April 30 (Bloomberg) -- On April 19, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer called for the eventual shutdown of a nuclear power plant 24 miles from New York City, saying it's ``not a smart location'' for a facility he has warned is vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

That assessment was a setback for one of the Indian Point plant's biggest boosters: Republican presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani, whose consulting firm advises plant owner Entergy Corp. on security and evacuation plans, last November declared the company a ``model'' of safety.

Indian Point is one of several projects Giuliani has pushed for corporate clients that may clash with his image as a homeland-security expert, a reputation he won as New York's mayor during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed more than 2,900 people.

Some of those associations may haunt him, says Richard Clarke, the White House counterterrorism chief during the 2001 attacks, when hijackers crashed airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

``You have no obligation to take on security assessments for people who have insecure facilities,'' says Clarke, who served on the National Security Council under both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. For a candidate, ``there is a risk that somewhere in your client base something will go very, very wrong.''

Liquefied Gas

Giuliani, 62, is also advising TransCanada Corp. and Shell Oil Co. on a plan to place a 1,215-foot-long barge on Long Island Sound to store liquefied natural gas. Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, a Republican, is among those opposing the project on safety grounds.

His law firm has lobbied to exempt respiratory-mask manufacturers from lawsuits when equipment fails, a position that has outraged police and firefighters. The firm also represents an oil company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has challenged U.S. influence throughout Latin America.

Giuliani, who leads the race for the Republican nomination in every major poll, and his campaign didn't respond to questions about whether his business relationships may become an issue.

Representative Peter King of New York, a Giuliani supporter and the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, says the candidate has already established his credibility on public-safety matters.

Ready for Attacks

``Rudy is expecting to be attacked on everything,'' King says. ``I think he's prepared. He knows what the stakes are.''

The former mayor has taken steps to reduce his involvement in business, saying he will leave his New York-based consulting firm, Giuliani Partners LLC, and selling his investment bank, Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC, to Macquarie Bank Ltd. of Sydney. He remains a partner in the Houston-based law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani LLP.

Last month, Giuliani's law firm said he wasn't involved in its lobbying on behalf of Citgo Petroleum Corp., the company controlled by Chavez's Venezuelan government.

The Indian Point nuclear plant, perched on the Hudson River north of New York City, has raised safety concerns throughout its 32-year history. Those concerns turned to alarm after the Sept. 11 attacks, when a jet plane flew past the site minutes before crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center.

Inadequate

James Lee Witt, a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in a 2002 report that evacuation plans for the surrounding area were inadequate, a conclusion echoed by Democrat Spitzer, 47, when he spoke to reporters after an April 19 breakfast meeting in New York.

Indian Point has had at least eight emergency shutdowns since 2005. On April 15, the plant flunked a Nuclear Regulatory Commission siren test, prompting the commission to recommend a $130,000 fine.

Giuliani's consulting firm had recommended the siren's manufacturer, ATI Inc. of Boston, according to Jim Steets, a spokesman for New Orleans-based Entergy, the second-largest U.S. operator of nuclear power plants.

On Nov. 22, Giuliani backed Entergy's application for a 20- year extension of its licenses, which expire in 2013.

``Indian Point is as safe as a facility can be,'' he told reporters at the time. He said pursuing nuclear energy is one way the U.S. can achieve energy independence. ``There is nothing that produces energy that doesn't carry risk,'' he said.

Seal of Approval

Steets, who says Entergy hired the candidate's firm in 2003, says the company believed that Giuliani's seal of approval ``would go a long way in persuading people'' the company had made the plant safe.

Richard Sheirer, a partner at the consulting firm who ran New York's Office of Emergency Management when Giuliani was mayor, declined to comment on advice given Entergy.

Another Giuliani Partners client is Broadwater, the joint venture of Calgary-based TransCanada and Houston-based Shell that wants to store liquefied natural gas on Long Island Sound. The barge could supply Connecticut and New York with 1 billion cubic feet of LNG a day. Proponents say the project would reduce the costs of storage and transmission, and help spur economic growth.

Last month, a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said some studies estimate a terrorist attack on the facility could cause a fireball to extend across an area of more than 2.6 miles.

`Waiting to Happen'

``Broadwater is an accident or attack waiting to happen,'' Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said during an April 17 hearing. ``No consensus exists on even the most basic issue: How large is the danger zone from a large LNG fire?''

The joint venture, Broadwater Energy LLC, says the barge's one-mile buffer zones ``will protect the public from any potential accident or terrorist attack.'' The barge's location - - nine miles from Long Island and 11 miles from Connecticut -- ``provides a very significant safety buffer,'' the company said in a statement.

``Security, safety, and reliability have been top priorities for Broadwater from the outset,'' Eric Hatzimemos, a managing director of Giuliani Partners, said in a statement,

Giuliani has also drawn the ire of police and firefighter groups for backing a campaign by makers of respiratory masks to get immunity from lawsuits if their equipment malfunctions.

Lobbying Congress

In July 2005, three months after he joined his law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani was hired by the Coalition for Breathing Safety to lobby Congress to grant the immunity. The firm was paid $312,000, according to congressional lobby-disclosure reports.

``It shows that what the former mayor is truly concerned about is dollars instead of the lives of first responders,'' says Jeffrey Zack, a spokesman for the Washington-based International Association of Fire Fighters.

The exemption would apply only to masks approved by the government's National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. That would include inexpensive disposable masks made by the millions, some of which are only 95 percent effective, according to the institute. ``We don't want 5 percent getting sick or dying and having no recourse in the courts,'' Zack says.

Andrea Mournighan, director of government relations for the National Association of Police Organizations in Washington, says it was ``a little overbroad'' to give manufacturers immunity from liability just because the products met the institute's standards.

Retaliation

Giuliani has said the firefighters and police unions are trying to retaliate against him for holding the line on their wages when he was mayor.

James Hornstein, an attorney for Moldex-Metric Inc., a privately held mask maker in Culver City, California, says the coalition was seeking the lobbying firm's political advice, not Giuliani's clout or reputation. ``Giuliani's name made no difference,'' he says.

Hornstein says that ``a mountain of frivolous lawsuits'' would bankrupt the manufacturers and leave the U.S. without enough masks in a pandemic or bio-terror event. Even so, the coalition is no longer pushing the legislation and Giuliani's firm is no longer lobbying for the group, partner Ed Krenik says.

Republican political consultant Craig Shirley, who advised Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign, says Giuliani's involvement with companies linked to safety disputes ``goes to the heart of his candidacy,'' and may put him on the defensive as the campaign wears on.

``It's a distraction he doesn't need,'' says Shirley, who isn't backing any candidate this time. ``The old adage in politics is, `When you're explaining, you're losing.'''

To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net; Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 29, 2007 19:06 EDT