found a hidden jewel in the nuclear dumping issue.

          While most respondents were unaware of the existence of these nuclear disposal areas, their reaction when they found out about them was strong – in fact, it was off the political Richter scale.

Well over 80 percent of those surveyed said they were very concerned that nuclear waste could be disposed of in ordinary landfills in the state. A majority said they support legislation to ban the practice. But the eye-opening part of the poll was the degree to which voters said they would support a gubernatorial or legislative candidate who supported a ban, and how less likely they would be to support one who opposed a ban.  Nearly 75 percent of the survey’s respondents said they would be more likely to support a gubernatorial candidate who supported a ban on such dumping, and well over 60 percent said they would be more likely to support a legislative candidate who supported that position.

The political ramifications of the poll’s findings likely can only be reinforced by the recent announcement of the $35 million expansion of Environmental Management Waste Management Facility in Oak Ridge. The facility is a permitted low-level radioactive, hazardous and mixed waste disposal facility that serves as the onsite landfill for cleanup waste from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation. The expansion is to be paid for with federal “stimulus” dollars.

          “This issue is potential political dynamite,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery, whose firm was recently named one of the three most accurate national pollsters for the 2008 presidential race, polling for the nationally acclaimed “Politico.” Towery, a one-time National Republican Freshman Legislator of the Year – he retired from Georgia’s legislature in 1997 – is known as the political chairman and strategist for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. But it is in his role as a nonpartisan national columnist (Creators) and pollster that he sees a hidden issue in the 2010 Tennessee elections.

    Said Towery, “This is not a Democrat or Republican issue as best I can see. We know from prior polling in Tennessee that the public there is very pro-nuclear energy, which is true in most states. I think what makes this a potential bombshell issue is that most in the state don’t realize nuclear dumping in landfills is allowed, and when they hear that it is they are shocked. When you add to the equation that Tennessee landfills are taking other states’ waste, residents get really hot.”