HAWAII READYING FOR NUCLEAR ATTACK IN SECRET MEETING TO AVOID PANIC, NewsWeek, BY CHRISTAL HAYESThe state of Hawaii prepped for a nuclear attack in a meeting this week, but wouldn’t allow the public to attend and kicked out a photojournalist who snapped a picture.
Dozens of lawmakers met behind closed doors and talked about how to ready the state for an attack, including planned tests of alarms that would notify people they had 12 to 15 minutes to seek shelter, according to the Honolulu Civil Beat.
The presentation given at the meeting was marked “for official use only” and showed where North Korea could target and how bad the impact would be, Hawaii Representative Gene Ward told the news organization.
Ward added that officials don’t “want to spook any of the public”—which includes 1.4 million residents and 8 million tourists who visit the state annually.
Hawaii has been preparing for an attack for months, as military experts estimate a missile would take 20 minutes to reach the island from North Korea.
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency officials have said the chances of a nuclear attack are still “extremely small,” but the “unpredictable leadership” of North Korea means they should be prepared. They plan to have a public meeting and will start testing the attack alarms in November, but there are no plans to build any fallout shelters……..http://www.newsweek.com/nuclear-hawaii-trump-north-korea-kim-jong-un-669502
The Oscar winner, 42, met with then-president-elect Trump, 71, in December, only to have the POTUS disregard their conversation once he took office.
“We presented him with a comprehensive plan to tackle climate change, while also simultaneously harnessing the economic potential of green jobs,” DiCaprio recalled at the Yale Climate Conference on Tuesday (via The Hartford Courant). “We talked about how the United States has the potential to lead the world in clean-energy manufacturing and research and development.”
Once in office, Trump pledged to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, which regulates greenhouse emissions, and appointed climate change skeptic Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
The moves left staunch environmentalist DiCaprio nonplussed.
“We should not have people in office who do not believe in facts and truths and modern science that are able to manipulate and risk the entire future of this entire generation,” he fumed. “We are at that turning point right now, and we are going to look back at this point in history, and frankly this administration, and certain people are going to be vilified for not taking action. They really are. And it’s up to this generation, it’s up to all of you to get involved and make a difference.”
But in reality, the Trump administration is changing many of the nitty-gritty but vital things the federal government does that affect the quality of life of anyone living or working in the United States. As became clear during Trump’s first 100 days, the administration is systematically dismantling consumer, labor, and environmental protections, as well as de-funding studies that might make the case for new rules. In July it said that it plans to suspend, discontinue, or change 860 rules and regulations, many of which were proposed at the tail-end of Barack Obama’s presidency.
A new onslaught may be on the way. Yesterday (Sept. 21), Trump appointed a new head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC): Dana Baiocco, a lawyer who built her career on defending companies against lawsuits on asbestos deaths and airline crashes. The commission’s former head, Eliot Kaye, had refused to follow an early White House order to eliminate two regulations for every new one passed, because it “would be counter to our safety mission.” If Trump’s past appointees are an indicator, Baiocco, who starts her new job on Oct. 27, is less likely to have such qualms……..
As the changes pile up, we’re keeping track of what’s been rolled back and what seems in danger of being weakened or eliminated. Here are the most important changes so far.
Worker protections…..
Fair wages…….
Health and safety……..
Consumer protections…..
Environmental Protections…….
Polluting the air. In March, Trump repealed Obama’s “Clean Power Plan,” which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants. (He did this after naming coal industry-backed lawyers and talking heads to his cabinet.) The plan was crafted to prevent climate change, but it would also have prevented thousands of premature deaths due to air pollution, the EPA calculated, and prevented 90,000 asthma attacks a year.
Whistleblower helps secure $2 million settlement over contract rigging at Hanford,Thomas Clouse , The Spokesman Review, Sept. 22, 2017 A whistleblower has been paid $470,000 out of a $2 million settlement after successfully challenging what she and government prosecutors say was a shell company at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The subcontractor charged with setting up the shell company, Federal Engineers & Constructors, worked under the huge, three-headed joint venture Washington Closure Hanford (WCH), which between 2005 and 2016 received a multibillion-dollar contract from the U.S. Department of Energy to operate the site. The contract paid for cleanup following decades of plutonium production.
WCH was comprised of engineering powerhouses AECOM, Bechtel National and CH2M Hill, which were required as part of the contract to funnel a percentage of those funds to small, disadvantaged and women-owned businesses.
In 2009, Federal Engineers & Constructors awarded a $2 million contract to Sage Tec. Sage Tec, however, was owned by Laura Shikashio – the wife of former company vice president Larry Burdge. “Ms. Shikashio knowingly misrepresented Sage Tec to be a qualified disadvantaged small business in order to be eligible for” the contract, court records state.
Federal prosecutors wrote that Sage Tec should not have received the contract and instead “was a pass-through front company for FE&C, which performed substantially all of the work on WCH’s improperly awarded subcontracts,” court records state………
Scana Plunges to Lowest in Almost Two Years on Criminal Probe, Bloomberg, By
Mark Chediak,
Scana received federal subpoena related to canceled reactors
Utility faces questions on how much customers will be billed
Scana Corp. slid to the lowest level in almost two years as the U.S. began a criminal investigation into the $21 billion nuclear power project in South Carolina that the utility owner abandoned two months ago.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in South Carolina is carrying out a grand jury probe that involves agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a Sept. 7 subpoena disclosed on Friday by Scana’s partner on the nuclear project, Santee Cooper, shows. The government asked for copies of correspondence, notes and reports related to the V.C. Summer nuclear plant, including a study engineering firm Bechtel Corp. drafted last year suggesting Scana was aware of challenges plaguing the project since early last year.
Scana declined on Friday to release the subpoena it had received or comment on the one Santee Cooper disclosed. Shares of the utility owner were down as much as 3.2 percent at $55.33 as of 2:46 p.m. New York time, the lowest since October 2015.
The federal probe and intensifying backlash from South Carolina legislators doesn’t bode well for Scana as the utility owner seeks to recoup billions of dollars it spent on the project from South Carolina’s utility customers. The company’s battle to recover costs may become a flash point in the debate over who should pay for nuclear power projects that have failed to be built across the U.S. in the past decade…….https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-22/a-failed-21-billion-u-s-nuclear-project-still-haunting-scana
America’s ‘doomsday’ plane will be Donald Trump’s HQ if nuclear war breaks out with North Korea, news.com.au , 21 Sept 17 TAKE a look on board the “doomsday” plane which will protect Donald Trump’s team if nuclear war becomes a reality. THESE incredible photos reveal the inner workings of the ‘Doomsday’ planes — America’s secretive set of jets designed to wage nuclear war from the skies.
The specially-designed aircraft follow President Donald Trump wherever he travels in Air Force One in case nuclear war erupts, reports The Sun.
Known officially as National Airborne Operation Centres, they allow US leaders and wartime hawks to issue directives and wage war from the sky.
The Boeing E-4Bs costs around $A311 million each to create and $A201,000 per hour to operate.
They also feature a vast array of defence mechanisms, including the ability to withstand electromagnetic pulses.
The jets’ crews also use traditional analog flight instruments to navigate as they are less susceptible to cyber attack.
Donald Trump threatens to ‘totally destroy’ North Korea in UN speech
President castigates ‘a small group of rogue regimes’
Iran nuclear deal ‘an embarrassment to the United States’, Guardian, Julian Borger 20 Sept 17, Donald Trump has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, in a bellicose first address to the United Nations general assembly in which he lashed out at a litany of US adversaries and called on “righteous” countries to confront them.
The speech was greeted in the UN chamber mostly with silence and occasional outbreaks of disapproving murmurs, as Trump castigated a succession of hostile regimes.
“If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph,” the president said.
He first singled out North Korea, recounting its history of kidnapping, oppression, and missile and nuclear tests.
“The US has great strength and patience,” Trump said. But he added: “If it is forced to defend ourselves or our allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”
As alarmed murmurs spread around the hall, Trump had another barb. Using his newly adopted epithet for Kim Jong-un, Trump said: “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”……….
Trump said the Iran nuclear deal, signed by the US under the Obama administration with five other countries two years ago, was “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into”.
“Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States,” he said. “I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it – believe me.”
Trump must decide by 15 October on whether to certify Iranian compliance or not. His threatened withdrawal of presidential endorsement could lead to Congress reimposing nuclear-related sanctions and the collapse of the agreement.
Like much of the 41-minute speech, Trump’s reference to the Iran deal was met by stony silence. The deal is overwhelmingly supported by UN member states, including most of Washington’s closest allies……..
Trump is also almost entirely isolated on climate change. Unlike the other opening speakers, including the UN secretary general, António Guterres, Trump made no mention in his speech of an issue that most other leaders in the chamber consider to be the greatest threat to the world.
When his turn to speak came, Macron insisted that though the Paris climate accord, which Trump said he would leave, could be improved, “it will not be renegotiated”. He said he “profoundly respected” the US decision but said “the door will always be open to them”.
Kushner, Bannon, Flynn Pushed Huge Nuclear Power Deal In Middle East For Profit, In Secrethttps://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/16/1699095/-Kushner-Bannon-Flynn-Pushed-Huge-Nuclear-Power-Deal-In-Middle-East-For-Profit-In-Secret, By ursulafaw Sep 17, 2017 It’s no wonder that Mike Flynn asked the House and the Senate for immunity and has refused to voluntarily testify before the Senate twice, the last time being Tuesday. On Wednesday Democrats in the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committee reported that Flynn failed to disclose that he worked for oil companies and had attended a meeting on their behalf promoting a U.S.-Russian Saudi financed program to build nuclear reactors in the Arab world. This took place in 2015 and it is one of the meetings that Mike Flynn failed to disclose on his security clearance application.
He also failed to disclose the $25,000 he was paid for his services and all this information was forwarded by Democrats on to Robert Mueller to decide whether it’s a prosecutable offense, according to Rachel Maddow. Last night Maddow interviewed Anthony Cormier, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist working for BuzzFeed, who also yesterday broke a story about another meeting that Mike Flynn conveniently forgot, a meeting he took with Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon January 5 with the King of Jordan. Both Kushner and Flynn left that meeting off their security clearance applications and details of Bannon’s application are as yet unknown.
This is smoking hot. The Wall Street Journal says Flynn’s disclosure forms “indicate that [his] year-and-a-half work on the project ended in December 2016, but Mr. Flynn in fact remained involved in the project once he joined the Trump administration in January, discussing the plan and directing his National Security Council staff to meet with the companies involved, the former staffers said.” BuzzFeed:
The meeting — details of which have never been reported — is the latest in a series of secret, high-stakes contacts between Trump advisers and foreign governments that have raised concerns about how, in particular, Flynn and senior adviser Jared Kushner handled their personal business interests as they entered key positions of power. And the nuclear project raised additional security concerns about expanding nuclear technology in a tinderbox region of the world. One expert compared it to providing “a nuclear weapons starter kit.”
On the morning of Jan. 5, Flynn, Kushner, and former chief strategist Steve Bannon greeted King Abdullah II at the Four Seasons hotel in lower Manhattan, then took off in a fleet of SUVs and a sedan to a different location. […]
While it is not unusual for an incoming administration to meet with foreign dignitaries during the transition, Trump surrogates have repeatedly failed to acknowledge these contacts. Attorney General Jeff Sessions at first said he did not discuss campaign matters with Russian officials, only to later acknowledge at least two conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The United Arab Emirates set up a meeting between a military contractor close to the Trump administration and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin. And this week, CNN reported that Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, visited with Flynn, Kushner, and Bannon without alerting the American government beforehand.
The meeting with the king of Jordan had extremely high stakes: a discussion with the head of a key American ally that might have included plans about spreading nuclear power to one of the world’s least stable regions, possibly with the help of one of America’s main geopolitical enemies, Russia. The revelation of the meeting comes as Abdullah plans to visit the United States next week and speak with Trump.
If this sounds like the kind of thing that’s going to keep you up at night, you’re not alone. “Any proposal to introduce dozens of nuclear reactors to the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, raises many proliferation red flags,” the Arms Control Association’s Daryl Kimball told BuzzFeed. “The Saudis do not need nuclear power and them gaining access could lead to dangerous consequences down the road.” Giving a country nuclear energy capacity, as the Marshall Plan would, “is like giving a country a nuclear weapons starter kit,” the nonprofit Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation’s Alexandra Bell said.
On the bright side, Flynn, Bannon, and Kushner are completely transparent, highly qualified people who we can definitely trust with national security.
And don’t forget, Kushner and Bannon both still work for the White House. Sweet dreams.
The flurry of military drills came after Pyongyang fired another mid-range ballistic missile over Japan on Friday and the reclusive North conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 in defiance of United Nations sanctions and other international pressure.
A pair of U.S. B-1B bombers and four F-35 jets flew from Guam and Japan and joined four South Korean F-15K fighters in the latest drill, South Korea’s defense ministry said.
The joint drills were being conducted “two to three times a month these days”, Defence Minister Song Young-moo told a parliamentary hearing on Monday.
In Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency said China and Russia began naval drills off the Russian far eastern port of Vladivostok, not far from the Russia-North Korea border. Those drills were being conducted between Peter the Great Bay, near Vladivostok, and the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, to the north of Japan, it said.
The drills are the second part of China-Russian naval exercises this year, the first part of which was staged in the Baltic in July. Xinhua did not directly link the drills to current tension over North Korea.
China and Russia have repeatedly called for a peaceful solution and talks to resolve the issue.
On Sunday, however, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the U.N. Security Council had run out of options on containing North Korea’s nuclear program and the United States might have to turn the matter over to the Pentagon.
De Smog Blog, By Itai Vardi September 19, 2017 President Trump’s nominee to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has, as a corporate attorney, personally represented a host of energy and utility companies, many of which do business that is directly impacted by FERC’s decisionmaking. According to Kevin McIntyre’s financial disclosure — obtained by DeSmog and published here for the first time — these include major utilities, fracking companies, pipeline builders, and international energy corporations.
McIntyre is a lawyer who co-leads the global energy practice for the legal and lobbying firm Jones Day, and is currently awaiting final Senate confirmation of his appointment to the nation’s top energy regulatory body. That confirmation may come as soon as this week.
McIntyre’s financial disclosure, submitted recently to the Office of Government Ethics, reveals that in the past two years alone he has represented various energy and utility companies. Some of these companies are regulated by FERC or have projects seeking FERC approval.
The list includes the following entities:
Ameren Corporation, a St. Louis, Missouri-based utility and power generation company. Ameren delivers electricity and distributes gas to over 1 million customers in Missouri and Illinois. The company owns several power-generating plants running on coal, gas, and oil. It also operates nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewable facilities.
American Electric Power Service Corporation (AEP), a large Columbus, Ohio-based electric utility supplying customers throughout the Midwest and Southwest US. The company owns about 60 power generating facilities, of which coal-fueled plants account for approximately 47 percent of AEP’s generating capacity, while natural gas represents 27 percent and nuclear 7 percent.
Lakeside Energy LLC, a Chicago-based energy holding firm that targets independent power generating and renewables industries.
Navajo Transitional Energy Company, a Farmington, New Mexico-based coal mining company owned by the Navajo Nation. The company supplies coal to the nearby Four Corners power plant.
SCANA Corporation, a Cayce, South Carolina-based energy holding company engaged primarily in electric and gas utility operations in the Carolinas and Georgia. The company also owns nuclear, hydroelectric, coal, and renewable power generating facilities.
TECO, a Tampa-based electric and gas utility providing services to customers in Florida and New Mexico. TECO is a subsidirary of Canadian energy and services giant Emera, which owns $29 billion in assets in North America and the Caribbean.
Traverse Midstream Partners, an Edmond, Oklahoma-based pipeline company with stakes in the Rover pipeline and Ohio River System pipeline. In both pipelines, Traverse partners with Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline.
Ascent Resources, an Oklahoma City-based oil and gas exploration and production company that focuses on fracking in the Utica and Marcellus shales in Ohio and West Virginia.
Enable Midstream Partners, an Oklahoma City-based oil and gas gathering, processing, and transmitting company with operations in Oklahoma and Arkansas. One of Enable’s current proposed pipeline projects, the Central Arkansas Pipeline Expansion (CAPE), will require FERC approval.
EDF Energy Services LLC, a Houston-based subsidiary of French utility EDF, the company provides electricity, natural gas products and services to large-scale, energy-intensive commercial and industrial consumers in the US and Canada.
PT. Xintia Indonesia, an Indonesian company providing drilling equipment and services to the oil and gas industry.
SOCAR Trading S.A., a Geneva Switzerland-based company which is the marketing and development subsidiary of SOCAR, the state oil company of Azerbaijan. SOCAR Trading markets the bulk of Azeri crude exports.
Total Petrochemical & Refining USA, Inc., a Houston-based subsidiary of French oil and gas major Total involved in the production of various petrochemical materials with facilities in Texas and Louisiana.
Iberdrola Renovables Mexico S.A. de C.V., a Mexican subsidiary of Spanish electric utility giant Iberdrola, focusing on renewable energy investments in Mexico.
Concern Over Industry Ties
After a number of resignations and term expirations, as of this past June the FERC‘s bench had dwindled down to one single commissioner. The Trump administration has nominated four new candidates to restore the quorum needed for FERC to make key decisions.
Industry representatives lauded the reestablishment of a quorum on the commission, which can now approve the logjam of pending energy projects.
Critics, however, have sounded the alarm about some of the new appointees’ industry ties. Protesters with the group Beyond Extreme Energy had disrupted two Senate confirmation hearings in recent months.
They’ve pointed out that the newest FERC appointees Neil Chatterjee and Rob Powelson have ties to fossil fuel companies and utilities. While Chatterjee previously worked as an energy policy advisor to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Powelson developed a close relationship with the industry as a state utilities regulator.
Kevin McIntyre’s financial disclosure adds fuel to these concerns. McIntyre did not respond to a request for comment.
Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the government watchdog group Public Citizen, says the disclosure is cause for further concern. “I do think FERC has had problems of not accommodating the public interest as much as is spelled out in its statutory requirements,” Slocum says. “And McIntyre’s list of clients does not appear to include public interest clients, whereas today there is much opportunity for lawyers to represents such clients as well.”
Slocum adds that as co-lead of Jones Day’s energy practice, McIntyre is probably privy to other kinds of key information about energy clients, beyond those entities listed as the ones he personally represented at the firm.
“This complicates the question of potential conflicts beyond the list he provided in the disclosure since there’s uncertainty as to that kind of information he may hold,” Slocum says.
Senate Passes Defense Bill That Would Bolster Nuclear Weapons Programs TruthOut September 19, 2017By Mike Ludwig, Truthout The Senate approved a massive defense policy bill by a vote of 89 to 9 on Monday that is raising concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation amid rising tensions between the United States and countries such as North Korea and Russia.
The Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual piece of “must-pass” legislation that shapes dozens of policies at the Pentagon, would authorize $640 billion in discretionary defense spending and an additional $60 billion for overseas military operations, such as the ongoing war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
What’s the value of $700 billion? It’s more than twice the size of Denmark’s entire economy, and the same amount of money that the government spent bailing out banks during the financial collapse in 2008. Both the Senate and House versions of the bill name amounts that exceed President Trump’s request for military funding by tens of billions of dollars.
The numbers put forth in the defense authorization bill set the bar for future defense spending legislation and policy determinations. As an authorization bill, this legislation does not actually permit the expenditure of those funds; an appropriations bill is needed for that.
The bill authorizes billions of dollars for nuclear weapons and nonproliferation programs, including $65 million for developing a cruise missile that nonproliferation groups fear could derail the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a landmark nuclear treaty between the US and Russia.
Critics say increasing spending on the US nuclear arsenal could trigger other countries to invest in their own capabilities and add to the number of highly destructive weapons on the planet.
“We [are] already investing in nuclear weapons to a tune of about $20 million a year, so we really have to ask ourselves what the point of an increased investment would be, considering these are weapons that should never be used,” said Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project, a group that tracks military spending, in an interview with Truthout.
The US has accused Russia of violating the INF Treaty by developing and fielding a land-based cruise missile with nuclear capabilities, a charge Russia has denied. The Senate’s version of NDAA authorizes research and development of a mid-range, road-mobile cruise missile system that could carry a nuclear warhead, similar to the missile Russia allegedly developed.
The Senate Armed Services Committee claims that the money could only be used for research and development of the missile, not testing and deployment, so it would not violate the treaty in the way that Russia allegedly has. Rather, the committee says, it would close a “capability” gap opened by Russia.
However, developing such a weapon would suck money away from nonproliferation programs while sowing divisions within NATO and giving Russia an excuse to reject the treaty and deploy large numbers of noncompliant missiles without constraint, according to the Arms Control Association.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) added an amendment to the bill that requires the defense secretary to submit a report to Congress on the rationale and strategic implications for developing such a weapon before the $65 million can be spent. Warren also included an amendment asking the Department of Defense to consider existing treaty obligations in an upcoming Nuclear Posture Review. The House rejected similar measures offered by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon).
The House version of the bill provides $25 million to develop conventional (non-nuclear) land-based cruise missiles and requires the president to submit a report on Russian compliance with the INF treaty within 15 months. If Russia is determined to be out of compliance, the treaty would no longer bind the US, effectively dissolving a decades-old nonproliferation agreement between the two countries that control about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.
The House bill would also block funding for extending the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a nuclear nonproliferation agreement considered a bright spot in US-Russia relations, unless Russia returns to compliance with the INF Treaty.
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) added an amendment to the bill that requires the defense secretary to submit a report to Congress on the rationale and strategic implications for developing such a weapon before the $65 million can be spent. Warren also included an amendment asking the Department of Defense to consider existing treaty obligations in an upcoming Nuclear Posture Review. The House rejected similar measures offered by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon).
The House version of the bill provides $25 million to develop conventional (non-nuclear) land-based cruise missiles and requires the president to submit a report on Russian compliance with the INF treaty within 15 months. If Russia is determined to be out of compliance, the treaty would no longer bind the US, effectively dissolving a decades-old nonproliferation agreement between the two countries that control about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.
The House bill would also block funding for extending the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, a nuclear nonproliferation agreement considered a bright spot in US-Russia relations, unless Russia returns to compliance with the INF Treaty…….
The US defense budget easily dwarfs that of any other country on the planet, and the NDAA would authorize an annual budget for the Pentagon that is even larger than the ones it received during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon already receives more than half of federal discretionary spending, but if Congress were to honor the White House’s requests for domestic cuts, the portion of the discretionary budget that is earmarked for defense could top 68 percent.
However, since the bill does not actually appropriate any money, Congress faces difficult budget negotiations going forward. Democrats typically use defense spending as leverage to maintain or increase funding for domestic programs. If the funding levels specified in the NDAA were to be approved, a 2011 law that placed limits on military spending would need to be lifted or otherwise circumvented, because the bill outlines spending that would easily exceeds those limits.http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41984-senate-passes-defense-bill-that-would-bolster-nuclear-weapons-programs
World Leaders Urge Trump Not To Pull Out Of Iran Nuclear Pact, NPR September 21, 20177: Heard on Morning Edition Mary Louise Kelly talks to former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who warns if President Trump pulls out of the deal, it will alienate allies, and Iran may restart its nuclear program.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:President Trump says he has made up his mind what to do about the Iran nuclear deal. He wouldn’t tell reporters what he’s decided, but he’s made no secret in past of how he feels about Iran and in particular how he feels about the nuclear deal reached in 2015 under Barack Obama
………KELLY: What would be the consequences of the U.S. exiting the nuclear deal?
RHODES: Well, we would be totally isolated from the rest of the world including our closest allies. The constraints on Iran’s nuclear program would no longer be enshrined in a deal. And essentially Iran could restart its nuclear program, precipitating a second nuclear crisis in the Middle East to the one we have with North Korea, and we could be left with the decision, the United States, as to whether to allow Iran to go forward with its nuclear program or to start another war in the Middle East. And we thought this was the best way to prevent a nuclear weapon and to prevent another war………
The judgment of the U.S. intelligence community, the IAEA, the monitoring mechanism, our closest allies, even the Trump administration itself has certified twice that Iran is complying with this deal. That is a matter of fact. It’s not a subjective matter. And so therefore to be threatening to decertify Iranian compliance, as President Trump has done, flies in the face of the facts and, frankly, alienates us from our closest European allies and, frankly, gives international opinion – pushes it in the direction of Iran, which is exactly what we don’t want……..
KELLY: One quick development – one development to quickly ask you about, which is this. Some news organizations are reporting today that President Trump may decide to throw the matter to Congress, let Congress decide whether to reimpose sanctions. Is that a good idea? Is that one way forward?RHODES: No. I – you know, I think that creates some degree of chaos. If he doesn’t certify, the matter does go to Congress. And the fact of the matter is you’ll have the rest of the world wondering where the United States is on this question. And I think that’s a very dangerous thing, especially when he’s trying to deal with the same countries, Iran – with Russia and China to deal with North Korea. He should be – focus his attention on North Korea now, not creating a second crisis with Iran………http://www.npr.org/2017/09/21/552548128/world-leaders-urge-trump-not-to-pull-out-of-iran-nuclear-pac
FT 17th Sept 2017, Westinghouse will emerge from bankruptcy protection “very soon” but its
future ownership remains shrouded in doubt as Toshiba mulls a potential
sale of its US nuclear business. José Gutiérrez, chief executive of
Westinghouse, said the company “was in a much better situation” than
many people imagined and hoped to emerge from the US Chapter 11 process
once a restructuring plan was agreed “in the next few months”.
However, he acknowledged that Toshiba must first decide what it wants to do with the
company, with options including a sale of the whole business or parts of
it. Toshiba has said it is “actively considering” a sale of
Westinghouse as it battles to prevent the business from dragging down the
rest of the Japanese conglomerate.
Analysts say political barriers will narrow down an already limited field of potential buyers, with Chinese and
Russian companies almost certainly unacceptable to Washington. Europe’s
biggest nuclear companies, Areva and EDF of France, are facing their own
financial turmoil and competitors such as General Electric in the US,
Hitachi in Japan and Kepco in South Korea are not rushing to rescue their
rival. https://www.ft.com/content/a9bb6e08-9a19-11e7-b83c-9588e51488a0
A conservative-leaning court just issued a surprise ruling on climate change and coal mining
In a rebuke to Trump, the federal court said greenhouse gas emissions need to be considered in lease approvals. Vox by Umair IrfanLate last week, a federal court knocked down plans to expand coal mining in the Western US, adding to a growing body of rulings against the Trump administration’s efforts to push climate change off the agenda.
The surprising decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, which has jurisdiction in Colorado, Kansas, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, told the Bureau of Land Management to redo its math on greenhouse gas emissions from coal leases and sent the approval of these leases back to a lower court.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, federal agencies have to consider how a given proposal both affects climate change and is affected by climate change.
The 10th Circuit is the highest court to rule on climate change accounting so far, and its opinion undercuts President Donald Trump’s efforts to resuscitate the dying US coal industry.
“It’s reaffirming what a lot of people already knew: Government has to take a hard look at what their environmental impacts are,” said Sam Kalen, a law professor at the University of Wyoming. “Cases like this are sending signal that regardless of what the administration wants to do, the law says you have to take a look at these issues.”
In March, President Trump lifted President Barack Obama’s moratorium on coal leasing and stopped a comprehensive review of federal coal policy, with the goal of spurring more coal mining.
At issue are four proposed leases in the Powder River Basin, a 14-million-acre region spanning Wyoming and Montana containing 40 percent of US coal deposits and responsible for 13 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Sierra Club, one of the groups joining the lawsuit against BLM………
With tensions growing, people have looked into bunkers, a concept that dates to federal government directives from early in the Cold War. On its website, the Department of Homeland Security says that “shielding” is among the factors that a person can use to protect him or herself from the radiation or fallout from a nuclear blast, and that “taking shelter during a nuclear blast is absolutely necessary.” The agency identifies two types of shelters: blast shelters, which protect against initial radiation, heat and fire, and fallout shelters, with thick walls and a roof that can absorb the radiation from fallout particles. “The heavier and denser the materials—thick walls, concrete, bricks, books and earth—between you and the fallout particles, the better,” the guidance says.
Ron Hubbard, president of the California-based company Atlas Survival Shelters, told the Miami Herald in August that he expects to sell 1,000 shelters by the end of 2017 and that he plans to open a new 400,000-square-foot plant in Dallas. “We are back in the 1960s again,” he said. The company also told Fox Business Network that in 30 days it sold more than 30 shelters, more than it would have sold all year six years ago. The company sells different types of shelters, from ones made of corrugated pipe to hardened concrete bunkers.
Another manufacturer, Gary Lynch, of the Texas-based Rising S Bunkers, told the Miami Herald in August that the company had sold 67 shelters so far in 2017, compared with nine in all of 2016. That company’s shelters range from $39,500 to $8.4 million. The most expensive one, called the Aristocrat Luxury Bunker, sleeps more than 50 and has a sauna, a swimming pool and hot tub, a game room with billiard tables, a bowling alley, a movie theater and a gun range.
A similar trend in bunkers is happening in Japan, which is also facing the threat from North Korea, Bloomberg Businessweekreported in July. The Japanese are importing shelters from companies in the U.S. and Israel.
“It does seem that there are some very significant investments that are going into this,” Jeff Schlegelmilch, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, tells Newsweek. “Certainly there are investors who are making pretty large bets that this is a market that is going to grow.” As for their effectiveness, he adds, “it depends on who’s building them and how well they’re building them…. I suspect there’s a little bit of you-get-what-you-pay for.”
For people in urban areas such as New York City who don’t have access to underground areas to build shelters, companies such as Gaffco Ballistics build safe rooms with “bio-defense” capabilities. Tom Gaffney, CEO of that company, tells Newsweek that trend dates back six or seven years. Such rooms contain air-filtration systems that can “offer protection from the effects of nuclear, chemical and biological gases for an extended period of time,” according to the Gaffco Ballistics website. People inside those safe rooms can monitor in real time the contamination levels of the air outside. Gaffney estimates that he’s received a 20 to 30 percent increase in calls and emails since May or June.
Some of the interest predates the recent tensions with North Korea. In 2014, the Ventura County Health Care Agency in California posted a video online containing “steps you and your family should take to protect yourselves in the event of a nuclear explosion.” Schlegelmilch says that over the past one or two decades people have expressed interest in such shelters to deal not only with nuclear threats, but also biological ones.
“There’s more of an awareness out there,” says Gaffney of Gaffco Ballistics.
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