‘Nothing short of an act of God would force me to fire you’

[“Burning Money” image by Gene Case/Avenging Angels. It graced the cover of The Nation magazine in 2003, accompanying an article by Christian Parenti about the ill-fated Bush/Cheney nuclear power relapse then very much under way at the time.]

On February 4, 2025, Andrew Seidman and Abraham Gutman published an article in the business section of the Philadelphia Inquirer entitled “Holtec VP was fired after CEO told him ‘nothing short of an act of God would force me to fire you,’ lawsuit says; The lawsuit offers a window into Holtec’s C-suite as the company braced for possible indictment by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office in January 2024.”

The article details how and why Holtec avoided a felony fraud indictment in New Jersey, in order to “control the narrative” and remain eligible and in the running for a $1.52 billion (with a B) loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy, for the unprecedented, unneeded, insanely expensive for the public, and extremely risky for health, safety, security, and the environment Palisades “zombie” reactor restart scheme in Michigan: pay a $5 million fine to the State of New Jersey while denying any wrongdoing, and scapegoating one of its own fired executives (according to one in a whistleblower lawsuit) for the resulting scandals.

As the article concludes, Teflon-coated Holtec and its CEO and founder, Krishna Singh, got away with it all yet again another time, laughing all the way to the bank: “As for the Michigan nuclear plant, the Energy Department said in September that it had finalized the loan agreement with Holtec.”