Dark nuclear-lobby money effects political changes in Ohio, and where next?
Support for HB 6 comes from beyond the state and reaches into some top levels of national politics.
The forces that passed Ohio’s subsidy law are poised for further action to shore up utilities and protect fossil fuel interests.
Dark money helped shift leadership in the General Assembly.Dark money dominated Ohio’s nuclear subsidy saga ENERGY NEWS NETWORK, Kathiann M. Kowalski, March 5, 2020 “…………..Dark money groups such as Generation Now and the Growth & Opportunity PAC spent roughly $1 million in the 2018 election cycle. That election replaced Kasich with Mike DeWine as governor.
Other groups were also active, sometimes popping up for just a few months. At least one group launched a $100,000 negative ad campaign against an Ohio representative running in a congressional primary after she opposed subsidies for FirstEnergy.
The 2018 election also led to a leadership shift in the Ohio House of Representatives. Larry Householder, R-Glenford, the new speaker, proved to be a major force shepherding HB 6 through the General Assembly, even to the point of holding up a budget agreement last summer until the subsidy bill passed.
Dark money efforts while the bill was pending included advertising, coordination of bill testimony, and blocking a referendum effort that would have let voters reject HB 6 this November. Groups’ actions sparked critics to complain about misleading ads, alleged harassment of signature collectors, buyouts of petition workers, and even alleged assault.
At the end of the day, someone paid big money” for all those efforts, Hill said. “They didn’t do that [as] an un-self-interested contribution to a public policy debate.”
Groups’ efforts overlapped and linked with each other from before 2017 through the present.
Public reports reflect partial funding and cross-transfers among organizations whose backers remain secret.
Generation Now formed in 2017 as a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. That code section covers a broad range of civic and “social welfare” organizations. An IRS filing identified its president/secretary as JPL & Associates, rather than a specific individual.
Generation Now gave $1,050,000 to the Growth & Opportunity PAC in 2018, which in turn ran ads and took other steps to support candidates who would favor Householder’s selection as House speaker, preparing the way for the subsidy bill. In 2019, Generation Now continued to spend money for pro-HB 6 ads and to discourage voters from signing referendum petitions. The total amount of its spending is not yet known.
Neither Generation Now spokesperson Curt Steiner nor Jeff Longstreth, a principal at JPL & Associates, responded to questions about the organization’s funding and its activities.
Unions reported giving $840,000 to Generation Now in 2018 and 2019. Generation Now also got money from other 501(c)(4) organizations, according to IRS filings. A group called Empowering Ohio’s Economy gave $100,000 to Generation Now in 2017 and another $50,000 for advocacy in 2018. That group also gave $200,000 for public advocacy to the Coalition for Growth & Opportunity in 2017, which in turn gave $59,000 to Generation Now over the course of 2017 to 2018.
The Coalition for Growth & Opportunity has also donated money to the Growth & Opportunity PAC. And it paid roughly $103,000 in 2018 for services from Communications Counsel, Inc., a public relations firm that has represented many Republicans in Ohio politics. Mark Weaver, a principal in the firm, is also an attorney with the Isaac Wiles law firm in Columbus. Other lawyers there filed incorporation papers and serve as registered agents for Ohioans for Energy Security. That group was formed on July 30, a week after Gov. DeWine signed HB 6.
When asked about that organization, Weaver said the law firm “represent[s] a wide range of political action committees and non-profit organizations” that have free speech rights and that its lawyers “follow the law and ethical rules in every respect.” He did not answer questions about the group’s funding.
As a for-profit entity, Ohioans for Energy Security doesn’t have to report its funding sources or spending. The group’s print and video ads featured a debunked Chinese conspiracy claim. The group also took part in some blocking activities related to the referendum, such as working to hire or otherwise “buy out” workers who had been hired to collect signatures from voters.
An affidavit filed in federal court in October provides a copy of a form contract for one of those proposed buyouts. The contracting party is shown as Ohioans for Energy Security. However, it said, any notices for Ohioans for Energy Security should go to Generation Now, care of Jeff Longstreth in Columbus.
Additional blocking efforts included the circulation of rival petitions, arranged by Ohioans for Energy Security. Those petitions had no binding value. Yet they looked enough like the real thing to cause some confusion, said critics, such as Hill.
“Under the shroud of disclosure loopholes, corporations can outright lie to voters without any accountability,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “This is particularly concerning about complex issues like Ohio’s energy policy, which ultimately will affect Ohioans economically and environmentally for years to come.”
Yet another group, Protect Ohio Clean Energy Jobs, bought Facebook ads urging people to remove their names from referendum petitions. Its treasurer, Alex Thomas, also played a coordinating role for the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance. The alliance’s website says it’s a “coalition of Ohio community leaders and organizations” and is “powered by FirstEnergy Solutions.” The spokesperson, Carlo LoParo, also acted as spokesperson and president for Ohioans for Energy Security.
LoParo did not answer questions about funding for either Ohioans for Energy Security or the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.
FirstEnergy Solutions is connected to dark money groups through its spending and through several consultants and lobbyists.
Even before the July 2019 wire payment from FirstEnergy Solutions to Generation Now, its lobbyists, Matt Borges and Alex Thomas, then with Roetzel Consulting Services, worked behind the scenes for passage of HB 6. During that time, Thomas helped get organizations to sign on to a June 12 letter to the Ohio Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee in support of HB 6. Committee records show that letter as coming from the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.
Other FirstEnergy Solutions lobbyists and consultants coordinated efforts on HB 6. Among other things, materials in the FirstEnergy Solutions bankruptcy case reflected payments to help get the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance underway. A former FirstEnergy external affairs director, Murphy Montler, who is now deceased, was a consultant for FirstEnergy Solutions. He provided local public officials linked to the alliance with drafts of their testimony on HB 6.
Labor unions that provided funds to Generation Now also appear to have members who work at the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants. The political education arm of International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 18 gave $250,000 in 2018 and another $105,000 through November 2019. The AFL-CIO also ran anti-referendum ads in 2019. And an AFL-CIO affiliate gave $250,000 to Generation Now in 2018.
Meanwhile, employee “contests” at the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants recruited workers as part of the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance’s “employee ambassador” program. FirstEnergy Solutions employees appeared in a pro-HB 6 ad presented by the Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance.
At least two employees at FirstEnergy Solutions’ nuclear plants are also in a video ad from Ohioans for Energy Security. “Don’t sign the petition to allow China to control Ohio’s power,” the ad’s voiceover announcer said.
FirstEnergy Solutions’ spokesperson declined to answer questions about the company’s relationship with the nonprofits.
Law firm links also factor prominently in activities linked to HB 6.
Trump picks nuclear envoy – Marshall Billingslea, formerly involved in torture program
Trump picks official involved in Bush-era torture program as his nuclear envoy
- Marshall Billingslea oversaw Guantánamo detainees’ treatment
- Trump wants to negotiate new deal with Russia and China, Julian Borger in Washington, 5 Mar 2020 The Trump administration has chosen a special envoy for nuclear talks, with the principal task of negotiating a new arms control agreement with Russia and China, according to congressional sources and former officials. The proposed special negotiator, Marshall Billingslea, is currently the under-secretary for terrorist financing at the US Treasury. His nomination last year for a top human rights job at the state department was stalled by controversy over the extent of his involvement in the torture programme established by the George W Bush administration, in which he oversaw the conditions of detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
Neither the state department nor the Treasury responded to a request for comment, but congressional staffers and former officials said Billingslea had accepted the post.
The Trump administration has been trying to recruit a high-level arms control negotiator for several months, but several former Republican officials with significant experience in the field turned down the offer.
Billingslea, who has a long record as a hawk on nuclear weapons issues, faces a daunting task. Donald Trump wants to negotiate a new agreement to reduce the vast nuclear weapons arsenals of the major powers, to replace the New Start deal with Russia agreed by Barack Obama.
Trump wants China to be included in a new agreement but Beijing has so far refused on the grounds that the Chinese arsenal is a small fraction (estimated at about a 20th) of its US and Russian counterparts.Trump has accepted an invitation from Vladimir Putin to take part in talks on nuclear arms control and other strategic issues at a summit meeting of the five permanent members of the UN security council, most likely at the time of the UN general assembly in September.
One of Billingslea’s tasks would be to prepare for the summit, but in the absence of a major shift by China, he would have to advise Trump on whether or not to extend the New Start deal – the last nuclear arms control agreement to have survived the Trump era – as an interim measure. That is something the president is highly reluctant to do, because the 2010 agreement is part of the Obama legacy Trump has been eager to expunge.
Billingslea is a former aide to the late Republican senator Jesse Helms, who was a fervent opponent of arms control efforts during the cold war, for example blocking US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and campaigning for the US withdrawal from the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty. AT TOP https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/04/trump-nuclear-talks-envoy-marshall-billingslea
Tennessee Valley Authority violated whistleblower protections for nuclear workers
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Federal regulators say TVA willfully violated safety standards in firing nuclear engineers, Chattanooga Times Free Press TVA disputes NRC findings, claims employee concerns program improving.by Dave Flessner March 3, 2020,The Tennessee Valley Authority improperly fired two nuclear engineers after they raised concerns about safety and management in TVA’s nuclear power program, according to federal regulators.
In a letter to TVA made public Tuesday, the head of regulatory enforcement at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said TVA violated whistleblower protections for nuclear workers by disciplining and then dismissing the nuclear engineers who worked on programs at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear power plants. George A. Wilson, director the NRC’s Office of Enforcement, said “the actions taken against (by TVA) these former employees were in apparent violations (of NRC safety standards) and the apparent violations were willful” and “are being considered for escalated enforcement action,” which could include a civil penalty against TVA. The NRC did not identify the affected employees. But they are similar to concerns reviewed in an earlier U.S. Department of Labor finding that ordered TVA to rehire a nuclear engineer after she raised safety concerns and questioned the performance of her boss in TVA’s corporate nuclear program. Despite objections by TVA, the NRC said the engineers working on programs at the Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear plants were first subject to a harassment investigation, then placed on paid administrative leave and ultimately were discharged after raising concerns about safety problems and corporate nuclear licensing activities from 2015 to 2018. NRC has yet to issue a notice of violation, but a civil penalty for the violations could be forthcoming……….. The NRC finding comes after the U.S. Department of Labor ordered TVA earlier this year to reinstate nuclear engineer Beth Wetzel after she was fired for raising safety concerns and complaining about her boss. The Labor Department ordered TVA to give Beth Wetzel her job back and pay more than $200,000 in back pay, lost bonuses and benefits, compensatory damages and legal fees, according Department of Labor records obtained by the Knoxville News Sentinel. TVA spokesman Jim Hopson said the disputes in the DOL investigation were resolved, but he said under the agreement details of the settlement are not publicly disclosed…… Wetzel filed a series of nuclear safety complaints with Henderson and the NRC, including violations of worker fatigue rules, as part of her job, according to the Labor Department……. The NRC is continuing to inspect and evaluate the safety conscious work environment at all three of TVA’s nuclear sites after the regulatory agency found in 2016 that TVA had a “chilling” environment for worker concerns at its Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, Tennessee. NRC cited TVA for the ongoing problem and confirmed the chilled work environment at TVA again in 2017. In 2018, TVA’s Inspector General also found that TVA was not adequately addressing nuclear safety concerns voiced by its workers. ……https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2020/mar/03/federal-regulators-tva-violated-safety-standards/517214/ |
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Bill in California to call nuclear power “renewable”!
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Should California classify nuclear power as renewable? San Diego Union Tribune By ROB NIKOLEWSKI, MARCH 3, 2020
Although he admits it’s a long shot, a member of the California Legislature from the district that includes the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant has introduced a bill that would add nuclear power to the state’s list of renewable energy sources……..
Established in 2002, California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard spells out the power sources eligible to count toward the state’s goals to wean itself of fossil fuels. The list includes solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, small hydroelectric facilities and even tidal currents. The standard has been updated, currently calling for 60 percent of California’s electricity to come from renewables by 2030 and 100 percent from carbon-free sources by 2045. Nuclear power is not part of the portfolio standard and Diablo Canyon — the only remaining nuclear plant in California — is scheduled to stop producing electricity by 2025. Pacific Gas & Electric, the operators of Diablo Canyon, announced in 2016 an agreement with a collection of environmental and labor groups to shut down the plant. PG&E said Diablo will become uneconomical to run due to changes in California’s power grid — such as growth of renewable energy sources, increased energy efficiency measures and the migration of customers from traditional utilities to community choice energy programs. But Cunningham thinks the passage of Assembly Bill 2898, which he introduced last week, could give the plant literally a new lease on life…….. When told of Cunningham’s bill, David Weisman, outreach coordinator for the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, said flatly, “Diablo Canyon has become a burdensome, costly nuclear white elephant.” Critics say nuclear power by definition cannot be considered renewable because it leaves behind waste in the form of spent nuclear fuel that then has to be stored. The federal government has not found a site to deposit the waste that has built up over decades from commercial nuclear power plants……. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/story/2020-03-03/should-california-count-nuclear-power-count-as-renewable |
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Trump gives huge funding increase to nuclear agency that develops nuclear warheads
The White House gave this nuclear agency a giant funding increase. Can it spend it all? Defense News By: Aaron Mehta 4 Mar 20, WASHINGTON — Members of Congress used a hearing Tuesday to question whether the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous arm of the Department of Energy that handles development of nuclear warheads, can spend an almost 20 percent funding increase requested by the Trump administration.
As part of its national security budget request, the White House asked for more than $46 billion for nuclear programs in fiscal 2021. That includes $28.9 billion for the Department of Defense, which develops the delivery systems such as the B-21 bomber and the new replacement for intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as $15.6 billion for NNSA’s nuclear weapons accounts and another $1.7 billion for nuclear reactor work, run through the NNSA on behalf of the Navy.
That NNSA total represents a major increase in agency weapons funding over levels projected in the previous budget request, something that several members noted during an appearance by NNSA head Lisa Gordon-Hagerty at the House Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee…….
Allison Bawden, director of the natural resources and environment team within the Government Accountability Office, who also appeared before the committee. Bawden warned that the “spend rate has to go up very quickly” for NNSA to be able to spend all the money coming its way.
Asked directly by Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., if NNSA could successfully execute a roughly $3 billion increase from its FY20 to FY21 request, Bawden said it would be “very challenging” to do so.
Expect agency officials to face similar questions about how to spend its money on Wednesday, when they appear in front of the House Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, the appropriations panel with the most direct control of the NNSA’s budget.
The chairwoman of that subcommittee, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, told Defense News this week that the administration is “again proposing a nuclear weapons budget that does not establish clear priorities.”
“The proposed $3.1 billion increase for weapons is simply sprinting toward failure, and Congress should right-size NNSA’s workload to match what the complex can realistically do,” Kaptur said……….
an estimated $81.37 billion to be spent on nuclear weapons programs, including modernization of a number of warheads. Combined with the Pentagon’s plan to spend about $87 billion over that same time frame on nuclear modernization, the overall price tag for the Future Years Defense Program could be at least $163 billion.
Stephen Young, an expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the nuclear “bow wave” of spending that has long been predicted is finally arriving. But he agrees that the NNSA is likely to be challenged in spending its significant increase in dollars.
“The problem is, the NNSA will almost certainly fail to achieve its admittedly aggressive timelines, even though it is throwing money at the problem. If the United States does not have an achievable, realistic warhead plan, the Pentagon will face difficult choices going forward,” Young said. “The good news is, because the U.S. nuclear arsenal is so robust, even if the NNSA has significant failures, the U.S. deterrent will remain robust.” https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/03/04/the-white-house-gave-this-nuclear-agency-a-giant-funding-increase-can-it-spend-it-all/
Nuclear – a failing technology, example Canada’s risky CANDU reactors
Ontario Clean Air Alliance The Star By Angela Bischoff, March 3, 2020
Ask yourself: Would we build a massive nuclear power station in the middle of Canada’s largest urban area today? The answer, of course, is a common sense “no.”
It’s common sense because nuclear energy, despite its boosters’ assurances, is not without risk. And while the risk of something going wrong may be small, the consequences could be catastrophic. Just ask the people of Japan.
There is a persistent myth that there is something “special” about CANDU (Canada’s nuclear) technology. But that’s just wishful thinking. CANDU’s are just as prone to risk as any other type of system for splitting atoms.
In fact, the inability of nuclear engineers to address some of the risks built into the CANDU process led to the shelving of both the CANDU 6 “advanced” reactor design and the Maple small reactors that were to supply medical isotopes (a role that is now being increasingly filled by non-nuclear technologies). Those failures cost us billions in wasted taxpayer dollars.
Furthermore, with their miles and miles of corrosion-prone piping and complex designs, CANDUs are notoriously hard to maintain, and all our reactors have had to undergo significant rebuilding well before reaching the end of their promised lifetimes………
The total radioactivity in Pickering’s spent nuclear fuel is 200 times greater than the total radiation released to the atmosphere by the Fukushima accident in 2011.
Maybe the risk involved in storing 15,000 tonnes of radioactive waste next to the source of our drinking water and surrounded by millions of people would be worth it if we had no alternatives. But we have plenty of options to keep our lights on and our beer cold. What we don’t have is any viable solution for the long-term storage of highly radioactive waste that will have to be kept absolutely secure for hundreds of thousands of years.
There’s no shortage of happy talk about deep geologic waste disposal or even miraculous waste-consuming mini breeder reactors (a technology long since dismissed by countries around the world due to its horrendous risk profile). What you won’t find are any actual operational solutions — or even any ready-to-implement plans on the near horizon.
And then there’s the danger to your wallet. Nuclear power — with risks so huge that no commercial insurance industry will touch it for any amount of premium — is no bargain. Today, Ontario Power Generation is charging 9.5 cents per kilowatt hour for nuclear power; within 5 years that will jump to 16.5 cents as OPG deals with the huge cost of rebuilding Darlington’s reactors.
That is three times the cost of renewable power we could secure from Quebec, twice what Ontario was paying for wind power (and about equal to solar) four years ago, and eight times what we pay to help our industries and businesses improve their energy efficiency and reduce their need for power (and their bills).
So, the calculus is simple. On one hand we have a fading technology — nuclear now generates half the power it did worldwide 10 years ago — with rising costs and security concerns, and a long history of bringing in projects behind schedule and massively over budget.
On the other, a 100 per cent renewable system where costs continue to plummet, technology — including storage — is leaping ahead, and safety is about making sure workers wear harnesses, not radiation monitors. Which one would you choose for your neighbourhood?
EXPERTS: NUCLEAR WEAPONS SHOULD BE FRONT-BURNER ISSUE IN 2020 RACE FOR WHITE HOUSE
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist Briefing Audience Told: “We Are Living in a World Where the Next President Will Decide if the Number of Nuclear Weapons Go Up or Down.”
CHICAGO, IL///March 2, 2020///Two leading experts raised serious concerns today about the lack of substantive discussion among U.S. presidential candidates about their plans for U.S. nuclear weapons and related threats around the globe. They noted that arms control agreements resulted in the number of nuclear weapons in the world being slashed from 70,000 to 14,000, with that progress now in danger of being reversed.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists briefing held one day before Super Tuesday included an appeal to both candidates and the news media to move nuclear weapons to the forefront of the 2020 elections.
Former Obama science adviser John P. Holdren said: “We live in a soundbite and Twitter culture. It’s difficult to express nuclear weapons threats in 240 words or an eight-second quote … We should be talking about embracing a no-first-use policy. We have much cheaper and safer ways to deal with conventional and biological attacks than using nuclear weapons and therefore launching a much wider nuclear war. That threat is not worth it. Candidates should be talking about their views on ‘no first use.’”
Holdren now is the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Co-Director of the School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, Professor of Environmental Science and Policy in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Affiliated Professor in the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science. Holdren also is Visiting Distinguished Professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and Senior Advisor to the President at the Woods Hole Research Center, a pre-eminent scientific think tank focused on global climate change. From January 2009 to January 2017, he was President Obama’s Science Advisor and Senate-confirmed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
Alexandra Bell, the senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, said: “There are well over 4,000 nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile. Anyone running for President is asking the public to trust them … The next President is going to decide if we live in a world when the number of nuclear weapons is going up or going down. If we lose the (arms control) agreements, we are definitely headed to a world where that number is going up. That is why this should be a major issue in the 2020 election cycle.”
Previously, Bell served as a senior adviser in the Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security. She has also worked on nuclear policy issues at the Ploughshares Fund.
Holdren said that the issue of “no first use” was considered at length during the Obama Administration and that a decision was deferred in the President’s second term “on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would win” the 2016 election.
Bell noted that President Trump is the first U.S. president since John F. Kennedy to fail to initiate a major arms control agreement in their first term in office. She said: “Whoever the next person is to sit behind that Resolute Desk is going to having to deal with a number of issues that have been left behind to them.”
Both Holdren and Bell agreed that the news media (except for a handful of key outlets) are not paying enough attention to nuclear weapons issues. But they also agreed that it is incumbent on experts to find a way to talk about nuclear weapons that engages presidential candidates, elected officials, the media, and the public.
John Mecklin, editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, moderated the expert panel discussion.
For more background information, see Nuclear Weapons Policy and the U.S. Presidential Election, an edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists available free online until March 31, 2020.
ABOUT THE BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS
December 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the first edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, initially a six-page, black-and-white bulletin and later a magazine, created in anticipation that the atom bomb would be “only the first of many dangerous presents from the Pandora’s Box of modern science.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ iconic Doomsday Clock was reset on January 23, 2020 to 100 seconds to midnight. www.thebulletin.org.
MEDIA CONTACT: Max Karlin, (703) 276-3255 and mkarlin@hastingsgroup.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A streaming recording of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ briefing will be available at www.thebulletin.org/nukes2020vote as of 5 p.m. CST/6 p.m. EST/2300 GMT on March 2, 2020.
Big climate change policy unlikely no matter who wins the White House
Big climate change policy unlikely no matter who wins the White House
Amy Harder Don’t hold your breath for big climate policy changes — even if a Democrat wins the White House.Why it matters: Congress is likely to remain gridlocked on the matter, leading to either more of the same with President Trump’s re-election or a regulatory swing back to the left no matter which Democrat wins — but far short of a legislative overhaul.
The big picture: Climate change is reaching a new high-water mark as a political concern for American voters, and Democratic presidential nominees are promising aggressive policies.
- That in and of itself is a sea change from prior elections. Even still, these worries and pledges are unlikely to translate into any major new laws in the next few years (at least).
Here’s why, with potential scenarios mapped out.
Trump wins re-election
While Trump is uniquely unpredictable in presidential history, he’s made it clear since moving into the White House that he’s not interested in pursuing any sort of actual climate legislation on Capitol Hill.
More of the same is most likely, in two important ways:
- More curtailing of environmental regulations — and defending them in court.
- More pressure on other actors — like companies, states and other countries — to take bigger action on their own as the void of U.S. presidential leadership grows.
Any Democrat wins
All Democrats have aggressive climate plans, but it’s an open question whether any would first push climate legislation over other priorities — especially health care………
Regardless of congressional priority, any Democratic president would swing Washington’s executive-action pendulum far back in the other direction. …..
A progressive Democrat wins
… like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. ……This type of all-encompassing and hyper-aggressive legislation is unlikely to get universal support among Democrats (to say nothing of universal Republican opposition) — which makes them extremely unlikely to get through the Senate.
- This is because Democrats with more moderate ideologies or those representing energy-intensive states are unlikely to support the broader socioeconomic measures and such aggressive moves away from fossil fuels, partly because many of those jobs are represented by unions……..
A more moderate Democrat wins
… like Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar or Michael Bloomberg.
I anticipate these politicians would be (relatively) more open to trying to work with Republicans on climate change than their progressive counterparts……
As Congress talks climate policy, carbon price gets no love
New lobbying urging Congress to support a price on carbon emissions is not convincing lawmakers to warm up to the policy.
Why it matters: A carbon price is widely considered one of the most economically efficient ways to tackle climate change. But, economics be damned, its politics remain deeply unpopular. https://www.axios.com/climate-policy-changes-unlikely-7ecf6cc3-c42c-4d7c-b492-41d73433a015.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
USA desperately pushing the fantasy of Small Nuclear Reactors to India
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“………Ahead of Trump’s recent visit to India, officials of the US Department of Energy were quoted as saying that they are strongly encouraging Westinghouse Corporation to ensure further progress on the nuclear projects already in the pipeline.
Another addition to the nuclear bucket list this time are the Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which the industry has been fervently pushing both within and outside the United States. While US-based corporations have individually attempted to introduce their SMR business in India in recent years, this is the first time these reactors have been formally introduced as part of the official US-India nuclear dialogue. Globally, nuclear lobbies have promoted SMRs as an innovation that will help address the perennial problems of cost, feasibility, environmental impacts, and scalability associated with conventional large reactors.
However, as independent experts in the field suggest, SMRs are an old and discredited idea – a make-believe renaissance after the Fukushima accident thwarted dreams of building massive-sized nuclear power parks across the globe. SMRs are neither cheap nor innovative nor green, as a number of leading experts in the field have pointed out. In particular, SMRs will be disastrous in densely populated countries like India, which already has an electricity surplus, and whose problems in the power sector owe more to its people’s lack of purchasing power, messy regulatory frameworks that do not allow it to take advantage of renewable energy sources despite their increasing efficiency and competitiveness, and the larger questions surrounding its neoliberal growth model. India has also been desperately trying to position itself as an exporter of SMRs, and the reaffirmation of US support for India’s accession to the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) “without any delay” in the joint statement is expected to boost this ambition.
However, much like the other projections made by the Indian nuclear establishment, the pipedream of India becoming a nuclear exporter reflects its postcolonial aspirations of becoming a big player internationally, rather than being grounded in any realism. India does not have much to offer beyond the sub-300MWe capacity Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) that it mastered in the 1970s by reverse engineering the Canada-imported reactors called CANDUs. Invariably these reactors had huge cost and time overruns, and India is now building their larger versions, 700MWe each, at sites such as Gorakhpur, Chutka, and Kaiga. The smaller designs are evidently unattractive for potential SMR buyers for reasons of cost, safety and reliability. However, simply pitching them in the foreign market will bring to India the tag of a major nuclear player, which is enough international recognition for the chest-thumping present regime. Despite the hype that Trump’s recent visit generated – of an upgrade of US-India relations to a ‘Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership’ and so on – there is very little that India stands to gain. In the absence of any new meaningful and people-centric cooperation on trade, environment, education or technology, this nuclear tango will only remain a farcical buildup at the cost of the safety and livelihoods of Indian citizens.
Not long ago, Modi’s own home state of Gujarat had rejected a US-imported nuclear project labeling it unacceptably risk-prone, especially in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima accident. This leaves the Modi government with no moral right to impose the US reactors on people in other parts of the country. Kumar Sundaram is founding editor of DiaNuke.org, an international platform for nuclear-related discussions and campaigns. https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/6/18388/Namaste-Nukes-Trumps-Toxic-Sales-Pitch-for-the-Stalled-Westinghouse-Nuclear-Project-in-India
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Trump’s toxic nuclear sales pitch to India- undermining India’s nuclear liability law
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In a rush to please the Americans, no matter the cost The recently concluded US President’s visit to India was marked by the odious displays of pomposity for which both Modi and Trump are known to have a soft spot. Even as Delhi burned, with deadly riots engineered and unleashed by majoritarian mobs backed by the ruling party, Modi and Trump continued their photo-ops around the Taj Mahal and Gandhi Ashram. What risks being ignored amid this deafening cacophony are crucial issues concerning the US-imported nuclear reactor project in India, to which both the media and civil society have not paid adequate attention, perhaps due to the fact that these nuclear negotiations have been in the pipeline for more than twelve years now and their mention in bilateral summits and statements appears little more than ceremonious. However, there are additional twists to the India-US nuclear story that deserve our attention. To recap, in 2008, in exchange for the American heavy-lifting of the decades-long nuclear embargo that India faced internationally for testing atomic weapons, a massive contract for a 6-unit nuclear power park was signed with the US nuclear giant, Westinghouse. In a reciprocal gesture for this diplomatic favour, India announced the project without any cost-benefit calculation, safety or environmental impact analysis, and in the stark absence of dialogue, negotiations or the consent of the local communities in Kovvada, a site on India’s eastern coast in Andhra Pradesh. Although the Indian government, in a rush to please its American counterpart, has already pushed through land acquisition in Kovvada, bulldozing grassroots dissent and even resolutions passed by democratically elected local bodies, the project has been stalled by a number of other factors, including the global decline of the nuclear industry post-Fukushima, which led Westinghouse to first sell its stakes to Toshiba and then eventually, declare itself bankrupt.
Additionally, certain other India-specific factors have stalled the nuclear power projects which corporations in the US, France and Russia have been eyeing in order to resurrect themselves. Nuclear liability tops the list here – foreign vendors have been wary of the 2010 liability law enacted by the Indian parliament, which they view as overly restrictive, even as civil society activists and safety experts consider the legislation extremely weak. The Indian law provides for a ‘right of recourse’ in Clause 17(b) under which, in case of a future nuclear accident, the nuclear operator can demand liability from the equipment suppliers.
The nuclear industry lobbies have found this provision to be an anathema and the US government has taken the lead in pressuring successive Indian governments to do away with it.
Despite his party’s vociferous criticism of such moves
 by the earlier Singh-led government when in opposition, Modi’s unabashed dalliance with the US has barely remained under wraps – he and Obama jointly declared in 2015 that India would actively take steps to limit liability in the case of a nuclear accident.However, Modi didn’t stop at that. Not only did his government ensure that the liability rules were dubbed ‘ultra vires’ and against the spirit of the law by former Solicitor-General Soli Sorabjee, entered into force in 2016, it also went on to ratify the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) – an international template promoted by the nuclear lobbies to ensure a liability-free market, thereby deliberately creating a contradiction between India’s domestic law and its international commitments. Ever since it assumed power, the Modi government has consistently undermined nuclear liability provisions meant to safeguard the interests of the Indian people.
If the recent utterances of senior officials from the US Department of Energy offer any clues, the American nuclear vendors do not want to settle for anything short of amending the original Nuclear Liability Act – “to be clear, there are still open issues around the liability issue,” the US DoE Assistant Secretary is reported to have said in a Reuters report published last week. As the street protests by indignant survivors of Bhopal’s gas accident during Trump’s recent visit suggest, Indian citizens have had an agonising experience due to the apathy of governments and judicial processes, with the most vulnerable sections having been denied both compensation and justice in the case of the world’s worst industrial disaster. Successive governments in both the US and India have managed to ensure that concerned corporations remain unscathed and that their owners go unpunished.
Neither the routine exhortations of India-US summits being spaces for a rendezvous between two democracies, nor Modi’s much celebrated cleanliness drive, have translated into an open dialogue with the victims of the Bhopal disaster, or the detoxification of the accident site even three decades after the horrific chemical industrial accident.
Trump’s domestic energy policy and budget allocations disproportionately favour the nuclear industry, and exporting American nuclear reactors to developing countries is also a key part of this policy shift. The US under Trump has concluded nuclear deals with the UAE despite massive proliferation concerns………. Despite the hype that Trump’s recent visit generated – of an upgrade of US-India relations to a ‘Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership’ and so on – there is very little that India stands to gain. In the absence of any new meaningful and people-centric cooperation on trade, environment, education or technology, this nuclear tango will only remain a farcical buildup at the cost of the safety and livelihoods of Indian citizens.
Not long ago, Modi’s own home state of Gujarat had rejected a US-imported nuclear project labeling it unacceptably risk-prone, especially in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima accident. This leaves the Modi government with no moral right to impose the US reactors on people in other parts of the country. Kumar Sundaram is founding editor of DiaNuke.org, an international platform for nuclear-related discussions and campaigns. https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/6/18388/Namaste-Nukes-Trumps-Toxic-Sales-Pitch-for-the-Stalled-Westinghouse-Nuclear-Project-in-India |
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Trump is using Yucca Mountain to drum up Republican votes
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The waste problem continues to weigh down nuclear power
Trump is using Yucca Mountain to drum up Republican votes in the 2020 elections, Nevada Democrat says, By Benjamin J. Hulac Roll Call February 26, 2020
The U.S. has more than 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that needs to be disposed, the vast majority of which is so-called spent fuel from commercial reactors, meaning it is no longer efficient for power generation. Generally, all this waste is sitting where it was created: at 76 sites in 35 states. And while the tally of waste is only going to grow, there is no long-term national storage solution, and this month the Trump administration may have put the final nail in the coffin of a long-studied effort to build a permanent repository for high-level waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada…… President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget proposal released this month does not include funding for licensing of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, an abrupt reversal of his administration’s policy. “Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!” Trump tweeted on Feb. 6, four days before the budget proposal was released. “Congress and previous Administrations have long failed to find lasting solutions — my Administration is committed to exploring innovative approaches — I’m confident we can get it done!” The president is using Yucca to drum up Republican votes in the 2020 elections, says Nevada Democratic Rep. Dina Titus. “I think he’s looking at the numbers,” Titus says. “He sees this as a swing issue.”……. There are more than 76 commercial reactors in the U.S. that are idling with spent nuclear fuel on site, NEI says. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 calls for waste to be stored deep in the ground, and amendments to that law bound the Department of Energy to study sites for such a repository in just one place: Yucca Mountain in the Mojave Desert. While the Bush administration greenlighted storage at Yucca, the Obama administration reversed course and established a commission, which, in 2012, called for a “consent-based” process to the problem. …… Nevada’s congressional delegation and governor firmly oppose Yucca……. An interim-storage pilot program worth $22.5 million and sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, held some promise, but it was stripped out of the latest budget deal….. https://www.rollcall.com/2020/02/26/the-waste-problem-continues-to-weigh-down-nuclear-power/ |
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U.S. Pentagon demands $167 billion tax-payer nuclear funding through to 2025
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Pentagon Plan Calls for a $9 Billion Surge in Nuclear Spending by 2025, TIME, BY TONY CAPACCIO / BLOOMBERG, FEBRUARY 26, 2020 The Pentagon’s five-year nuclear weapons plan calls for requesting at least $167 billion through 2025 — building from the $29 billion sought for next year to $38 billion, according to previously undisclosed figures. The commitment includes research, development, procurement, sustainment and operations. It reflects a major boost to an effort started under President Barack Obama to replace aging nuclear systems, such as Minuteman III missiles and command and control systems. It doesn’t include funding for the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which is requesting $19.8 billion for fiscal 2021, including $15.6 billion for nuclear weapons activities. Congressional Democrats have been generally supportive of increased nuclear weapons spending, but Defense Secretary Mark Esper is likely to be questioned about the size and scope of the five-year plan when he testifies Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee. Esper is also likely to face bipartisan opposition from the defense-focused committee on President Donald Trump’s plan to shift $3.8 billion from Pentagon programs to his wall on the Mexican border. The Defense Department’s five-year plan on nuclear programs calls for $29 billion for fiscal 2021, $30 billion in 2022 and $33 billion in 2023, before jumping to $37 billion in 2024 and $38 billion in 2025. The plan includes $25 billion for research and procurement — but not support and operations for — the new Columbia-class intercontinental ballistic missile submarine that begins construction this year, $24 billion for improved nuclear command and control and $23 billion for the Air Force’s B-21 bomber. ….. https://time.com/5790901/pentagon-nuclear-weapons-spending/ |
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USA’s nuclear insurance places the big responsibility on the tax-payer
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The US government insurance scheme for nuclear power plant accidents no longer makes sense, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By Victor Gilinsky, February 26, 2020 The Japan Center for Economic Research, a source sympathetic to nuclear power, recently put the long-term costs of the 2011 Fukushima accident as about $750 billion. Contrast that with the maximum of $13 billion that could be available after a catastrophic US nuclear accident under the plant owners’ self-insurance scheme defined by the Price-Anderson Act. The Act will have to be renewed before 2025; Congress should seize the opportunity not only to reflect on the lack of insurance in the event of a catastrophic accident, but also to reconsider our approach to nuclear power plant safety altogether.
The main public risk of nuclear power plants comes from rare but devastating nuclear accidents. Because data on such accidents is sparse, the probability of their occurrence has to be calculated on the basis of a model, rather than obtained from experience. Moreover, the extent of an accident and its monetary consequences are postulated on the basis of models that are limited by analysts’ imagination. Who would have imagined, for example, that the Fukushima accident would involve several reactors? Or that Japan would subsequently shut down all its other nuclear power plants?………. Curiously, from the chairman on down, the NRC misstates the legal standard for its safety decisions. The NRC and its staff claim their job is to provide “reasonable assurance of adequate protection,” whereas the standard in the Atomic Energy Act is “adequate protection.” Under the law, their job is to provide adequate protection, period. Do the commissioners think the extra cushion of “reasonable assurance” justifies weaker regulation? To return to the Price-Anderson Act: As we’ve seen, a catastrophic accident would render the US self-insurance scheme for nuclear power plants pretty much irrelevant. But the indemnification of all industry participants would remain highly relevant: The industry would be free of any liability for offsite death or damage, whereas the victims would have to go hat in hand to Congress for restitution. This is an enormous subsidy—consider, again, the $750 billion and counting tab for Fukushima—that the federal government provides the nuclear industry, one without which not a single US nuclear power plant would or could operate. Freedom from liability also has had a perverse effect on nuclear safety. Without the liability protection of Price-Anderson, industry incentives to develop nuclear designs safer than light water reactors would surely have been higher. Freedom from liability was put into law in the 1950s to get the US commercial nuclear power industry off the ground. It was meant to be temporary, until industry and insurers got some experience with the new technology. But even as time went on, industrial organizations like General Electric and Westinghouse would not participate in the civilian nuclear program if they risked responsibility for offsite damage from a nuclear plant accident……… What is clear is that the nuclear firms—the largest of which possess an understanding of nuclear safety far beyond that of the public—do not believe the NRC safety conclusions that the risk of a catastrophic nuclear accident is infinitesmal. Nor do they accept that probable risk—probability of an accident times the consequences, were one to occur—as the right measure of risk to their companies. They don’t want to risk their companies, period. If they don’t believe the NRC numbers, why should the rest of us accept them? Why shouldn’t we have the same protection from physical harm that the nuclear industry has from financial liability? And just as the nuclear vendors will not participate on terms that do not include indemnification from the overwhelming cost of a severe accident, so should the public have the analogous power to only accept future nuclear designs that can demonstrate that they preclude offsite harm. And the designs should demonstrate that level of safety in a clear way, based on physical principles, not on complicated probabilistic calculations put forward by interested parties. Such new designs would eliminate the current dilemma of a federal nuclear self-insurance scheme that cannot, as a practical matter, cover the financial consequences to the public of catastrophic nuclear power plant accidents. But how to get there? One of the disincentives is the Price-Anderson Act’s limitations on industry liability for offsite accident consequences. That should get phased out. https://thebulletin.org/2020/02/the-us-government-insurance-scheme-for-nuclear-power-plant-accidents-no-longer-makes-sense/# |
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Hanford’s radioactive underground structures likely to collapse
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Otherwise, the U.S. Department of Energy has concluded the structures on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation could fail and release radioactive contamination, the Tri-City Herald reported Tuesday. “A number of structures are over-stressed and at risk of age-related failure, which could result in a release of contamination with impacts to human health and the environment,” DOE said in a letter last week to the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates nuclear waste at Hanford.
The Hanford site, located near Richland, Washington, for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons. The sprawling site for the past 30 years has been engaged in cleaning up a massive amount of radioactive waste left over from making plutonium. Two of the underground structures, a trench and a tank, are estimated to be contaminated with a combined 170 to 255 pounds of plutonium.
DOE could award a contract for grouting as soon as March, according to the letter. After the partial collapse of a waste storage tunnel at Hanford’s PUREX plant in 2017, DOE and its contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. analyzed other old and contaminated structures to determine if they were at risk of collapsing. They determined that the three below-ground structures at the Plutonium Finishing Plant presented the highest risk. Hanford Challenge, a Seattle-based Hanford watchdog group, does not object to the grouting as a short-term solution, but it should not be a substitute for complete cleanup, said Tom Carpenter, executive director..
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New Mexico’s elected leaders waver on Holtec’s nuclear waste plan
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Congresswoman: Science Should Guide Nuclear Storage Decision, By The Associated Press, Feb. 25, 2020, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A member of New Mexico’s congressional delegation wants to ensure a “sound and robust” scientific review is done before federal regulators decide whether to sign off on plans for a multibillion-dollar temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. U.S. Rep. Xochitl Torres Small in an interview with The Associated Press acknowledged that the growing stockpile of used fuel at commercial reactors around the U.S. is a national problem and that elected leaders need to ensure New Mexico does not pay an unfair price as part of the solution. “My concern is making sure that we’re looking at the science and that we are doing our best to evaluate based on that, not based on economic considerations or based on fear or bias, but based on how do we solve a challenge that is a national challenge,” the Democrat said. While elected leaders in Eddy and Lea counties support the project, it has garnered fierce opposition from nuclear watchdog groups, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other members of the state’s congressional delegation. They are concerned about the state becoming a permanent dump since the federal government is far from having any long-term plan for dealing with the tons of spent fuel building up at nuclear power plants around the nation……. New Jersey-based Holtec International is seeking a 40-year license from federal regulators to build what it has described as a state-of-the-art complex near Carlsbad. The site in southeastern New Mexico is remote and geologically stable, the company has said. Holtec executives also have said the four-layer casks that would hold the spent fuel would be made of thick steel and lead and transported on a designated train with guards and guns. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the process of considering Holtec’s application. It could be next year before a decision is made. Torres Small said the clock is ticking for elected leaders to find a permanent solution as spent fuel is now stored at a variety of dangerous locations scattered across the U.S., including near important waterways. New Mexico already is home to the U.S. government’s only underground repository for Cold War-era waste generated over decades by nuclear research and bomb-making. Some watchdogs are concerned the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could become the final destination for other types of waste as the government prepares to ramp up production of the plutonium cores that serve as triggers for weapons in the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Torres Small couched her support for production of the plutonium coresby saying New Mexico has a long history of bearing a burden when it comes to nuclear development and waste. She said the focus should be on making sure the state and its residents are kept “whole and strong” as national security obligations are met. https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/02/25/business/ap-us-nuclear-waste-new-mexico.html  |
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1 This Month
Read the Public Inquiry Report, the Commissioners’ report, Surrendering Australia: The AUKUS Deception is available to download for free at aukuspublicinquiry.com. Or just watch the replay of the National Press Club Luncheon.
19 November – Webinar – The Reality of Reprocessing
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US & Canada) / 2:00 PM Eastern / 7:00 PM UK / 8:00 PM CET
Register for the Zoom Event Here
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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