For the past several months, billboards across Utah have declared that “nuclear plants emit less radiation than bananas" or that they are “cleaner than a candle.”
Their validity has been questioned before. Now, the $1.8 million state advertising campaign is under more fire.
Three Utah advocacy organizations – Downwinders, Inc., Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah and Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment – filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission for what they say are “false, deceptive and misleading advertisements.”
“We have seen this campaign for some time now, and we believe that it's time that it be investigated by the federal government, and the FTC is the appropriate arm for dealing with deceptive advertising,” said Downwinders volunteer Stephen Erickson at an Aug. 17 news conference at the Utah Capitol announcing the complaint.
The complainants want a formal investigation of the Utah Office of Energy Development’s efforts to drum up public support for doubling the state’s energy production by 2034 — which could include nuclear power. If the FTC concludes the advertisements are misleading, remedies could include cease and desist orders or corrective disclosures.
Chiefly, the complaint takes issue with advertisements that equate the dangers of modern nuclear energy with everyday occurrences such as eating bananas, reheating leftovers or sitting in a chair. At best, they say those claims dumb down a complex argument. At worst, they say the state is misleading residents using taxpayer money.
Nuclear energy and research already have a fraught history in Utah at the West. In the years after World War II, the government conducted over 100 nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site near Las Vegas. The radioactive clouds caused by those explosions drifted across the Mountain West — including Utah — and caused a myriad of health issues for thousands of people, who are now known as downwinders. The federal government has even stepped in to pay out benefits for those affected by the tests.
Opponents of Utah’s campaign also tied in another hot topic of late: AI data centers. A controversial project in Box Elder County cost several elected officials their primary elections, including Senate President Stuart Adams, after the large-scale Stratos Project was approved and later dialed back in northern Utah. Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment President Brian Moench believes the current race for nuclear energy in Utah wouldn’t even be happening if it weren’t for the emergent technology.
“There is no way to discuss authoritatively or realistically the issue of nuclear power in Utah unless we're willing to simultaneously discuss the propriety of having Utah become the breeding grounds for AI data centers,” he said.
In a written statement provided to KUER, Office of Energy Development Deputy Director Tracy Rees did not specifically address the complaint, but said the office thinks nuclear energy has the “potential to play an important role” in the state’s pursuit of ensuring it has the “affordable, reliable and abundant energy our growing state will need for generations to come.”
“As we advance this work, the Office of Energy Development will continue to share fact-based, science-based information about civil nuclear energy and engage Utahns in an open and accessible way,” she wrote. “We welcome a robust conversation about Utah’s energy future and believe that conversation should be grounded in the facts."
For HEAL Utah Executive Director Lexi Tuddenham, one of the core issues at play is basic respect for Utahns.
“It's really important to understand that oversimplifying, overdistilling these messages in a way that does not actually embrace the entire scope of this incredibly complicated issue does not respect the intelligence and the needs of our public for true engagement,” she said.
Her organization spent months engaging with Utahns across the state on the issue, Tuddenham said. They found that it was “not just us as advocates or organizations that are concerned about this.”
“What we're hoping is that this is a time to have a substantive conversation about what's real and what's not, and to talk in a very concrete and direct and honest way with the people being targeted and what this means for them,” she said.
A representative for the Office of Energy Development said they would not comment further on the complaint due to the potential for a future investigation should the FTC choose to conduct one.
