Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, September 27, 2004
---------------------------
Nevada Appeal
September 26, 2004
Keeping the Yucca watchdog fed
Nevada Appeal editorial board
With higher taxes and a galloping economy, the Nevada Legislature next year expects to be in the happy position of having plenty of money for its two-year budget.
A good investment would be continued oversight of the Department of Energy's work on the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently turned down a request from Nevada's Nuclear Projects Office for a $13.75 million grant. At a time the state needs to step up its efforts, the amount of money available to Bob Loux and his watchdogs has been dwindling.
That money usually comes from Congress, which promised to provide adequate money for the state to monitor independently the research into Yucca Mountain's suitability as a waste-disposal site. The state may now need to increase its share, or risk losing some of its credibility in the scientific debate.
There is no doubt the Nevada watchdogs have done important work over the years. Their research and analysis has repeatedly exposed flaws and deficiencies in the Energy Department's conclusions. It's not enough to cry "foul" in the political arena - Nevada needs the facts to back up its claims.
Although a solid majority of Nevadans still opposes the Yucca project, recent polls have shown an increase in the number of Nevadans willing to "negotiate" the issue. Last week, Carson City Assemblyman Ron Knecht told a forum audience that "Yucca Mountain is probably as good a place as any for nuclear storage."
The truth or falsity of that statement relies entirely on the performance of waste-storage containers - something scientists admitted last week they still can't predict.
We're not prepared to stand aside to let the Energy Department carry on, given its record on safety issues such as the exposure of Yucca workers to silica dust, only to find out years from now just how wrong it could be.
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
September 27, 2004
Letter: Store nuke waste where it is made
Jim Raleigh was incorrect on a few comments in his Sept 16 letter, "Feds, not plants, own nuke waste."
He was correct when he said the federal government owns the nuclear waste. Another way to say this, however, is that the American people were sold out when Congress gave them the liability of nuclear waste storage. Who has responsibility for the ashes in a coal-fired power plant? Certainly not the American people.
He was wrong when he said that the $23 billion to $25 billion in surcharges paid so far by ratepayers was for the development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The surcharge was for storage. Yucca Mountain, selected by Congress in 1987 in the so-called "screw Nevada bill" as the only site in the nation to be considered for nuclear waste storage, was a political sellout. What was scientific in selecting only one site, and that in a politically weak state? It was politics then and it is politics now!
Nuclear waste should remain where it is -- in dry cask storage. Why risk accidents and terrorism in transporting this toxic waste? As far as the state reaping federal benefits in exchange for storing it, I ask: Benefits? What benefits? Thyroid cancer?
Frank Perna
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
September 27, 2004
Letter: Bush hasn't lied on Yucca dump, rationale for war
This is in response to the Aug. 29 letter from Della Press, "Bush doesn't deserve support for re-election."
It has been pointed out many times, in many different media, that what President Bush actually promised Gov. Kenny Guinn was that he would not make Nevada a nuclear waste site until he had heard all the scientific facts. He did not tell a lie. He also did not lie about WMD. He made his decisions based on the intelligence he had before him. It was bad intelligence, yes, but he did not know that at the time.
Also, if Ms. Press had read the local papers in 2001 when the No Child Left Behind Act was signed, she would have learned that the act did provide funding -- $41.1 billion for fiscal year 2003-2004. She should already know that the U.S. Constitution does not designate an education role for the federal government. Responsibility for K-12 secondary education falls to the states. Since the government has a vested interest in the quality of education, however, it has provided assistance to the states where possible.
Finally, I defy Ms. Press to show me one example where President Bush has indicated he is "worried about what John Kerry did during the Vietnam War," as she stated. When he was asked about Mr. Kerry's service in Vietnam, he responded that he "believed he served honorably in a very unpopular war."
Richard St. John
---------------------------
Munster Times
September 27, 2004
Power trips: Congress hits the road
CONGRESS: Watchdog groups raise concerns about lawmakers stepping over the line
By STEPHEN BAXTER and JUSTIN D. FOX
Medill News Service
WASHINGTON -- Crisscrossing the globe for speeches, conferences and fact-finding missions, members of Congress and their families have taken nearly $14.4 million worth of trips in the last 4 1/2 years -- with private interests picking up the tab.
An analysis of congressional trips by Medill News Service in partnership with American Public Media's Marketplace program and American RadioWorks found that private interests spent $14,388,672 since Jan.1, 2000, to send House and Senate members on 4,851 trips.
The academic groups, think tanks and corporate sponsors say the trips allow lawmakers to learn valuable information without spending taxpayer money. But critics say sponsors are buying special access to lawmakers, often in congenial surroundings.
While some members took privately funded trips to make speeches in places like Pittsburgh and Peoria, others went on fact-finding jaunts to Aspen, Colo., or spent $3,000 on meals at a five-day conference in Barcelona, Spain.
The most popular destination was Florida, with 558 trips, followed by California with 386 and New York with 354. West Virginia, home to the luxurious Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, was the fourth most popular destination, with 223 trips.
Many of the 159 sponsored trips to Nevada -- the fifth most common destination -- mixed tours of the proposed nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain with the lure of adult playgrounds in Las Vegas.
While domestic destinations dominated the list of travel hot spots, Israel, Mexico, Italy, the United Kingdom and Cuba also made the top 20 most-visited list.
In all, senators took 1,071 trips, House members 3,781.
The House and Senate allow the trips if they are part of official duties and if lawmakers disclose where they went, the amount spent and the sponsor. Senate rules limit domestic trips to three days and international trips to seven days, excluding travel time.
Disclosure forms often are filed late or are incomplete, and the only place to find them is in House and Senate office buildings.
Sen. John Breaux, D-La., traveled the most at others' expense, taking 56 trips costing more than $158,000. On average, Breaux accepted a free trip a month, every month, over the period analyzed.
"These conferences play an important role in interacting with groups affected by the workings of Congress," said Breaux, who is retiring this year after 32 years on Capitol Hill. "In addition, these trips are approved by the Senate Ethics Committee as appropriate and proper, and at no cost to the American taxpayers."
Bill Nell of the Aspen Institute, a left-leaning international relations think tank that sponsored 488 trips, said sending lawmakers on trips helps them better understand issues.
"If we discuss China, Latin America, or Russia, for example," he said, "it is much more meaningful to do it in the country we're studying with people from that country."
The Aspen Institute topped the list of money spent by sponsors at more than $2.5 million. Second place went to the Ripon Educational Fund, a program of the conservative Ripon Society. It doled out more than $600,000 to pay for 59 trips. Spending about $575,000 on 70 trips, the American Israel Education Foundation came in third.
Opinions on privately sponsored trips range from enthusiasm to skepticism to outright disapproval. While some lawmakers and sponsors say the trips promote understanding, some government watchdog groups say they give sponsors disproportionate influence on Capitol Hill.
Gary Ruskin of the Congressional Accountability Project said: "Typically these trips help educate members of Congress only about one side of an issue. As such, sometimes they're worse than not traveling at all."
"It's for the most part only wealthy institutions that can do this," said Danielle Brian, director of the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight, referring to groups that sponsor trips. "So in itself there is definitely a skewed leaning towards powerful special interests versus the average citizen."
The most expensive trip was taken by Rep. Tom Bliley, R-Va., whose fact-finding journey to England in July 2000 cost Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corp. more than $31,000.
The tobacco company paid nearly $24,000 to transport Bliley and his wife to England, where they spent more than $4,000 on lodging and almost $3,000 on entertainment and other costs. House ethics rules prohibit private parties from providing more than $50 for entertainment
Bliley, who declined to comment, retired from Congress four months after the trip to work for Collier Shannon Scott, a lobbying firm that has represented the Tobacco Products Manufacturing Coalition.
Tighter controls considered
Over the years, efforts have been made to tighten congressional rules related to privately sponsored trips and make the information more easily available to the public. But all have become stuck in the gears of the political machine.
In 1998, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., introduced a resolution that would have required any House member taking a trip to submit a report on how the travel was related to official House business, including findings and recommendations as well as a detailed itinerary of all meetings, interviews, inspection tours and other official functions.
Hamilton also wanted to require the disclosure forms and reports be posted on the Internet, but his resolution never got to the floor of the Republican-controlled House.
Currently, members need only name the sponsor, destination and purpose of the trip, and list transportation, lodging, meal and other costs.
Steven Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group that examined congressional travel in 1998, said people are no more aware of privately sponsored trips today than they were six years ago.
While Weiss noted that not all trips are paid for by groups with legislative agendas, Gary Ruskin of the Congressional Accountability Project said it is important for citizens to examine lawmakers' privately sponsored trips "to find out what there is to be learned about members' ethics and their propensity for accepting graft and reasonable facsimiles of graft."
---------------------------
USA Today
September 27, 2004
Nuclear power slides back onto the agenda
By Thor Valdmanis
USA Today
NEW YORK — Reviled for more than a quarter of a century, nuclear energy is poised for a comeback. Soaring energy costs, worries about energy dependence and growing fears of global warming have combined to revive a once-doomed industry that remains the butt of pop-culture satire such as The Simpsons and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Three utility consortiums — Exelon, Entergy and Dominion Resources — recently filed early site applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for new plants — the first in nearly three decades.
"We believe that a renaissance has begun," says Michael Wallace, president of generation at Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, operator of five nuclear reactors and part of the Exelon consortium. "While environmentalists are not advocates (of nuclear power), they are not the detractors that they once were eight or 10 years ago."
Not everyone is as sanguine about the prospect of new reactors being built, possibly as early as 2010. Anti-nuclear groups argue new plants would be prohibitively expensive, generate radioactive waste, risk catastrophic meltdown and be terrorist targets.
"These reactors are pre-positioned weapons of mass destruction, and it is about time the government treated them as such and shut them down," says Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio.
But with record energy costs and global electricity consumption expected to double by 2020 — including a 40% jump in the USA — the future of nuclear power is popping up on political agendas around the world. The threats of global warming, nuclear proliferation and terrorism amplify the debate.
"I suspect in the next 10 years, we'll see one or more new nuclear plants being constructed here," says William "Nick" Timbers, CEO of USEC, the world's sole supplier of nuclear fuel from old Soviet warheads.
Polls suggest nuclear power is becoming more palatable as the public tires of turmoil in the oil-rich Middle East. In March, a Gallup Poll found 56% of Americans favored nuclear energy, up from 46% three years earlier. But only 37% backed building a nuclear plant in their area.
Many in the scientific community believe it would be a mistake to omit nuclear power from initiatives to limit reliance on oil, natural gas and coal, and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; they say it should be considered along with efforts to increase energy efficiency and expand use of renewable energy sources, such as hydro, wind and solar power.
"Deciding to pull the trigger on a nuclear plant is difficult because no one knows where energy prices are going to be in five years," says Bob Bellemare, CEO of energy consulting firm Utilipoint International. "The good news about nuclear energy for customers is that its cost is very predictable year-to-year."
Celebrated in the 1960s as an energy source that was too cheap to meter, 442 nuclear plants today produce about one-sixth of the world's power, says the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog. An additional 27 are under construction: 18 in Asia. In the USA, 103 reactors at 65 sites account for 20% of the nation's energy needs. The last U.S. plant went online in 1996. Germany and Sweden are phasing out reactors. Finland is building one. France, which relies on nuclear plants for almost 80% of its electricity needs, has joined Italy and the United Kingdom in contemplating expansion.
Global warming
The IAEA says that electricity generation is responsible for about one-third of worldwide greenhouse gases. The use of emission-free nuclear power saves roughly 600 million tons of carbon emissions annually — twice what the unratified Kyoto treaty is designed to save. Total man-made annual greenhouse gas emissions are estimated at 27 billion tons; the USA accounts for 23%, followed by China at 14%.
A recent Massachusetts Institute of Technology study suggests nuclear power offers one of few realistic options to combat global warming. The only issue is the $1-billion-plus upfront cost of a new reactor.
"Nuclear power is not an economically competitive choice," says MIT's report, "The Future of Nuclear Power." "Unlike other energy technologies, nuclear power requires significant government involvement because of safety, proliferation and waste concerns."
Industry leaders admit they may need federal loan guarantees and investment tax credits during construction of the first of a new generation of reactors.
With a streamlined regulatory approval process, improved plant designs and construction timetables down to as little as four years — from 15 two decades ago — they believe start-up costs will come down dramatically. A new University of Chicago study found that "first-of-a-kind" engineering costs disappear by the time a third or fourth plant comes online. "We have been working hard as an industry to try and bring the initial costs down," says Angela Howard, executive director of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI).
Getting private financing to build plants is still almost impossible because of lingering safety fears from the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and 1986 Chernobyl disaster. And safety is still a headache.
Four workers at a nuclear plant in Japan died recently after a cooling pipe burst. Two years ago, staff at the Davis-Besse plant near Toledo, Ohio, found a pineapple-size cavity in the reactor lid. NRC inspectors estimated the FirstEnergy facility was as close as 60 days to a major nuclear accident. FirstEnergy had to pay $400 million for repairs and upgrades.
"The Homer Simpsons at the plant weren't doing their jobs," says Charles Ferguson, scientist at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "I don't know if it's indicative of the industry, but it's still worrying."
Assuming it is built and run properly, a plant's financial performance is laudatory. A series of mergers and joint ventures has consolidated the industry into the hands of experienced managers, who have used economies of scale to cut costs and increase output by upgrading and extending the life of plants, according to an industry report by Moody's Investors Service.
But many environmental groups want the government to give up on nuclear energy and embrace conservation. They accuse the Bush administration of ignoring renewable sources, such as wind, solar and hydrogen power cells, saying the NEI met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force 19 times — more than any other energy interest group.
"Every dollar invested in electric efficiency displaces between five and seven times as much carbon dioxide as each dollar invested in nuclear power, even assuming the significant advances in nuclear power technology," says Kyle Datta, managing director of research at the Rocky Mountain Institute. "If climate change is the problem, nuclear power isn't the solution. It's simply too expensive. Wind-power-hydropower combinations provide the same firm baseload power as nuclear plants but at lower cost."
Disposal of waste
Storage of the nation's 70,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, currently housed next to plant sites around the country, is emerging as an election-year debating point. Most experts agree that handling of nuclear waste has been solved technically with the long-proposed nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But a political consensus remains elusive: President Bush backs the plan; Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic challenger, rejects it as unsound.
Anti-nuclear groups say nuclear power reduces the nation's security. In a new TV documentary, Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable, director and activist Rory Kennedy says that the Indian Point nuclear plant, 35 miles up the Hudson River from Midtown Manhattan, is vulnerable to an attack or accident.
Industry leaders say such talk is scare-mongering and that since the Sept. 11 attacks, more than $1 billion has been spent on security upgrades. The guard force stands at 8,000, up from 5,000 three years ago. However, a congressional report claims critical "force-on-force" mock attacks to test security at the plants will not be completed at all facilities until late 2007. NRC officials dispute this, saying the agency has increased inspection hours at the plants fivefold.
When talking about energy security, environmentalists often mention last summer's blackout that left 50 million people in the Northeast and Midwest without electricity. "Nuclear power plants dislike sudden shutdowns and don't restart gracefully," Datta says. "They are the opposite of a peaking plant, guaranteed to be unavailable when they are the most needed."
Ferguson acknowledges all energy options have drawbacks. "A revamping of our energy strategy is going to take serious leadership from above, and I mean the White House," he says.
---------------------------
Las Vegas SUN
September 24, 2004
Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Not without a fight
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
Weekend Edition
September 25 - 26, 2004
The inevitability of the pessimist.
Las Vegas is not a city for pessimists. For sure, we have had our share. From the early days when Hoover Dam was just a technological dream, there were plenty of people who stood on the sidelines and bet against the reality of one of the great man-made wonders of the world. Today that dam is who we are or, at least, what provides us sustenance in the desert.
A few years later, Bugsy Siegel, a man with the kind of credentials for citizenship that would scare most people into moving, came out to this tiny desert town and put bricks and mortar in the place where there stood only his dreams of a city lighted with the promise of better tomorrows. Even then the naysayers cried out that it couldn't and wouldn't be done. And even if he did manage to build a multimillion-dollar extravaganza, no one would show. It took his untimely and rather dramatic death to make it a hit, but the Flamingo flourished and so did Las Vegas.
Each decade of Las Vegas' history has brought its own set of dreamers and builders, optimists all, who risked what they had to create a new reality in this most unique of all cities on the planet.
Whether it was Wilbur Clark and his groundbreaking Desert Inn and Milton Prell and the Sahara Hotel in the early '50s and '60s, Jay Sarno in the late '60s with Caesars Palace, Kirk Kerkorian with the mold-breaking MGM in the '70s and Steve Wynn in the late '80s with his own Mirage of a dream, Las Vegas has had more than its share of the kind of people who put their money and their mouths into building a better future for all who would take the chance on this growing desert oasis.
And each and every time there was even a hint of making this town into the Entertainment Capital of the World by building more and better, the chorus of negativity sprang to life and reminded each of us of the inevitability of failure. And, fortunately, they have been wrong each and every time.
I am reminded of this part of the history of Las Vegas because the forces of "no" are at it again. And this time it is over an issue that is as vital to the future of Las Vegas as all the dreams of our builders and all the water that flows our way from Hoover Dam. I am talking about the federal government's single and simple-minded effort to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. Just 90 miles from this place where dreams are made on a daily basis.
Recent polls -- skewed as they may be -- have tried to convince Nevadans of the inevitability of the dump site in an effort to get us to concede the fight, roll over and not only play dead but, in all probability, be dead once those trucks and trains start rolling our way.
Every Nevadan knows that this stuff is dangerous. That's why every other state in the union wants to send it out here. And every parent knows that their responsibility is to do what they can to make sure we don't become the nation's radioactive dumping ground because that would jeopardize our children, their children and theirs.
To give up to the "inevitability" of it all is playing into the hands of the people who want to send it here, because anything that weakens the incredible resolve Nevadans have shown against the dump makes our enemies stronger.
It is no secret that President George W. Bush and Congress want to bury us under 77,000 tons of radioactive waste that will remain deadly for more than 100,000 years. The president put the target on Nevada's back in 2001, and Congress has made it stick. If you want to talk inevitable, that would have been a good time.
But Nevadans did not give in or give up. We asked the courts to tell the president and his Department of Energy that "their" science was wrong. This summer, the court said that the federal government ignored the law and the science. Now the Yucca program is up in the air, for the first time in decades.
If ever there were a reason for optimism, this is it. Instead, the nuclear power industry and the White House would have us continue to believe that the dump is coming no matter what. And to make sure that happens, the administration is doing what it can to make sure it inevitably happens.
For one, Nevada doesn't have the money needed to provide oversight to the entire process. Bush's federal government just turned down our request for the money. Without it, the DOE can act with impunity. Just as it always has in Nevada.
For another, the DOE will soon ask Congress to change the rules so that the "science" is made to fit the reality of the government's inability to make the dump safe. President Bush will sign that bill. That's inevitable.
But the dump isn't.
We have it in our power to make sure we put the stake in the heart of this awful plan. But it takes courage on our part and a little bit of that faith those who came before us had in abundance.
Believe whatever else you want about the two candidates running for the White House this year, but when it comes to the radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain, this much is clear and beyond doubt.
With George Bush as president, he will do what he can to make sure Nevada gets the dump. With John Kerry in the White House, the dump should be dead.
The dump inevitable? Not hardly.
This November, the future will be in our hands.
---------------------------
Seattle Times
September 26, 2004
The Times endorses
I-297 is bad law
Initiative 297 falsely appeals to the average citizen's sensibility that the state should not be a dumping ground for the nation's nuclear waste.
But the initiative is a false promise fraught with risk for cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation. Chances are it won't stand up in federal court, because judges typically favor the federal government when states try to regulate interstate commerce. Washington lost a similar case in the 1980s; Kentucky in 2001. If the federal government prevails, the state could lose any political clout it has to prevent wholesale import of waste from other states.
Much better for the state to pick its legal battles. Case in point: State regulators this summer celebrated the removal of pumpable liquid waste from all of Hanford's single-shell tanks — an achievement linked directly to the state flexing its muscle in court to negotiate a settlement that established legally enforceable deadlines.
Backers say I-297 will force the federal government to clean up Hanford first — before more nuclear waste is shipped from other states. But that can't be done without shipping Hanford waste elsewhere. More than 90 percent of Hanford's waste is intended for permanent disposal in Nevada, New Mexico and South Carolina.
The tactic has consequences. Imagine those states taking the same stand — and Hanford would be left with the waste long-term.
Which leads to another important point. One special-interest group, Heart of America Northwest, has contributed about $874,000 for signature-gathering and the campaign. The group opposes the Yucca Mountain, Nev., site, where much of Hanford's waste is bound.
The measure also would establish an oversight board that would tilt more to groups like Heart of America than to other Hanford cleanup stakeholders, altering the current, balanced mix of the existing and effective Hanford Advisory Board. It would support the effort by taxing federal cleanup activities, taking more money away from actual cleanup.
I-297 litigation would almost certainly cause the Energy Department to stall cleanup and give Congress reason to cut funding.
Initiatives, with a few exceptions, can make bad law, but especially so on a topic as technically complicated and politically nuanced as nuclear cleanup.
Reject I-297.
---------------------------
Dayton Daily News
September 26, 2004
Policy stances offer clear choice
Issues: Candidates differ on environment
Bush, Kerry present sharp contrast in views
By Lynn Hulsey
Dayton Daily News
War and the economy may hold center stage in the presidential race, but environmental policies also put President George Bush and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in sharp contrast to one another.
Where do they stand?
Continuing each Sunday through the Nov. 2 election, the Dayton Daily News will examine where the presidential campaigns stand on the major issues.
Take a closer look
Top 5 stories
Bush arrives at Wright-Patterson
Manhole covers disappearing in Columbus
Court: Taft should have ordered special election for Traficant district
Eastern, southern Miami Valley prepare for Bush
Semi overturns, injuring driver
Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, and major environmental groups paint the Republican president as an enemy of the environment who is rolling back decades of environmental progress in favor of corporate interests. They say Democrats and moderate Republicans in Congress have held the line against the administration's most egregious environmental attacks, but that four more years of a Bush White House could result in real damage.
"If the current administration is back in office I think it will continue its efforts to, in their language, 'streamline regulations and make them more business-friendly,' " said Hunt W. Brown, associate director of the Institute for Environmental Quality at Wright State University. "It's my feeling that the administration has gone beyond just trying to make the regulations less onerous. They've sacrificed some of the environmental improvements."
Bush and his supporters counter that Kerry's environmental proposals will cost jobs, drive up the price of gasoline and energy and hurt businesses, possibly forcing industries out of the United States.
They say he does not balance the need for environmental protection with consumer and business needs. And they argue that Kerry's focus on renewable energy sources will not reduce American dependence on fossil fuels because those technologies are decades from being widely available.
Bush says he supports sensible, not burdensome, regulations to protect the environment without hurting the economy.
"In the end the Bush policies, because they balance the need for environmental protection with the economy, will actually be implemented in a way that makes a difference in protecting the environment," said Bill Kovacs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs.
Clear distinctions
The differences between the candidates are stark.
Bush supports drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Kerry opposes it.
Bush wants to increase the use of nuclear energy and develop hydrogen and thermonuclear energy. Kerry also supports hydrogen and thermonuclear research, but wants no further nuclear energy development until security and waste-disposal issues are resolved.
Bush wants to store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Kerry rejects it as dangerous, both as a site for waste and because it would mean transporting waste across the country to the mountain.
Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement limiting greenhouse gases, as an unfair burden on the U.S. economy. Kerry wants to reopen negotiations to fix flaws in the protocol, such as its weaker requirements for developing nations.
Both support continued Superfund clean-up funding and forcing polluters to pay where possible, but Bush wants to boost federal funding and Kerry wants to restore a Superfund tax on industry that expired during Bush's term.
Bush abandoned President Bill Clinton's rule protecting roadless areas in the national forest. Kerry would restore it and ban logging in old growth forests.
Bush changed New Source Review rules — which he saw as onerous and counter productive — to make it easier for power plants and other industries to make upgrades without EPA approval or the addition of new pollution-control equipment. Kerry fought those changes.
Both say they want to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and mercury, but there is raging controversy over whose plan is best and whether new rules would hurt the economy.
Policies spark reaction
When it comes to the environment, opinions about the candidates are about as sharply divided as their policies. And while other issues overshadow the environment this election — it didn't even register as a top issue among likely voters in an Ohio Poll this month — Bush's policies draw extreme rancor from environmentalists.
A Bush campaign official said that reaction is rooted in partisan politics.
"They're dead wrong. You have to consider who these guys are," said Mike Catanzaro, the Bush-Cheney campaign's deputy policy director for energy and environment. "Environmental groups. These guys are just arms of the Democratic Party and they don't gives us credit for anything we do."
Nonetheless, the League of Conservation Voters — saying Bush's approach demonstrates a bias toward industry and corporate contributors at the expense of public health and safety — gave Bush an "F" for his 2003 performance on the environment.
Kerry, with a Senate reputation for supporting environmental initiatives, got an "A," and the league's endorsement. It praises him for voting to strengthen enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act and for his plans to boost production of renewal energy sources, such as wind and solar power — production that is part of Kerry's job-creation plan.
The Union of Concerned Scientists says Bush's actions show an "egregious disregard of scientific study" and "censorship and distortion of scientific analysis." More than 5,000 scientists — including Nobel laureates and National Medal of Science winners — have signed onto a statement charging the Bush administration with unprecedented "manipulation of the process through which science enters into its decisions."
Some environmental experts say Bush has weakened environmental law by rolling back protections, failing to enforce regulations, not defending rules when they're challenged in court and issuing new regulations when the administration can't get broader proposals through Congress.
It's a "subtle evisceration of existing regulatory programs," said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, an associate professor of law and environmental studies at Cleveland State University.
She said Bush promotes his plans as helpful to the environment, but she contends a closer look shows otherwise.
Bush calls for increased funding for wetlands. But Robertson said the president's plan redefines the waters of the United States in ways that remove large numbers of waters, including some wetlands, from Clean Water Act protection.
She also criticized Bush for reversing Clinton's efforts to clean up mining. Robertson said Bush allows mountain-top mining, a "severe form of mining" that involves chopping off the top of mountains and dumping the debris into the valley below.
Bush says his Healthy Forest Initiative is key to removing forest undergrowth and dead trees to reduce fuel for wildfires.
But environmentalists say the law is a ruse to allow more logging and is being used in remote areas where wildfires do not threaten communities.
Opponents take particular aim at what they believe are the administration's efforts to undermine the Clean Air Act.
Kerry contends Bush's plan rolls back existing protections, a claim hotly denied by the Bush campaign.
Support for Bush
Bush administration policies find favor with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which does not endorse candidates.
The chamber favors his Clean Air and Healthy Forest initiatives, opposes the Kyoto Protocol and supports every provision in Bush's energy bill, which has yet to pass Congress, said Kovacs, the chamber vice president.
The Bush campaign says Kerry's plans would decimate the coal industry, keep America dependent on foreign oil, destroy jobs and raise energy prices for everyone.
The campaign also says Bush has a strong environmental record.
The president raised fuel-efficiency standards for SUVs by 1.5 miles per gallon for model years 2005-2007 and reduced diesel fuel emissions for equipment used in construction, agriculture and industry — a move praised by the League of Conservation Voters.
Bush also supported a brownfields bill to help reclaim old industrial sites and approved clean-up of the Hudson River and Great Lakes, Catanzaro said.
Bush is critical of regulations that hurt the economy and believes "the greatest environmental progress will come about, not through endless lawsuits or command-and-control regulations, but through technology and innovation," said Kevin Madden, campaign spokesman.
Bush's criticism of cumbersome regulations rings true to John LeBlanc, associate professor of management at Cedarville University.
LeBlanc spent 30 years in manufacturing before becoming a professor, and said environmental regulations were a paperwork nightmare.
And, said LeBlanc, one reason gasoline prices are high is because oil refineries have closed rather than make expensive upgrades.
Kovacs said business already spends $200 billion annually on environmental protection. He couldn't estimate what Kerry's plans would cost, but said if Kerry wins and has a Republican Congress, "I don't think Kerry can do much."
Debating the details
The debate over environmental policies extends to the regulations themselves, where there is disagreement over what proposed rules might mean.
Take, for example, power plant emissions. Both Bush and Kerry proposed cutting emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury. Kerry has set no specific targets, while Bush says his plan would reduce emissions by 70 percent over 15 years. Environmentalists question the claims of a 70 percent reduction and say they plan does too little and over too long a period of time.
They're particularly upset about the mercury rule, which they say rolls back existing protections.
Catanzaro denies that and says there is no current law governing mercury.
In reality, there is a rule on the books limiting mercury emissions for industry and power plants, but the standards don't have to be met until December 2006, said Linda Oros, spokeswoman for Ohio EPA.
Bush's plan for mercury, now under review by the U.S. EPA, would set a cap on mercury emissions but allow plants that don't meet standards to make trades with plants that do.
Oros said "the way that it's written now it's not" more stringent than current rules on mercury, and the Ohio EPA has informed the U.S. EPA that it would only support the cap-and-trade model if it is at least as stringent as the mercury limits that are to be in place by 2006.
Presidential candidates typically claim a love for the environment and a commitment to protecting it.
But Robertson said she cannot remember a race for president where the two candidates were so divided on environmental issues.
"When you listen to the words that come out of Bush and the words that come out of Kerry, they don't sound all that different," Robertson said. "But when you dig a little bit deeper comparing Bush's actions to Kerry's voting record they're worlds apart on the environment."
Contact Lynn Hulsey at 225-7455.
---------------------------
Denver Post
September 26, 2004
Scientifically Speaking
FRIDAY: Sigma Xi meeting|Christopher J. Potter, research geologist, central energy resources team, U.S. Geological Survey, Denver Federal Center, Lakewood, will give a free lecture, "Yucca Mountain From the Ground Up: Geology of the Proposed Radioactive Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada," at 4:30 p.m. in Olin Hall Room 105 on the University of Denver campus. Visit portfolio.du.edu/sigmaxi.
---------------------------
The State
September 26, 2004
Underdog Senate candidates don´t want voters to count them out
By AARON GOULD SHEININ
Staff Writer
Jim DeMint and Inez Tenenbaum get most of the attention, but the Democratic and Republican candidates are not alone in their quest for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina.
True, one of those two will be, barring catastrophe or miracle, the next senator from the Palmetto State, but don´t tell the four candidates running under the banners of the smaller, less mainstream parties that their campaigns are irrelevant.
Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with the options the two major parties offer, said Rebekah Sutherland, the Libertarian Party candidate. And that leaves a sliver of hope for a third-party candidate to win, she said.
“The veil is coming up,’ Sutherland said, and voters “are finding the wizard behind the curtain. This is a moment, if people choose to open their eyes wide and see they have another candidate to choose.’
Tee Ferguson, a former Democratic member of the S.C. House, has much the same view as the United Citizens Party´s candidate. But Ferguson is not kidding himself about what the outcome is likely to be Nov. 2. He talks not of winning, but of making an impact.
His goal: “To be able to get the issues I champion enough support that the major parties will then take a look,’ he said. “Trust me, if the Democratic Party thinks there´s any chance whatsoever that a significant number of black voters will leave the Democratic Party, then black people will start to get something out of the system.’
Green Party candidate Efia Nwangaza, 57, has much the same motivation for running.
“The black community specifically needs to be aware that there are other choices,’ she said. “The Green Party is a place where we can use our vote in a way that serves not only our interests, but the common good as well.’
Efforts to reach the other third-party U.S. Senate candidate, Patrick Tyndall of the Constitution Party, were unsuccessful.
All four candidates have their own issues in the campaign, and they are not necessarily the same issues championed by Tenenbaum and DeMint.
Sutherland, who has run as a Republican for governor, state education superintendent and the S.C. House, has one primary issue: nuclear waste.
The Aiken County resident works as a nuclear scientist at the Savannah River Site and said the radioactive waste stored there should be shipped out of South Carolina as soon as possible. She supports the opening of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, which was designed to store waste like that now at SRS.
“My first priority will be to get Yucca Mountain open,’ Sutherland, 50, said. “The process is moving too slowly.’
Tenenbaum and DeMint are ill-equipped to deal with the issue, she said.
“They don´t know,’ Sutherland said. “They´re ignorant. They don´t know science. There´s no way they could communicate to other senators about it.’
Tyndall does not have a campaign Web site, but the Constitution Party site says its goal is to limit the role of the federal government to “safeguarding the God-given rights of its citizens, namely, life, liberty and property. We strive to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical foundations.’
While the four candidates might have little chance of winning the election, there is precedent for a third-party candidate influencing the outcome.
For example, in the 1996 U.S. Senate race in Georgia, Democrat Max Cleland won with 49 percent of the vote, beating Republican Guy Millner by 1 percent. Third-party candidates captured nearly 4 percent of all ballots, according to the Center for Voting and Democracy.
That is not an isolated incident. Since 1908, 139 U.S. Senate races have been won by a candidate who did not get a majority of the vote.
In South Carolina, the third-party candidates would appear to split along ideological lines. Nwangaza and Ferguson, for example, would seem to take votes away from Tenenbaum; Tyndall and Sutherland, from DeMint.
But Sutherland is not looking to play spoiler. She thinks the presence of five other candidates gives her a chance to win.
“I need less than 33 percent of the vote to win,’ she said.
Reach Gould Sheinin at (803) 771-8658 or asheinin@thestate.com.
---------------------------
Barnstable Patriot
September 26, 2004
Not another four years!
By Admont G. Clark
Now that the excitement and hoopla (and $185 million – a totally excessive sum) of the Republican convention is over, we should seriously think about which of the candidates we want in the White House. The other day I came across some statistics which certainly helped me decide. They cover a wide range of facts and show what has happened to our country in the past three and a half years, and it´s a pretty sad story.
1. THE ECONOMY: Federal surplus when Bush took office – $5.6 trillion. 2004 deficit – $450 billion. Current US debt – $7,298,861,967,464.27.
2. WAGES: Americans´ average income growth 2000-2002: -5.7 percent. But adjusted for inflation - 9.2 percent. CEOs in 2003 – 27 percent growth. Ratio of CEO wages in 1982 to workers´ pay - 40 to 1. In 2003 - 300 to one. How come?
3. JOBS: Jobs lost since Bush took office - 1.3 million. Jobs promised as a result of Bush tax cuts - 5.5 million. Unemployment rate - 5.6 percent when “recovery’ began in 2001. Rate today - 5.6 percent. Underemployment rate today - 9.6 percent; 9.4 percent at start of “recovery.’
4. THE WARS: Defense budgets: 2005 - $447 billion, 2001 - about half that. Number of U.S. military in both wars killed in action - 1,041, in Iraq alone - 797. Estimated number of civilians in both countries killed and wounded - 14,673. Number of U.S. wounded (says the Pentagon) - 5,976. But the United Press says 11,700-plus. Number of wounded maimed for life - almost 4,000.
5. HEALTH CARE: Number of persons losing health care under Bush - 3.8 million. Number gaining health care under Clinton - 2.3 million. Number of retirees who will lose employee-paid drug benefits under the new Medicare drug bill - 9 million. Number of Medicare recipients forced to enroll in the new drug program, with higher costs and no coverage for some drugs - 6.4 million. Finally, additional profits for the drug companies under the Bush Medicare drug bill - $139 BILLION.
6. TAXES: Average tax break for the top 1 percent of earners under the Bush tax plan - $96,634. Average break for the bottom 60 percent earners - $350.
7. GENERAL ECONOMY: Number of jobs lost under NAFTA and WTO deals between 1994 and 2000 - 3 million. Number of jobs lost in manufacturing under Bush - 1.3 million. U.S. trade deficit in 1999 - $271 billion. Trade deficit in 2003 - $549 billion, with China alone $324 billion. Number of software jobs lost to Indian firms from 1999 to 2003 - 150,000. Your income tax returns are probably being done in Calcutta.
8. EDUCATION: Amount Bush administration underfunded his “No Child Left Behind’ Program in 2004 - $9.5 billion. Amount the administration underfunded the act since it was passed in 2001 - $26.4 billion. Amount the Bush administration promised to groups promoting voucher programs from 2001 to 2003 - $75 million.
9. CIVIL LIBERTIES: Number of states that have passed resolutions to protest the restraints of the PATRIOT ACT and other administrative measures against civil liberties - 4. Number of cities, towns and counties passing similar resolutions - 338.
10. THE ENVIRONMENT: Within the last SIX MONTHS ( through July) the Bush administration has committed TWENTY-SEVEN acts against the environment. Here are a very few of them as examples of what they have done and are doing to OUR environment:
February - A secret Pentagon report warns that global warming poses a very real threat, and nothing is done. And private ranchers are given rights to public lands.
March - The Environmental Protection Agency is letting violators off the hook. Budget cuts are crippling the National Park System.
April - The White House altered scientific findings on the mercury threat. The U.S. strong-arms the European Union on easing their chemical safety requirements.
May - The Bush administration may roll back fuel standards. And it unveils a controversial salmon plan.
June - The Environmental Protection Agency lifts the ban on oil-drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. And the EPA resists further mercury studies.
July - The court turns down the EPA plan to send nuclear waste to an earthquake zone at Yucca Mountain. And the EPA proposes giving pesticide approval to bureaucrats instead of to biologists, with a serious effect on wildlife.
This is the record of the Bush administration in the areas of our lives that affect us all deeply. I love our country and went to two wars to prove it. Now retired from the Coast Guard as a Captain, I fear for all of us if the actions described here are allowed by us to continue for another four years. We MUST NOT reelect him!
The information provided here is thanks to the Hightower Lowdown - for which I thank them.
---------------------------
Las Vegas Review-Journal
September 24, 2004
YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Berkley reinforces attack
Congresswoman tries to help Gallagher's campaign against incumbent Porter
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., on Thursday inserted herself into the campaign for Congress between Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and Democratic challenger Tom Gallagher.
Berkley said Porter's votes for a 2003 energy bill that included subsidies for the nuclear power industry have undercut efforts to fight the Yucca Mountain Project.
Berkley extended her criticism to Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev. He voted for the bill when it passed the House on April 11, 2003, and again on Nov. 18, 2003.
Porter and Gibbons responded the votes had nothing to do with Yucca Mountain.
"This is the silly season," Gibbons said.
Berkley said tax incentives in the bill would encourage construction of nuclear power plants that would generate larger volumes of radioactive waste, increasing pressure for a repository the Energy Department proposes to build in Nevada.
"I spend a good part of my day in Washington fighting to keep nuclear waste out of Yucca Mountain," Berkley said. "If we had a more united front as a delegation, we could make a statement and send a message that we don't want this stuff."
Porter and Gibbons bowed to Republican leaders in voting for the energy bill, Berkley said.
"This is a time when you separate the men from the boys," Berkley said. Yucca Mountain "dominates what we do here on Capitol Hill."
Berkley's criticism aimed to reinforce an attack that Gallagher has mounted against Porter on the energy bill.
Gallagher planned to start airing a 30-second television commercial today that mentions the Republican's energy votes.
Porter said he voted for the bills because they contained initiatives to boost domestic energy production apart from nuclear. He said they offered an energy strategy that Democrats failed to develop when they controlled Congress.
"This bill not only provided a national plan for energy, it is good for Nevada," Porter said. "It provides incentives for geothermal energy, wind, solar and biomass that is the future for us as far as economic development and energy."
Porter said he disagreed with the argument that more nuclear plants means more nuclear waste for Nevada. "There will be additional ways to take care of nuclear waste," he said.
"There are 41 days left in the campaign, and the energy bill has been around for months," Porter said. "It's really unfortunate (Berkley) is taking orders from leadership to engage in this."
Gibbons said to eliminate nuclear power is unrealistic, but more should be spent on technology to find alternatives to underground disposal of waste.
"The energy bill had absolutely nothing in there on Yucca Mountain, and if it did, I would have voted against it," he said.
The bill remains stalled in the Senate.
---------------------------
Nevada Appeal
September 24, 2004
Where they stand, what they think
Geoff Dornan
gdornan@nevadaappeal.com
Incumbent Ron Knecht missed no chances during Thursday's League of Women Voters candidate forum to raise the 2003 Legislative tax battle and the "contract with Nevada" Assembly Republicans say would prevent future tax hikes.
But Democrat Bonnie Parnell, painting herself as the veteran in the District 40 race with two terms to Knecht's one, stressed her ability to work with other lawmakers rather than make war and her record of service to all constituents in the Capital.
Knecht won the office two years ago after Parnell retired from it.
Knecht began the debate by saying the district elected him in 2002 "to protect their pocketbooks, improve education and support their families." He said the efforts by himself and the other Assembly Republicans who voted against the tax plan "were able to stop the tax and spenders." He said this next session, they will support major bills that he has written restoring tax fairness, allowing no tax increases, providing comprehensive education improvement and limiting the growth of government as well as restraining the cost of health care insurance and housing.
"I'm the chief sponsor of five measures that cover pretty much all seven points in the Republican contract," he said. He said most important is the cap on growth in government spending designed to "restrain ourselves from the irrational exuberance we got into last time."
Parnell refused to debate the "Contract with Nevada," but said she believes in balancing fiscal responsibility with the need to fund state programs that serve people. She said she would represent all her constituents on the important issues including health care, education and protecting Nevada's seniors - "Republicans and Democrats, old and young."
"We have to try to get a handle on the outrageous cost of health care," she said. And she said part of the answer is reinstating the screening panel which formerly reviewed and eliminated frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits.
Knecht was joined by District 38 incumbent Tom Grady, also a member of the Republican tax opponents, who also made numerous references to the Republican "Contract with Nevada." He too raised the battle over the tax package in 2003 saying the $833 million two year tax increase should not have been tied to the education budget.
Both Parnell and Grady's Democratic opponent Cathylee James agreed on that point.
But James said, "once the vote was taken, I'm a firm believer whatever you're given you work with." She said her answer is to keep talking and work something out, "not to say I just draw the line here and I won't go any farther."
Knecht was alone in the group on suggesting it's time to negotiate on Yucca Mountain rather than put more state money into the fight. "We need 319 votes and we have five," he said. "We need to talk about alternatives to throwing good money after bad and negotiate."
While Knecht and Grady both said they support the Keep Our Doctors in Nevada initiative, Parnell and James argued initiatives are a bad way to legislate issues. Parnell said she opposes both the initiative by doctors and the opposing ones by trial lawyers that would restructure malpractice lawsuits. She and James said lawmakers should handle the issues instead and work out a compromise that meets everyone's needs.
The two sides split on school vouchers as well with Parnell, a former teacher, and James opposing them. Grady said he doesn't know the issue well enough yet but Knecht said "absolutely yes I'm for vouchers. He described the public school system as "an unmerited monopoly."
"We not only need vouchers, we need parental choice in terms of what school your child attends and what teacher. If you're going to pay the bill, you should have absolute choice."
---------------------------
Hilton Head Island Packet
September 24, 2004
America needs cohesive plan for nuclear disposal
Communities around the nation need Yucca Mountain
Washington state has fined the federal government for allegedly wrongfully shipping unknown nuclear waste from the Savannah River Site. But last week's record $270,000 fine tells only part of the story. The real story is the lack of cohesive, national plans to dispose of nuclear waste.
Washington's fine stems from a practice in which nuclear waste is shipped from coast to coast for testing. Material from the Hanford nuclear reservation near Seattle was sent to SRS, near Aiken. Washington now contends many barrels of material was shipped back that should have stayed at SRS.
The case illustrates a growing national need for a permanent disposal site that will remove the waste from SRS, Hanford and other depositories of nuclear waste scattered around the nation.
The best thing America has going for it is the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada. Congress and the president need to push for the site to open. A recent court ruling is the latest holdup. And Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says he would stop the Yucca Mountain project. That is short-sighted. The nation, as a whole, needs a plan for nuclear waste. What is best for the majority must rule.
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled in July that the federal government had not set strict enough rules to guard against potential radioactivity leakage at Yucca Mountain. But what they are talking about is absurd. They're saying the period of peak risk must be defined as hundreds of thousands of years rather than 10,000 years.
How about the period of risk to our area -- the Savannah River basin? How about the period of risk for the hundreds of thousands of people who live near Seattle? Storage conditions at SRS and Hanford would seem like cardboard boxes when compared to the deep, geologic burial site in the deserts of Nevada. Yucca Mountain is key to the nation's overall safety, and Congress must find a way to make it happen.
A scientist said last week that the court made its decision based on an incomplete reading of a National Academy of Sciences study. The man who headed the committee that made the study said the court assumed people would be living, drinking well water and watering crops in an area near Yucca Mountain that would not be inhabited.
While politicians and judges dig deeper into the world of make believe, the nation suffers. America is going to have to do better than that. Nuclear waste disposal requires a long-term, cohesive plan and the leadership needed to stick to the plan.
---------------------------
Mid-Hudson News
September 24, 2004
Indian Point safety issue makes it to the Orange county Legislature agenda
A proposal by Democratic Orange County legislator Bonnie Kraham requesting that the Department of Homeland Security investigate the safety of the storage of the spent fuel rods at the Indian Point nuclear power plant will be on the next agenda of the lawmaking body.
Kraham, a member of the legislative minority, secured two Republican votes in the Public Safety Committee yesterday to have the issue placed on the full agenda.
“My only concern in this resolution is that there be an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security, the NRC and the New York State Department of homeland Security so they can determine what is the safest way to protect these fuel rods,’ she said. “These fuel rod storage containers were really seen as short-term solutions, but now with Yucca Mountain in Nevada not seeming like a viable solution to a national depository, we need to know that the storage at the site is the utmost in safety.’
The Rules Committee of the legislature refused to approve the measure, but it only takes approval of one committee to place it on the full agenda.
---------------------------
San Francisco Bay View
September 23, 2004
UC Regents lose control of nuclear weapons program
Five admirals, Carlyle Group and Rand take over
Part 2
by Leuren Moret
As Admiral George P. Nanos, appointed director of the Los Alamos lab in January 2003, and Admiral S. Robert Foley Jr., appointed UC vice president for laboratory management in November 2003, sat down at the table where the UC Regents waited, I began to wonder how many more admirals were involved and why. It did not take long to find out.
Admiral Foley informed the regents about the missing CREM, computer storage devices with classified data, and acknowledged that the security lapse damaged the university´s chances of retaining its Los Alamos contract. “This erodes your position, without any question at all,’ he said. “It´s about as bad as it could be when you´re trying to prepare for a re-competition.’
He announced that Jack Killeen had been appointed to the UC President´s Office as special assistant for Los Alamos security: “Jack´s our guy. He was with Wackenhut, and he´s our guy.’
Wackenhut has ties to (Lockheed) Martin-Marietta – 70 percent of Lockheed is now owned by the Carlyle Group - going back to 1958. By 2001, Wackenhut´s revenues topped $2.8 billion as the leading provider of security at U.S. national defense sites, with a global presence on six continents.
Among nuclear weapons lab employees, Wackenhut was better known for “wacking’ radiation whistleblowers like Karen Silkwood and attempting to run Dr. Rosalie Bertell off the road. The story of Karen Silkwood´s courageous life and mysterious death are told in the 1983 movie “Silkwood,’ starring Meryl Streep. Dr. Bertell, a Catholic nun, is a world renowned scientist and humanitarian and winner of the 1986 Right Livelihood Award, the environmental Nobel Prize.
Wackenhut has a well-deserved reputation for being a nasty outfit (see “Eye on Wackenhut’ in the reference list below). President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, are known to spend time together hanging out with cronies at the Wackenhut “country club’ in Florida.
Admiral Nanos continued, complaining that employees simply would not follow the security and safety rules. When Foley chimed in that there were going to be more security incidents and lapses at the lab in the future before they got it straightened out, it began to look like a setup.
Regents Blum, Parsky, Connerly and a few more leaned forward and demanded to know how it was possible, and stated it was unacceptable, that there would be more security lapses. The regents should have fired Foley on the spot when he himself predicted that he would fall down on the job.
It was obvious that Nanos and Foley were there to blame the employees, justify the management change and discourage the regents from competing for the contract. They were presenting a good excuse for “cleaning house’ and removing the “old guard’ who would stand in the way of changes now planned for “ramping up’ the nuclear weapons program.
Admiral Nanos calls Los Alamos staff ‘cowboys´ and ‘butt-heads´
The decision by Admiral Nanos, director of Los Alamos, to suspend classified work at Los Alamos in July 2004 following the UC Regents meeting is an over-reaction which has hurt the nation, according to Brad Lee Holian, a physicist and 32-year lab veteran. Holian believes the reason for misplaced classified data is probably “insufficient attention paid to inventory procedures’ rather than loss of the data or espionage.
There has still been no explanation or mention of real espionage by high level Mossad agent Robert Maxwell, who sold PROMIS software to Los Alamos with a “back door’ in the software for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, to spy on the lab (see “Robert Maxwell’).
Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle Sept. 18, Holian said, “The damage to Los Alamos National Laboratory and to the country from this shutdown could be incalculable.’ In a 1,500 word article he submitted to Physics Today, he says a two-month shutdown is the “squandering of hundreds of millions of tax dollars’ and “the climate of blame and ‘zero tolerance for errors´ has been devastating to the morale of the scientists’ (see “Los Alamos crackdown’).
Holian said that at earlier meetings, Admiral Nanos used colorful language and referred in harsh terms to certain staff members as “cowboys’ and “butt-heads’ and was “yelling or slamming down viewgraphs onto the projector.’ This kind of conduct by the most senior staff member at the lab will put a chill on recruiting young scientists, and young staffers are so disheartened that some are already leaving, as well as older staff, who are taking early retirement. Holian reported that a recruiter he knows was told by young students, “We´re not sure we want to put our careers in jeopardy by going to a place like Los Alamos.’
DOE culture at the labs: the fox guarding the henhouse
An editorial in the Oakland Tribune the day before the UC Regents´ meeting on Aug. 17 remarked that the NNSA (the National Nuclear Security Administration) was established by the Department of Energy in 1999 after the Wen Ho Lee scandal but had failed to address real security lapses since. NNSA is in bed with the lab administrators, which it supposedly is overseeing.
This had been exactly my experience at Livermore in 1991 when I reported graft, fraud, corruption, contractor overcharges and health and safety violations on the Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada, and the Superfund Project at Livermore, to Richard Berta, the Western Regional Inspector in the DOE Inspector General´s office for the nuclear weapons labs, Site 51 and the Nevada Test Site. After bringing two DOE and EPA inspectors to my house and recording my testimony, he reported to Duane Sewell, the “secrets keeper’ at the lab, and Bert Hefner, lab PR person.
When I called Berta a month later to inquire about the outcome, he said, “We found no basis to your allegations … and I got a new office with a view and new oak furniture from Sewell.’ I told him I was not surprised, that my allegations had been reported many times to the FBI by other more senior lab staff and they were ignored as well. I informed him that he had “missed out’ on the teak furniture, given to the really important “players’ at the lab.
The Oakland Tribune editorial concludes: “NNSA failed miserably in its policing responsibilities. It should be reorganized or axed, and Brooks and other top officials should be replaced with more independent, less-compromised leadership.’
The regents´ meeting ended before Dr. Walter Kohn, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist representing the UC faculty opposed to UC management of nuclear weapons labs, was able to speak before the regents. Regent Sherry Lansing, CEO of Paramount Pictures, stood up and announced in a loud voice, “Oh, Walter, I want to hear your presentation (at a future meeting), but I have a plane to catch,’ and she crossed the room to give him a big kiss. By this time, I had decided to investigate the UC Regents and their ties to the defense industry.
Later that evening, a friend told me, “They ARE the Carlyle Group!’
University of Texas students and the Fiat Pax website
Right after the regents´ meeting, I contacted a group of University of Texas students and Texas State Rep. Lon Burnam, who are opposed to the University of Texas´ bid for the nuclear weapons management contract. A student told me about Fiat Pax, a website put together by UC Santa Cruz students listing the top 50 university recipients of defense funding for research and their ties to corporations (see “Fiat Pax’ below).
The UC Regents with ties to the defense industry were listed with detailed bios. Regents Chair Gerald Parsky is the top fundraiser - after Ken Lay - for George W. Bush in both his 2000 and 2004 presidential election bids and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Vice Chair Richard Blum is tied to the Carlyle Group, invested in URS Corp., a leading contractor with the Defense Department, and Korea First Bank - Carlyle is moving into Korea and taking over banks - and sits on the board of Northwest Airlines. A document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (see “FOIA’ below) revealed in 2001 that Northwest was the first airline to collaborate with NASA to install mind-reading technology in U.S. airports to catch “terrorists.’
Regent Sherry Lansing was a trustee of the RAND Graduate School, a branch of the RAND Corp., which had been involved in war-gaming nuclear wars between the U.S. and the USSR and acts as a bridge between U.S. universities and the military.
I also learned that the Carlyle Group manages large amounts of endowment funds for the University of Texas.
CalPERS, the California state workers´ pension fund, which, at nearly $1 trillion, is the largest in the nation, owns 5.5 percent of Carlyle with a $730 million investment and an outrageous 20-30 percent annual return (see CalPERS). CalPERS has an option to buy another 5 percent in a few years, giving them 10 percent ownership of Carlyle (see “Carlyle Documentary Video’).
For decades, many politicians and corporate interests have tried to loot the CalPERS pension fund. This could be the takeover that finally grabs the CalPERS pot of gold.
Fiat Pax sums it up: “The University of California´s system wide finances are incredibly entangled with weapons manufacturers. The UC´s retirement plan portfolio is invested in dozens of military-industrial contractors through stock purchases. At least five corporations within the UC retirement portfolio conduct virtually no business other than weapons manufacturing and military subcontracting, these are: General Dynamics with a UC investment of $21,471,120, Northrop Grumman for $16,125,200, Raytheon for $16,818,200, TRW for $8,327,650, and Lockheed Martin for a staggering $33,046,370. …
“It is through these informal personal, formal institutional, and financial exchanges that universities serve the warfare state and its corporate allies. Personal relationships connect military, corporate, and university personnel while bridging the divide between these institutions. Formal institutional links establish cooperation and coordination across the military-industrial-academic complex. Be they research institutes, labs, and centers, or personal relationships spanning industry-university-military, the web of connections far exceeds any attempts to quantify.’
Business journalist Dan Briody´s book, “The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group’ (2003), reveals that the Carlyle Group is one of the most powerful and well-connected private equity firms in the world. Their incredible profits are due to investments primarily in defense and aerospace industries. Briody says the Carlyle Group “operates within the so-called iron triangle of industry, government, and the military’ and that it “leaves itself open to any number of conflicts of interest and stunning ironies.’ This is precisely what President Eisenhower warned against as he was leaving office over 40 years ago.
And then I knew that the admirals, and the vested regents, were the kiss of death to the UC contract bid.
References for Part 2
1. “Robert Maxwell Was a Mossad Spy: New claim on tycoon´s mystery death’ by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon, Daily Mirror (UK), July 10, 2004, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12419168&method=full&siteid=50143.
2. “A Career in Microbiology Can Be Harmful to Your Health: Death Toll Mounting as Connections to Dyncorp, Hadron, PROMIS Software and Disease Research Emerge,’ Michael Davidson and Michael C. Ruppert, Feb. 14, 2002, http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_14_02_microbio.html.
3. “Eye on Wackenhut: Know the Facts About Wackenhut,’ http://www.eyeonwackenhut.com.
4. Media coverage of Los Alamos security lapse, July 2004, http://www.4law.co.il/lanl1.htm.
5. “NASA plans to read terrorists´ minds at airports’ by Frank J. Murray, Washington Times, Aug. 17, 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020817-704732.htm.
6. Air Travel Privacy FOIA Documents: “NASA Ames Research Center Northwest Airlines Briefing December 10-11, 2001,’ Electronic Privacy Information Center, http://www.epic.org/privacy/airtravel/foia/foia1.html.
7. Stop Carlyle! website, http://isuisse.ifrance.com/stopcarlyle/enindex.htm.
8. “Our Opinion: NNSA must share blame for Los Alamos mistakes,’ Oakland Tribune, Aug. 16, 2004, http://ucnuclearfree.org/articles/2004/08/16_oped_nnsa-must-share-blame.htm.
9. “CalPERS, Carlyle profit from Afghan war’ by David Lazarus, San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 2, 2001, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/12/02/BU172807.DTL.
10. “Carlyle Documentary Video,’ Dutch documentary on the Carlyle Group, updated 2004 version: rtsp://streams2.omroep.nl/tv/vpro/tegenlicht/bb.20040125.rm (200 MB, 500 kbps), rtsp://streams2.omroep.nl/tv/vpro/tegenlicht/sb.20040125.rm (100 kbps); Dutch documentary on the Carlyle Group, original 2003 version: rtsp://streams2.omroep.nl/tv/vpro/tegenlicht/bb.20030516.rm (180 MB, 500 kbps), rtsp://streams3.omroep.nl/tv/vpro/tegenlicht/sb.20030516.rm (100 kbps).
11. “Los Alamos crackdown imperils U.S., lab physicist warns: Director accused of overreacting’ by Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 18, 2004, p.A-4, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/09/18/MNGMF8R34I1.DTL.
12. Fiat Pax – Let There Be Peace, a Resource on Science, Technology, Militarism and Universities, http://www.fiatpax.net. “Defense Funding at 50 Universities,’ http://www.fiatpax.net/profiles.html. “The University Web of Corporate Power,’ http://www.fiatpax.net/dohe/universitynetwork.htm. “UC´s retirement fund investments,’ http://www.fiatpax.net/iilinks2.html.
13. “The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group’ by Dan Briody, Wiley, 2003.
To read Part 1 of this series, go to http://www.sfbayview.com/091504/ucregents091504.shtml. The rest of this exposé will appear in the Bay View in the coming weeks. Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who worked at the Livermore nuclear weapons lab where she became a whistleblower in 1991, has survived 13 years of retaliation from the Livermore lab and the University of California and has lived firsthand the experiences of Karen Silkwood. A radiation specialist, she works around the world educating citizens, the media and lawmakers about the impact of radiation globally on the health of the public and the environment. She assisted with Al-Jazeera´s recent report on depleted uranium weapons which quickly became one of the most read articles produced by the website. “DU: Washington´s Secret Nuclear War’ can be read at http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Secret-Nuclear-War14sep04.htm. She is an independent scientist, an environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley, and can be reached at leurenmoret@yahoo.com.
---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------