nuclear-news

Rick Perry’s intervention in Texas nuclear waste issue

billionaire Harold Simmons and his company Waste Control Specialists LLC, which stood to gain millions of dollars from accepting out-of-state shipments. Simmons had donated over $1 million to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns…. The news of Perry’s intervention in the nuclear-waste issue comes as the governor is climbing the polls in the fight to take on President Barack Obama as the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential election next year…….

Perry sought to sideline nuclear waste site critic (Reuters),1 Sept 11,  – Texas governor Rick Perry tried to sideline a state commissioner who opposed expanding the scope of a nuclear-waste landfill owned by one of the governor’s biggest political donors, Reuters has learned.

Bobby Gregory, owner of a wildlife ranch and landfill company south of Austin, had opposed a plan to let 36 states send nuclear waste to a 1,338-acre site in Andrews County.

On the other side of the issue was billionaire Harold Simmons and his company Waste Control Specialists LLC, which stood to gain millions of dollars from accepting out-of-state shipments. Simmons had donated over $1 million to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns…..

Reuters has learned that late last year, after it became clear that the commission might block Waste Control’s request to truck in waste from around the country, Perry’s appointments chief, Teresa Spears, offered commissioner Gregory an alternative job — a prestigious appointment as a regent of a state university.

Under Texas law, Gregory could not hold two state-appointed positions requiring Senate approval at the same time, and so taking the regent job would have required him to leave the waste commission…..

The news of Perry’s intervention in the nuclear-waste issue comes as the governor is climbing the polls in the fight to take on President Barack Obama as the Republican candidate in the U.S. presidential election next year…….
Exclusive: Perry sought to sideline nuclear waste site critic | Reuters

September 2, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA