War in Ukraine is getting complicated, and America isn’t ready — The New York Times
https://en.thepage.ua/politics/war-in-ukraine-is-getting-complicated-and-america-isnt-ready Author Valery Moiseev, 22 May 22,
The Senate passed a $40 billion emergency aid package for Ukraine, but with a small group of isolationist Republicans loudly criticizing the spending and the war entering a new and complicated phase, continued bipartisan support is not guaranteed. This is stated in an editorial published in The New York Times (NYT).
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, warned the Senate Armed Services Committee recently that the war in Ukraine could take “a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory”, with the increased likelihood that Russia could threaten to use nuclear weapons.
The newspaper also notes that there are many questions that President Biden has yet to answer for the American public.
Is the United States, for example, trying to help bring an end to “this conflict” (as the newspaper calls the war in Ukraine) through a settlement that would allow for a sovereign Ukraine and some kind of relationship between the United States and Russia? Or is the United States now trying to weaken Russia permanently? Has the administration’s goal shifted to destabilizing Putin or having him removed? Does the United States intend to hold Putin accountable as a war criminal? Or is the goal to try to avoid a wider war — and if so, how to achieve this?
Without clarity on these questions, the White House not only risks losing Americans’ interest in supporting Ukrainians — who continue to suffer the loss of lives and livelihoods — but also jeopardizes long-term peace and security on the European continent, the NYT says.
The authors of the article believe that Americans “have been galvanized by Ukraine’s suffering”, but popular support for a war far from U.S. shores will not continue indefinitely. Inflation is a much bigger issue for American voters, and problems in global food and energy markets are likely to intensify.
“It is tempting to see Ukraine’s stunning successes against Russia’s aggression as a sign that with sufficient American and European help, Ukraine is close to pushing Russia back to its positions before the invasion. But that is a dangerous assumption.”
The article says that Russia remains too strong, and Putin has invested too much personal prestige in the invasion to back down.
“Unrealistic expectations could draw the United States and NATO ever deeper into a costly, drawn-out war. Russia, however battered and inept, is still capable of inflicting untold destruction on Ukraine and is still a nuclear superpower with an aggrieved, volatile despot who has shown little inclination toward a negotiated settlement.”
The NYT says that it is the Ukrainians who must make the hard decisions: they are the ones fighting, dying and losing their homes to Russian aggression, and it is they who must decide what an end to the war might look like. “If the conflict does lead to real negotiations, it will be Ukrainian leaders who will have to make the painful territorial decisions that any compromise will demand.”
But as the war continues, “Biden should also make clear to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people that there is a limit to how far the United States and NATO will confront Russia, and limits to the arms, money and political support they can muster. It is imperative that the Ukrainian government’s decisions be based on a realistic assessment of its means and how much more destruction Ukraine can sustain.”
Confronting this reality may be painful, but it is not appeasement, the NYT stresses. This is what governments are duty bound to do, not chase after an illusory “win.” Russia will be feeling the pain of isolation and debilitating economic sanctions for years to come, and Putin will go down in history as a butcher. The challenge now is to shake off the euphoria, stop the taunting and focus on defining and completing the mission.
Strong call for New York City to legislate against investment of pension funds into nuclear weapons production
“We call on Speaker Corey Johnson and the City Council to vote and urgently pass Res. 976 and Intro.1621 to divest pension funds from nuclear weapon producers and reaffirm New York City as a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. The legislation introduced by Council member Danny Dromm already inspired a historic hearing in City Hall and has the support of a majority of the City Council. As New Yorkers this is our moment to make hope and peace possible for a new generation.”
Nuclear disarmament campaigners press for legislation in New York City on 76th Anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings. Pressenza, 13.08.21 – US, United States – Pressenza New York In a commemoration of the August 6 and August 9, 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that was both somber and spirited, New York City-based nuclear disarmament advocates assembled outside the Municipal Building in downtown New York City. Advocates joined members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), 2017 Nobel Peace Laureate in honoring New York nuclear disarmament heroes and urging Council Speaker Corey Johnson to reaffirm NYC as a nuclear weapons free zone.
Speakers included Michie Takeuchi, second generation Hiroshima Hibakusha survivor, Robert Croonquist, Hibakusha Stories Project founder, Bud Courtney of the Catholic Worker, Dr. Emily Welty, Director of Peace and Justice Studies at Pace University, Seth Shelden, ICAN representative at the United Nations and Brendan Fay ogranizer with NYCAN (New York Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).
Dr. Emily Welty reminded the gathering that the site for the Vigil is profound with history, because the development of the atomic bombs began across the street from City Hall at the Manhattan Project headquarters, at 270 Broadway.
In remarks Brendan Fay, Irish gay activist and nuclear disarmament advocate highlighted the legacy of LGBTQ New Yorkers in the global movement for nuclear disarmament.
- Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) highlighted the connection between colonialism, racism and nuclear weapons and traveled to Algeria in 1959 to protest French nuclear testing.
- James Baldwin (1924 –1987) as a member of National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy was among the leading speakers at the 1961 Peace Rally in Washington, DC. He said, “What am I doing here? Only those who would fail to see the relationship between the fight for civil rights and the struggle for world peace would be surprised to see me. Both fights are the same.”
- David McReynolds (1929-2018) was the first openly gay presidential candidate, a socialist and lifelong pacifist. During his 40-year career with the War Resisters League he became an international hero of the nuclear disarmament movement.
- Leslie Cagan (b. 1947) was a lead organizer of the largest disarmament rally in US history, the June 12, 1982 Rally Against the Arms Race.
- Peter Ciccchino (1960-2000) was arrested over two dozen times for peace, for nuclear disarmament, and for housing and human rights.
Fay thanked Council Member Danny Dromm (District 25) for introducing the nuclear divestment legislation in 2019. “Council Member Dromm follows the steps of previous council members including Council President and civil rights leader Paul O’Dwyer (1907 – 1998) who was a strong advocate for nuclear disarmament in City Hall.
Holding a poster of African American Civil rights leader and nuclear disarmament advocate Bayard Rustin,
Fay said, “As LGBTQ+ New Yorkers we join the rest of the human family this August 6th and August 9th in raising our voices to demand a world without nuclear weapons, for the sake of the children, for a future of hope. On this 76th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we say there is no Pride in bomb production. There is no Pride in raising the rainbow flag while investing in weapons of death.”
What of the nuclear weapons New York worker pensions are invested in? They are built to divide, harm, maim, kill. $475 million (0.25%) of New York worker pension funds are currently invested in the production of nuclear weapons. Our worker pensions must no longer be used as weapons of war. We are nurses, doctors, teachers, sanitation workers, firefighters, social workers, artists – our common cause is justice and peace……..
Fay said, “We call on Speaker Corey Johnson and the City Council to vote and urgently pass Res. 976 and Intro.1621 to divest pension funds from nuclear weapon producers and reaffirm New York City as a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. The legislation introduced by Council member Danny Dromm already inspired a historic hearing in City Hall and has the support of a majority of the City Council. As New Yorkers this is our moment to make hope and peace possible for a new generation.”…….
Resolution 976 calls on the Comptroller to instruct pension funds to divest from companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons (approximately $475 million dollars) and re-affirms New York City as a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.
Introduction 1621 establishes a Nuclear Disarmament Advisory Committee to advise the City Council.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by 122 countries in 2017, makes nuclear weapons comprehensively illegal and became international law on January 22, 2021. https://www.pressenza.com/2021/08/nuclear-disarmament-campaigners-press-for-legislation-in-new-york-city-on-76th-anniversary-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-bombings/
The ”New Yorker” sinks to sloppy sentimenta praise of pro nuclear advocates
The Once-Proud New Yorker Soils Itself in Radioactive Offal https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/67935-rsn-the-once-proud-new-yorker-soils-itself-in-radioactive-offal, By Harvey Wasserman, 21 February 21
or decades, The New Yorker has set a high bar for journalistic excellence.
Graced by its signature brand of droll, sophisticated cartooning, the magazine’s exquisitely edited screeds have reliably delivered profound analyses of the world’s most pressing issues.
But in a breathless, amateurish pursuit of atomic energy, the editorial staff has leapt into a sad sinkhole of radioactive mediocracy.
The latest is Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow’s shallow, shoddy “Activists Who Embrace Nuclear Power,” yet another tedious plea that we learn to love the Peaceful Atom.
For at least a century, countless scientific pioneers have exposed the murderous realities of nuclear radiation. Legendary researchers like Marie Curie, Alice Stewart, Rosalie Bertell, Helen Caldicott, John Gofman, Ernest Sternglass, Thomas Mancuso, Karl Z. Morgan, Samuel Epstein, Robert Alvarez, Arnie Gundersen, Amory Lovins, and others have issued vital warnings.
In Pavlovian opposition, the industry has rolled out an endless array of amateur “environmentalists” whose activist credentials are distinguished only by an endless love for atomic power.
Most infamous are Greenpeace veteran Patrick Moore and Berkeley-based Michael Shellenberger, both climate skeptics who share a theatrical passion for uninspected, uninsured nukes. With no credible scientific credentials, this unholy pair has conjured imaginative advocacies for companion corporate embarrassments like genetically modified food, clear-cut deforestation, and more.
With far more prestige, climate pioneer Dr. James Hanson and Whole Earth Catalogue founder Stewart Brand have brought significant gravitas to the nuclear debate.
But The New Yorker dotes on two workers at California’s Diablo Canyon. Neither is a scientist. Both claim to be “environmentalists.” One wears a lavender pendant made of uranium glass which “emits a near-negligible amount” of radiation, despite a huge body of scientific evidence warning this is a literally insane thing to do – especially for someone who might be around small children.
The writer lauds her heroines for calling themselves “Mothers for
Nuclear” while snubbing legendary “Mothers for Peace” activists who’ve organized locally for a half-century. While touring Diablo with her new best friends, the author coos that “we smiled as if we were at Disneyland.”
Such “Nuclear Renaissance” absurdities are very old news.
Given The New Yorker’s stellar history, we might expect a meaningful, in-depth exploration of today’s core atomic realities: no more big reactors will be built in the US, and our 90+ old plants are in deep, dangerous disarray.
Forbes long ago branded atomic power “the largest managerial failure in US history.” America’s very last two reactors (at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle) sucked up $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees from Barack Obama plus $3.7 billion more from Donald Trump. Years behind schedule, Vogtle’s final price tag (if it ever opens) will exceed $30 billion.
South Carolina’s engineering and legal morass at V.C. Summer wasted more than $10 billion on two failed reactors. In Ohio, $61 million in utility bribes for a massive nuke bailout have shattered the state.
As for alternatives, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow says, “nuclear scientists, for their part, are working on smaller, more nimble nuclear reactors. There are complex economic considerations, which are inseparable from policy.”
In other words, the proposed Small Modular Reactors are already so clearly uncompetitive that only obsessive pro-nukers (like Bill Gates) think they’ll hold market value against wind and solar (which The New Yorker attacks).
Precisely as ice storms froze feedwater pipes and shut one of two reactors at the South Texas Nuclear Plant, the magazine falsely claims that atomic reactors do “not depend on particular weather conditions to operate.” Globally-warmed rivers can no longer reliably cool many French reactors. Earthquakes have dangerously damaged US-designed nukes in Ohio and Virginia. Intake pipes at Diablo and other coastal plants are vulnerable to tsunami surges. Staggering design and construction flaws (a major Diablo component was once installed backwards; boric acid ate through key parts of Ohio’s Davis-Besse) give the entire industry a Keystone Kops/Rube Goldberg aura.
Tuhus-Dubrow skims the waste issue. Dry casks at Diablo and elsewhere are generally less than an inch thick. They can’t be re-opened for inspection or maintenance, and are already cracking (more-versatile German casks are 19 inches thick).
With an average age of well over 30, US reactors face dangerous decay. After four years of Trump, and even longer as a corrupt rubber stamp, the infamously dysfunctional Nuclear Regulatory Commission has left these collapsing, uninsured jalopies virtually unregulated and uninspected.
Tuhus-Dubrow ignores the fact that (unlike Disneyland) Diablo Unit One was long ago reported to be severely embrittled. That means critical components could shatter like glass if flooded to contain a meltdown. Ensuing Chernobyl-scale steam and hydrogen explosions would spread apocalyptic radiation throughout the ecosphere.
Despite a petition signed by more than 2,000 Californians and key Hollywood A-listers, Gov. Gavin Newsom refuses to inspect Diablo’s decayed reactors.
The New Yorker says smoke coming from huge northern California fires dimmed solar panels. But those fires were caused by the gross incompetence, neglect, and mismanagement of the twice-bankrupt Pacific Gas & Electric, which runs Diablo.
PG&E is a federal felon, convicted for killing scores of Californians in avoidable explosions and fires. Tuhus-Dubrow simply ignores such slipshod mismanagement, which could prove catastrophic at a nuke as old as Diablo.
Overall, the nuke power debate has long since transcended random, folksy industry devotees who like to label themselves “green.” No serious analyst argues that, after the fiscal fiascos at V.C. Summer and Plant Vogtle, any big new reactors will ever be built in the US. Small ones are cost-prohibitive pipe dreams, especially as wind, solar, battery and LED/efficiency technologies continue to advance.
The question of how long America’s 90+ jalopy nukes can run until the next one explodes remains unanswered … and utterly terrifying.
Somehow, the revered New Yorker has polluted its pages with a pro-nuke fantasy while missing this most critical atomic issue.
Let’s hope it corrects the deficiency before the next Chernobyl lays waste to our own nation.
Harvey Wasserman’s Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth is at www.solatopia.org, along with The People’s Spiral of US History.
Fukushima launches first sake promotion event in New York
New York’s Climate Strike and the Things That Make Teen-Agers March — limitless life
Cultural Comment New York’s Climate Strike and the Things That Make Teen-Agers March By Alexandra Schwartz September 20, 2019 What had brought so many teens to Foley Square, in Manhattan, for the New York climate strike? Everyone’s answer was the same, the only one possible: a sense of existential threat. Photograph by Jonno Rattman for The […]
via New York’s Climate Strike and the Things That Make Teen-Agers March — limitless life
New York City supports students’ climate protest
More than one million New York students allowed to skip school for climate protest, Public school students in New York are allowed to skip class to join the youth climate strikes.
SBS NEWS, BY ANNE BARNARD 18 Sep 19 When New York City announced that public school students could skip classes without penalties to join the youth climate strikes planned around the world on Friday, you could almost hear a sigh of relief.Before the announcement, the protests, to be held three days ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit, had thrown a new complication into the usual back-to-school chaos: With the protests framed as a cry to protect their futures from climate disaster, should students heed the call?
Parents had wondered how to word emails to principals requesting excused absences. Teachers had been wondering how to react. Some students had been vowing to protest no matter what, but others had worried about possible repercussions.
Most of all, the decision last week by the nation’s largest school district buoyed national protest organisers, who are hoping that the demonstrations will be the largest on climate in US history, with at least 800 planned across the 50 states. They expressed hope that other districts around the country would follow suit.
“Holy smokes, this thing could get HUGE,” Jamie Henn, a founder of the climate action organisation 350.org, said on Twitter after the decision was announced by New York City’s Department of Education………
Demonstrators as young as nine had already turned up to greet the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg when she arrived last month by an emissions-free yacht in New York Harbour. Greta has inspired Friday student protests in at least 100 countries.
Larger crowds, mostly of high school students, have demonstrated with her on two recent Fridays at the United Nations………
Some 600 medical professionals across the country have also signed a virtual “doctor’s note” encouraging teachers to excuse students on the grounds that climate change is dangerous to their and others’ health. HTTPS://WWW.SBS.COM.AU/NEWS/MORE-THAN-ONE-MILLION-NEW-YORK-STUDENTS-ALLOWED-TO-SKIP-SCHOOL-FOR-CLIMATE-PROTEST
Australian investigative journalist exposes Guardian/New York Times betrayal of Assange — Rise Up Times
The papers leaked by Manning documented at least 200 civilian deaths at the hands of US and allied forces that had previously been hidden from the public, along with clear evidence of war crimes, including the existence of a secret “black unit” within the US military, tasked with carrying out illegal assassinations.
City councillors call for New York City to divest from companies involved in the production of nuclear weapons
Nuclear Weapons Money 27th June 2019 Move the Nuclear Weapons Money welcomes the initiative of New York CityCouncil members Daniel Dromm, Helen Rosenthal and Ben Kallos to call on New York City to divest from companies involved in the production of nuclear
weapons, and to reaffirm New York City as a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.
On June 26, the city councillors introduced Resolution 976 calling on the City
Council to make such a policy decision, and Initiative 1621 under which the
City would establish an advisory committee to examine nuclear disarmament
and issues related to recognizing and reaffirming New York city as a
nuclear weapons-free zone.
The council declared New York to be a
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in 1983 with the adoption of Resolution 364 which
prohibits the production, transport, placement or deployment of nuclear
weapons within the territorial limits of New York City, and the adoption of
Resolution 568 which declared that no ship be permitted to bring nuclear
missiles into the harbour of New York.
As Reactors Shut in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Nuke War Rages in Ohio and New York
Reader Supported News, 11 May 19
As the nuke power industry slumps toward oblivion, two huge reactors are shutting in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
The shutdowns are a body blow to atomic energy. The soaring costs of the decayed US reactor fleet have forced them to beg gerrymandered state legislatures for huge bailouts.
Just two US reactors are still being built. Stuffed with $12 billion in interest-free federal loans, Georgia’s Vogtle is nearing a staggering $30 billion in cost. Years behind schedule, the lowest possible costs of whatever electricity the two reactors there might produce already far exceed wind and solar.
Virtually none of the 98 US reactors now operating can compete with wind, solar, or methane. All but one are more than twenty years old, with serious issues of obsolescence and decay; some are more than forty, operating far behind their original design life.
Four decrepit, money-losing, upstate New York State reactors still run because Governor Andrew Cuomo is handing them $7.6 billion in bailouts. This year’s price tag jumped more than $50 million, despite Cuomo’s promise it would drop. Safe energy/consumer groups are fighting him in court.
Cuomo has otherwise agreed to shut two old reactors at Indian Point, which sit on an earthquake fault north of New York City.
But Illinois has voted billions to sustain three old reactors that can’t compete with wind/solar and gas. New Jersey has also jumped in with hundreds of millions for money-losing nukes.
In Massachusetts, the Pilgrim reactor will shut this month. The New York Times says Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit One will die in September, dropping the US fleet to 96. The industry wants to scam billions in bailouts for the Keystone State’s other nukes, which are being vastly outstripped by renewables.
But the Ohio war over two geezer nukes rages full bore. Their owner, Akron’s FirstEnergy, is bankrupt, trying to shed its cleanup responsibilities. Despite slipping millions in “lobbying” to key state officials, FirstEnergy has still been unable to shaft the state with its $300m/year nuke-bailout scam.
Designed in the 1960s, FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse opened near Toledo in 1977. A serious accident presaged the 1979 meltdown at its doomed clone, Three Mile Island Unit Two.
In 2002, boric acid ate Davis-Besse’s infamous “hole in the head” to within an inch of irradiating the entire Great Lakes and north coast.
The leaks are still an issue. But Davis-Besse’s owners sawed off the top of an abandoned Michigan nuke, cut through the containment building, and pasted it into the damaged reactor. The radioactive shield building is crumbling along with the rest of the nuke, from top to bottom.
East of Cleveland, Perry opened in 1986, just after the first earthquake that damaged a US nuke. To this day, no operators have been forced to run a reactor caught amidst a seismic shaking.
The utility and its backers are betting on Ohio’s gerrymandered legislature to gouge some $300 million from the tax/rate-paying public. A bevy of “free market” Republicans wants at least $150 million per year for the nukes, and another $150 million or more for various unclear activities, including about $8.5 million yearly for company president Chuck Jones.
FirstEnergy burns huge quantities of gas, oil, and coal but hypes its “emissions free” nukes that spew Carbon 14, heat, and radiation. The industry does not want to mention or pay for its thousands of tons of radioactive waste.
Such details are loudly overlooked by a mutant choir trumpeting nukes as “zero emission.” All reactors spew deadly isotopes along with climate-killing heat and some Carbon 14. They stand in the way of the wind, solar, batteries, and LED efficiency that comprise our only route to saving the climate.
Ohio’s north coast region is great for wind. More than $4 billion in private capital is waiting to create more than 10,000 jobs while slashing electric rates. The surrounding states of Indiana, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania have far more wind turbines than Ohio, operating at big profits with substantial workforces.
But an absurd anti-green setback requirement from a bought legislature has frozen Ohio’s turbine industry. Without that single Ohio Code sentence, cheap wind energy would be flooding the state. The “need” for nukes would evaporate. The reactor jobs “lost” would be dwarfed by those in renewables.
Against all odds, a very broad coalition of environmentalists, wind promoters, consumers, and industrialists has kept FirstEnergy at bay. Bailout opponents vastly outnumber nuke pushers at ongoing hearings.
But worldwide, the clock ticks on the next old money-sucking reactor to collapse from incompetence and greed, or to crumble in an earthquake, tsunami, or terror attack.
The shutdowns of Pilgrim and Three Mile Island mark huge victories for jobs, the economy, and the climate. If green advocates can now win in Ohio and Pennsylvania and roll back the insanity in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, the march of the shutdowns just might outrun the next meltdown. Stay tuned!
Harvey Wasserman’s Green Power & Wellness Show is podcast at prn.fm; California Solartopia is broadcast at KPFK-Pacifica, 90.7 fm, Los Angeles. His Life & Death Spiral of US History: From Deganawidah to Solartopia will soon be at www.solartopia.org.
(Free Tasting) Japan’s No.1 Fukushima Sake Debut to New York
New York’s ‘Green New Deal’ for a zero carbon economy
Business Green 21st Jan 2019 New York has embraced the campaign for a ‘Green New Deal’, with Governor
Andrew Cuomo declaring last week he will launch a major programme to build
a zero carbon economy for the state.
New York’s Green New Deal was hailed
as a “nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda” by the Governor’s
office, as it pledged to “aggressively put New York State on a path to
economy-wide carbon neutrality”. The plan includes doubling the state’s
solar capacity by 2025 and quadrupling its offshore wind capacity by 2035,
as part of a legally binding goal to deliver 100 per cent zero-carbon power
for the state by 2040.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3069581/new-york-unveils-green-new-deal-with-plan-to-build-net-zero-economy
Fukushima sake shop opens in New York
Prisoners in New York will learn about their radiation exposure due to body scans
 Body-scanned inmates will get radiation exposure stats, NY Post By Rich Calder and Tamar Lapin, November 8, 2018 “………The city Health Department has issued new regulations that would allow inmates to learn how much radiation they’ve absorbed from body scans in the clink.Upon request, the Correction Department would have to provide them with their “total accumulated radiation exposure,” according to a legal notice issued by the city Thursday.
The regulation was in response to a new state law authorizing correction officers to again use high-powered body scanners to spot nonmetal objects — such as ceramic knives — in the possession of inmates. As part of the law, the Health Department had to implement rules to make sure the scanners are safe — including “setting annual exposure limits and mandates for training and signage.”…… The Correction Department thought it had the problem solved in 2012 and 2013, after it purchased five “airport-style” body scanners with ionizing radiation that picked up every imaginable kind of weapon and contraband. But after a year’s use, the scanners were shelved when it was discovered they violated a little-noticed state law that said “ionizing radiation” may not be “applied to human beings” except by licensed medical personnel for a medical purpose…….. The new state law wipes out the scanner-use medical restriction…….https://nypost.com/2018/11/08/body-scanned-inmates-will-get-radiation-exposure-stats/ |
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U.S. Appeals Court upholds New York program to subsidize nuclear plants
Federal court upholds New York program to subsidize nuclear plants, Washington Examiner, by Josh Siegel, September 27, 2018 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit on Thursday upheld the legality of New York’s program that props up struggling nuclear plants to provide electricity without carbon dioxide emissions.
The court said the state subsidy program does not interfere with the power that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has over wholesale electricity markets, as charged by other electricity suppliers who filed suit, including the Electric Power Supply Association.
The three-judge panel acknowledged that New York’s program would keep nuclear plants alive, and raise costs for competitors, but said those effects were “incidental.”
……..The ruling comes a few weeks after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld a similar policy in Illinois………
FERC has filed amicus briefs in the cases affirming the programs do not preempt the agency’s legal authority set by the Federal Power Act.
Critics say the programs bailout failing nuclear plants in the state, that are struggling to compete with lower cost natural gas and renewables.
The Trump administration is considering a bigger, widely contested plan, on a national scale, to require grid operators to buy power from a select list of coal and nuclear plants.
Environmentalists cheered the state court rulings as a signal that courts consider states to have broad power to set clean energy goals, and to impose policies to achieve them. For example, many states have renewable portfolio standards requiring generators to obtain more and more of their electricity from clean sources.
“The 2nd Circuit’s decision rejecting a challenge to [New York’s] ZEC program may be narrowly covered as a decision affecting nuclear resources, but the much bigger reason it is major news is because it eliminates legal uncertainty for states in designing clean energy programs,” said Miles Farmer, a clean energy attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a Twitter post. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/federal-court-upholds-new-york-program-to-subsidize-nuclear-plants
New York environmentalists and state politicians want to opt out of nuclear subsidy program
Environmental groups, state politicians want to opt out of nuclear subsidy program http://www.wxxinews.org/post/environmental-groups-state-politicians-want-opt-out-nuclear-subsidy-program, By PAYNE HORNING, 9 Aug 18
After U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry came to Oswego County last week to praise the state’s support of nuclear power plants, several environmental groups and New York politicians sent a letter to state leaders saying the opposite.
The idea of using public dollars to keep financially struggling nuclear power plants afloat because they don’t emit carbon dioxide was never popular among some environmental groups that consider the facilities dangerous and dirty because of the radiation and nuclear waste they create. So when the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) voted two years ago to bail them with about $8 billion in fees on consumer’s energy bills, they left the door open to a potential compromise.
Then-chair of the PSC Audrey Zibelman said they would look at letting customers opt into a program to buy 100 percent of their energy from clean, renewable sources instead of paying into the system that supports the nuclear subsidies. Jessica Azulay with the Alliance for a Green Economy says it’s time for the state to make good on that promise.
“What this letter does that we filed with the governor and the chair of the Public Service Commission is to try to win the right for consumers to decide that they no longer want to pay this extra money toward nuclear energy and they want to instead adopt 100 percent renewable energy,” Azulay said. “We think that this is a really common sense approach – maybe a first step – in reversing the nuclear subsidies by allowing people to vote with their dollars and really create the pathway for renewable energy to accelerate in New York and phase out the nuclear reactors.”
To date, the nuclear subsidies have cost New York ratepayers about $650 million. A spokesperson for the PSC says the price would be even greater had the plants been allowed to shut down because they could have been replaced with fossil fuels that would have emitted carbon dioxide, setting back the state’s goals to lower carbon dioxide emissions 40 percent by 2030.
1.This Month
NOT MY TAXONOMY: FINAL MOBILISATION’ You can find the call to action and the groups supporting the mobilisation here.
https://www.themovementhub.org/stories/not-my-taxonomy-final-mobilisation/
http://www.chainehumaine.fr/actualite-2/fr/pas-taxonomie
Join the mobilisations to Strasbourg, where the European Parliament will vote on the new taxonomy, in the week of the 4th of July.
Where? A base camp is planned in GUNDERSHOFFEN (exact address: 1 chemin de la Scierie, 67110 GUNDERSHOFFEN) from Saturday the 2nd until Thursday the 7th of July in the region.
It is a meadow on which commodities will be set up and with a barn, so make sure to bring camping gear, sleeping bags and mats, as well as toiletries and other camping gear you may need. There will be possibilities for public transport as well as shuttle buses between the camp and Strasbourg.
If you are coming in a larger group, let the coalition know by emailing mobi-strasbourg@riseup.net so that they have an overview of how many people will be coming. This will help the logistics team make sure to provide enough facilities, such as tent space, food, etc.
When? Action days will take place between July 4th and 6th, depending on when the vote and debate about the taxonomy will take place; this will be announced the week before. It is advised to arrive at the very latest on Sunday the 3rd of July afternoon, and plan your travel back for Thursday, July 7th after noon or in the evening ideally.
How to get there?
There will be buses coming to Strasbourg and the base camp from different parts of Europe. Otherwise, the GUNDERSHOFFEN local train station is situated a mere 5 minutes by foot from the campsite.
Are you and your groups interested in organising a bus? Please get in touch with the mobilisation team via mobi-strasbourg@riseup.net.
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