nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

Biden administration advancing $680m arms sale to Israel, source says

November 27, 2024,  https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241127-biden-administration-advancing-680m-arms-sale-to-israel-source-says/

The Biden administration is pushing ahead with a $680 million arms sales package to Israel, a US official familiar with the plan said on Wednesday, even as a US-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah has come into effect, Reuters reports.

The package, which was first reported by the Financial Times, includes thousands of joint direct attack munition kits (JDAM) and hundreds of small-diameter bombs, according to the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The news comes less than a day after the ceasefire agreement ended the deadliest confrontation in years between Israel and the Hezbollah group, but Israel is still fighting its other arch foe, the Palestinian group, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.

However, the package has been in the works for several months. It was first previewed to the congressional committees in September then submitted for review in October, the official said.

The package follows a $20 billion sale in August of fighter jets and other military equipment to Israel.

Reuters reported in June that Washington, Israel’s biggest ally and weapons supplier, has sent Israel more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

The conversations about the latest arms package had been going on even as a group of progressive US senators, including Bernie Sanders introduced resolutions to block the sale of some US weapons to Israel over concerns about the human rights catastrophe faced by Palestinians in Gaza.

The legislation was shot down in the Senate.


Biden, whose term ends in January, has strongly backed Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people has been displaced and the enclave is at risk of famine, more than a year into Israel’s war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave. Gaza health officials say more than 43,922 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive.

December 1, 2024 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

  Plans to turn land in Somerset into a saltmarsh should be scrapped.

Plans to flood 1500 acres of farmland along the Severn Estuary to create
saltmarsh won’t be effective in saving fish affected by a nuclear power
station – that’s according to ecosystems expert Dr Mark Everard of the
University of the West of England. EDF is building the station at Hinkley
Point in Somerset and had agreed to install and maintain an acoustic fish
deterrent to prevent fish being sucked into the site’s cooling systems. But
they now say it’s dangerous to build and the technology is untested, and
want to flood farmland instead to create saltmarsh habitats. Dr Everard
says most fish – including migrating salmon – won’t benefit from this, and
the deterrent system is already used effectively worldwide.

 BBC Farming Today 25th Nov 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0025cyx

December 1, 2024 Posted by | environment, UK | Leave a comment

France is weighing zero-interest loan for 6 nuclear reactors, sources say

  • Summary
  • EDF faces financing challenges due to high debt and project delays
  • French government faces no-confidence vote over budget with spending cuts
  • EU approval needed for state aid in nuclear projects

PARIS, Nov 27(Reuters) Reporting by Benjamin Mallet; additional reporting by Leigh Thomas; writing by Dominique Patton; editing by Nina Chestney and Tomasz Janowski- https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/france-is-weighing-zero-interest-loan-6-nuclear-reactors-sources-say-2024-11-27/

French officials are drawing up plans to provide an interest-free loan to state-owned power utility EDF to finance a significant portion of the construction of six new nuclear reactors, two people familiar with the matter said.

The financing would clear a major hurdle for one of the country’s biggest public projects in years.

The plans are similar to financing agreed recently for a single reactor in the Czech Republic, and although the size of the loan is not yet known, it shows the growing need for state support in financing new nuclear projects in Europe.

The plans also include a long-term guaranteed price for the power generated, known as a contract for difference (CfD), said the people, who declined to be identified because they are not authorised to speak with media.

The Ministry of Finance and EDF declined to comment.

The discussions on financing the projects that could cost well over 50 billion euros ($52.60 billion) come as the French government faces a potential no-confidence vote over a proposed budget that contains measures to cut spending and raise taxes to contain the country’s soaring debt.

President Emmanuel Macron announced plans in early 2022 for six new reactors with a total production capacity of about 10 gigawatts to partly replace an ageing nuclear fleet and secure future energy supplies.

Construction of the first reactor is due to start in 2027 but Macron has never said who would pay for the project, which at the time was estimated to cost around 52 billion euros. Recent media reports suggest costs may be higher, reaching as much as 67 billion euros.

France’s current 57 nuclear reactors in operation were largely financed by EDF, which was a publicly-listed company until it was fully nationalised last year.

But the company is unlikely to be able to secure private financing for new projects, given its already high debt, and there have been multiple delays and cost overruns at recent projects like Flamanville in France and Hinkley Point in England.

CZECH MODEL

While there is general agreement to provide a zero-interest loan to EDF during the construction phase, the amount is not yet decided and there are still “intense discussions” on matters such as the sharing of risk between the utility and the state from any additional costs and delays, one of the sources said.

The plan also needs approval from the finance minister once EDF submits a final costing for the projects, expected early next year.

As a form of state aid, it also needs to be cleared by the European Commission.

French officials have been encouraged, however, by Brussels’ approval for a similar financing structure for one 1 gigawatt Czech unit at Dukovany, the sources said.

Under the Czech arrangement, interest on a state loan increases to at least 2% after the plant begins operating.

Europe is seeing a resurgence of interest in nuclear power projects, with nations including Poland and the UK planning new plants to shore up their energy self-sufficiency after a major energy crisis in the region.

Financing remains a huge challenge, with construction risks weighing on utilities’ balance sheets and credit ratings.

The British government recently pledged more than 5.5 billion pounds ($6.93 billion) to help fund early development of the 3.2 GW Sizewell C project.

Another project in Britain, EDF’s 3.2 GW Hinkley Point C plant, which is expected to cost between 31 billion pounds and 34 billion pounds based on 2015 values, is also backed by a contract for difference scheme.

($1 = 0.9506 euros)

($1 = 0.7931 pounds)

November 30, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

“Israel Wants Wars”: Gideon Levy on Lebanon Ceasefire, Gaza & Gov’t Sanctions Against Haaretz

Democracy Now, 27 Nov 24

Gideon LevyIsraeli journalist and author. Lina MounzerLebanese writer and editor.

We’re joined by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy as we continue our conversation on the Israeli-Lebanon ceasefire. We take a look at the mood within Israel, where Levy characterizes the Israeli public as “sour” about what is seen as a premature deal. “They would like to see more blood, more destruction in Lebanon,” says Levy. “Israel wants wars.” This retributive stance is still being felt in Lebanon, adds writer Lina Mounzer, who says Lebanese people are “very terrified of the day after” and do not feel that they have been awarded peace, despite the terms of the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has unanimously voted to sanction the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, claiming that its editorials “have hurt the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its right to self defense.” Haaretz has criticized the move, which comes just months after Israel banned the international media outlet Al Jazeera, as anti-democratic. Levy, a columnist for Haaretz, says the sanction makes it clear that Israelis cannot take the freedom of speech “for granted anymore.”

Media Options

Transcript……………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/27/israel_lebanon_ceasefire_haaretz

November 30, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

Ceasefire Falters as Israel Launches Airstrikes, Artillery Shelling on Southern Lebanon

 Israel says ‘suspects’ in vehicles violate ceasefire by trying to return home

by Jason Ditz November 28, 2024,  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/28/ceasefire-falters-as-israel-launches-airstrikes-artillery-shelling-on-southern-lebanon/

The Israel-Lebanon ceasefire began Wednesday morning. Less than two days later, it seems to be faltering, with multiple reports of Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon, and claims of violations by both sides.

Israel carried out an airstrike against the outskirts of Baysariyeh, which is near Tyre. They confirmed the attack, saying they were targeting a Hezbollah storage facility after seeing “terrorist activity.” They added in their statement that they were “acting to enforce violations of the ceasefire.”

Though the claims of violations are coming from both sides, so far it is only Israeli forces whose violations actually involve firing. Lebanese people continue to try to return to their homes in the south, despite Israel’s military forbidding them to do so.

There are multiple reports of Israel carrying out artillery shelling against towns and villages across southern Lebanon this afternoon. Strikes were reported against the towns of Halta, Taybeh, Khiam, and Rmeish. In Rmeish the attack damaged a supermarket and a home. Three were injured in Taybeh.

There were also reported Israeli tank shellings in several places, including the village of Markaba. In that incident, a car was attacked and multiple civilians were wounded. Israeli ground troops also opened fire on vehicles multiple times across southern Lebanon, incidents which happened both on Wednesday and Thursday.

Israel presented the people they were shooting at as a “number of suspects,” and said that any vehicles in southern Lebanon amount to a ceasefire violation. There is no indication vehicles are actually forbidden by the terms of the ceasefire. Shooting at people, as Israel has been throughout the day, is plainly a violation, however.

November 30, 2024 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Transfer of nukes to Kiev would be viewed as attack on Russia – Medvedev

Rt.com 26 Nov 24

The former president’s warning follows reports that discussions have been held in the US about Ukraine obtaining a nuclear arsenal .

Moscow will consider any threat of nuclear arms being supplied to Ukraine by the US as preparation for a direct war with Russia, former president Dmitry Medvedev has warned. The actual transfer of nuclear weapons would be tantamount to an attack on the country under Russia’s new nuclear doctrine, he added.

In a Telegram post on Tuesday, Medvedev referenced a recent report in the New York Times. In a piece bylined by four of its journalists, the NYT claimed that US and EU officials are “discussing deterrence as a security guarantee” for Ukraine, claiming a conversation is underway to consider giving Ukraine nuclear weapons.

US politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of providing Kiev with nuclear weapons, said Medvedev, who serves as the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council…………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.rt.com/russia/608212-medvedev-nukes-transfer-ukraine/

November 30, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Antisemitism Awareness Act Is the Death Knell for Free Speech

Mike Whitney • November 21, 2024, The Unz Review

Freedom of speech is the principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins….Ben Franklin.

The Antisemitism Awareness Act is a wrecking ball designed to pulverize the First Amendment. While the alleged intention of the bill is to make Jewish students feel safer on campus, the real purpose is to put an end to the anti-genocide demonstrations that have broken out across the country and to prevent the criticism of Israel. The proposed bill invokes a dodgy legal mechanism to derail the protests and to silence Israel’s critics. By using a broad and ambiguous definition of antisemitism, the bill compels university administrators to crackdown on free speech invoking sketchy claims of discrimination. Political analyst Paul Craig Roberts summed it up like this: “if universities …don’t suppress student protests against Israel’s massacre of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon they will lose their accreditation and federal financial support.” In short, universities are being encouraged to quash the free expression of political ideas to preserve their federal funding. This helps to illustrate how Zionist lobbyists are now engaged in a full-throated assault on constitutionally protected civil liberties, namely free speech.

The bill—which already passed the House with a sizable majority—shows how the charge of antisemitism can be used as a coercive political tool to silence Israel’s critics. That is why civil liberties organizations—like the ACLU, PEN America, the Alliance Defending Freedom and even Jewish groups like Bend the Arc and T’ruah—strongly oppose the bill based on free speech grounds. Even so, this attack on constitutionally protected rights has a good chance of passing the senate due to the arm twisting of powerful interest groups that have their tentacles wrapped tightly around both houses of congress. Here’s a brief summary from political analyst Guy Christensen:

The House just passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act which will shut down college protests against Israel and silence all future criticism of the state of Israel. The law literally redefines antisemitism as criticizing the state of Israel and makes it a violation of Title 6 to do so. The purpose of this is to allow politicians to pull federal funding from colleges who don’t stop these college protests and let their students continue to criticize Israel.

We must speak out against the Antisemitism Awareness Act. This is insanity. These people are full-on Zionists trying to silence free speech here in America, trying to silence criticism of the oppression of the Palestinians, criticism of the state of Israel that murdered 14,000 children.

Like I said, the guy who wrote the bill, Mike Lawler, is funded by AIPAC $180,000 (he said to NBC News when talking about this bill.) When you hear “River to the sea, Palestine will be free” that is calling for the eradication of the Jews in the state of Israel. (They are) Literally trying to make it illegal to criticize Israel.

If you don’t know how Title 6 works, all federally funded programs and institutions must follow it or they won’t receive any more federal funding. This includes US colleges and K through 12 schools who are very strict about following Title 6 because they need that funding. They can’t go without it. So, if we let this become law, it would force US colleges to shut down all these protests immediately.

This contends for the most outrageous bill for Israel the government has ever tried to pass. I will not vote or say a kind word about any politician who voted in favor of this bill…. (your representative ) care more about Israel than they care about your free speech. What they are doing is incredibly dangerous. Zionists are scared because American public opinion is changing. Students across the country are protesting against Israel. You know they’re scared because this is one of the boldest things they’ve ever tried to do…..AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby is behind all of this. Ban AIPAC Stop the Antisemitism Awareness Act. We have to protect our free speech and our right to protest against evil. YourFavoriteGuy@guychristensen_

Not surprisingly, President Donald Trump—whose campaign was given $100 million by a strident Zionist donor—confirmed that he will aggressively implement the blatantly unconstitutional law by cancelling the funding of any college that tolerates the anti-genocide protests. He further stated that he will prosecute the universities for, what he calls, “violations of the civil rights law.” In other words, it is not the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians that have been killed by Israel who are the victims, but the Jewish university students who feel “unsafe.” (Note—Trump refers to the protestors views as “antisemitic propaganda”)…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………more https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/the-antisemitism-awareness-act-is-the-death-knell-for-free-speech/

November 30, 2024 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C: Hundreds down tools over concerns

By Seth Dellow, Bridgwater Mercury 28th Nov 2024

HUNDREDS of workers at Hinkley Point C have stood down today over unresolved concerns.

The action short of strike began at 9am this morning with workers claiming it concerns fingerprint scanners in a small area on site. They have claimed there are only five scanners serving 13,000 workers on site but this is strongly denied by EDF which runs the Hinkley Point site. Electricians, pipe fitters and welders are all said to have walked out.

The number of affected workers could be up to 1,600 as the action only involves some of the MEH workers on site. MEH has contracted staff doing work on the Hinkley Point site.

Earlier, workers claimed between 2,000 and 6,000 workers had walked out.

One electrician, who spoke anonymously to the Bridgwater Mercury, said that workers were “being taken advantage of.”

The nuclear power station is already behind schedule and is expected to be operational between 2029 to 2031. 

Workers are planning on taking full strike action on Monday, December 2, 2024, as they say they will be blocked from entering the site because of their actions today.

It follows recent strike action which saw EDF workers walk out over pay concerns. ………………
https://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/news/24757425.hinkley-point-c-6-000-workers-walk-concerns/

November 30, 2024 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Donald Trump’s quick trip to absolute dictatorship

November 27, 2024: The AIM Network. Noel Wauchope, https://theaimn.com/donald-trumps-quick-trip-to-absolute-dictatorship/

Comparisons are odious, particularly between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. I must be plain from the start, that these individuals have had completely different aims and ideology.

The comparisons I’m making here are just about methods of gaining absolute power. And here, I think, there are parallels. And we can learn, from Hitler, how Trump could well go about attaining dictatorship status – way faster than people realise.

Trump and Hitler do have this in common – a reckless ruthlessness about destroying institutions and crossing boundaries. And both had earlier associations with street violence – Hitler with his Brown Shirts, and the Beer Hall Putsch, and Trump, less obviously, with the Proud Boys and the Capitol attack on January 6th 2021.

Hitler became dictator by very quickly using legitimate political mechanisms, and Trump will be able to do the same.

Hitler, moving towards purging his movement of the Brown Shirts, gained much public support, and business interests saw him as a force to stop street violence, and a protector and support of property and business. Meanwhile, largely thanks to the genius of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda machine flourished, exploiting the latest technology, – radio, and aircraft – “Hitler over Germany”. By 1933 the German economy was recovering, and Hitler’s success in elections did in fact drop, but his National Socialist Party still held a third of the seats in the Reichstag.

Here’s where it got interesting, and it all took just 7 and a half weeks.

30 January 1933 – Hitler was appointed Chancellor. The role of the Chancellor, while being symbolically like the role of the British Prime Minister, was in fact, quite limited. The real power was in the President. President von Hindenburg, bowing to pressure, was persuaded that Hitler could indeed be controlled, by giving him the status of Chancellor.

-Advertisement-

27 February 1933 – the German parliament (Reichstag) building burned down. Without going into the discussion on who caused the fire – it was the trigger for Hitler to persuade von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree – Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People, on 28 February, declaring a state of emergency, and abolishing most civil liberties, including the rights to speak, assemble, protest, and due process.

23 March 1933, Hitler proposed the Enabling Law to the Reichstag. This new law, passed on 24 March, gave Chancellor Hitler the power to rule by decree rather than passing laws through the Reichstag and the President. He was now effectively the dictator.

We could go on from there – listing Hitler’s dictatorial actions – National Socialists the only party permitted, trade unions disbanded. Any autonomous states lost those powers – officials appointed as state governors – and much, much more.

July 1934 – Hitler becomes “Fuehrer” – the finishing touch. With the death of President von Hindenburg, Hitler abolishes the now powerless position of “President”.

What has all this got to do with Trump?

Admittedly, the burning down of the Reichstag was a key factor, and we’re not expecting Capitol Hill to burn down. But the thing is that Hitler was at least a super-opportunist, even if the Nazis did not purposely cause this event. If it hadn’t been this event, probably something else could be triggered for a “state of emergency”. So, it would also be very beneficial to Trump- and save a lot of time, if some suitable “event” were to justify Trump, (also a super-opportunist) to declare emergency powers.

In the meantime, Trump is already working on removing the powers of the Department of Justice, and has various avenues open for him to take quick executive action. The President can issue executive orders. There are checks and balances, but these rely on the Supreme Court, and the Congress. So, Trump, with a majority in Congress has freedom – ‘I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president’.

Trump’s plan for a radical reorganization of the executive branch starts with ending “the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.”

Trump will be very careful about which officials he appoints – due to constitutional “checks and balances”. He’d need to pick a compliant Acting Attorney General. The obstacles to be eliminated include an independent Justice Department, independent leadership in administrative agencies and an independent civil service. Trump’s plan would substitute loyalty to him for loyalty to the Constitution.” In 2020 Trump called for the “termination of … the Constitution.”

In the USA, theoretically, there are constraints on the President’s power. But, as in Germany in the 1930s, the leader has already arranged for the administration and every government department to be run by his sycophants.

Also, as in Hitler’s Germany, Trump has extraordinary influence over media, especially social media. Hitler had the brilliance of Goebbels to swamp the public with his lies and spin. Trump is almost one better – he does it all himself.

So – there are similarities between Hitler and Trump in the way to gain absolute power. There’s the opportunism, the clique of dedicated sycophants, the inspired exploitation of new technology, of new media, the reckless crossing of normal boundaries, and the background of violence, (with the potential for violence again).

The differences between them are striking. Hitler had a coherent almost mystical theory – involving war – to gain world domination for the master “Aryan” race, and to eliminate the Jews and other “Untermenschen”. To a large extent, Hitler’s close associates shared that dream, even if jostling for power between each other– Goebbels, Hess, Himmler, Goering, Speer, von Ribbentrop, Heydrich, Bormann. They more or less held to Hitler’s philosophy, and feared Hitler if they stepped out of line. Quite a few, though not all, stayed with Hitler until the very bitter end.

I can’t see Trump’s associates having that kind of dedication. From his previous presidency, there is a long list of former allies who turned against him.

Donald Trump seems to have no coherent theory or aim – other than to be super-powerful and rich, and take revenge on his opponents. He admires dictators, hates China, doesn’t like war, and fears nuclear bombs. If Trump has any philosophy at all, apart from him being at the top, it would be for a world economy dominated by American business. War is not Trump’s chosen method to win, but building up weaponry, and the threat of war – a sort of global bullying is his favoured method.

Trump’s top associates are currently dedicated to him – but are closely connected to billionaires, and not necessarily sharing philosophies. There’s Elon Musk, obsessed with the control of space, and the colonisation of Mars, John Bauer who devised the case for presidential absolute immunity from prosecution, Stephen Miller determinedly anti-immigrant, Fox News employee Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sceptic of public health, Dave Weldon, anti-abortion doctor. What they do seem to have in common is big egos, and rather questionable qualifications for the jobs that they’ll be getting.

So, unlike Hitler, Trump doesn’t seem to have a team dedicated to a single-minded cause. In the short run, things might look good for the new Republican administration, and even for the American public. Dictatorships can do that, for a bit – as the workers found, in the early years of the Hitler administration, and of the Mussolini one in Italy. But it’s anybody’s guess how the new Trump dictatorship will finally work out.

November 29, 2024 Posted by | politics, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

What Project 2025 Would Do to the Environment – and How We Will Respond

The policy playbook from the Heritage Foundation would strip away our rights to clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet.

By Earthjustice November 12, 2024,  https://earthjustice.org/article/what-project-2025-would-do-to-the-environment-and-how-we-will-respond

When Donald Trump takes office for the second time in January, we expect his administration to dramatically dismantle environmental protections. We see the shape of what’s coming not just from battling his first administration, but because of the blueprint laid out in Project 2025.

Project 2025 is 900 pages, and 150 of them are about how to destroy the environment. This deregulatory agenda, written by former Trump government officials and Heritage Foundation staff, would strip away our rights to clean air, clean water, and a healthy planet.

Earthjustice is built for moments like this. We’re the legal arm of the environmental movement, with more than 200 attorneys wielding the power of the law to defend the planet and its people. We filed more lawsuits on behalf of clients against the last Trump administration to protect the environment than any other organization – and we won 85% of our cases.

We’ve shown that we can take on the Trump administration’s worst ideas and win.

We’ve studied the proposed tactics in Project 2025, including undermining government staff who are charged with safeguarding health and environmental protections. We are prepared to defend the environment and communities from what comes next, no matter how long it takes. Here are some of the Project 2025 recommendations we’re most concerned about:

Taking a hatchet to bedrock environmental laws

What Project 2025 says:

  • Gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA): Project 2025 would rewrite the most successful legal tool we have for protecting wildlife in ways that would harm imperiled species. It specifically calls for removing protections from gray wolves and Yellowstone grizzlies.
  • No need for national monuments: Another proposal would repeal the Antiquities Act, which would strip the president of the ability to protect priceless public lands and waters as national monuments.
  • Weaken the Clean Air Act: Project 2025 would nix the part of the law that requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set health-based air quality standards.
  • Less say for communities in environmental decisions: The plan would undermine key portions of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which ensures you have a voice in major projects built near you.

Why we’re prepared:

  • Defending endangered species: The Trump administration went after both Yellowstone grizzlies and the Endangered Species Act itself. Both times, Earthjustice went straight to court. One of our cases spared the grizzlies from planned trophy hunts, and the Biden administration subsequently reversed some damaging changes to the ESA.
  • Defending national monuments: When the Trump administration gutted Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, Earthjustice immediately sued. Protections for the monuments have now been restored. We also helped defend the monuments from a later legal challenge by the state of Utah that attacked the Antiquities Act itself.
  • Defending NEPA: This summer, when 21 state attorneys-general sued to block important updates to NEPA, we intervened to fight back. The updates will ensure that critical infrastructure needed for the clean energy transition is built quickly and equitably and is resilient to climate change.

More mining and fossil fuel development on public lands

What Project 2025 says:

  • Prioritize oil and gas: Project 2025 tells the agencies that manage federal lands and waters to maximize corporate oil and gas extraction. It calls for approving more pipelines like Keystone XL and Dakota Access.
  • Willow? Make it bigger: The agenda explicitly aims to expand the Willow Project, which is already the largest proposed oil and gas undertaking on U.S. public lands.
  • Target iconic landscapes: The project also calls for drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and mining in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters wilderness, among other irreplaceable natural treasure

Why we’re prepared:

  • Fighting on all fronts: Under the Trump administration, Earthjustice challenged an aggressive extractive agenda at every turn. Our victories included winning protections for 128 million acres of ocean and hundreds of thousands of acres of sage-grouse habitat threatened by oil and gas development.
  • We’ve defended many of the places Project 2025 targets:
  • Undermining science and the regulation of toxic chemicals
  • What Project 2025 says:
  • Trust the chemical companies: Project 2025 tells the EPA to be more open to industry science and to stop funding major research into toxic chemical exposure.
  • Make it harder to regulate chemicals: The plan calls for the EPA to meet an absurdly high standard of proof that a chemical is hazardous before deciding to regulate it. This would give chemical companies greater freedom to put toxic substances into our air, water, and products.
  • Forever chemicals are fine: Project 2025 would walk back the determination that PFAS — the “forever chemicals” linked to reproductive harms, developmental delays, and increased risk of cancer — are a hazardous substance.

Why we’re prepared:

Ending government efforts to address the climate crisis

What Project 2025 says:

  • The plan’s authors are climate skeptics: The document refers pointedly to “the perceived threat of climate change.”
  • Climate solutions? Don’t need ‘em: Project 2025 calls for undoing many of the clean energy investments in the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate solutions bill in history. It also supports Congressional efforts to repeal the law entirely.
  • Shut down climate research: The plan would get rid of more than a dozen government offices and agencies that study climate change.

Why we’re prepared:

  • Confronting government with climate reality: We have fought every administration in recent decades to include climate change impacts in various decisions. Earlier this century, we joined in a suit that became a landmark Supreme Court ruling, Massachusetts v. EPA, which found that carbon emissions are air pollutants and consequently the EPA must set limits on such pollution. We will defend the necessity to combat climate change — but further delays will hurt us all. An analysis from Energy Innovation found that enacting Project 2025 would increase carbon emissions by 2.7 billion tons by 2030 — equivalent to the annual emissions of India. These policies would cost households $32 billion in higher energy costs, result in 1.7 million lost jobs, and decrease the U.S. GDP $320 billion per year by 2030.
  • Fighting for science: Earthjustice has previously defended the critical role of scientific experts within the government. In 2020, we won a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s illegal decision to remove independent science advisors from the EPA.

Eliminating environmental justice programs

What Project 2025 says:

  • Environmental justice is not the government’s problem: Project 2025 questions whether the government should address the ways that communities of color and low-income communities are disproportionately exposed to dangerous pollution.
  • Get rid of staff who work on these issues: The plan calls for disbanding offices with the Department of Justice and the EPA that focus on environmental justice.

Why we’re prepared:

  • An environmental justice first: In 2021, after years of pushing by Earthjustice and our partners, the Justice Department opened its first-ever environmental justice investigation, looking into whether an Alabama county was managing sewage in a way that disproportionately harmed Black communities.
  • Raising our voice: We helped advocate for billions of dollars of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to go to the communities that need it most.

What You Can Do

November 29, 2024 Posted by | environment, legal, USA | Leave a comment

From Genocide Joe to Omnicide Joe

Instead of fulfilling his 2020 campaign promise to adopt a U.S. policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, two years ago Biden signed off on the Nuclear Posture Review policy document that explicitly declares the opposite. Last year, under the euphemism of “modernization,” the U.S. government spent $51 billion — more than every other nuclear-armed country combined — updating and sustaining its nuclear arsenal, gaining profligate momentum in a process that’s set to continue for decades to come.

the Biden administration has said it did not want to cross its own red lines—and then has repeatedly proceeded to do so.

Biden’s recent green light for Ukraine to launch longer-range missiles into Russia is another jump toward nuclear warfare.

Norman Solomon 25 Nov 24,  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/genocide-joe

Whether heralded or reviled, Biden’s supposed restraint during the Ukraine war has steadily faded, with more and more dangerous escalation in its place.

President Biden has never wavered from approving huge arms shipments to Israel during more than 13 months of mass murder and deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Biden’s crucial role earned him the name “Genocide Joe.”

That nickname might seem shrill, but it’s valid. Although Biden will not be brought to justice for serving as a key accomplice to the horrific crimes against humanity that continue in Gaza, the label sticks—and candid historians will condemn him as a direct enabler of genocide.

Biden could also qualify for another nickname, which according to Google was never published before this article: “Omnicide Joe.”

In contrast to the Genocide Joe sobriquet, which events have already proven apt, Omnicide Joe is a bit anticipatory. That’s inevitable, because if the cascading effects of his foreign policy end up as key factors in nuclear annihilation, historians will not be around to assess his culpability for omnicide—defined as “the destruction of all life or all human life.”

That definition scarcely overstates what scientists tell us would result from an exchange of nuclear weapons. Researchers have discovered that “nuclear winter” would quickly set in across the globe, blotting out sunlight and wiping out agriculture, with a human survival rate of perhaps 1 or 2 percent.

With everything—literally everything—at stake, you might think that averting thermonuclear war between the world’s two nuclear superpowers, Russia and the United States, would be high on a president’s to-do list. But that hardly has been the case with Joe Biden since he first pulled up a chair at the Oval Office desk.

In fact, Biden has done a lot during the first years of this decade to inflame the realistic fears of nuclear war. His immediate predecessor Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of two vital treaties — Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces and Open Skies — and Biden did nothing to reinstate them. Likewise, Trump killed the Iran nuclear deal negotiated during the Obama administration, and Biden let it stay dead.

Instead of fulfilling his 2020 campaign promise to adopt a U.S. policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons, two years ago Biden signed off on the Nuclear Posture Review policy document that explicitly declares the opposite. Last year, under the euphemism of “modernization,” the U.S. government spent $51 billion — more than every other nuclear-armed country combined — updating and sustaining its nuclear arsenal, gaining profligate momentum in a process that’s set to continue for decades to come.

Before and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, Biden showed a distinct lack of interest in actual diplomacy to prevent the war or to end it. Three days before the invasion, writing in the Financial Times, Jeffrey Sachs pointed out: “Biden has said repeatedly that the U.S. is open to diplomacy with Russia, but on the issue that Moscow has most emphasized—NATO enlargement—there has been no American diplomacy at all. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has repeatedly demanded that the U.S. forswear NATO’s enlargement into Ukraine, while Biden has repeatedly asserted that membership of the alliance is Ukraine’s choice.”

While Russia’s invasion and horrible war in Ukraine should be condemned, Biden has compounded Putin’s crimes by giving much higher priority to Washington’s cold-war mania than to negotiation for peace—or to mitigation of escalating risks of nuclear war.

From the outset, Biden scarcely acknowledged that the survival of humanity was put at higher risk by the Ukraine war. In his first State of the Union speech, a week after the invasion, Biden devoted much of his oratory to the Ukraine conflict without saying a word about the heightened danger that it might trigger the use of nuclear weapons.

During the next three months, the White House posted more than 60 presidential statements, documents and communiques about the war in Ukraine. They all shared with his State of the Union address a stunning characteristic — the complete absence of any mention of nuclear weapons or nuclear war dangers—even though many experts gauged those dangers as being the worst they’d been since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

With occasional muted references to not wanting a U.S. military clash with nuclear-armed Russia, during the last 33 months the Biden administration has said it did not want to cross its own red lines—and then has repeatedly proceeded to do so.

A week ago superhawk John Bolton, a former national security advisor to President Trump, summarized the process on CNN while bemoaning that Biden’s reckless escalation hasn’t been even more reckless: “It’s been one long public debate after another, going back to ‘Shall we supply ATACMS [ballistic missiles] to the Ukrainians at all?’ First it’s no, then there’s a debate, then there’s yes. ‘Should we supply the Ukrainians Abrams tanks?’ First it’s no, then there’s a long debate, then it’s yes. ‘Should we supply the Ukrainians with F-16s?’ First it’s no, then there’s a long debate, and it’s yes. Now, ‘Can we allow the Ukrainians to use ATACMS inside Russia?’ After a long debate, now it’s yes.”

Whether heralded or reviled, Biden’s supposed restraint during the Ukraine war has steadily faded, with more and more dangerous escalation in its place.

Biden’s recent green light for Ukraine to launch longer-range missiles into Russia is another jump toward nuclear warfare. As a Quincy Institute analyst wrote, “the stakes, and escalatory risks, have steadily crept up.” In an ominous direction, “this needlessly escalatory step has put Russia and NATO one step closer to a direct confrontation—the window to avert catastrophic miscalculation is now that much narrower.”

Like Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken as well as the Democratic and Republican phalanx of Ukraine war cheerleaders on Capitol Hill, Bolton doesn’t mention that recent polling shows strong support among Ukrainian people for negotiations to put a stop to the war. “An average of 52 percent of Ukrainians would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible,” Gallup reported last week, compared to only 38 percent who say “their country should keep fighting until victory.”

Biden and other war boosters have continued to scorn, as capitulation and accommodation to aggression, what so much of the Ukrainian population now says it wants—a negotiated settlement. Instead, top administration officials and laptop-warrior pundits in the press corps are eager to tout their own mettle by insisting that Ukrainians and Russians must keep killing and dying.

Elites in Washington continue to posture as courageous defenders of freedom with military escalation in Ukraine, where hundreds of thousands have already died. Meanwhile, dangers of nuclear war increase.

Last week, Putin “lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks,” Reuters reported, “and Moscow said Ukraine had struck deep inside Russia with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles…. Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire U.S., British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.”

For President Biden, the verdict of Genocide Joe is already in. But if, despite pleas for sanity, he turns out to fully deserve the name Omnicide Joe, none of us will be around to read about it.

November 29, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

War Crimes in Lebanon: Human Rights Watch Says Israel Used U.S. Arms to Kill 3 Journalists

November 26, 2024

Since October 2023, Israel has killed over 3,700 people in Lebanon, with most of the deaths occurring over the past 10 weeks. The attacks have forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes in Lebanon, where Israel has also repeatedly targeted journalists. In a new report, Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of committing an apparent war crime by killing three journalists and injuring four others last month, when it bombed the Hasbaya Village Resort in southern Lebanon, where more than a dozen journalists had been staying. The attack killed Ghassan Najjar and Mohammad Reda, both from Al Mayadeen TV, and Wissam Kassem, a cameraman from Al-Manar TV. Human Rights Watch has revealed Israel used an airdropped bomb equipped with a U.S.-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kit. “Journalists are civilians, and deliberately targeting journalists is a war crime,” says Human Rights Watch researcher Ramzi Kaiss.

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Lebanon, where Israel has killed at least 31 people over the past 24 hours, ahead of a possible ceasefire. Israel’s security cabinet is expected to vote today on a ceasefire proposal. ………………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/26/israel_lebanon

November 29, 2024 Posted by | Israel, media, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ironic Dependency: Russian Uranium and the US Energy Market

November 27, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/ironic-dependency-russian-uranium-and-the-us-energy-market/

Be careful who you condemn and ostracise. They just might be supplying you with a special need. While the United States security establishment deems Russia the devil incarnate helped along by aspiring, mischief–making China, that devil continues supplying the US energy market with enriched uranium.

This dependency has irked the self-sufficiency patriots in Washington, especially those keen to break Russia’s firm hold in this field. That, more than any bleeding-heart sentimentality for Ukrainian suffering at the hands of the Russian Army, has taken precedence. For that reason, US lawmakers sought a ban on Russian uranium that would come into effect by January 1, 2028, by which time domestic uranium enrichment and conversion is meant to have reached sustainable levels.

The May 2024 Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, signed by President Joe Biden as law H.R.1042, specifically bans unirradiated low-enriched uranium produced in Russia or by any Russian entity from being imported into the US. It also bars the importation of unirradiated low-enriched uranium that has been swapped for the banned uranium or otherwise obtained in circumstances designed to bypass the restrictions.

At the time, Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm struck a note of hollering triumphalism. “Our nation’s clean energy future will not rely on Russian imports,” she declared. “We are making investments to build out a secure nuclear fuel supply chain here in the United States. That means American jobs supporting the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to a clean, safe, and secure energy economy.”

This does not get away from current circumstances, which see Russia’s provision of some 27% of enrichment service purchases for US utilities. The Russian state-owned company Rosatom is alone responsible for arranging imports of low-enriched uranium into the US market at some 3 million SWU (Separative Work Units) annually. Alexander Uranov, who heads the Russian analytical service Atominfo Center, puts this figure into perspective: that amount would be the equivalent of the annual uranium consumption rate of 20 large reactors.

Given this reliance, some legroom has been given to those in the industry by means of import waivers. H.R.1042 grants the Department of Energy the power to waive the ban in cases where there is no alternative viable source of low-enriched uranium available to enable the continued operation of a nuclear reactor or US nuclear energy company and in cases where importing the uranium would be in the national interest.

The utility Constellation, which is the largest operator of US nuclear reactors, along with the US enrichment trader, Centrus, have received waivers. The latter also has on its book of supply, the Russian state-owned company Tenex, its largest provider of low-enriched uranium as part of a 2011 contract.

No doubt knowing such a state of play, Moscow announced this month that it would temporarily ban the export of low-enriched uranium to the US as an amendment to Government Decree No 313 (March 9, 2022). The decree covers imports “to the United States or under foreign trade contracts concluded with persons registered in the jurisdiction of the United States.”

According to the Russian government, such a decision was made “on the instructions of the President in response to the restriction imposed by the United States for 2024-2027, and from 2028 – a ban on the import of Russian uranium products.” Vladimir Putin had accordingly given instructions in September “to analyse the possibility of restricting supplies to foreign markets of strategic raw materials.” The Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom confirmed that the ban was a “tit-for-tat response to actions of the US authorities” and would not affect the delivery of Russian uranium to other countries.

In a Russian government post on Telegram, the ban is qualified. To make matters less severe, there will be, for instance, one-time licenses issued by the Russian Federal Service for Technical and Export Control. This is of cold comfort to the likes of Centrus, given that most of its revenue is derived from importing the enriched uranium before then reselling it. On being notified by Tenex that its general license to export the uranium to the US had been rescinded, the scramble was on to seek a specific export license for remaining shipments in 2024 and those scheduled to take place in 2025.

In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Centrus warned that any failure by Tenex “to secure export licences for our pending or future orders […] would affect our ability to meet our delivery obligations to our customers and would have a material adverse effect on our business, results in operations, and competitive position.” While Tenex had contacted Centrus of its plans to secure the required export licenses in a timely manner, a sense of pessimism was hard to dispel as “there is no certainty whether such licenses will be issued by the Russian authorities and if issued, whether they will be issued in a timely manner.” The sheer, sweet irony of it all.

November 29, 2024 Posted by | Russia, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Russia Prepares to Respond to the Armageddon Wanted by the Biden Administration

by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 26 November 2024

Russia has deployed thousands of North Korean soldiers to defend its Kursk region, attacked in August by Ukrainian integral nationalists.

Washington considers this fact as a development of the war it has been waging since 1950, despite a ceasefire, against the Korean and Chinese communists, even more than as a development of the one it has been waging through Ukrainian proxy against Russia since 2022. It therefore responded on November 19 by guiding six ATACMS (Army TACtical Missile System) missiles that it had given to kyiv against Russia [1]. They were directed not only against the Kursk Oblast, but also against the Bryansk Oblast, where they failed to hit an ammunition depot. London, for its part, decided on November 21 to guide the Storm Shadow missiles it gave to kyiv in the same way. All of the allied missiles were destroyed in flight by Russian anti-aircraft defense.

On the contrary, Moscow considers the Kursk attack as a continuation of the CIA’s secret war in Ukraine and as the one organized in the 1950s against the USSR, both with the support of Stepan Bandera’s Ukrainian integral nationalists.

The West does not understand these events because it has forgotten Beijing’s support for Pyongyang, wrongly thinks that Kursk and Bryansk are in Ukraine and ignores the secret war during which the Anglo-Saxons allied themselves with the last Nazis (which means that it also did not understand the objective of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine).

ATACMS missiles can be fired from HIMARS mobile launchers. The latest models have a range of 300 kilometers and fly at an altitude of 50,000 meters. The latest versions of the Storm Shadow missiles, on the other hand, have a range of about 400 kilometers. None can therefore reach deep into Russia.

Russia has a wide range of responses to allied attacks……………………………… On November 19, it modified its nuclear doctrine, leaving open the option of a nuclear response. Finally, it can make use of its military dominance. Ukraine announced that, on November 20, Moscow had fired a long-range ballistic missile (i.e. capable of reaching the United States from Russia), RS-26 Rubezh. We now know that it was something else.

Unbeknownst to us, the battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East have already come together, as the US neoconservatives (the Straussians), the Israeli “revisionist Zionists” [3]; and the Ukrainian “integral nationalists” [4] have allied themselves once again, as in the Second World War. These three groups, historically linked to the Tripatite Axis, are in favor of a final confrontation. The only ones missing are the Japanese militarists of the new Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba.

Immediately after the launch of the US ATACMS missiles and even before that of the British Storm Shadows, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree promulgating his country’s new nuclear doctrine that he had announced on September 24 [5]. It authorizes the use of nuclear weapons in five new cases:
1) if reliable information is received about the launch of ballistic missiles targeting the territory of Russia or its allies.

2) if nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction strike the territory of Russia or its allies, or are used to strike Russian military units or installations abroad.
3) if the impact of an enemy on the Russian government or military installations is of critical importance that could undermine the capability of a retaliatory nuclear strike.
4) if aggression against Russia or Belarus with conventional weapons poses a serious threat to their sovereignty and territorial integrity.
5) if reliable information is received about the takeoff or launch of strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic vehicles or other flying vehicles and their crossing of the Russian border……………………………………………………………………………………..more https://www.voltairenet.org/article221540.html

November 29, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Project 2025 calls for massive changes to Hanford nuclear cleanup

Project 2025 calls on the EPA to be an ally of DOE against the state, instead of being an independent regulator. 

the bulk of Project 2025 was written by former Trump officials and allies.

Project 2025 sees reclassifying high-level wastes into low-activity wastes

The Heritage Foundation’s blueprint proposes reclassifying radioactive waste as something less dangerous so it can be disposed of more cheaply.

John Stang, November 20, 2024,
https://www.cascadepbs.org/politics/2024/11/project-2025-calls-massive-changes-hanford-nuclear-cleanup

ill the next presidential administration tinker with the Hanford nuclear reservation’s complicated cleanup of radioactive wastes?

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blueprint for the future, offers some strong hints that cleanup plans for the nation’s most polluted nuclear site might change with or without the approval of the Washington Department of Ecology.

One Project 2025 idea recommends reclassifying highly radioactive wastes into something less dangerous so cheaper methods can be used to dispose of them. Another proposal is to speed up the cleanup by rerouting money to Hanford from a couple of huge Biden-era appropriations for jobs and infrastructure programs elsewhere. The third Hanford-related idea in Project 2025 posits that the state of Washington and the legally negotiated cleanup deadlines and standards are obstacles to completing the cleanup faster. 

Gov. Jay Inslee’s office, the Washington Attorney General’s Office and the state Ecology Department all declined to comment on Project 2025’s plans for Hanford. However, Attorney General and Gov.-elect Bob Ferguson and Attorney General-elect Nick Brown recently held a press conference to announce the AG’s office and have spent months reviewing Project 2025 in preparation for possible litigation with the Trump administration. Ferguson and Brown said the ball is in the Trump administration’s court on whether it will provoke legal battles with Washington.

As attorney general, Ferguson — frequently with other attorneys general —  filed several dozen lawsuits against the first Trump administration, losing only two or three. “No one has a record like that except Perry Mason,” Inslee said at a Nov. 6 press conference. 

Arguably the most radioactively and chemically contaminated spot in the Western Hemisphere, the Hanford nuclear reservation’s cleanup is governed by a 35-year-old legal agreement called the Tri-Party Agreement. The state of Washington and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have repeatedly used this contract to force a sometimes foot-dragging U.S. Department of Energy to meet its legal standards and schedule to clean up the highly radioactive site.

But Project 2025 says the Washington government poses significant legal and political obstacles to cleaning up Hanford. 

“Some states (and contractors) see [nuclear cleanup] as a jobs program and have little interest in accelerating the cleanup. [DOE’s nuclear cleanup program] needs to move to an expeditious program with targets for cleanup of sites. The Hanford site in Washington state is a particular challenge. The Tri-Party Agreement among DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Washington State’s Department of Ecology has hampered attempts to accelerate and innovate the cleanup,” the 900-page Project 2025 document says. Nuclear cleanup is addressed on pages 394-396.

Project 2025 continues: “Hanford poses significant political and legal challenges with the State of Washington, and DOE will have to work with Congress to make progress in accelerating cleanup at that site. DOE and EPA need to work more closely to coordinate their responses to claims made under the TPA and work more aggressively for changes, including congressional action if necessary, to achieve workable cleanup goals.”

In other words, Project 2025 calls on the EPA to be an ally of DOE against the state, instead of being an independent regulator. 

In reality, Washington has been the greatest force to push the federal government to stick to its legal schedules and meet agreed-upon cleanup standards. Hanford has had problems over the past three decades with keeping to the schedules and getting its engineering up to snuff to prevent future breakdowns.

The Project 2025 document does not elaborate on why it believes Washington’s Ecology Department is a hindrance. Washington’s congressional delegation has strongly supported the state and the Tri-Party Agreement on Hanford cleanup issues.

Project 2025 is a detailed master plan put together by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation on how the Trump administration should govern. Much of it is highly controversial, focused on issues like immigration and crime. Presidential campaigner Donald Trump claimed he was unfamiliar with it. However, the bulk of Project 2025 was written by former Trump officials and allies.

Vice President-elect JD Vance wrote the foreword for another book authored by Project 2025’s leader Kevin Roberts, titled “Dawn’s Early Light.” The New York Times wrote that Vance’s foreword said the Heritage Foundation has been “the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.” Roberts wrote the foreword to the Project 2025 document. The New York Times recently wrote that Roberts plans to meet soon with Trump.

On Saturday, Trump named Chris Wright, CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy, as his Secretary of Energy nominee. Wright is a major opponent of fighting climate change. For his first term, Trump’s selection for Energy was Rick Perry, who had called for abolishing the DOE when he ran for president, and was unaware that he would be in charge of cleaning up radioactive nuclear sites when he became energy secretary. Trump recently selected former New York congressman Lee Zeldin as the EPA’s head administrator. As a congressman, Zeldin boosted cleanup of Long Island Sound and wanted the United States to leave the Paris climate accords. But his environmental resume is thin beyond that.

The U.S. government set up Hanford in 1943 to create plutonium for the nation’s atomic bombs, including those exploded in New Mexico and over Nagasaki in 1945. That development work created many billions of gallons of chemical and radioactive wastes, the worst 56 million gallons of which were pumped into 177 underground tanks. About a third of those tanks leak. At least a million gallons of radioactive liquid has leaked into the ground, seeping into the aquifer 200 feet below and into the Columbia River, roughly seven miles away.

In 1989, the Washington Department of Ecology, DOE and the EPA signed the Tri-Party Agreement to govern Hanford’s cleanup with the state and EPA as the regulators enforcing that contract. The agreement has been modified many times. It originally called for Hanford to begin converting the underground tank wastes into glass in 2009 and finish by 2019. After several delays due to budget and technical problems, glassification is scheduled to begin in August 2025. The glassification project’s budget has grown from $4 billion to $17 billion, and is expected to expand to more than $30 billion. Legally, glassification is supposed to be finished by 2052, although future negotiations may push that back.

While the tank wastes are Hanford’s biggest program, the site has numerous other contamination problems. The entire 584-square-mile site is supposed to be cleaned up by 2091.

In 2020, DOE, the EPA and the state began four years of secret negotiations to revise the Tri-Party Agreement. Last April, the three parties unveiled tentative revisions. The three now are reviewing public comments on those proposed revisions before taking the changes to a federal judge for approval.

Those changes would not set a new completion date for glassifying the tank wastes, which is likely to be part of another negotiation. Right now, DOE expects glassification to be done by 2069, which is 17 years beyond the current legal deadline, according to a 2021 report by the Government Accountability Office.

Project 2025 calls for finishing all of Hanford’s cleanup by 2060. It recommends a massive study and remapping of the cleanup of Hanford and other nuclear sites across the nation. DOE has done this type of review a few times over the past 30 years, usually when a new presidential administration comes on board.

Hanford’s 56 million gallons of tank wastes consist of highly radioactive wastes and lesser radioactive wastes (dubbed “low-activity wastes”) mixed together in many of the same tanks. Hanford’s high-level wastes amount to 5 million to 6 million gallons. The Tri-Party Agreement calls for two plants to be built for dealing with low-activity wastes and a third to be built for handling high-level wastes. So far, one low-activity waste plant has been built.

That low-activity waste plant is scheduled to begin glassification in August 2025. A plant to separate high-level wastes from low-activity wastes along with the facility to glassify the high-level wastes are expected to be ready in the 2030s. These plans are all part of the current Tri-Party Agreement, with the revisions also calling for a newer approach for handling the radioactive waste: turning it into a cement-like substance called grout.

Grouting is easier and cheaper than glassification, but has not been extensively tested with Hanford’s chemically complex tank wastes. The grout must be shipped off-site, likely to disposal sites in either Utah or Texas. DOE and the state are still figuring out what type of grouting technology to use. Part of this agreed-upon new approach would reclassify any high-level wastes in 22 tanks aimed toward grouting into low-activity wastes.

Project 2025 sees reclassifying high-level wastes into low-activity wastes as a major step toward speeding up cleanup, although it does not address whether DOE should be able to reclassify wastes beyond the 22 tanks.  

“A central challenge at Hanford is the classification of radioactive waste. High-Level Waste (HLW) and Low-Level Waste (LLW) classifications drive the remediation and disposal process. Under President Trump, significant changes in waste classification from HLW to LLW enabled significant progress on remediation. Implementation needs to continue across the complex, particularly at Hanford,” the Project 2025 document said. 

Still unknown is whether the state — which has been skeptical about widespread use of grout — would go along with grouting high-level wastes beyond those 22 tanks. One indication of the Ecology Department’s reluctance is that the high-level waste glassification plant and the waste separation facility have been kept in the proposed Tri-Party Agreement revisions.

Meanwhile, Project 2025 calls for appropriating more money toward Hanford’s cleanup. However, that money would be taken from projects nationwide covered by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act and 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The Infrastructure Investment Act provides money for federal highways, transit, research, hazardous materials work, broadband access, clean water projects and improving electric grids. 

The Inflation Reduction Act covers greatly reduced insulin costs, a huge number of climate change-related projects including reducing greenhouse emissions, drought-related measures for the western states, boosting subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, supporting vaccine coverage, increasing tax enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service, and paying for new energy projects.

November 28, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »