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Biden ‘very proud’ of expanding NATO to Russia’s borders

 https://www.rt.com/news/595718-biden-proud-nato-expansion/ 12 Apr 24

The US leader believes it would be a “disaster” if the bloc were to break up

US President Joe Biden has hailed NATO’s further expansion toward Russia’s borders, while accusing Republican rival Donald Trump of undermining the unity of the American-led military bloc.

Russia has for years voiced concern about NATO’s creeping encroachment, viewing its policies as an existential threat. However, in an interview with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision that aired on Tuesday, Biden touted the recent addition of Finland and Sweden to the bloc’s ranks amid the Ukraine conflict as a great achievement.

“We’ve done something that I was very proud of. I’ve engaged with NATO for my whole career. We were able to expand NATO, and we have 2,000 miles of border because you have two Nordic nations having joined NATO. You have a whole range of NATO countries along the Russian border,” the US president said.

Biden went on to argue that a stalemate in Congress over his $61 billion military aid package for Kiev is “very dangerous” for the bloc’s unity, accusing his former US leader Trump of virtually holding the measure – and the entire Republican party – hostage.

“Trump runs that party. He maintains a sort of a death grip on it. Everybody’s afraid to take him on whether they agree with him or not, and it’s incredibly dangerous. The last thing we need is to see NATO start to break apart. It would be a disaster for the United States, a disaster for Europe, a disaster for the world,” Biden said.

The US has provided Ukraine with over $113 billion in various forms of assistance since the start of hostilities with Russia. Moscow has repeatedly condemned foreign arms shipments to Kiev, arguing they will only prolong the conflict, while making the West a direct participant in the hostilities.

Finland shares a 1,300km border with Russia, and Moscow has argued that NATO membership has threatened, not guaranteed, Finnish security. After Helsinki joined the alliance last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the creation of a new military district bordering the Nordic nation. Sweden joined the bloc last month.

Putin has warned for nearly two decades that NATO’s policies undermine Russian national security, but a real “red line” for Moscow would be an attempt to move the bloc’s forces into Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine is an “existential” one for Moscow and a “matter of life and death,” Putin said in February, while for the West it is simply a matter of “improving its tactical positions.”

April 14, 2024 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Flicker of Hope: Biden’s Throwaway Lines on Assange

April 12, 2024 by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/flicker-of-hope-bidens-throwaway-lines-on-assange/

Walking stiffly, largely distracted, and struggling to focus on the bare essentials, US President Joe Biden was keeping company with his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, when asked the question. It concerned what he was doing regarding Australia’s request that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be returned to Australia.

Assange, who has spent five tormenting years in Belmarsh Prison in London, is battling extradition to the US on 18 charges, 17 tenuously and dangerously based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.

The words that followed from the near mummified defender of the Free World were short, yet bright enough for the publisher’s supporters. “We’re considering it.” No details were supplied.

To these barest of crumbs came this reaction from from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on ABC’s News Breakfast: “We have raised on behalf of Mr Assange, Australia’s national interest, that enough is enough, that this needs to be brought to a conclusion, and we’ve raised it at each level of government in every possible way.” When pressed on whether this was merely an afterthought from the president, Albanese responded with the usual acknowledgments: the case was complex, and responsibility lay with the US Department of Justice.

One of Assange’s lawyers, the relentless Jennifer Robinson, told Sky News Australia of her encouragement at Biden’s “response, this is what we have been asking for over five years. Since 2010 we’ve been saying this is a dangerous precedent that’s being set. So, we certainly hope it was a serious remark and the US will act on it.” Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, also told Sky News that the statement was significant while WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson thought the utterance “extraordinary”, cautiously hoping “to see in the coming days” whether “clarification of what this means” would be offered by “those in power” and the press corps.

The campaign to free Assange has burgeoned with admirable ferocity. The transformation of the WikiLeaks founder from eccentric, renegade cyber thief deserving punishment to prosecuted and persecuted scribbler and political prisoner has been astonishing.

The boggling legal process has also been shown up as woefully inadequate and scandalous, a form of long-term torture via judicial torment and deprivation. The current ludicrous pitstop entails waiting for a UK Court of Appeal decision as to whether Assange will be granted leave for a full reconsideration of his case, including the merits of the extradition order itself.

The March 26 Court of Appeal decision refused to entertain the glaringly obvious features of the case: that Assange is being prosecuted for his political views, that due process is bound to be denied in a country whose authorities have contemplated his abduction and murder, and that he risks being sentenced for conduct he is not charged with “based on evidence he will not see and which may have been unlawfully obtained.” The refusal to entertain such material as the Yahoo News article from September 2021 outlining the views of intelligence officials on kidnapping and assassination options again cast the entire affair in a poor light.

Even if Assange is granted a full hearing, it is not clear whether the court will go so far as to accept the arguments. The judges have already nobbled the case by offering US prosecutors the chance to offer undertakings, none of which would or could be binding on the DOJ or any US judge hearing the case. Extradition, in other words, is likely to be approved if Assange is “permitted to rely on the First Amendment”, “is not prejudiced at trial (including sentence) by reason of his nationality” and that he “is afforded the same First Amendment protection as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty not be imposed.” These conditions, on the face of it, look absurd in their naïve presumption.

Whether Biden’s latest casual spray lends any credibility to a change of heart remains to be seen. In December 2010, when Vice President in the Obama administration, Biden described Assange as a “high-tech terrorist” for disclosing State Department cables. He failed to identify any parallels with previous cases of disclosures such as the Pentagon papers.

Craig Murray, former British diplomat and Assange confidant, adds a note of cautious sobriety to the recent offering from the president: “I’m not going to get too hopeful immediately on a few words out of the mouth of Biden, because there has been no previous indication, nothing from the Justice Department so far to indicate any easing up.”

For all that, it may well be that the current administration, facing a relentless publicity campaign from human rights organisations, newspapers, legal and medical professionals, not to mention pressure from both his own party in Congress and Republicans, is finally yielding. Caution, however, is the order of the day, and nothing should be read or considered in earnest till signatures are inked and dried. We are quite a way off from that.

April 13, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

The Mutually Reinforcing U.S. and Israeli Empires

By Ralph Nader, April 5, 2024,  https://nader.org/2024/04/05/the-mutually-reinforcing-u-s-and-israeli-empires/

The U.S. government’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s annihilation of Gaza – torrents of heavy weaponry, diplomatic and political cover, and vast majorities in Congress swearing fealty to Netanyahu’s extremist regime – is usually attributed to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the powerful domestic pro-Israeli government lobby, organized in every Congressional District, with its abundant campaign cash and its many personal contacts in Congress and the Executive Branch.

This is only a partial explanation of the US-Israel alliance. A far more formidably entrenched factor is that Israel and the U.S. have overlapping Empires – one in the Middle East and the other globally – with deep common purposes. Here are some examples of how these empires operate in tandem.

Both Empires violate international laws with impunity. The U.S. sends special forces, drones, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, anywhere and anytime it wants – especially the case of Iraq and Afghanistan. National boundaries and sovereignty mean nothing. Similarly, Israel completely dominates the Middle East militarily, bombing, sabotaging, and killing whomever it wants in neighboring countries. It has attacked Lebanon and Syria routinely with its air force, artillery, and invaded Lebanon on the ground, prompting feeble responses it always labels “terrorism.”

Both Empires consider every military operation defensive. They say they never conduct offensive attacks, but when they do, they invariably describe them as self-defense. Israel slaughters Palestinians decade after decade in the Palestinian territories while claiming self-defense. With the second most modern military in the world, backed by the U.S., Israel invades, engages in nightly destruction of Palestinian homes, seizes Palestinian land and water for their colonies, imprisons thousands without charges, including women and children, inflicts collective punishment, operates many checkpoints and imposes embargoes, sieges and blockades. All of these unlawful actions are claimed to be taken in the name of self-defense.

The U.S. has 750 military bases in over 80 countries, 26 military installations in the Middle East, runs the provocative NATO military alliance, and digs into the South China Sea. All this is also claimed to be done in the name of self-defense.

Both Empires have collaborating military-industrial complexes and are major arms exporters. As the chief innovator in weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. and its companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing welcome feedback from the Israeli military on how their weapons fare in its attacks. Palestine has become a major testing ground for the most super-modern surveillance technology. (Check out the book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World by Antony Loewenstein, 2023).

Both Empires wield “force projection” as atomic bomb powers, though Israel refuses to join the non-proliferation treaty.

Despite their many wars and raids on defenseless populations, both incurred a rare counter-attack (9/11 & October 7) when advance warnings by advisors were ignored (GW Bush and Netanyahu) and military defenses were AWOL. After being attacked, both Empires went berserk and responded with massive killing of civilians by overwhelming invasions.

Both Empires lie repeatedly regarding their tactics and strategies. Recall Rep. Ron Paul’s terse recognition that Bush and Cheney “lied us into invading Iraq.”

Both Empires control the United Nations Security Council with the U.S. veto shielding whatever Israel does. Both occupy or control land that is not theirs, violating international laws.

Both Empires violate their legal duty as occupiers to protect the civilian population’s well-being. Both have restricted humanitarian assistance and critical civilian imports – Israel savagely in Gaza and Palestine, and the U.S. in Iraq under Bill Clinton. Both decline to estimate their aggregate civilian casualties.

Both Empires’ leaders, Biden and Netanyahu, profess to practice their respective religions, though they are violating the basic precepts of both their religions in implementing their violent wars.

Both Empires spend little time pressing for ceasefires, peace negotiations, and the stability of peace treaties. They find such restraints as unacceptable curbs on their freedom to wage war.

Both Empires, contrary to their fundamental juridical documents, in the case of the U.S., our Constitution, operate as elected dictatorships in conducting military and foreign policy. The Congress and the Knesset become supine and surrender to the Executive and, for Israel, the ruling executive coalition. In the U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court has long ruled that no citizens of our country, not even individual members of Congress, “have legal standing to sue” the U.S. government for either initiating illegal wars or engaging in additional illegal tactics like torture or corruption.

To remove the challenges from “We the People” against a lawless government, the Supreme Court has endorsed the “state secrets” doctrine. It authorizes the government to demand the dismissal of constitutional claims, in federal court, based on killings, torture, kidnapping, or otherwise by alleging the defense would require disclosure of national security information.

The Israeli Supreme Court doesn’t worry about the Israeli military machine.

Both Empires have a so-called free mainstream media that mostly toes the Empire party line and knows its permissible place in the overall profit-making power structure. Both have a small independent media that is still able to dissent, however futilely, though the U.S. has no counterpart to the outspoken Israeli newspaper HAARETZ.

There are some differences between the two Empires. Israel attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171, and mostly got away without consequences. (See, The Intercept article: Fifty Years Later, NSA Keeps Details of Israel’s USS Liberty Attack Secret by Miriam Pensack).

Prosperous Israel persuades the U.S. Congress yearly to provide Israel with billions of dollars, mostly for military arms, and is about to get an additional $14.1 billion – the Biden genocide tax on Americans – as Netanyahu’s terror state continues intensifying his Palestinian Holocaust. (The reported casualty toll is lethally undercounted. See the March 5, 2024 column: “Stop the Worsening UNDERCOUNT of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza”).

If Biden’s people privately object to some Israeli off-the-wall slaughter of courageous journalists, United Nations staff, aid workers, patients in hospitals, and the starvation of babies, Netanyahu can softly say to Biden and Blinken, “Joe, Tony, why don’t you take up your complaints with OUR Congress.”

April 12, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. Space Command adopts multipronged approach to prepare for ‘a conflict that has never happened’

April 9, 2024, Sandra Erwin.  https://spacenews.com/u-s-space-command-adopts-multipronged-approach-to-prepare-for-a-conflict-that-has-never-happened/

COLORADO SPRINGS – U.S. Space Command seeks to expand international collaboration by inviting Germany, France and New Zealand to join Operation Olympic Defender. Olympic Defender, a U.S.-led initiative to jointly strengthen defenses and deter hostility, already includes England, Australia and Canada.

“We share intelligence, we plan together and work to ensure space is safe for all,” Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command,­ said April 9 at the 39th Space Symposium here. “We’re working to even improve our integration through improved command and control and planning. I’ve been proud to work alongside Germany, France and New Zealand for many years, and I look forward to their consideration of our invitation to join Operation Olympic Defender.”

Preparing for military operations with U.S. allies and partners is one of U.S. Space Command’s top priorities.  

Other priorities for the Colorado-based organization are making its constellations more resilient, defending them against a growing array of threats, protecting the joint force from space-enabled attack, and conducting tests and training “that convinces us that these capabilities will work in a conflict which has never happened,” Whiting said.

Strategic Competition

As the combatant command responsible for military operations in outer space, U.S. Space Command is closely tracking military moves by China and Russia.

China is rapidly expanding space-based intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities, and building a “range of counterspace weapons from reversible jamming all the way up to kinetic hit-to-kill direct-ascent and co-orbital” anti-satellite weapons, Whiting said.

Russia, meanwhile, “continues to invest in counterspace weapons,” Whiting said. “Russia appears more and more to be relying on asymmetric capabilities like space, cyber and nuclear.”

2027 Deadline

U.S. Space Command is focused on maximizing combat readiness by 2027.

“All of us at U.S. Space Command are laser-focused on improving all of our existing forces and capabilities, so that we can stitch them together seamlessly when called upon,” Whiting said.

U.S. Space Command also intends to draw on commercial space technology.

“Our commercial industry will deliver innovative state-of-the-art capabilities,” Whiting said. “We have to modernize our legacy systems, ensure they all work together seamlessly and deliver new capabilities by 2027 to counter the threats that we now see.”

Beyond 2027

At the same time, U.S. Space Command is eager to adopt technology that is likely to pay off in the longer term.

“It’s time to bring dynamic space operations and on-orbit logistics and infrastructure to the space domain,” Whiting said. “Sustained space maneuver will change how we operate, opening up new tactics, techniques, procedures and operating concepts, and allowing operations until the mission is complete, not until the fuel we launched with runs out.”

With an eye toward future conflict, U.S. Space Command also is expanding its reliance on modeling and simulation.

Whiting announced that Space Command’s Capability Assessment and Validation Environment, a modeling and simulation laboratory known as CAVE, has achieved minimum viable capability.

CAVE “enables us to perform analysis on warfighting, on plans, on campaigning,” Whiting said. Space Command will rely on CAVE to help plan “operations for a war that’s never happened and a war we don’t want to happen. We’ll also use it to figure out our combatant command requirements and gain insights into multi-domain joint-warfighting concepts.”

April 12, 2024 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

St. Louis Residents Seek Compensation for Illnesses Tied to Nuclear Contamination

By Jim Salter | April 8, 2024,  https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2024/04/08/768472.htm

Karen Nickel has been dealing with lupus and other illnesses for years, illnesses she blames on childhood exposure to a suburban St. Louis creek where Cold War-era nuclear waste was dumped decades ago. It’s time, she said Friday, for the federal government to start making amends.

“People have died and are still dying,” Nickel, co-founder of the activist group Just Moms STL, said.

Nickel and others impacted by nuclear waste exposure in the St. Louis region joined Democratic U.S. Rep. Cori Bush at a news conference at a park that sits near long-contaminated Coldwater Creek. They urged renewal of a law initially passed more than three decades ago that would provide an estimated $50 billion to compensate Americans exposed to radiation by the government.

Last month, the Senate approved legislation by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico that would not only extend the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, but expand its scope to include Missouri and other states adversely affected by the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

But the compensation plan was excluded from a spending bill.

“The Senate did its job, but House leadership has failed to act,” Bush, of St. Louis, said. “This injustice cannot stand.”

The plan isn’t dead. It could still pass as a stand-alone bill, or be attached to another piece of legislation. But time is of the essence, Bush said. The RECA program expires June 7.

Uranium processing in the St. Louis area played a pivotal role in developing the nuclear weapons that helped bring an end to World War II and provided a key defense during the Cold War. But eight decades later, the region is still dealing with contamination at several sites.

In July, an investigation published by The Associated Press, The Missouri Independent and MuckRock showed that the federal government and companies responsible for nuclear bomb production and atomic waste storage sites in the St. Louis area were aware of health risks, spills, improperly stored contaminants and other problems but often ignored them.

While it is difficult to prove definitively that the waste caused residents’ illnesses, advocates argue that there is more than enough evidence that it has sickened people.

Since the RECA program began, more than 54,000 claims have been filed and about $2.6 billion has been awarded for approved claims in Nevada, Utah and Arizona.

In New Mexico, residents in the communities surrounding the area where the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945 — the top-secret Manhattan Project — were not warned of the radiological dangers and didn’t realize that an atomic blast was the source of the ash that was raining down upon them.

Advocates also have sought to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order in 2022 extending RECA for two years, into June. Hawley’s bill would extend the law for five years and expand coverage to include people in Missouri as well as Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alaska and Guam.

The White House has indicated that Biden would sign the legislation.

“The President believes we have a solemn obligation to address toxic exposure, especially among those who have been placed in harm’s way by the government’s actions,” the White House said in a statement earlier this year.

Others worry about the cost. The taxpayer advocacy group Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that the legislation should include budget offsets to pay for it.

Nuclear waste stored near St. Louis’ Lambert Airport made its way into Coldwater Creek in the 1960s. Many people who grew up or live near the meandering creek believe the contamination is responsible for cancers and other illnesses, though experts say connecting radiation exposure to illness is complicated. Cancer concerns also have been raised by people in nearby St. Charles County, Missouri, where uranium was processed and a large quarry became contaminated, resulting in a Superfund cleanup.

In 2022, a St. Louis County grade school closed amid worries that contamination from Coldwater Creek got onto the playground and inside the building. The Army Corps of Engineers announced last month that it is testing a few homes near the creek after high radiation levels were found in their backyards.

Like Nickel, Democratic state Rep. Doug Clemens grew up along Coldwater Creek. He said every man in his childhood neighborhood eventually died of stomach or intestinal cancer.

“They knew they were poisoning us for 75 years,” Clemens said of the government. “RECA is a step. We must do RECA now.”

April 12, 2024 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

CNN Finally Tells The Truth About The Flour Massacre After Previously Shilling For Israel

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, APR 10, 2024, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/cnn-finally-tells-the-truth-about?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=143447638&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

CNN has a new report out showing that (surprise!) Israel lied about the Flour Massacre in which IDF troops fired machine guns into a crowd of starving Gazans waiting for food this past February, killing over a hundred people. CNN found that Israel’s timeline and version of events doesn’t line up with video footage, witness testimony, and forensic evidence.

Which of course was obvious from the beginning to anyone who isn’t deeply invested in pretending Israel ever tells the truth about these things. Within hours of the massacre Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor had a preliminary report up saying that video, audio and material evidence shows that the IDF had been firing into the crowd in contradiction of Israel’s claims that the injuries and deaths sustained on the scene were mostly due to Gazans trampling on each other in a mad rush upon the convoy of aid trucks. Now here’s CNN, a month and a half later, telling us essentially the same thing.

This is the same CNN who at the time reported on the Flour Massacre in ways that advanced Israel’s information interests with headlines completely exonerating Israel of any wrongdoing like “At least 100 killed and 700 injured in chaotic incident” and “Carnage at Gaza food aid site amid Israeli gunfire”. CNN also repeatedly refers to the killings as “food aid deaths”, as though it’s the food aid that killed them and not the military of a very specific state power.

I don’t know if there’s a word for when a government does something evil and then churns out a bunch of easily disprovable lies with the understanding that by the time those lies are debunked public attention will have moved on from the controversy, but there should be. Over and over again we’ve seen the Israeli regime do just enough lying to dampen the initial burst of attention and outrage and get people doubting themselves, only to discover far too late that it was all a bunch of crap after the initial crime has been forgotten.

This is exactly what happened with Israel’s initial assault on al-Shifa Hospital back in November, when Israel was cranking out propaganda claiming the hospital was being used as a command center for Hamas. Not until the end of December did The Washington Post show up to acknowledge the abundantly obvious fact that there was no evidence for Israel’s claims, which independent outlets like Consortium News had been reporting since mid-November. Now al-Shifa Hospital — the largest hospital in Gaza — has been completely destroyed.

Back in October Israel and its apologists were shrieking with outrage that anyone would dare suggest that Israel would ever attack a hospital at all, saturating the media with bogus evidence that it falsely claimed proved its innocence. Since that time Israel has launched hundreds of attacks on Gaza’s healthcare services and has destroyed most of its healthcare system.

It’s a weaponization of the adage “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth even puts its boots on.” They know all they have to do is lie really hard for a week or two, and then when the truth inevitably surfaces it won’t matter, because the truth will never be able to have the impact their lies had when it mattered.

It’s so obnoxious how even after all this time Israel is still given the benefit of the doubt on such claims by the western political-media class until they’re debunked weeks or months later, long after the outcry over the incident has been muted and neutered by Israeli lies. If a state power is preventing journalists and human rights groups from investigating the facts on the ground in a given area, then it is not legitimate to give their claims about what happens in that area weighted consideration when their track record and all the facts in evidence say they’re probably lying. 

The fact that the western press keep giving Israel the benefit of the doubt whenever reports like this emerge after they’ve been caught in so very many lies means the western press are just as culpable for the circulation of Israeli lies as Israel itself. In journalism you’re taught that if someone says it’s raining and someone else says it’s dry, your job isn’t to quote them both and treat both claims as equal, your job is to go look out the window and see which is true. The fact that the imperial media take so long to drag their asses to the window serves nobody but Israel and the globe-spanning empire of which it is a part.

April 12, 2024 Posted by | media, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

No surprise genocide promoter, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, denies genocide in Gaza

 https://heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com/ Walt Zlotow 10Apr 24

As Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin fervently fulfills his role as US pointman for America’s enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The former commander of US forces in America’s senseless, criminal Afghan and Iraq wars, has never failed to embrace a monstrous US war destroying countries and the millions ruined in their wake.

After four decades making a great living engaged in those in those murderous follies, he joined the weapons makers making millions off his expertise in pulling the levers of defense influence peddling.

Now, as Secretary of Defense, he’s promoting tens of billions in weapons deliveries to continue the genocidal ethnic cleansing in Gaza of 2,300,000 Palestinians in the way of Israeli expansion on Palestinian land.

Austin knows his work is fueling genocide. But he told Superhawk Senator Tom Cotton at a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing. ‘Genocide? Not a shred of evidence to support that charge.’

CODEPINK demonstrators with infinitely greater moral clarity than Austin, disrupted the hearing 25 times. CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin responded to Austin’s ghoulish genocide denial with “We are obviously here to say stop the complicity, stop the sending of weapons, stop the sharing of intelligence, just killing so many people, just stop the blood on your hands.”

If there were justice, Austin would join his masters of war in Washington in the dock at The Hague. The Defense Secretary’s likely defense? ‘I was just following orders.’

Sound familiar?

April 11, 2024 Posted by | PERSONAL STORIES, USA | Leave a comment

Reports: 2 mishaps in LANL’s plutonium facility in one day

In two separate incidents on the same day last month, Los Alamos National Laboratory workers accidentally set off decontamination showers, causing flooding in the lab’s plutonium facility, and a technician stuffed radioactive wipes into a vest pocket and took them home, a government watchdog says. Reports: 2 mishaps in LANL’s plutonium facility in one day

April 10, 2024 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

U.S. adds to the $1billion already granted to education for the nuclear industry

U.S. Department of Energy Awards $19.1 Million to Support Students and Faculty Advancing Nuclear Energy Technology

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced more than $19.1 million to support nuclear energy research and development, university nuclear infrastructure, and undergraduate and graduate education. Projects will help expand access to nuclear energy, moving the nation closer to meeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. ……………..

Since 2009, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy has awarded almost $1 billion to advance nuclear energy research and support the education and training of future nuclear energy visionaries and leaders. Awards being announced today include: ……………………………………………………..  https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/us-department-energy-awards-191-million-support-students-and-faculty-advancing-nuclear

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Education, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear regulator delinquent on climate

Fort Calhoun nuclear station – flooded 2019

“New reactors remain a mirage. But if they ever become operational, the climate extremes we are already seeing will be far worse. It is irresponsible for the NRC to claim that this is not a relevant safety concern for the agency.”

US government agency reprimands NRC for ignoring climate crisis impacts on reactor safety

 https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/04/07/nuclear-regulator-delinquent-on-climate/

The findings and recommendations of a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report confirm what Beyond Nuclear has been litigating with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC): the agency cannot continue to ignore the safety impacts on nuclear power plants from the worsening climate crisis.

The GAO report is entitled NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS: NRC Should Take Actions to Fully Consider the Potential Effects of Climate Change. It criticizes the NRC for failing to conduct assessments for commercial U.S. nuclear power plants by projecting climate risks and incorporating adequate safety margins into both old and new designs. 

These risks include a worsening of natural hazards and encompass heat and cold, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea-level rise, according to the GAO, all of which could seriously jeopardize the safe operation of the nation’s current fleet that is going through extreme license renewals — and any future new — nuclear reactors if not properly safeguarded.

“The NRC is proceeding with the extension of operating licenses for several vulnerable nuclear power plants without any climate change risk analysis,” said Paul Gunter, a policy analyst and spokesperson for Beyond Nuclear. “Worse, the NRC staff claim that preparing for the effects of the climate crisis is outside its scope.”

And yet, as Gunter points out, one of the candidates for license extension out to 2053 and 2054 is the two-unit Turkey Point nuclear power plant on the south Florida coast where sea-level rise is projected. Another is the three-unit Oconee nuclear power plant in South Carolina, also seeking a second 20-year extension that could see it operating for another 30 years. 

“Oconee sits precariously downstream and 300 feet below the top of the water level in Lake Jocassee behind a rock-filled earthen dam that holds back more than one million acre-feet of water,” Gunter said. “We are already witnessing recurring extreme precipitation, including prolonged atmospheric rivers attributed to climate change. And yet, the NRC staff have argued that ‘The effects of climate change on Oconee Station SSCs [systems, structures and components] are outside the scope of the NRC staff’s license renewal environmental review’. This is not only disingenuous, but dangerous,” Gunter added.

Beyond Nuclear is preparing to file another legal intervention in the NRC’s Oconee license renewal proceeding on April 29, 2024.

Jeff Mitman, a retired NRC senior risk analyst and expert witness supporting Beyond Nuclear litigations points to a damning revelation in the GAO report, perhaps an NRC obfuscation to shield a vulnerable industry from costly safety retrofits caused by worsening climate change. GAO interviewed NRC staff who acknowledge that the agency is shying away from using site-specific climate change hazards data in its licensing analysis, they claim,  because of the challenges presented by uncertainty. To that point, the GAO states:

“However, NRC regulations do not preclude NRC from using climate projections data, and new sources of reliable projected climate data are available to NRC. In 2023, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issued guidance to federal agencies on selecting and using climate data to assess risks and their potential impacts. This guide provides information on climate models and projections to help federal agencies understand exposure to current and future climate-related hazards and their potential impacts.

“Without incorporating the best available information into its licensing and oversight processes, it is unclear whether the safety margins for nuclear power plants established during the licensing period—in most cases over 40 years ago—are adequate to address the risks that climate change poses to plants.”

The GAO also points out that even closed and decommissioning nuclear power plants are vulnerable due to climate change-induced weather extremes. The report cites the closed Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York, where fire hazards are very high along with flooding risks, and Palisades in Michigan, also at risk of flooding and now looking to reopen. The hazards are represented by the highly radioactive waste inventories still on site.

Any planned new reactors, including the still-on-paper small modular reactor designs that would not materialize for likely another 20 years, must factor projected climate impacts into safety measures and environmental impact statements, Beyond Nuclear urged.  

“New reactors remain a mirage,” Gunter said. “But if they ever become operational, the climate extremes we are already seeing will be far worse. It is irresponsible for the NRC to claim that this is not a relevant safety concern for the agency.”

Given the many examples of risk that the GAO uncovered through extensive interviews, the report concludes that the NRC is not doing enough to “fully consider potential climate change effects” projected three decades and farther into the future. As the GAO frames it, “NRC primarily uses historical data in its licensing and oversight processes rather than climate projections data.” 

“It’s like the NRC is driving its nuclear power ambitions through the fog of uncertainty with its high beams on, blinded to what’s ahead,” said Gunter. “The GAO is rightly concerned that the NRC cannot serve public safety by viewing climate data only through its rear view mirror. There are simply too many unpredictable hazards now faced by an inherently dangerous industry,” he said. 

U.S. Senators Tom Carper (D-Del) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va), both devout supporters of nuclear power expansion, commissioned the GAO to look into the resilience of U.S. nuclear power stations to climate change. 

The GAO responded with its expert findings on how climate change is expected to affect nuclear power plant operations and what actions the NRC has taken to address the risks that nuclear power faces from climate change. The GAO report provides three reasonable recommendations regarding what they found to be inadequate or missing in the NRC’s oversight and licensing process: 

1) NRC should assess whether its licensing and oversight processes adequately address the potential for increased risks to nuclear power plants from climate change. 

2) NRC should direct its staff to develop, finalize, and implement a plan to address any gaps identified in its assessment of existing processes.

3) NRC should direct its staff to develop and finalize guidance on incorporating climate projections data including what sources of climate projections data to use and when and how to use climate projections data.

Paul Gunter is the Director of Reactor Oversight at Beyond Nuclear.

April 9, 2024 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

US, Philippines, Japan, and Australia Conduct First Joint Military Exercise in South China Sea

China launched patrols in the South China Sea in response

by Dave DeCamp April 7, 2024 
 https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/07/us-philippines-japan-and-australia-conduct-first-joint-military-exercise-in-south-china-sea/

The US, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia conducted joint military exercises in the South China Sea on Sunday in a provocative show of force aimed at China.

According to Japan’s Kyodo News, the drills marked the first “full-scale exercise” between the four nations. The US has been looking to increase military cooperation between its treaty allies in the region as part of its military build-up to prepare for a future war with China.

The four countries released a joint statement that made clear the drills were meant to push back on China’s claims to the South China Sea. “We stand with all nations in safeguarding the international order based on the rule of law that is the foundation for a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region,” the statement said.

According to The South China Morning Post, the drills included two Philippine vessels, one American ship, one Australian ship, and a Japanese ship and focused on anti-submarine warfare training, tactical exercises, and photo exercises.

China launched patrols in the South China Sea on the same day in what appeared to be a response to the drill. “The Southern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army will conduct a joint air and sea combat patrol in the South China Sea on April 7,” the Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command said.

The joint drills come as tensions are soaring between China and the Philippines over disputed rocks and reefs in the South China Sea. Chinese and Philippine vessels frequently have tense encounters in the waters, which often end in collision. In the most recent incident, a Chinese vessel fired a water cannon at a Philippine supply boat, injuring several crew members.

The incidents in the South China Sea could potentially spark a major war as the US has repeatedly affirmed that the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty applies to attacks on Philippine vessels in the disputed waters.

President Biden is hosting Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington this Thursday for the first-ever trilateral summit between the three nations. They’re expected to announce the launch of regular joint patrols in the South China Sea.

April 9, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, Japan, Philippines, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

CIA Front Companies Play Crucial Role in Arms Pipeline to Ukraine and Profit From the Human Misery it Generates

Covert Action Magazine, By CIAgate, April 1, 2024 

Noetic Continental Inc. Foists Military Equipment Through Private War Companies

Analyzing the CIA’s records, we’ve noticed that there were many references to the Noetic international Inc., a company with questionable origin and activity.

According to its website, the enterprise specializes in “delivering products and services including assessments, operations and finance to clients in the energy, telecom, space, cybersecurity and intelligence sectors.“

In a previous article on substack we wrote that the CEO of the Noetic International Inc. was Johnna May Holeman, a former U.S. artillery soldier and CIA operative, who took part in the supply of 155mm white phosphorus rounds to Ukraine through a tea-trade company in Bulgaria.

Now we can say that there was another CIA officer behind the creation of the Noetic International Inc. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet John Alan Irvin–the godfather of clandestine operations.

Through his extensive ties, resources and expertise, John Irvin has developed a vast network of contacts, informants and partners to achieve a comprehensive range of goals in accordance with the CIA’s design. Given John’s age, today the bulk of the work is now done by Johnna Holeman. The Noetic International Inc. has offices in Illinois, California, Germany, England and Austria.

The Noetic “specialists” address complex problems in wide range of domains including air- and sea-based drones, renewable energy, cybersecurity and cryptocurrency, technology and robotics, as well as strategic influence campaigns and analysis and decision making.

The network includes hundreds of influencers connected by both personal acquaintance and virtual meetings. The Noetic operatives help local and foreign authorities to achieve goals in order to enlist the support afterwards.

According to our source, the Noetic International Inc. has a shell company in Puerto Rico, that under the guise of cannabis dispensary addresses essential tasks on behalf of the CIA, such as supply of various kinds of unmanned aerial and maritime drones to foreign countries, including Ukraine, reshore of semiconductor production to the U.S., as well as the supply of small-module nuclear reactors.

Initially, we doubted the veracity of the source’s information. Yet, as it was with the investigation surrounding Chanda Creasy, a yoga coach and a head of the CIA division responsible for arms transfers to militants in Africa and Middle East, painstaking analysis and careful sieving of information made it possible to determine that it was the Anyon Minds LLC……………………………………………………………………………………..

It seems like this outlet is not a trading platform, but a certain communication hub for a dedicated circle of persons…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

We are also extremely curious what kind of advice the cannabis company could receive from a former Chief of Staff of the 82nd Airborne division, Jouni Keravuori, who also worked at the SAS Institute, General Dynamics and the same Pax Mondial and Pax Safe. Perhaps his daughter-in-law and, concurrently, Brigadier General Rose Lopez Keravuori, helps him with this. Since 2023, she has been serving as the Director of intelligence (J2) of the U.S. Command in Africa………………………………………………………………………………..

Drones’ modernization and delivery to foreign countries

According to our source, Mr. Benitez maintained close cooperation with Johnna Holeman and another member of Noetic International, Hans Mumm, mentioned in one of our previous investigations.

The cooperation was focused on:

⦁ improving capabilities of automated drones manufactured by the Airgility and the Safehaven Marine paramilitary companies;

⦁ optimizing the automated functionality of existing UAVs, including an anti-missile drone capable of intercepting shells and counterattacking a missile launch site;

⦁ improving the “world’s fastest sea drone” with a customer-tailored weapons system (aerial and underwater) (Project Barracuda by Safehaven Marine).

⦁ Noetic team also discussed a special “Vanilla program” related to a new unmanned aerial system. Check the project summary here…………………………………………………………………………………………………

What’s the most interesting is that the representatives of the Anyon Minds DIRECTLY negotiated with the Ukrainian authorities. It should be noted that during his trip to Kyiv in October, 2022, Benitez personally communicated with Mykhailo Fedorov, the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for Innovations, Education, Science and Technology–Minister of Ukraine for Digital Transformation. They discussed the issues related to the supply of drones as part of military assistance. …………………………………………………..

This war not only fabulously enriched Benitez and his team, but also allowed the CIA to establish gray-trading schemes and market channels for the sale of unmanned vehicles to Ukrainian officials. And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

PART II

The Gallant Nights LLC

Below we talk about one dubious private military company (PMC) also involved in CIA’s corruption scheme in Ukraine. We will show how the agency uses Hollywood celebrities to empty the wallets of their fans……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/04/01/cia-front-companies-play-crucial-role-in-arms-pipeline-to-ukraine-and-profit-from-the-human-misery-it-generates/?mc_cid=af5fe30ca7&mc_eid=65917fb94b

April 8, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Speaking with one voice -tribes call for cleanup, remediation and an end to uranium mining and milling

The early uranium they mined was for atomic bombs dropped on other brown people far away. Later, the mined uranium was used to fuel nuclear power plants whose radioactive releases increase leukemia rates in children living nearby and whose waste is targeted at, yes, more Native communities. 

By Linda Pentz Gunter, Beyond Nuclear 7 Apr 24

They were there to tell their stories. The contamination of air, land and water. The sicknesses. The displacement. The loss of community, culture and language. The deprivation of fundamental human rights. And they spoke with one voice in their plea for justice, the voice of Indigenous peoples in the United States and their lived experience of uranium mines and mills.

The occasion was a thematic hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) at the Organization of American States. The topic was: United States: Impacts of uranium exploitation on indigenous peoples’ rights.

The speakers came from Navajo, Arapaho, Havasupai, Ute and Oglala Lakota. 

And, across the room, they came from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of the Interior.

The Native American speakers made the same plea they have reiterated for decades: effective cleanup and removal of the radioactive waste that has poisoned their communities and people, and will do so again as long new uranium mines are allowed to go forward. And no new mines.

The personal stories they told the listeners — representatives from the US government, the IACHR panel and members of the public in the audience —were those of universal injustice against Indigenous communities, stories that have been told before and, seemingly, have to be told over and over. They are stories that are listened to and not heard, often not responded to and almost never acted upon. 

“We used to drink the spring water,” said Anfreny Badback of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, a member of the White Mesa Concerned Community who oppose operations at the White Mesa uranium mill near Blanding, Utah. “We don’t anymore.”

The mill belongs to Energy Fuels and is the last remaining such facility in the United States. It receives uranium tailings and other radioactive materials for “processing” and dumping. The mill was built right next to the tribal community on top of hundreds of culturally significant sites, a consideration that is routinely ignored.

Teracita Keyanna, a Navajo woman from the Red Water Pond Road Community Association, described how she had to take her family out of their home community because of the health risks to her children due to the continued failure to clean up the radiological contamination from the Church Rock uranium mine and mill. The mill suffered a devastating tailings pond dam break in 1979 that resulted in the biggest accidental release of radioactive waste in US history. As a result of the relocation, Keyanna said, her children are losing touch with their language and culture.

“We are the poorest community in the country but rich in cultural practices” said Tonia Stands, an Oglala Lakota who testified with her small daughter at her side. ……………………………………………………………………….

All of the stories were those of erasure. To be erased does not necessitate a massacre. It can just be decades-long neglect by the US government to make right a terrible wrong. The loss of a safe environment; no access to clean water or healthy food; the neglect of adequate or even any cleanup; the destruction of a culture; the deprivation of tradition and language. All of these constitute a genocide. No one called it that at the hearing. But that is what it is.

From the government spokespeople we heard mainly that they were doing their best; that they had listened; had held consultations; or that it fell outside their jurisdiction. 

But, as Christopher Balkhan from the IACHR panel pointed out, there seemed to be some sort of disconnect between the official regulations “and what is actually happening”. He noted the difference between free, prior and informed consent and consultation. Was the former being offered to these communities? “If not, why not?” he asked.

On the government side, tossed bones were presented as lavish gifts. Clifford Villa, Deputy Assistant Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, sought to reassure the communities that cleanup operations in their communities would deliver an abundance of jobs to residents as if somehow the opportunity to clean up a toxic mess not of their making and which had sickened and killed their families for decades should be accepted as some sort of honor. 

Similarly, Bryan Newland, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior, praised the uranium mining carried about by tribes as part of a “long-lasting contribution to the national security of the United States.” 

But it was nothing of the kind. The early uranium they mined was for atomic bombs dropped on other brown people far away. Later, the mined uranium was used to fuel nuclear power plants whose radioactive releases increase leukemia rates in children living nearby and whose waste is targeted at, yes, more Native communities. 

The cleanup requests have “fallen on deaf ears” said Edith Hood, also of the Navajo Red Water Pond Road Community. Many wondered if the same was happening at the IACHR hearing. The collective presentations of both the civil society and government sides were squeezed into 20 minutes apiece, with another 12 minutes for follow-up to questions from the commission.

“I’ve been a leader for 20 years and I have not seen a single response from any state or fed agency to my tribe on our pleas to stop Pinyon mine,” said Carletta Tilousi of the Havasupai Tribal Council at a press conference after the event. She and her tribe are fighting the newly active Pinyon Plain uranium mine at the edge of the Grand Canyon and the headwaters of Havasu Creek, owned by Energy Fuels Resources…………………………………………………….

Eric Jantz, legal director at the New Mexico Environmental Law Center and representing the tribal speakers, summed up their requests in his opening remarks, noting in particular the absence of consent. What they wanted, he said, were three things: 

  • For the United States to place a moratorium on all new uranium mining and processing on Indigenous lands or near culturally important sites until it has remediated all legacy waste and implemented laws governing uranium development that are consistent with its human rights obligations; 
  • That the US begin phasing out ongoing uranium mining and processing in Indigenous communities. The only exception to this moratorium would be when an Indigenous nation has given its free, prior and informed consent to develop mineral resources within its jurisdiction. Free, informed and prior consent should especially include the right to say ‘no’. 
  • Finally, during a moratorium, federal agencies responsible for regulating uranium production and remediation should review and change as necessary their policies, and regulations should be consistent with the United States’ human rights obligations.

………………………………………………………………………………………….. The IACHR can recommend a corrective course to the U.S. government. The big question now is will they?

Watch the full hearing.

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear and writes for and edits Beyond Nuclear International  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/04/07/speaking-with-one-voice/

April 8, 2024 Posted by | indigenous issues, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Russia calls out US over plans to militarize space

 https://www.rt.com/russia/595548-moscow-us-militarize-space/ 7 Apr 24
Washington uses hostile rhetoric and baseless allegations to cover up its own intentions to send weapons into space, Moscow claims

The US has been seeking to dismantle legally-binding international security mechanisms and replace them with vague norms of the so-called ‘rules-based world order’, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. 

The remarks were in response to statements from the outgoing US assistant secretary of defense for space policy, John Plumb, at a Defense Writers Group meeting on Friday. According to Zakharova, Plumb dismissed Russian-Chinese initiatives on the prevention of an arms race in space as a “political ploy,” claiming that adherence to the deal would not be verifiable. 

“The US is an ardent opponent of Russian initiatives to prevent an arms race in outer space. Strong opposition to the aforementioned Russian-Chinese draft treaty has long been an integral part of American foreign policy,” Zakharova said in a Telegram post, referring to a 2008 draft agreement.

Instead, the US has been pursuing its own approach to keeping space free of weapons by promoting a “set of norms of ‘responsible’ behavior within the framework of their concept of a ‘rules-based world order,’” which is untenable both in technical and international legal terms, the spokeswoman said. 

Plumb’s remarks, as well as Washington’s ongoing activities in the UN Security Council with regard to nuclear weapons in space, are part of its longstanding efforts to dismantle the system of legally-binding security treaties, she claimed.

The Russian Embassy in the US provided a similar assessment of Plumb’s remarks, suggesting they are part of a concerted campaign to divert attention away from Washington’s own pursuits. “We consider the Pentagon’s manipulations of information to be further proof of US attempts to use Russophobic slogans to justify its own plans for militarizing space,” the mission said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Washington has been promoting a resolution on the non-deployment of nuclear weapons in space. The UN Security Council is set to vote on the US- and Japan- backed document next week, which, if adopted, would reaffirm that countries must fully comply with their obligations under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans weapons of mass destruction in space.

The resolution comes amid claims in the US media early this year that Russia is seeking to deploy anti-satellite nukes, or at least mock-ups, into space. Moscow has strongly denied the claims, with Russian President Vladimir Putin describing them as “unfounded accusations.”

April 8, 2024 Posted by | space travel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear Power Plants: NRC Should Take Actions to Fully Consider the Potential Effects of Climate Change

GAO-24-106326 Apr 02, 2024

Climate change is likely to exacerbate natural hazards—such as floods and drought. The risks to nuclear power plants from such hazards include damage to systems and equipment that ensure safe operation.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s oversight process includes addressing safety risks at these plants. However, NRC doesn’t fully consider potential increases in risk from climate change. For example, NRC mostly uses historical data to identify and assess safety risks, rather than data from future climate projections.

We recommended that NRC fully address climate risks to nuclear power plants.

What GAO Found

Climate change is expected to exacerbate natural hazards—including heat, drought, wildfires, flooding, hurricanes, and sea level rise. In addition, climate change may affect extreme cold weather events. Risks to nuclear power plants from these hazards include loss of offsite power, damage to systems and equipment, and diminished cooling capacity, potentially resulting in reduced operations or plant shutdowns.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) addresses risks to the safety of nuclear power plants, including risks from natural hazards, in its licensing and oversight processes. Following the tsunami that led to the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, NRC took additional actions to address risks from natural hazards. These include requiring safety margins in reactor designs, measures to prevent radioactive releases should a natural hazard event exceed what a plant was designed to withstand, and maintenance of backup equipment related to safety functions.

However, NRC’s actions to address risks from natural hazards do not fully consider potential climate change effects. For example, NRC primarily uses historical data in its licensing and oversight processes rather than climate projections data. NRC officials GAO interviewed said they believe their current processes provide an adequate margin of safety to address climate risks. However, NRC has not conducted an assessment to demonstrate that this is the case. Assessing its processes to determine whether they adequately address the potential for increased risks from climate change would help ensure NRC fully considers risks to existing and proposed plants. Specifically, identifying any gaps in its processes and developing a plan to address them, including by using climate projections data, would help ensure that NRC adopts a more comprehensive approach for assessing risks and is better able to fulfill its mission to protect public health and safety.

Why GAO Did This Study

NRC licenses and regulates the use of nuclear energy to provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety, to promote the common defense and security, and to protect the environment. Like all energy infrastructure, nuclear power plants can be affected by disruptions from natural hazards, some of which are likely to be exacerbated by climate change. Most commercial nuclear plants in the United States were built in the 1960s and 1970s, and weather patterns and climate-related risks to these plants have changed since their construction.

GAO was asked to review the climate resilience of energy infrastructure. This report examines (1) how climate change is expected to affect nuclear power plants and (2) NRC actions to address risks to nuclear power plants from climate change. GAO analyzed available federal data and reviewed regulations, agency documents, and relevant literature. GAO interviewed officials from federal agencies, including NRC, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and knowledgeable stakeholders from industry, academia, and nongovernmental organizations. GAO also conducted site visits to two plants.

Recommendations

GAO is making three recommendations, including that NRC assess whether its existing processes adequately address climate risks and develop and implement a plan to address any gaps identified. NRC said the recommendations are consistent with actions that are either underway or under development.

Recommendations for Executive Action

……………………………………………………………………………more https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106326


April 7, 2024 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

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