A company paid membership fees for Utah lawmakers to join a conservative group. It got this in exchange.

The Salt Lake City-based nuclear services company EnergySolutions has for years worked to get Utahns on board with nuclear energy.

It held the naming rights to the Jazz’s home court for nearly a decade, hoping that becoming a household name would help change attitudes toward nuclear power, and almost 20 years ago, it launched an ad campaign to “take the controversy out of it.” Political contributions have long been part of the equation.

But as nuclear has competed with other technologies in the clean energy transitions of recent years, The Salt Lake Tribune found that EnergySolutions has taken a new direction — buying Republican state lawmakers memberships to a conservative influence group that has pushed energy policy in nuclear’s direction.

The Tribune identified 15 instances of EnergySolutions paying for memberships to the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council, commonly known as ALEC, for Utah elected officials. And while the individual ALEC donations cost $200, they’re a small portion of the money the nuclear services company spends in Utah in an effort to influence policy.

Those in-kind contributions to members of Utah’s supermajority GOP Legislature began as early as 2023, when 10 representatives and two senators reported them in campaign finance disclosures. So far this year, three lawmakers — including House Speaker Mike Schultz — have reported receiving “ALEC membership” from EnergySolutions:

Spokespeople for the Legislature did not respond to requests for comment.

EnergySolutions acknowledged receipt of questions from The Tribune, but did not send answers ahead of the story’s deadline. It currently operates one low-level radioactive waste management site in Utah, and has clients throughout the country and the world.

“We encourage our private sector members to actively engage with our public sector members, both Republican and Democrat alike, within the limits of all applicable state laws,” wrote Lars Dalseide, a spokesperson for ALEC, in an email. “The more our members interact and exchange ideas, the better the final product.”

Dalseide declined to share whether EnergySolutions is represented among its private sector members, saying it does not disclose membership lists.

While the prices of private sector memberships are not listed on ALEC’s website, it explains the benefits of its tiered membership system — each step offers increased access to policymakers and task forces that craft model bills to pitch to legislatures.

“All draft model policies are sponsored by an ALEC legislative member,” Dalseide said. “In every ALEC task force, both public and private sector members discuss and vote on proposed model policies. However, final approval of any draft model policy rests solely with the ALEC Board of Directors, which is composed entirely of elected legislators.”

Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, who chaired the organization in 2021, sits on the current board of directors.

“In other words,” Dalseide added, “while the private sector plays an important role, the process of developing an ALEC model policy begins and ends with state legislators.”

University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank said it isn’t unusual for private entities to pay for lawmakers to travel to conferences, but he couldn’t recall an instance of a company purchasing memberships to an organization.

Companies would likely send legislators to a conference like ALEC’s, Burbank said, “knowing that [the group] has a very particular point of view about how a legislature should behave … to try to indirectly influence legislators,” Burbank said.

Utah’s steps toward bringing nuclear energy to the state have coincided with EnergySolutions’ recent policy nudges by political donation.

‘Clean energy’

Last fall, Gov. Spencer Cox announced his “Operation Gigawatt” plan to double Utah’s energy production, with an emphasis on nuclear, in the next decade. The Legislature put $10 million toward that plan in its most recent session, and nearly $2 million of that is going toward a marketing effort to boost public support for nuclear.

The state’s laws have also been adjusted to make room for nuclear power. And some of the laws passed by the Utah Legislature reflect model policies ALEC urges its members to consider.

ALEC, nationwide, put forward a draft bill in December 2022 that would convene a commission to start states on the path of exploring the feasibility of nuclear energy generation within their borders. This year, the Utah Legislature created the Nuclear Energy Consortium “to advise the office and the Legislature on nuclear energy development in the state.”

In 2024, state lawmakers voted to strike the term “renewable energy” from Utah code and replace it with “clean energy,” which had a definition expanded to include “nuclear fuel.” Later that year, ALEC proposed other states do the same.

As Utah has determined it will begin building nuclear power facilities, partnering with multiple nuclear startups, it has also tapped EnergySolutions to study whether the company can work with the state’s Intermountain Power Agency to put a small nuclear reactor at its coal-fired Intermountain Power Project site in Delta.

The company has 180 days from its April signing of the memorandum of understanding, or until mid-October, to make a determination.

“We are excited to pursue this opportunity to create a clean energy hub for the Western United States,” EnergySolutions CEO Ken Robuck said in a news release announcing the agreement.

Democratic state Sen. Nate Blouin of Salt Lake City, whose professional background is in renewable energy policy consulting, said he isn’t opposed to the state exploring nuclear fuel as an energy source.

But Blouin, who has reported no contributions from EnergySolution, is frustrated that nuclear energy development has seemingly received more attention and resources from the state than other clean energy sources, like geothermal. “Those donations,” he said, “certainly raise questions about who is influencing our energy policy and why we are so heavily invested in nuclear.”

More money

Memberships to ALEC, which are $200, account for a fraction of EnergySolution’s political spending. Since the beginning of 2023, it has given a total of more than $55,000 to Utah lawmakers, according to campaign finance disclosures filed with the state.

While all of the ALEC memberships were purchased for Republican lawmakers, the campaign of at least one Democratic lawmaker, House Minority Leader Angela Romero, was among those that received cash contributions.

More than a quarter of the dollars donated went to Rep. Bridger Bolinder, R-Grantsville, whose West Desert district includes EnergySolutions’ Clive Disposal Facility, which lies approximately 75 miles west of Salt Lake City.

The company gave $11,000 to Bolinder’s 2024 reelection campaign. The next winter, he worked with Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, to introduce two pieces of legislation that directly benefit EnergySolutions — Waste Classification Amendments, or HB254, and Environmental Quality Amendments, or SB216.

EnergySolutions’ lobbyist, Casey Hill, helped the lawmakers present both bills in public hearings. One repealed the state definition for the type of nuclear waste EnergySolutions can accept in its Clive facility, instead relying on a less specific federal definition, while the other would streamline the expansion of such nuclear waste facilities.

While McKell received a total of $2,500 in donations from EnergySolutions in 2023, neither of the lawmakers reported that the company purchased an ALEC membership for them. Neither Bolinder nor McKell responded to questions about the company’s role in drafting the legislation.

EnergySolutions has made other well-timed donations, including a $7,500 one to the governor’s campaign about a month after it had secured the memorandum of understanding with IPA. Lawmakers disclosed 44 contributions from EnergySolutions in October 2023, when the Republican State Leadership Committee held its energy summit in Salt Lake City.

According to reports, the Republican State Leadership Committee has filed with the IRS, EnergySolutions has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the organization, with the most recent contribution made in 2020.

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