CNA Stands Firm on Public Service Advertising

From the CBC:

An organization that represents the Canadian nuclear industry says it has no plans to pull ads that promote nuclear energy despite a formal complaint by a handful of environmental groups.

Murray Elston, president of the Canadian Nuclear Association, said the nuclear industry is safe and he is confident that the Competition Bureau will not find any problems with its ads.

"I'm not changing the ads. The industry is very safe. It is very clean," he said Tuesday.

Watch the ads and decide for yourself. And while you're at it, you might as well watch NEI's latest ad too:



UPDATE: NEI's Scott Peterson shared this note on a similar experience NEI had several years back:

We've been down this road before in the U.S. after a challenge by NRDC of NEI's advertising in the late 1990s.

The NEI case was heard by the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau and ultimately sent to the Federal Trade Commission, which in 1999 ruled that NEI was not engaged in unfair or deceptive advertising practices as alleged by NRDC.

The FTC’s ruling was appropriate given that the industry was simply exercising its right of free speech to provide information to policymakers about the benefits of nuclear technology.

NEI believed that its advertisements were appropriate first-amendment communications targeted to policymakers in forums that principally reach those who set national policy on energy and environmental issues.

We agreed with the FTC that our advertisements address important public policy matters in a manner targeted to reach legislators and other opinion leaders. As the FTC noted, the advertising was not directed to publications in states where consumers can choose their electricity suppliers.

It is undisputed that there are no greenhouse gas emissions from producing electricity at nuclear power plants. Although the NAD applied a lifecycle test to determine whether emissions resulting from the uranium fuel production process at a separate facility should be applied to the production of electricity, the FTC concluded that the NAD’s application of lifecycle analysis was inappropriate in the context of NEI’s advertising. [NEI did not make a lifecycle claim in the ad, therefore it is inappropriate to apply that test.]

In its Green Guides, FTC said in 1999 that “lifecycle analysis still is in its infancy and thus the commission lacks sufficient information on which to base guidance at this time.” FTC said NEI’s advertising does not require a lifecycle analysis.

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