At the same time it was hired by the U.S. Energy Department to help determine whether Yucca Mountain in Nevada would be a suitable site to store the country’s nuclear waste, a Chicago-based law firm was taking money from the nuclear power industry to lobby Congress and the White House to get the site approved. Critics of the Yucca site are crying foul, saying the conflict of interest casts doubts on all federal decisions about the site. Robert Loux, head of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office, the state agency created to oppose the site, said, “You could make a case that every piece of data since 1992 is tainted.”
