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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Mos News: Russia, Iran Deny Uranium Enrichment Deal -
2 Irna: IAEA hopes Iran-EU3 nuclear talks will bear fruits -
3 Guardian Unlimited: EU Pressures Iran to Compromise on Nukes
4 New York Times Letter to Editor North Korea & Nukes
5 Hankyoreh: [Editorial] NK Must Quickly Make the Right Decision
6 Guardian Unlimited: Russian Official: Prevent N. Korean Test
7 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Nuke Test Would Pose Challenges
8 Korea Herald: [READER'S VIEW] U.S. must confront N.K. challenge
9 Interfax: Korea nuke problem should be resolved through talks -
10 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Kim Dae-jung sees sanctions against North as
11 Xinhua: Russia to try to prevent DPRK from nuclear tests - official
12 Korea Times: NK Weighs Timing of Return to Nuke Talks
13 Korea Times : [Times Forum] Bush's Fitful Strategy On North Korea
14 ITAR-TASS: Yuri Baluyevsky: North Korea nuclear tests must not be al
15 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Confirms Meeting U.S. Officials
16 US: [NukeNet] Stationary Radiological Nuclear Weapons:Nuclear
17 US: UPI: Analysts warn of DOD budget 'train wreck' -
18 US: Telegraph Online: Here we go again - more Star Wars spending
19 US: Yankton Press & Dakotan: Base Closure Could Complicate Ellsworth
20 US: csmonitor.com: Limits on filibusters are already pervasive
21 IPS-English UAE-UN: Call to international community to tackle
22 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear Powers Fail to Agree on U.N. Plan
23 RIA Novosti: RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT ON ADAMOV'S CASE
24 RIA Novosti: RUSSIA HAS NO DATA ABOUT PREPARATION OF NUCLEAR TESTS
25 ITAR-TASS: Switzerland refuses to give inf on Adamov’s extradition
26 St. Petersburg Times: Sakharov Honored
27 St.Petersburg Times: Russia Charges Detainee Adamov
28 Guardian Unlimited: Diplomats at Odds Over Nuclear Strategy
NUCLEAR REACTORS
29 US: Re: [NukeNet] VT Yankee officials threaten to close plant
30 US: Stationary Radiological Nuclear Weapons:Nuclear Power/WMDs
31 US: [NukeNet] VT Yankee officials threaten to close plant
32 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss Preliminary Results of an In-Depth Inspectio
33 US: OMB Watch: NRC's meltdown (or let down) on safety
34 US: NRC: NRC Ends License for Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, Releases S
35 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find
36 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th
37 US: NRC: Appointments to Performance Review Boards for Senior Execut
38 Reuters AlertNet: Investors bet on change in German nuclear stance
39 ITAR-TASS: Bodman arrives in Moscow for talks on coop in energy sect
40 US: Post-Crescent: Kewaunee nuclear plant deal spurs lawsuit from gr
41 US: NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting
NUCLEAR SECURITY
42 [NukeNet] Japan and the nuclear option
NUCLEAR SAFETY
43 Guardian Unlimited: Whistleblowers Gain Respect in Japan
44 US: Lone Star Iconoclast: Connecticut Senate Okays Bill To Study Hea
45 St. Petersburg Times: Russia Urged to Pay For Nuclear Safety -
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
46 US: News Release: Idaho new Yucca Mountain?
47 US: [NukeNet] House funds interim nuclear storage
48 Las Vegas RJ: POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Official warns Nevadans against lo
49 Bellona: Recovery of radioactive leakage in UK to take four weeks
50 NRC: USEC, Inc.; Establishment of Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
51 US: Vermont Guardian: Activists oppose plan to use plutonium fuel in
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
52 L.A. Daily News: Plans for houses near lab a concern
53 Daily Californian: Livermore Lab Not Secure, Study Says -
54 Daily Californian: As UC Preps for Lab Bid, DOE Ups Ante -
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Mos News: Russia, Iran Deny Uranium Enrichment Deal -
The preliminary installation of a turbo generator at Iran’s
Bushehr nuclear reactor / Photo: AFP
Created: 23.05.2005 11:50 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:50 MSK
MosNews
Iran said on Saturday it had not considered a proposal that
Russia could enrich uranium for it — an idea floated as a way
out of a deadlock in talks with the EU over Tehran’s nuclear
program, Reuters reports. Moscow rejects claims that the
proposal came from Russia.
Britain, France and Germany were due to resume talks with Iran
next week, aiming to persuade it to abandon uranium enrichment —
a process needed to make nuclear bombs — in return for economic
incentives.
Though Tehran has said repeatedly that it will not give up
uranium enrichment, diplomats said one idea being floated was
for Russia to temporarily enrich uranium for Iran. The
diplomats, who declined to be named, said the proposal would buy
time for the EU-Iran talks to continue.
“We have not discussed it yet,” Ali Aghamohammadi of Iran’s
Supreme National Security Council told Reuters.
Aghamohammadi also contested comments by diplomats that Iran
proposed the idea of having Russia enrich uranium.
“The idea was from Russia,” he said.
But Moscow denied the idea had been proposed by Russia.
“I do not have any information that we have suggested supplying
Iran with fuel,” a spokesman for the Russian Atomic Energy
Agency said.
Under the proposal, Tehran would process uranium ore mined in
its central deserts into uranium hexafluoride gas. This would
then be exported and pumped into Russian centrifuges to enrich
it into atomic fuel for Iran.
Iran denies U.S. accusations it is seeking nuclear bombs, saying
its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.
Write us: info@mosnews.com
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
2 Irna: IAEA hopes Iran-EU3 nuclear talks will bear fruits -
Vienna, May 23, IRNA
Iran-Nuclear-Fleming
International Atomic Energy Agency hopes the upcoming nuclear
talks between Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security
Council Hassan Rowhani and the foreign ministers of Britain,
France and Germany will produce satisfactory results for Iran,
EU and the international community.
The IAEA spokeswoman Melisa Fleming, who is in the UN's
European headquarters in Geneva, told IRNA on Monday that the
IAEA has always supported the Iran-EU3 talks and stressed
diplomatic solution to the issue.
Fleming said the IAEA hoped a solution would be found that can
satisfy the two sides.
The Iran-EU3 talks will be held in Geneva on Wednesday in the
presence of the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to find a
solution to the question of Iran's nuclear program.
Political circles and international press view the talks as
"highly important and sensitive" with some evening calling it a
last chance for reaching an agreement.
Fleming declined to say what will be the consequences if the
the Geneva talks fail.
She said the talks follow a logical and significant process.
"We have always said that continued inspections by the IAEA
along with continued political talks are the best option to
solve Iran's nuclear crisis," she said.
She added the agenda of the next meeting of the IAEA Board of
Governors has not yet been decided.
1420/1412
*****************************************************************
3 Guardian Unlimited: EU Pressures Iran to Compromise on Nukes
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday May 24, 2005 1:01 AM
By CONSTANT BRAND
Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European Union foreign ministers on
Monday urged Iran to compromise at nuclear talks later this week
and called on the country to assure the world it is not
developing atomic weapons.
Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg, which holds the
EU presidency, said all the union's 25 foreign ministers gave a
``clear reaffirmation that the Iranians have to live up to their
commitments'' made under the accord reached between Britain,
Germany, France and Iran last November when both sides agreed to
launch talks over Iran's nuclear intentions. ``These commitments
cannot be circumvented.''
Iran said last week it was resuming its uranium-enrichment
program, which the EU and the United States fear is being used
to develop weapons. Iran says its atomic program is for peaceful
energy purposes.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw refused to say what
specific issues the EU three would raise in the talks this week
and said the meeting in Geneva scheduled for Wednesday would be
``to ensure that both sides stick by the commitments which we
have already entered into.''
Talks are entering their seventh round since Iran and the EU
launched the discussions last November in Paris, and Straw said
he hoped they would yield results.
``The Iranians are tough to negotiate with,'' he said. He added,
however, that all sides believe it is in everyone's interests to
reach agreement.
The EU is pushing to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons,
and has offered a free trade pact and further economic aid if
Tehran comes clean on its nuclear intentions.
Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only,
to build much-needed nuclear reactors to meet growing energy
needs.
The three countries and the EU foreign affairs chief Javier
Solana discussed strategy Monday, ahead of the Geneva talks.
They also discussed Iran's poor human rights record.
Asselborn voiced EU concern over a decision by Iran's Guardian
Council to approve only six of over 1,000 candidates wanting to
run in upcoming presidential elections.
``They made it impossible for a true democratic choice.'``' said
Asselborn.
The 25-nation EU last week threatened to take Iran to the U.N.
Security Council after Iran said it was planning to resume some
uranium reprocessing activities. Iran warned the EU on Sunday
that a referral to the Security Council would deal a setback to
the nuclear talks and could prompt the country to act on its
own.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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4 New York Times Letter to Editor North Korea & Nukes
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 11:49:05 EDT
New York Times
Bennett Ramberg letter to Editor May 23
To the Editor:
Re "Letting Nukes Happen" (editorial, May 16):
Your presumption that the United States can buy North Korea's fidelity
not to remain a nuclear weapons state is a chimera.
Because regime change is unlikely any time soon, the United States and
North Korea's neighbors will confront the risk that North Korea could launch a
nuclear strike because of intelligence failure, a delegation of nuclear
initiation to field commanders, and poor command and control.
The interlocutors with North Korea can reduce these risks by providing
Pyongyang with such nuclear confidence measures as a hot line, satellite
intelligence and economic engagement.
Consider the Bush administration's alternative and its consequences: a
further isolated North Korea, increasingly paranoid, with poor intelligence
placing its nuclear forces on hair-trigger alert. This is not an outcome the
international community can abet.
Bennett Ramberg
Los Angeles, May 16, 2005
The writer was a policy analyst at the State Department, 1989-90.
*****************************************************************
5 Hankyoreh: [Editorial] NK Must Quickly Make the Right Decision
Updated : May.24.2005 06:51 KST
North Korea's foreign ministry has confirmed that it had had
contact with the United States on May 13 in New York, and says
that it will convey its position officially "when the time
comes." The comment is one that can be interpreted as meaning a
decision from North Korea about whether or not to return to the
six-party talks is approaching. We call on the North to quickly
make the right decision so that there might be progress in
resolving the nuclear issue, which would be in tune with the
progress in intra-Korean relations.
Looking at the recent situation it becomes possible to surmise
that the North is taking steps towards returning to the
six-party talks. That is supported by how the US, as demanded by
the North on May 8, said during the meeting in New York that the
North is a sovereign nation and that the US would be willing to
engage in bilateral dialogue within the framework of the
six-party talks, and now the North's foreign ministry has
formally responded. The North proposed vice ministerial talks a
few hours after the meeting in New York and those do not look
unrelated. It likely felt the need to advance intra-Korean
relations ahead of returning to the six-party talks.
If by chance the North is again trying to stall for time it has
misjudged the situation. Just as the North believes, the
hard-liners within the Bush Administration do not want
negotiations. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration's basic
position is that the issue should be resolved diplomatically and
peacefully through the six-party talks, and is more appeasing
than it used to be regarding guarantees regarding the North's
security and economic assistance. The US is not the only one:
North Korea needs to realize that as time goes by China, the
host country of talks, could change to a hard-line position,
too.
There continues to be much distrust between the North and the
US, and so one can understand how the North would want to
establish the right reasons and conditions for returning to the
six-party talks. But if that leads it to try to win many
guarantees before the talks even reopen it could lose even what
has already been achieved. What is clear is that the more
rapidly it makes the right decision, the more room there will be
for negotiation.
The Hankyoreh, 24 May 2005.
Copyright 2005 Hankyoreh Plus inc.
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: Russian Official: Prevent N. Korean Test
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday May 23, 2005 1:16 PM
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's military chief of staff called Monday for
steps to prevent North Korea from conducting nuclear tests,
expressing a sense of urgency amid increasing U.S. concern that
Pyongyang may soon conduct a test.
``Today it is necessary to do everything possible in order not
to allow North Korea to conduct (nuclear) tests,'' Gen. Yuri
Baluyevsky, chief of the general staff of the armed forces, said
in televised comments. He did not specify what might be done to
prevent it.
Baluyevsky, who spoke during a meeting with his Japanese
counterpart, Gen. Hajime Massaki, also called for the renewal of
six-nation talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to drop its
nuclear weapons program.
``We simply must not allow the testing or existence of nuclear
weapons on the Korean peninsula,'' he said.
The statement came amid questions about how nations involved in
the dormant six-sided talks with North Korea - the United
States, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan - would react if
Pyongyang does conduct a test.
North Korea says it has removed fuel rods from a reactor - a
step toward extracting weapons-grade plutonium - and U.S.
officials say spy satellites spotted the digging of a tunnel and
the construction of a reviewing stand in northeastern North
Korea, possibly suggesting an upcoming test.
A nuclear test by North Korea could give Washington more
leverage in persuading other permanent U.N. Security Council
nations, especially Russia and China, to support U.N.-approved
penalties against the hard-line communist country. Russia has
expressed opposition in the past to taking the issue to the
Security Council.
China says bullying U.S. rhetoric makes it harder to coax the
North Koreans back to the negotiating table, and Russian
diplomats have also advocated a softer touch.
The Soviet Union was North Korea's principle aid donor for
years, and Russia has cordial relations with Pyongyang, but
analysts say that shrinking trade means Moscow has far less
influence with its government than China does.
Alexander Pikayev, a nuclear expert with the Committee of
Scientists for Global Security, said Russia would likely follow
China's lead if there was U.S. pressure for sanctions against
North Korea.
``If at the end of the day China decides to go through with the
sanctions, Russia will also do that, but it is highly
unlikely,'' he said.
Pikayev also said that ``a military operation (against North
Korea) is highly unlikely,'' adding: ``And if someone dares to
attack, Russia would not participate in it.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Nuke Test Would Pose Challenges
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday May 23, 2005 6:46 PM
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A nuclear weapons test by North Korea would
reverberate around the world, altering the nuclear balance in
Asia and posing stark new challenges for U.S. policy-makers and
military planners.
It could also induce China, Russia and other powers to join the
United States in seeking U.N.-approved penalties against the
hard-line communist country, analysts and diplomats suggest.
With U.S. officials increasingly concerned that North Korea may
conduct a test soon, how would Washington respond?
First, the Bush administration probably would try to involve the
United Nations. Less clear is whether President Bush would
consider a risky military strike - given North Korean leader Kim
Jong Il's million-man army, heavy conventional weaponry and
perhaps several nuclear weapons.
``The North Koreans are basically hellbent on proving to the
world that they need to be taken seriously. That's dangerous,''
said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee.
``A North Korean test would embarrass China and might actually
rally other nations to our position. But the result might push
Kim Jong Il to take whatever steps he felt were necessary to
rally his people into war,'' Weldon said.
Weldon, who led a delegation to North Korea in January, said he
met last Monday in New York with North Korea's deputy U.N.
ambassador, Han Song Ryol, and told him, ``If you do a test,
you're going to set this process back years and years, and it's
going to lead to consequences neither of us want.''
Meanwhile, North Korea has indicated a willingness to return to
the nuclear bargaining table but said it is waiting for
Washington to clarify conflicting statements on U.S. policy.
Citing differences between Washington's public and private
statements, the North's official Korean Central News Agency
quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman Sunday as saying Pyongyang
``will continue to closely watch the U.S. side's attitude, and
when the time comes we will officially deliver to the U.S. side
our position through the New York contacts.''
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday that the
Bush administration sees no contradictions in its statements on
North Korea. ``The six-party talks are the way forward to
resolving this issue. We want to see them come back to the
talks. We have no preconditions for returning to the talks and
we've made that very clear,'' McClellan said.
U.S. officials want China to exert more pressure on its longtime
ally. China says bullying rhetoric by the U.S. makes it harder
to coax the North Koreans back to the negotiating table.
``The potential downside of a test is enormous,'' said Kurt
Campbell, former assistant secretary of defense for Asia in the
Clinton administration. ``It would set off a chain reaction in
the region with completely impossible-to-predict consequences.''
It could even lead South Korea and Japan to rethink their
current policy against nuclear arsenals, Campbell said.
North Korea says it has removed fuel rods from a reactor at its
main nuclear complex - a step toward extracting weapons-grade
plutonium. U.S. officials say spy satellites spotted the digging
of a tunnel and the construction of a reviewing stand in
northeast North Korea, possibly suggesting an upcoming test.
Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, has asserted
without elaboration that ``action would ... have to be taken''
if North Korea went ahead with a test.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters last week,
``Escalation on the part of the North Koreans is going to deepen
their isolation a lot.'' She went no further.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen.
Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said he concluded from a recent meeting
with Bush that the president expected other permanent members of
the U.N. Security Council - including Russia and China - to join
him in seeking U.N. penalties against North Korea if there were
a test.
China has indicated it opposes such action as a means of
leverage over North Korea.
But Lugar said Bush ``feels the Chinese ... would take a dim
view of the test, to say the least, and would be prepared to go
to the U.N. if that is required.''
In 1998, India and Pakistan surprised U.S. intelligence analysts
with an exchange of underground nuclear blasts. That led to U.S.
military and economic penalties against both; most of them have
ended.
While the United States knows the location of North Korea's main
nuclear complex, it does not know where the North is storing
plutonium or atomic bombs that may already be assembled.
``We also suspect that North Korea has some early uranium
enrichment capability. We don't know where that is,'' said Daryl
Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
``So a surgical strike is not likely going to be effective.
Furthermore, any military action creates the high risk that
North Korea will respond using its substantial conventional
forces, specifically its artillery, to pulverize Seoul,'' he
said.
About 10 million people live in the South Korean capital, 40
miles south of the border with North Korea.
With U.S. troops heavily involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new
front in North Korea would present a nightmare for military
planners.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
8 Korea Herald: [READER'S VIEW] U.S. must confront N.K. challenge
Editorial
North Korea seems to be fighting with Iran for the spotlight in
the nuclear proliferation suspense drama. Following its May 1
test of a short-range missile, it announced it has just removed
another 8,000 spent fuel rods from its 5 megawatt research
reactor in Yongbyon to bolster its nuclear arsenal.
In addition, news reports mainly from the United States focus
on North Korean preparation - or at least gives the impression
of plans - for a possible nuclear test. Recently declassified
documents reveal how for decades Pyongyang has tirelessly worked
on developing its own nuclear arsenal to deter what it views as
U.S. aggression.
The much talked about nuclear test could still be a ruse, as
some point out; but recent developments - North Korea's
provocations and U.S. inaction - certainly do not bode well for
the now almost defunct six-party talks aimed at defusing and
eventually reversing the North Korean nuclear crisis, now in its
32nd month and nowhere closer to a resolution.
Should North Korea undertake a test, at a time when 188 nations
are debating the future of the 35-year old Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, it could further shake the confidence
in, and indeed the very raison d'etre, of the regime. And there
is nothing the international community can do except the use of
military force to remove the Kim Jong-il regime - hardly a
realistic option given the terrible consequences that are most
certain to ensue.
How could it have come to this?
When the crisis first broke out in October 2002, Washington
rightly confronted Pyongyang on its illicit nuclear activities -
the covert uranium enrichment program that violated its NPT
commitment, its 1991 joint declaration with Seoul on a
nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and the spirit if not the letter
of the 1994 Agreed Framework which it signed with the United
States.
What has followed since are North Korean escalation of the
crisis, including withdrawal from the NPT, making it the first
country to do so, and U.S. internal disagreement on how to deal
with Pyongyang, resulting in a policy of non-engagement,
isolation, and outsourcing of the problem to China.
The Bush administration's refusal to talk to the North Koreans
bilaterally is understandable. It is Pyongyang that first
violated its nonproliferation commitment and therefore any
negotiation with the Kim Jong-il regime would be tantamount to
conceding to nuclear blackmail, if not outright reward for bad
behavior. Washington therefore has every reason to decline
direct engagement with Pyongyang.
But that principle, however laudable, should not stand in the
way of resolving the nuclear crisis. Where the Bush
administration has committed serious diplomatic missteps is that
it has allowed its preoccupation with the process to take
precedent over what should be the ultimate goal - dismantlement
of North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
So what we have to confront today is that Pyongyang has been
able to remove spent fuel rods for reprocessing to acquire more
weapons-grade fissile materials. Estimates suggest North Korea
may now have enough fissile materials for eight to 11 nuclear
weapons.
The Bush administration argues that the North Korean nuclear
issue should be a concern not just to the United States but all
the countries in the region, and hence its emphasis on the
six-party talks.
No one is disputing this. But everyone knows that the United
States that must come up with specific proposals and deal with
North Korea directly. There is a higher principle than the one
the administration has held dear so far: to dismantle North
Korea's nuclear weapons program. All the policies, tactics, and
strategies should be designed to achieve this fundamental goal
and uphold the principle of nuclear nonproliferation.
The Bush administration should realize that the United States,
not China or South Korea, holds the key to a solution to the
North Korean nuclear problem. Beijing can only do so much, given
its own strategic calculations and interests. Indeed, the
Chinese think they have already done enough, to the extent they
have almost risked their relationship with Pyongyang. Beijing is
also puzzled by, if not openly against, the administration's
penchant for a continuing war of words with the North.
The two Koreas have just resumed talks suspended for over 10
months. This has brought some hope. But Washington should not
rely on Seoul, as it has on Beijing, for any breakthrough, which
remains its responsibility to make. Closer consultation with
South Korea and other interested parties is of critical
importance, but taking advice from its allies and partners on
the Korean Peninsula's denuclearization is just as, if not more,
important.
It is high time that Washington explored other approaches. The
recent meeting in New York between U.S. and North Korean
officials at the working level should be considered a positive
sign and encouraged. As the saying goes, it's better late than
never.
The consequences of a nuclear North Korea could do great harm to
the international nonproliferation regime and regional security.
A nuclear domino in Northeast Asia is in no one's interest. But
this may well be what the region may become should this North
Korean crisis be allowed to continue.
Dr. Jing-dong Yuan is research director of the East Asia
Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute's Center for
Nonproliferation Studies, where he teaches on regional security
and arms control issues. - Ed.
By Jing-dong Yuan
2005.05.24
*****************************************************************
9 Interfax: Korea nuke problem should be resolved through talks -
Lavrov
Updated: May 23 2005 9:10PM (MSK) Ðóññêàÿ âåðñèÿ
Interfax.com Text version Site map
MOSCOW. May 23 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov said the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program
should be resolved through negotiations.
"Our opinion is that a decision should be made during talks,
rather than through a more extensive arms race, especially if it
involves nuclear [weapons]," Lavrov said in an interview with
Japan's Kyodo Tsushin news agency.
© 1991-2005 Interfax
All rights reserved
News and other data on this web site are provided for
information purposes only, and are not intended for
republication or redistribution. Republication or redistribution
of Interfax content, including by framing or similar means, is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of
Interfax.
*****************************************************************
10 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Kim Dae-jung sees sanctions against North as poor policy
May 24, 2005 KST 12:49
May 24, 2005 ¤Ñ In a speech at the University of Tokyo, former
President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea said yesterday that
threatening to take a tough approach in an effort to bring North
Korea back to stalled nuclear negotiations will not work.
Some in the United States want to put pressure on North Korea,
Mr. Kim said, but "when North Korea does not keep its promise
even when provided with a fair deal, then the members of the
six-party talks can come up with stern measures against
Pyongyang."
North Korea has refused to return to the nuclear disarmament
talks since last June, complaining of hostility from Washington.
Referring to a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in
2000, Mr. Kim said that he learned from his experience then that
Pyongyang wants security and economic development. He pointed
out that for the North to achieve such aims it needed to resume
negotiations.
"North Korea must quickly return to the six-party talks and
clearly state its willingness to give up its nuclear weapons,"
said Mr. Kim.
He also said in order to maintain peace on the Korean
Peninsula, the South Korea-U.S. alliance is the most important
factor and that the six-party framework should be maintained
even after solving the nuclear crisis.
Addressing Japan's relationship with its neighbors in the
region, Mr. Kim said Tokyo needed to look to Germany, which he
said had come to terms with its war crimes committed during
World War II.
"Some leaders in Japan say Japan is different from Germany,"
said Mr. Kim. "I, however, think that it is not so. Both
countries invaded innocent neighboring nations and brought
unspeakable suffering and damage."
He said Japanese leaders needed to stop honoring class A war
criminals enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine. Japanese politicians
including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have visited the
shrine in the face of strong protests from countries such as
South Korean and China. "We are not raising our voice against
paying respects to normal people who died during war," Mr. Kim
said.
by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
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11 Xinhua: Russia to try to prevent DPRK from nuclear tests - official
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-23 23:05:52
MOSCOW, May 23 (Xinhuanet) -- A top Russian military
official said Moscow is ready to do its best to prevent the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from nuclear tests
and to resume the six-party talks on the issue, the Interfax
News Agency reported on Monday.
"We must do the utmost to prevent such tests, and must do
everything to resume the six-nation negotiations (between the
DPRK,South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States),"
the Interfax quoted Russia's Chief of General Staff Yury
Baluyevsky assaying.
"It is most important to prevent the tests and the
appearance of nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula," the
general told a press conference held after talks with his
Japanese counterpart Hadime Massaki.
Also on Monday, Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the
International Affairs Committee in Russia's State Duma, the
lower house of parliament, criticized the United States for its
"excessively strict" attitude in the six-party talks.
"The stand is too firm and, thus, fails to promote a
constructive atmosphere in the negotiations," he told a separate
press conference in Moscow.
"We know that the United States is against DPRK's right to
develop the civilian atomic energy industry," he continued.
Kosachyov said the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula
could only be resolved by having the country return to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic
Energy Agency.
China has hosted three rounds of six-party talks designed to
resolve the nuclear confrontation between the DPRK and the US.
Butthe DPRK earlier this year refused to return to a fourth
round, demanding Washington discard its hostility to it.
Pyongyang indicated on Sunday that it might respond to the
resumption of the talks next week if the US changes its policy
toward it. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
12 Korea Times: NK Weighs Timing of Return to Nuke Talks
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation
By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter
After a series of preparatory steps in the first half of the
year, a major flurry of diplomacy is expected to come in June,
which experts say will be a crucial month for the Korean
Peninsula as Pyongyang is considering when to return to the
negotiation table over its nuclear problem.
While South Korea seeks summit diplomacy with Japan and the
United States, inter-Korean relations are also set to flourish
amid heightened expectations that North Korea might announce its
decision soon to come back to the six-party nuclear talks by the
end of June.
One of the outstanding events will be the June 14-17 festival in
Pyongyang where the two Koreas will jointly celebrate the fifth
anniversary of the historic summit in 2000. The South will send
a minister-led delegation in addition to a 615-member civilian
delegation.
When the two sides reopened the cross-border dialogue channel
last week after a 10-month hiatus, they agreed to hold the 15th
round of ministerial talks in Seoul from June 21-24. South Korea
wants to utilize the occasions to persuade the North to return
to the denuclearization talks, according to officials in Seoul.
Besides its efforts to convince Pyongyang in direct contacts,
Seoul also pursues diplomacy with its neighbors to consult with
each other on international issues, including the North Korean
nuclear problem, as well as bilateral issues.
South Korea and Japan have agreed in principle to hold a summit
in Seoul in the first half of the year. A Japanese media
reported on Saturday that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi would hold a
summit on June 20.
While the upcoming talks are expected to focus on bilateral
issues such as disputes over history, the two leaders will also
discuss ways to resolve the standoff over North Korea's nuclear
weapons program, according to the South Korean officials.
After a direct contact in New York between officials from the
U.S. and the North, Pyongyang seems to be weighing when to
return to the negotiation table, according to media reports.
North Korea has requested China to ensure that the North will be
able to hold bilateral talks with the U.S. within the context of
the six-party talks when the next round of multilateral
denuclearization talks is held, Japan's Sankei Shimbun newspaper
reported Sunday.
An unidentified spokesperson for the North Korean Foreign
Ministry also confirmed the May 13 contact in New York, saying
his country would give an answer ``when the time is right,''
according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA).
While seeking close coordination in approaches toward the
reclusive North, South Korea seeks to materialize a summit
between Roh and U.S. President George W. Bush in the near
future.
Officials in Seoul said the Roh-Bush summit, if realized before
the next round of six-party talks, would be an important meeting
for the two leaders to exchange views on the current situation
and discuss ways to produce substantial progress in the
multiparty nuclear negotiations.
jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr 05-23-2005 19:48
*****************************************************************
13 Korea Times : [Times Forum] Bush's Fitful Strategy On North Korea
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Opinion
By Philip Dorsey Iglauer
President Bush¡¯s North Korea policy has the strategic
consistency of a preteen schoolgirl.
After more than four years of refusing direct one-on-one
negotiations with Pyongyang, Bush¡¯s people did exactly that,
when U.S. officials met with North Korean officials at the
DPRK¡¯s United Nations offices in New York.
Administration officials affirmed as much last Tuesday from the
U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, confirming rumors that Bush had utilized
the ``New York channel,¡¯¡¯ diplomatic speak for meeting the
North Korean permanent mission to the U.N., to jumpstart the
stalled multilateral talks.
Though the effort should be commended, the neo-cons should also
be reprimanded for eschewing up to now such face-to-face
negotiations. Indeed, they bridled at the very idea.
Despite the neo-cons¡¯ insistence that meeting with them
face-to-face and discussing the terms and conditions for their
return to the nuclear disarmament talks does not constitute
``negotiations,¡¯¡¯ it clearly does.
This New York meeting revealed what the neo-cons still refuse
to concede in public, that the North Korea policy heretofore
coming out of the White House has been a miserable failure,
hobbled with strategic myopia punctuated only by the Bush
administration¡¯s childish and unproductive name-calling.
Last week¡¯s meeting was attended by none other than the head
of the U.S. delegation to the six-nation nuclear talks, Joseph
DiTrani, and Jim Foster, the head of the State Department¡¯s
Office of Korean Affairs, according to the Boston Globe.
The Bush administration¡¯s mischaracterization that a meeting
attended by its top negotiator is something other than direct
one-on-one negotiations is an antic of a petulant child refusing
to admit he made a mistake.
The Kyodo News agency, citing anonymous sources, reported that
the North said in the meeting it would respond to the
discussions sometime in late May. And then shortly after a
two-day meeting with South Korea, the North said Thursday that
it was willing to return to the stalled talks.
``Our position is also to peacefully resolve the nuclear
issue,¡¯¡¯ Kim Man-gil, head of North Korea¡¯s delegation, said
after the talks in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. ``We
are also willing to return to the six-nation talks. It¡¯s just
that the U.S. should make the conditions and atmosphere.¡¯¡¯
How did the North finally come around? Was it that they finally
succumbed to Bush¡¯s original strategy of calling them bad
names? Or was it that Bush¡¯s team changed their approach, and
did what diplomats, U.S. partners in the six-party talks, as
well as Democrats in the U.S. have been urging all along _ they
negotiated one-on-one with them?
It is certain that a deal was brokered at their face-to-face
meeting in New York.
And it is no coincidence that South Korea¡¯s nearly
simultaneous meeting last week made progress in bilateral
relations with their reclusive brethren as a result of
Washington¡¯s compromise. The two Koreas concluded their first
face-to-face talks in 10 months Thursday, agreeing to hold
Cabinet-level meetings next month.
The last time U.S. officials had contact with North Korean
officials was in January, when a congressional delegation led by
Republican Rep. Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, visited Pyongyang.
The Bush administration seemed to finally be coming around
earlier this month when it offered a couple of carrots to the
North _ direct talks and recognition of its sovereignty _ in an
apparent bid to negotiate its return to the nuclear disarmament
talks.
But along the neo-cons¡¯ long-winded road of perpetual bluster,
Washington¡¯s fickle strategy has put the international
community on the edge of its seat in anticipation of what insult
might be hurled next at Kim Jong-il _ indeed, to the
consternation of China and South Korea.
Bush provoked Pyongyang with his tough talk, calling the North
Koreans¡¯ ``Dear Leader¡¯¡¯ a tyrant, for example, or saying
that a nuclear test would be punished, and that the U.S. would
not rule out bringing the case before the U.N. Security Council
for consideration of sanctions.
When Bush came into office in 2001, he haughtily refused to
even meet with officials from North Korea, amid finger pointing
that the North contravened the Agreed Framework. With
characteristic griping and gossip mongering, right-wing
conservatives criticized the bilateral agreement the Clinton
team hammered out with Pyongyang to avert the first nuclear
crisis in 1994, which by most accounts averted war.
A couple of years later, deriding one-on-one negotiations, the
neo-cons finally agreed to meet but only in a multilateral
framework, inaugurating successive rounds of six-party talks
first in August 2003, then February 2004. The third was
initially slated for last September, but it did not happen.
So much for multilateralism...?
Bush has repeatedly changed his mind. Despite pre-emptive
denials, the tough talking Texan had negotiated last week
one-on-one with the beguiling proliferators of mass verbiage for
their return to the stalled talks.
In what must have been some kind further humiliation to the
one-world-government hating unilateralists, they were
negotiating this deal at the U.N. The short of all this is that
U.S. policy on North Korea has persistently zigzagged since Bush
came to office.
It was precisely the one-on-one talks that brought about this
re-alignment of discussions toward getting the six-party talks
back on track. However, after more than four years of the
whimsical North Korea policy of the Bush administration, the
Korean Peninsula is far less secure than how the Clinton team
left it in 2001.
ephilip2005@hotmail.com 05-23-2005 20:04
*****************************************************************
14 ITAR-TASS: Yuri Baluyevsky: North Korea nuclear tests must not be allowed
23.05.2005, 14.49
MOSCOW, May 23 (Itar-Tass) - North Korea must not be allowed to
carry out nuclear tests, the Russian army’s General Staff chief
Yuri Baluyevsky said after his talks with Japanese counterpart
Hadime Massaki on Monday.
“It is necessary to do everything in order not to allow tests of
nuclear weapons in North Korea, it is necessary to do everything
for the resumption of the six-party talks on this problem. It is
necessary to do everything in order the Korean Peninsula never
becomes an arena of the use of nuclear weapons. We are united in
this approach,” Baluyevsky said.
“I am grateful to the Japanese journalist who asked to comment
the information that North Korea is preparing tests of nuclear
weapons in June. We shall check this information, “ he told a
news conference.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
15 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Confirms Meeting U.S. Officials
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday May 23, 2005 9:01 AM
By SOO-JEONG LEE
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has indicated a
willingness to return to the nuclear bargaining table but said
it is waiting for Washington to clarify conflicting statements
on U.S. policy toward the reclusive communist state.
Citing differences between Washington's public and private
statements, the North's official Korean Central News Agency
quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman Sunday as saying Pyongyang
``will continue to closely watch the U.S. side's attitude, and
when the time comes we will officially deliver to the U.S. side
our position through the New York contacts.''
The spokesman reaffirmed North Korea's commitment ``to
peacefully resolve the issue through dialogue and
negotiations.''
``We have shown utmost patience until now for the talks to
succeed,'' he said.
The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment.
The cryptic statement appeared to be a potentially positive
development, considering the fairly diplomatic tone of the
statement, in contrast to the North's recent vitriolic rhetoric
that has accused the Bush administration of plotting to attack
to overthrow its government.
The statement, monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency,
comes amid a flurry of efforts to get North Korea back to the
nuclear bargaining table following its announcement two weeks
ago that it has removed 8,000 fuel rods from a reactor, a step
toward extracting weapons-grade plutonium.
The State Department sent envoys to Pyongyang's office at the
U.N. on May 13. It said the meeting did not include negotiations
and only involved restating Washington's position on nuclear
nonproliferation within the context of the six-party talks that
have been stalled since last June.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said U.S. officials
reaffirmed recognition of the North's sovereignty and said it
would not attack. But the spokesman complained that some U.S.
administration officials were still making remarks that
``threaten'' his country.
The North Korean spokesman said various remarks by U.S.
officials only ``confuse'' what the U.S. position is when it is
``cautiously considering'' the U.S. position.
The North has demanded that the United States end its ``hostile
policy'' and apologize for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
calling it an ``outpost of tyranny'' in January.
Rice said earlier this month that ``the United States, of
course, recognizes that North Korea is sovereign.'' But
Washington's chief envoy on North Korea, Christopher Hill, said
during a visit to Seoul last week that a nuclear test by
Pyongyang would provoke unspecified action.
Japanese officials have indicated a nuclear test would spark
them to seek U.N. sanctions, which the North has called
tantamount to a declaration of war.
The two Koreas were to meet Tuesday at the North Korean border
town of Kaesong to work out details on a South Korean delegation
that will attend a Pyongyang festival marking the 5th
anniversary of the June 15 Korea summit accord.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
16 [NukeNet] Stationary Radiological Nuclear Weapons:Nuclear
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 16:03:22 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
All nuclear power reactors and their spent
fuel ARE stationary radiological nuclear weapons
and we need to institionalize the use of this
language to reach the layperson who's not involved
with nuclear issues:
Indian Point/WMD or Three Mile Island/WMD or
Chernobyl/WMD are how I think we can start opening
eyes when addressing nuclear power especially with
the big push/big lie on now to revivify the
industry and build and /or expand it in the
developing world.
Simply Astonishing!:
>Entergy recently went on record opposing backup
power to emergency sirens
Nuke Terrorism Site:
http://www.tmia.com/sabter.html
Deaths, Injuries, Cancers, $$ Damage That
Entergy Continues To Subject Us To.
http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/opinion/l23indianpoint.html?
The Cost of Nuclear Power
a.. E-Mail This
b.. Printer-Friendly
Published: May 23, 2005
To the Editor:
Re " 'No Nukes,' No More," by John Tierney
(column, May 17):
The only sector that reaps economic benefits from
nuclear power is the nuclear industry. Entergy,
the owner-operator of the Indian Point nuclear
plant, 24 miles north of New York City, hauls in
more than $10 billion in annual revenue.
Over the last 50 years, some $145 billion in
federal research and development subsidies has
gone to the nuclear industry; only $5 billion has
gone to renewable energy sources.
Meanwhile, a substantial portion of the costs of
operating a nuclear plant are imposed on
communities. Indian Point kills over a billion
Hudson River fish, eggs and larvae annually; local
taxpayers cover most of the emergency planning
costs.
Entergy recently went on record opposing backup
power to emergency sirens, yet it seems to have
ample funds for advertising campaigns designed to
lull the public into a false sense of security.
Providing increased safety and prosperity for
American families is patriotic. Providing more
welfare checks to the nuclear industry is not.
Lisa Rainwater van Suntum
Indian Point Campaign Director
Riverkeeper
Garrison, N.Y., May 17, 2005
_______________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
17 UPI: Analysts warn of DOD budget 'train wreck' -
(United Press International)
May 23, 2005
By Pamela Hess UPI Pentagon Correspondent
Washington, DC, May. 23 (UPI) -- Congress has carved out another
$50 billion for the war in Iraq -- on top of the $185 billion or
so earmarked or spent -- even as U.S. public opinion signals a
shift from defense spending toward other priorities.
The $50 billion figure is a deceptive one, several defense
analysts argued Monday. Congress has offloaded large chunks of
the Pentagon's regular budget, particularly in operations and
maintenance, to "emergency spending" -- that is, the Iraq and
Afghan wars supplemental spending bills.
What that does, then, is free up money inside the regular
non-emergency $420 billion defense budget for other projects,
according to Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense
Information.
Congress is limited in its annual spending by a budget cap.
Anything it wants to add to the budget it has to balance out by
commensurate cuts elsewhere.
However, the war is being funded by emergency supplementals,
which are not counted against the budget cap. Congress has
regularly shifted billions out of the annual operations and
maintenance account to the war supplemental and filled in the
blanks left in the budget with other projects.
In the 2006 defense authorization bill the House Armed Services
Committee moved $2.5 billion out of regular O into a new,
unrequested $50 billion war supplemental "just creating room to
buy goodies," said Cindy Williams, a principal research scientist
with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wheeler, joined by Williams and two other experts, believes this
is a budget "train wreck" waiting to happen.
"Politicians in this town have not seriously engaged on this
issue -- neither progressives (nor) the people who support and
believe in this war but aren't willing to pay for it," he said.
"The defense debate in this country is in a sense focused on
war, and that changes debate on non-war issues. So if you are not
in support of the F-22 (a new fighter jet not in use in the war)
that translates to spitting on a soldier when he comes home,"
Wheeler said.
Williams sees a defense budget "train wreck" in three parts: a
procurement budget that is buying extremely expensive weapons at
a glacial pace; a personnel system that carries with it a
staggering long-term cost for retiree and family benefits, and
the cost of the war, which has not yet been paid for, as it is
being "funded" by the deficit.
The question is, "When do deficits become a real-time political
issue for politicians?" asked Steven Kosiak, director of budget
studies for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
The next opportunity for debate may be the 2006 elections if a
poll taken in March by the University of Maryland's Program on
International Policy Attitudes is any indication of public will.
In the poll, 1,182 people in the United States were presented
with the proposed 2006 discretionary federal budget and how it
was divided among major accounts. The respondents were invited to
reallocate the budget, including putting a portion toward
reducing the deficit, although they were not told the size of the
deficit.
Given the option, the majority of respondents cut the defense
budget by about one-third -- $133 billion. They took most of the
money out of nuclear and large-scale conventional spending but
left largely intact spending on military personnel, whom they
rated very favorably.
They would cut spending in Iraq and Afghanistan by about $29
billion, or again about one-third.
They left largely unchanged those accounts necessary for
fighting unconventional wars: intelligence, Special Forces,
peacekeeping, communications and counterinsurgency.
The respondents also opted for a defense budget that would rely
more on multilateral international operations rather than
solitary military operations. When presented with the defense
spending accounts of U.S. adversaries, they would cut U.S.
defense spending overall. The United States dramatically
outspends countries like China and North Korea in their
respective defense budgets.
A large majority favored rolling back the president's tax cuts
in order to reduce the deficit, according to the poll. They would
also pump $36 billion of the money cut from the defense budget
into reducing the deficit; add $27 billion to education; add $24
billion to energy; put $19 billion into job training; add $15
billion to medical research and give an additional $12 billion to
veterans' benefits, a 40-percent increase.
The Pentagon is poised to receive about $420 billion in 2006.
The House and Senate have produced respective authorization
bills. The appropriations committees are still completing work on
next year's funding levels. The four bills will have to be
approved by both houses and reconciled before they are signed by
the president and go into effect in October 2005, the start of
the fiscal year.
The defense budget in 2005 is roughly $400 billion, with about
$100 billion additionally being spent on the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
The Iraq war costs about $4.8 billion a month. The Afghan
operation comes to about $700 million a month, according to the
Pentagon.
--
(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)
[UPI Perspectives]
*****************************************************************
18 Telegraph Online: Here we go again - more Star Wars spending
[NashuaTelegraph.com]
Ann McFeatters Published: Monday, May. 23, 2005
I find it puzzling that just as “Star Wars” mania has broken out
again around the globe, the Bush administration has leaked its
plans to try to weaponize space.
The farce is with us again.
Ever since President Ronald Reagans costly but ill-fated plans
for a defense shield that would somehow protect America from
incoming missiles (the technology simply wasnt there despite the
expenditure of $100 billion), bureaucrats and politicians have
clung to the pie-in-the-sky notion that space must be “secured”
to protect the U.S. of A.
Now the Bush administration is not just talking about “securing”
space but “dominating” it.
I find it puzzling that the administration thinks sending Laura
Bush to the Middle East will ameliorate the growing hatred for
America even as the White House apparently assumes other
countries wont mind if we try to figure out ways to launch by
ourselves, without the rest of the world weapons into space.
The White House says it doesnt plan to “militarize” space, but
that Bush must modernize space policy to protect U.S. satellites
from attack. But on the drawing board are offensive weapons.
Just trust us not to misuse them, we seem to be saying to a
world that grows warier each time a new issue of Newsweek
magazine hits the stands or the Air Force presents its latest
bill and wish list for research on weapons in space or as
another month passes with no weapons of mass destruction found
in Iraq or allegations of prisoner abuse pile up.
A space-based arms race if we pursue this strange new world of
“Star Wars” redux? Nonsense, we say.
But the United States and Russia no longer have a lock on
rocketry. China has a sophisticated program. Were worried about
Iran and North Korea developing nuclear weapons. If we put
weapons in space, why wont they and every other country that
wants to compete with us try to do the same?
OK, so we should put our weapons up in the sky first so we can
shoot down their rockets? A new Cold War? Been there, done that.
In 1996, the Clinton administration spelled out a policy that
essentially repudiated the Reagan-era map for studding the skies
with defensive shields and also proposed new treaties to keep
weapons out of space. Several research projects into space
weapons were canceled.
Having revived the Reagan-era “Star Wars” research, the current
President Bush pulled the United States out of the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty after three decades, infuriating
Russia and opening the door to space-based weapons.
The White House confirms Bush is coming out with a new security
directive on space, still being written. Many think the fine
print will permit the Pentagon to ply the skies with defensive
and offensive weapons with little U.S. flags on them.
Pete Teets, former president of Lockheed Martin and one-time
Martin Marietta flight-control engineer who retired in March as
acting secretary of the Air Force, recently was identified on
the floor of Congress as “Mr. Military Space” while being
honored by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
When Teets left government, he said the United States must
preserve its “dominance” in space. He did not spell out the
secret projects already under way to use space to launch weapons.
But the U.S. military does not keep secret its ultimate goal of
space superiority to permit a near-instantaneous attack anywhere
on Earth.
The New York Times quotes Teets as having said at a
space-warfare seminar in 2004: “We havent reached the point of
strafing and bombing from space. Nonetheless, we are thinking
about those possibilities.”
The cost would be, pardon the pun, astronomical. Hundreds of
billions of dollars would have to be spent, even though Bush
says the country soon wont have enough money to pay sufficient
Social Security benefits to its retirees, let alone provide
health insurance to millions of families.
Yes, defense is the presidents top priority, but this president
has yet to make the case that starting a new arms race would
make the country safer.
This is not the only White House initiative that would pour
hundreds of billions into space. In January 2004 (an election
year) Bush gathered NASA employees together to announce he
wanted to send astronauts to the moon and Mars. He said he hoped
to have robotic missions on the moon in 2008. Supporters praised
his “vision” and “boldness.”
We havent heard much about going to Mars from the president
lately. But I dont find that puzzling at all.
Contact The Telegraph of Nashua Privacy Policy
and User Agreement © 2005, Telegraph Publishing Company PO Box
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*****************************************************************
19 Yankton Press & Dakotan: Base Closure Could Complicate Ellsworth Cleanup
052305
Yankton
RAPID CITY (AP) -- The Department of Defense says it will
continue an environmental cleanup of jet fuel, solvents and other
contaminants at Ellsworth Air Force Base, even if the base is
closed as the department has recommended.-->
11:53 PM on May 22, 2005
RAPID CITY (AP) -- The Department of Defense says it will
continue an environmental cleanup of jet fuel, solvents and
other contaminants at Ellsworth Air Force Base, even if the base
is closed as the department has recommended.
Ellsworth is a Superfund site. Over the past 10 years, the
cleanup ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency has cost
the Air Force $61 million.
"The Air Force and the Department of Defense are liable,"
Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood told the Rapid City Journal.
There is a long list of contaminants, most of them released
into the environment decades ago.
Low-level nuclear waste left over from atomic weapons and small
amounts of mustard agent already have been removed. The most
prevalent pollutants are petroleum products, including jet fuel
and lubricants, and chlorine-based solvents such as
trichloroethylene, or TCE, which can cause cancer.
The rest of the cleanup likely will take decades and could cost
additional tens of millions of dollars, according to Air Force
documents.
The EPA put Ellsworth on its "National Priorities List" in
1990. The Superfund designation included groundwater and soil
contamination at 20 sites throughout the base.
The contamination also extends to private land southwest and
east of the base.
Ellsworth was on the Defense Department's base-closure list
released May 13. Now the future of the base is up the Base
Realignment and Closure Commission, the White House and Congress.
In September, Ellsworth will undergo its second five-year EPA
review. Remedies are already in place at all 20 of the hazardous
sites.
"That's a major milestone," EPA project manager Jeff Mashburn
said in a telephone interview from Denver.
Ellsworth is exclusively a B-1B Lancer bomber base, but it
opened in 1942 as an Army Air Corps training base for B-17
bomber crews.
The based closed briefly after the war, then reopened as a Cold
War base, hosting a succession of missiles, heavy bombers and
air tankers.
Almost all of the contamination happened between 1942 and the
early 1970s, said Del Petersen, chief of environmental
restoration at Ellsworth.
The Air Force began its environmental investigation in 1984,
with soil and water sampling and an archive search that included
historic photos.
Pictures of gas trucks refueling B-17s revealed the sites of
old fuel spills.
© 2005 Press & Dakotan
*****************************************************************
20 csmonitor.com: Limits on filibusters are already pervasive
the May 24, 2005 edition
Amid 'nuclear option,' Congress has already restricted rights
to debate and amendment on other matters.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian
Science Monitor
WASHINGTON With Congress poised to vote on the so-called
nuclear option, one fact has been largely lost amid the debate:
Restrictions on the use of filibusters are already in place on a
host of matters, from budgets to resolutions granting war powers
to the president.
Obviously, the question on the floor this week - judicial
appointments - is unique. Democrats are eager to preserve their
current ability to stall a vote, especially on nominees to the
Supreme Court. And Republicans are just as eager to change the
rules so that 51 Senators, rather than 60, can end debate on a
nominee.
Tuesday, 05/2ï¼”/05
But the fight over judges is hardly as pure a contest over
Senate traditions as many people believe. The use of filibusters
to prolong debate, though revered by many as a tool for the
Senate minority, has been progressively curtailed in recent
years on a host of important issues.
One key reason: A rising belief in official Washington that the
only way to get contentious legislation out of Congress is to
rein in debate and amendment. The restrictions are also, in
part, a holdover from the early 1970s, when a Democratic
Congress sought to bolster the power of the legislative branch
clout against an "imperial" (and Republican) presidency.
"When we talk about 'unlimited debate' in the Senate, we've
already limited that unlimited debate over the last 30 years in
a major way," says former Senate parliamentarian Robert Dove,
now a professor at George Washington University. "We have on the
books probably a couple of hundred laws that set up specific
legislative vehicles that cannot be filibustered or only amended
in a very restricted way."
Consider some big-ticket items now before Congress on which
lawmakers have given up their rights to filibuster.
" The Pentagon's 2006 Base Realignment and Closure plan, which
proposes closing 180 sites.
" The pending Central American Free Trade Agreement.
" President Bush's proposed $70 billion in tax cuts and $35
billion in mandatory spending cuts, protected by budget
reconciliation.
" Drilling in the Arctic Regional Wildlife Refuge. The
years-long effort by Republicans to pass this legislation may
finally succeed this year, because this time it is protected
from filibuster as part of the budget reconciliation.
The first curbs on extended debate came in 1917, after Congress
refused to move to a vote on President Wilson's request to arm
the merchant marine. Much of the impetus to rein in the
filibuster in the 1960s and '70s came from liberal Democrats,
whose main experience with extended debate had been as a hammer
by conservative southerners to stop civil rights legislation.
"In the 1960s the word filibuster only meant one thing in the
Senate, with very few exceptions," explains Mr. Dove.
"Successful filibusters were filibusters against civil rights
legislation. And if you were going to create an atmosphere in
which civil rights legislation would get through more easily,
you needed to change the cloture rule" - the votes needed to end
debate.
In 1975, the Senate, led by liberal Democrats, lowered the bar
to end debate again, from two-thirds of those present and voting
(as many as 67 votes) to 60 votes. Tuesday's expected move, led
by GOP conservative, would lower the bar for judicial
nominations to a simple majority.
"We're in a year of romanticizing the filibuster, but it's
important to remember there has often been a dislike of that
tool," says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston
University.
A tide of self-limitation
In addition to periodically changing its rules for ending
debate, Congress has written curbs on extended debate or
amendment into specific laws in a bid to make the legislative
process more efficient.
Laws that restrict debate include: the War Powers Act, the
Budget Act of 1974, the Trade Act of 1974 (and subsequent "fast
track" votes on trade), arms export controls, Federal Election
Commission regulations, the Alaska Natural Gas Transportation
Act of 1976, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (including the
choice of Yucca Mountain as a national waste-disposal site), the
1991 act governing military-base closings, US participation in
the World Trade Organization, and the Andean Counterdrug
Initiative.
One lawmaker's travails
In between negotiating sessions with other moderates over how to
avoid changing the filibuster rule, Sen. Susan Collins (R) of
Maine has also been worrying about the blow her state is taking
from a new round of proposed military-base closings. Earlier
this month, the Pentagon proposed closing the Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard in Kittery as well as massive downsizing for the
Brunswick Naval Air Station, among 180 sites nationwide.
"It's my top priority," she says. "The nation can't have all our
bases in the South and Southwest." Yet base closings are one of
the many areas where Congress has already waived its right to
filibuster or even amend the list, once it is finalized by a
base-closing commission.
Pragmatism, or partisanship?
Congress, essentially, has come to realize that some issues are
so thorny that the normal congressional process doesn't work.
Base closings is such an issue, given that few lawmakers will
support shutting bases in their own districts.
Republicans leaders say the same principle applies this week.
"We limited the filibuster when the Budget Act was passed, and
the dome of the Capitol didn't crumble," says Bob Stevenson, a
spokesman for Senate majority leader Bill Frist.
But critics say there's an important distinction: Today's sharp
party split. "If you look at these areas that limit the
filibuster individually, they had broad bipartisan support,"
says Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in
New Brunswick, N.J. "This is a change that's being forced
through on very narrow, partisan support, and that's a big
difference."
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2005 The Christian Science
Monitor. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
21 IPS-English UAE-UN: Call to international community to tackle
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 15:51:52 -0700
UAE-UN: Call to international community to tackle Israeli nuclear exception
Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM)
NEW YORK, May 23 (WAM) - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has expressed
concern over the lenience the international community continues to show
towards Israel's reluctance to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"The UAE, which like other Arab countries has committed itself to joining
the NPT, is worried about the continued global leniency, hitherto, towards
Israel's failure to join the treaty and its persistence to possess, solely
in the region, perilous nuclear arsenals and reactors that add fuel to
tension, violence and dispute in the region," said Saeed Al Ketbi, member of
the UAE delegation, in a statement before the conference of the NPT
signatories here on Sunday.
He said: "The UAE reiterates its call on the international community,
particularly the active countries, to strive to tackle such a serious
Israeli nuclear exception, which if not set right may cause a human and
regional catastrophe of adverse consequences." (WAM)
*****************************************************************
22 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear Powers Fail to Agree on U.N. Plan
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday May 24, 2005 12:01 AM
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Russia, the United States and three other
nuclear powers have failed to agree on a joint declaration
needed to add momentum to a floundering global conference to
tighten controls on nuclear arms, a top Russian delegate said
Monday.
Such a statement ``contributed to a compromise on the final
document'' at the arms conference in 2000, Anatoly Antonov
noted. Its endorsement of the 1996 nuclear test-ban treaty, for
example, signaled to states without atomic arms that those with
them were serious about eventual disarmament.
But the gulf has widened since between Washington and other
nuclear-armed states on such issues as the test ban, which
Russia, Britain and France have ratified but the Bush
administration rejects. Antonov indicated the differences were
stalling agreement on a new declaration.
Antonov spoke at a news briefing as the monthlong conference - a
twice-a-decade gathering to strengthen implementation of the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - entered its final week with
prospects dimming that it will produce concrete initiatives to
halt the spread of nuclear arms and encourage disarmament.
Far from the U.N. basement conference rooms, nuclear tensions
are mounting. European and Iranian negotiators meet Wednesday in
Geneva to try to salvage talks in which the Europeans are urging
Iran to end a nuclear program with the potential to produce
atomic weapons. In Asia, North Korea is pondering its next move
in a slow-motion international showdown over its weapons plans.
Under the 1970 nonproliferation treaty, 183 nations renounced
nuclear arms forever, in exchange for a pledge by the United
States, Russia, Britain, France and China to move toward nuclear
disarmament.
The non-weapon states are guaranteed access to peaceful nuclear
technology, such as Iran's uranium-enrichment equipment, which
can produce both fuel for nuclear power plants and material for
atomic bombs.
The U.N. conference bogged down for almost three weeks in
bickering over the agenda. The United States insisted the
discussions focus on proliferation issues, meaning Iran and
North Korea. But many non-weapons states wanted equal emphasis
on the nuclear powers' obligations to eventually disarm.
The 2000 conference accepted ``13 practical steps'' toward
disarmament, including activating the test-ban treaty and
strengthening a treaty prohibiting anti-ballistic missile
systems.
Those steps were endorsed by the Clinton adminstration, but the
incoming Bush administration renounced the test-ban pact and
withdrew from the ABM treaty. Non-weapons states now want some
reaffirmation of disarmament goals, but the gap looks too wide
to produce a significant accord at a gathering where agreement
must be unanimous.
Antonov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's disarmament director,
said a 2005 declaration by the five nuclear powers would be
``necessary, first of all, to add momentum to the conference.''
But he noted that the situation ``has changed drastically'' in
five years.
``We're missing key disarmament agreements,'' he said, referring
to rejected treaties. And, he added, ``we're facing new nuclear
defense systems that might undermine Russian defenses,'' a
reference to the Bush administration's work on an anti-ballistic
missile system.
U.S. delegation spokesman Richard Grenell declined to discuss
details of the five-power talks. ``We're hard at work and we're
hopeful we'll be able to have a statement,'' he said.
Arms-control advocates such as Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio,
visiting the conference, accused the U.S. delegation of blocking
progress.
``This week you'll hear it's North Korea and Iran (that are the
problems). They ought to look at themselves first,'' he said of
the Bush administration. ``Their policies have brought about the
kind of stalemate you see in the review process.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
23 RIA Novosti: RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT ON ADAMOV'S CASE
GENEVA, MAY 23, (RIA Novosti's Yekaterina Andrianova) - "The
activities of former nuclear-energy minister Yevgeny Adamov must
be investigated in Russia and in line with Russian legislation,"
Dmitry Cherkashin, who serves as Russia's Ambassador to
Switzerland, told the Neue Zuercher Zeitung paper in Sunday.
According to Cherkashin, Russian authorities, which are now
trying to secure Adamov's extradition, did their best to help
the ex-minister from the very outset.
"As far as extradition is concerned, we are talking about a
Russian citizen and a former minister. The Russian
Prosecutor-General's Office is trying to find out whether he had
committed any crimes, or not. However, Adamov's actions must be
investigated on Russian territory and in line with national
legislation," Cherkashin stressed.
"Russia opposes Adamov's extradition to the United States,"
Cherkashin added. "We did say that we do not agree with his
extradition to a third country. He served as Russia's
nuclear-energy minister; and his extradition would threaten
Russian national-security interests," Cherkashin went on to say.
A warrant for Adamov's arrest was issued only on May 14, that
is, after his arrest by Swiss authorities in line with a US
request. When asked about this, Cherkashin said that an
investigation had been launched well before May 14. "It takes
time to complete such investigations," the Russian Ambassador
noted.
At the same time, Cherkashin declined to comment on Russia's
possible reaction, if Adamov were extradited to the United
States.
"It would be inappropriate to anticipate the Swiss judiciary
system's decisions. The Russian Government has informed the
Swiss side about its official position. Swiss judicial bodies
need time to analyze all circumstances," Cherkashin said.
On May 17 Switzerland received an official Russian request
concerning Adamov's extradition. A May 14 arrest warrant that
was issued by Moscow's Basmanny court served as legal grounds
for this request. The Russian Prosecutor-General's Office opened
a case against Adamov, charging him with fraud and malfeasance.
Yevgeny Adamov, 66, who headed the Russian nuclear-energy
ministry in 1998-2001, was arrested in Berne May 2. A warrant
for Adamov's arrest was issued by a circuit court in
Pennsylvania's west district. Adamov is now awaiting extradition
in a Berne prison.
The US side must send an extradition warrant to Switzerland by
June 30.
The Swiss federal justice department must then decide on the
priority of
each extradition warrant's order.
US authorities have accused Adamov and his business partner Mark
Kaushansky, who is a US citizen, of embezzling $9 million that
had been allocated to Russia by the US Government for
nuclear-safety projects.
If extradited to the United States, Adamov would face up to 60
years in prison and a $1.75-million fine.
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"
*****************************************************************
24 RIA Novosti: RUSSIA HAS NO DATA ABOUT PREPARATION OF NUCLEAR TESTS
IN DPRK, BALUYEVSKY SAYS
MOSCOW, May 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia does not have data about
preparations in the DPRK for nuclear tests, Chief of the General
Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Yury Baluyevsky said at a
meeting with Chief of Staff of the Japanese Self-Defense Force
Hajime Massaki.
"We shall check this information jointly with my Japanese
colleague," Baluyevsky said in view of the reports of the
foreign press about the possibility of nuclear tests in the DPRK
this year.
"Everything possible must be done to prevent this test,"
Baluyevsky told reporters.
"We must do everything we can for this purpose. I am sure that
this is not only our aim, but the aim of my Japanese colleague,
too, and of all the states which take part in the six-sided
negotiations. We understand the consequences it might entail,"
Baluyevsky said.
On February 10, the DPRK government spoke about the creation of
its own nuclear weapons and the impossibility of its
participation in the six-sided negotiations with the USA,
Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. These steps were named as
defensive measures, aimed at protecting the country from the
United States.
According to the information of the Western press, satellites
have detected the construction of an underground tunnel on the
eastern coast of the DPRK. On the basis of these data the USA
supposed that preparations were going on there for nuclear tests.
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"
*****************************************************************
25 ITAR-TASS: Switzerland refuses to give inf on Adamov’s extradition
23.05.2005, 12.15
GENEVA, May 23 (Itar-Tass) - A shroud of secrecy, surrounding
the examination in Switzerland of the question on extradition to
Russia of former Russian Minister for Nuclear Energy Yevgeny
Adamov, has not disappeared at the start of the new week. The
Federal Department of Justice and Police refused, as before, to
tell reporters any results of hearings, held in Bern last
Friday, referring to an understanding, reached with Adamov’s
lawyer.
“The two sides now decided not to offer any information. If we
change our stand, you will know it,” spokesman of the federal
department Folko Galli told Tass on Monday.
It was supposed that Adamov would be notified of a request,
received from Russia, at the hearings on May 20 and would be
asked whether he agrees to an extradition to Russia.
Incidentally, Adamov could immediately state his agreement or
disagreement, or still could express no final decision.
Adamov’s agreement would initiate a procedure of “a simplified
extradition” to Russia, Galli explained. However, nothing would
change in essence in his position, since Swiss justice intends
to wait for a request on extradition from the US and then to
decide which side should be given preference.
The US authorities at whose request Adamov was detained in Bern
on May 2 in connection with incriminated embezzlement of funds,
are to send their request to Bern on extradition by June 30.
Galli reported that Switzerland had not received so far such a
request.
Asked whether it is possible to release Adamov from custody till
the question on extradition is settled, the spokesman said that
this question is dealt with by the Federal Criminal Court,
examining now Adamov’s appeal. The court has not taken any
ruling as of this Monday.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
26 St. Petersburg Times: Sakharov Honored
#1072, Tuesday, May 24, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Members of St Peterburg's Yakbloko youth
movement on Saturday laid flowers at a statue to human rights
campaigner Andrei Sakharov, Interfax reported.
Leading Soviet nuclear scientist and dissident Sakharov won the
Nobel Prize in 1975. Five years later, the Soviet government
banished him to internal exile in Gorky. He was released in
1986, becoming an early supporter of perestroika. He died in
1989 and his statue was erected in St Petersburg in 2003.
The Yabloko members announced that they were honoring
Sakharov's work in "the development of freedom and democracy,"
on what would have been his 84th birthday.
Atomic Station at Sea
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - Rosenergoatom boss Stanislav Antipov
announced that the federal nuclear power agency has finalized
plans for a new floating nuclear power station in the
Arkhangelsk region, Interfax reported Saturday.
The project was first proposed in 1986, but abandoned after the
Chernobyl disaster. Rosenergoatom returned to the idea because
of a shortage of electricity generation in the region.
At a press conference in St. Petersburg, Antinov confirmed that
Rosenergoatom is ready to appoint a shipyard to begin work on
the power station's floating base and that they were "seeking
finance for the project's realization". Potential investors
include Russian and international banks, as well as the federal
government.
Nuclear Bloc to Close
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - The second bloc of the Leningrad Nuclear
Power Station at Sosnovy Bor west of St. Petersburg is to be
shut down by July 17, Interfax reported Saturday.
"The decision to shut down the reactor is connected with the
necessity of carrying out work that will extend its working
life," general director Valery Lebedev said at a news conference.
Before the end of this month, the station should receive
documents from the federal nuclear power agency that will allow
the work prolonging the life of the reactor to be done, the
report said.
Court to Visit Home
ST. PETERSBURG (SPT) - A St. Petersburg judge plans to hold a
session of the court in a city apartment for one day, Interfax
reported on Saturday.
Judge Oksana Svirskaya announced her decision while hearing a
case against famed cellist Mstislav Rostrovich and his opera
singer wife Galina Vishnevskaya, whose apartment, which they
intend to convert into a Shostakovich museum is under arrest.
Repairs to the museum have allegedly caused thousands of dollars
worth of damage to neighbors' apartments.
According to the judge, she needs to visit the apartment "to
satisfy herself personally that the plaintiffs are making
reasonable demands". The media will not be admitted to the
unusual court sitting, which has been scheduled for Friday.
[Copyright] copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1993-2004
*****************************************************************
27 St.Petersburg Times: Russia Charges Detainee Adamov
#1072, Tuesday, May 24, 2005
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW - Russian prosecutors have charged
former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov with fraud and
abuse of power, Kommersant reported Friday.
Moscow wants Adamov extradited to Russia, rather than to the
United States, where he faces up to 60 years in prison on
charges of embezzling funds for improving Russian nuclear
security.
Adamov was detained in Switzerland earlier this month on a U.S.
extradition warrant. Russia has filed a rival extradition
request and said Adamov should face trial here - a move
observers say is motivated by fears of Russian nuclear secrets
falling into U.S. hands.
The Prosecutor General's Office on May 14 obtained a Moscow
court order sanctioning Adamov's arrest, Kommersant reported.
The U.S charges against Adamov carry a penalty of up to 60 years
in prison and $1.75 million in fines. In Russia, fraud and abuse
of power carry a maximum 10-year sentence.
*****************************************************************
28 Guardian Unlimited: Diplomats at Odds Over Nuclear Strategy
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday May 23, 2005 8:01 AM
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - With just five days left in a monthlong
conference, diplomats from more than 180 nations faced a tough
challenge Monday as they searched for agreement on concrete ways
to strengthen treaty controls on the spread of nuclear arms.
It's a week when the need for tightening may become more
apparent, as European negotiators try to salvage talks with Iran
over suspending its nuclear program, which has bombmaking
potential, and as North Korea considers its next move in the
slow-motion international showdown over its weapons plans.
For almost three weeks, the U.N. conference to review the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a twice-a-decade event, was
bogged down in bickering over the agenda. That backroom squabble
left delegations little time for substantive negotiation before
Friday's closing session.
``It's an opportunity we cannot afford to squander,'' said
disarmament advocate Daryl Kimball, of the Washington-based Arms
Control Association. But at a gathering where agreement must be
unanimous, the gaps between nations looked too wide to produce
major arms-control initiatives.
Under the 1970 treaty, 183 nations renounce nuclear arms
forever, in exchange for a pledge by five states - the United
States, Russia, Britain, France and China - to move toward
nuclear disarmament. Nonweapon states, meanwhile, are guaranteed
access to peaceful nuclear technology.
North Korea announced its withdrawal from the treaty in 2003 and
claims to have built nuclear bombs - all without penalty under
the nonproliferation pact. Many here want the conference to
endorse measures making it more difficult to exit the treaty and
threatening sanctions against any who do.
Many delegations also favor action to prevent future Irans. The
Tehran government, saying it's pursuing civilian nuclear energy,
obtained uranium-enrichment equipment that can produce both fuel
for power plants and material for atom bombs. Washington
contends the Iranians have weapons plans.
Experts now propose limiting access to such fuel technology,
despite the treaty guarantee, and possibly bringing all such
production under international control.
Consensus on these proposals is unlikely, however, without
concessions by nuclear powers - particularly the United States
and France - on the other treaty ``pillar,'' disarmament.
Those without the doomsday arms contend that those with them are
moving too slowly toward eliminating the weapons, and point to
Bush administration proposals for modernizing the U.S. nuclear
arsenal. A congressional committee last week approved $29
million to study new nuclear warheads.
Even allies, such as South Korea, question the American moves
and want the conference to press the nuclear powers.
``We expect deeper cuts and further engagements by
nuclear-weapon states,'' Seoul's delegate In-kook Park told a
conference committee on Thursday.
But the Americans showed no sign of bending, insisting that Iran
and North Korea must be the priority here.
Linking action on such cases with greater progress toward
disarmament is ``dangerous in the extreme,'' because it tends to
excuse nuclear proliferation, U.S. Ambassador Jackie Sanders
told the same committee the following day.
Arms-control advocates here saw opportunities slipping away.
``The big fear is that if this review ends in a shambles - with
no clear signal on one hand to North Korea and Iran, and on the
other to nuclear-weapon states to honor treaty obligations - you
will have confidence in the treaty eroding across the board,''
said Rebecca Johnson, editor of the journal Disarmament
Diplomacy.
More governments might then, for their own security, decide to
pursue nuclear arms, the advocates say.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
29 Re: [NukeNet] VT Yankee officials threaten to close plant
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 15:56:48 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Dry cask storage
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2003/09/14/news/coastal/9_13_0321_37_39.txt
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/dks2002b.htm
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2003/NCTimesDryCaskStorage.htm
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Ewall"
To:
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 1:49 PM
Subject: [NukeNet] VT Yankee officials threaten to close plant
>NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
>
>
>VY officials threaten to close plant
>
>By CAROLYN LORIé
>Brattleboro Reformer Staff
>Saturday, May 21, 2005
>
>http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102%257E8860%257E2881127,00.html
>
>BRATTLEBORO -- Calling the current bill on dry cask storage
>"totally unacceptable," and threatening to shut the plant
>down early, officials at Vermont Yankee said they will
>oppose passage of the bill as it makes it way through the
>Vermont Legislature.
>
>Approved by the Committee on Natural Resources and Energy,
>the bill includes an annual $4 million payment from plant
>owner Entergy to the state in exchange for permission to
>store high-level nuclear waste in concrete containers known
>as dry casks.
>
>Annual payments will be required as long as the spent fuel
>is stored at the Vernon site, even after the plant is shut down.
>
>Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the charge
>was "totally unacceptable and unfair."
>
>"It's unfair on all levels," he added.
>
>According to Williams, the bill could jeopardize the
>continued operation of the nuclear reactor.
>
>"This kind of charge wasn't anticipated [when the plant was
>purchased in 2002], so it wasn't part of the business plan,"
>said Williams. "If it becomes uneconomical to run [the
>plant], it will be shut down, absolutely."
>
>The reactor supplies the state with one-third of its
>electricity and employs over 500 people. That number swells
>to almost 1,000 during refueling outages, which occur every
>18 months.
>
>It is currently licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory
>Commission to run until 2012, but plant officials have
>stated that they intend to apply for a license extension. If
>it is granted, the plant could operate until 2032.
>
>Concerns about premature shutdown of the plant had some
>criticizing the bill, including members of the Vermont
>Energy Partnership -- a recently formed group that includes
>representatives from business, labor and community
>organizations.
>
>"This is a money grab, pure and simple," said member Vicky
>Tebbetts, in a press release. Tebbetts is vice president of
>communications and government relations for the Vermont
>Chamber of Commerce.
>
>"Rather than making sure that our lowest cost and most
>reliable power stays on line, or finding comprehensive
>solutions to our significant energy challenges, legislators
>are enacting a totally arbitrary tax," she said.
>
>Local representatives on the Natural Resources and Energy
>Committee, however, said that finding solutions for the
>state's energy future was exactly what they had in mind when
>crafting the legislation.
>
>"What we've done with this bill is address short-term
>concerns with long-term goals and that is not easy to do,"
>said Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro.
>
>The bill calls for the establishment of a renewable energy
>fund that will receive the payments from Entergy. It will be
>administered by the Department of Public Service.
>
>Given the federal government's failure to open a national
>repository for high-level nuclear waste, Edwards said the
>committee had to consider the possibility of the spent fuel
>remaining in Vernon indefinitely.
>
>Though the bill calls for a minimum annual payment of $4
>million -- that figure will increase roughly with the rate
>of inflation -- it allows Vermont Yankee officials to appeal
>to the Vermont Public Service Board for redress if it proves
>to be a financial hardship.
>
>"That's a huge thing," said Edwards, of the possibility for
>changing the yearly charge.
>
>Plant officials will not release financial figures, claiming
>financial propriety. However, estimates based on 2002 data
>from the sale show the company stands to make an additional
>$40 million to $50 million a year, if its bid to increase
>power by 20 percent is approved.
>
>The "uprate" application with the Nuclear Regulatory
>Commission is under consideration.
>
>Local anti-nuclear groups lauded the bill, saying it
>reflected the wishes of many Windham County residents.
>
>"The Natural Resources and Energy Committee has done a good
>job," said Ed Anthes of Nuclear Free Vermont, in an e-mail
>to the Reformer. "There is recognition that the burden
>created by [Vermont Yankee's] nuclear waste will be borne by
>future generations long after electric production has stopped."
>
>The bill is now under consideration by the House Ways and
>Means Committee. Before going to the floor for a full vote,
>it must also be passed by the Appropriations Committee.
>
>Finally passage will require approval by the Senate and Gov.
>James Douglas.
>
>At that point, Vermont Yankee officials can apply to the
>Vermont Public Service Board for a certificate of public
>good. The quasi-judicial process can take up to one year.
>
>According to plant officials, in order to keep the plant
>running without interruption, construction on the dry casks
>must begin by spring 2006.
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
>Change your settings or access the archives at:
>http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
>
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
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*****************************************************************
30 Stationary Radiological Nuclear Weapons:Nuclear Power/WMDs
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 12:41:24 -0400
All nuclear power reactors and their spent
fuel ARE stationary radiological nuclear weapons
and we need to institionalize the use of this
language to reach the layperson who's not involved
with nuclear issues:
Indian Point/WMD or Three Mile Island/WMD or
Chernobyl/WMD are how I think we can start opening
eyes when addressing nuclear power especially with
the big push/big lie on now to revivify the
industry and build and /or expand it in the
developing world.
Simply Astonishing!:
>Entergy recently went on record opposing backup
power to emergency sirens
Nuke Terrorism Site:
http://www.tmia.com/sabter.html
Deaths, Injuries, Cancers, $$ Damage That
Entergy Continues To Subject Us To.
http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/opinion/l23indianpoint.html?
The Cost of Nuclear Power
a.. E-Mail This
b.. Printer-Friendly
Published: May 23, 2005
To the Editor:
Re " 'No Nukes,' No More," by John Tierney
(column, May 17):
The only sector that reaps economic benefits from
nuclear power is the nuclear industry. Entergy,
the owner-operator of the Indian Point nuclear
plant, 24 miles north of New York City, hauls in
more than $10 billion in annual revenue.
Over the last 50 years, some $145 billion in
federal research and development subsidies has
gone to the nuclear industry; only $5 billion has
gone to renewable energy sources.
Meanwhile, a substantial portion of the costs of
operating a nuclear plant are imposed on
communities. Indian Point kills over a billion
Hudson River fish, eggs and larvae annually; local
taxpayers cover most of the emergency planning
costs.
Entergy recently went on record opposing backup
power to emergency sirens, yet it seems to have
ample funds for advertising campaigns designed to
lull the public into a false sense of security.
Providing increased safety and prosperity for
American families is patriotic. Providing more
welfare checks to the nuclear industry is not.
Lisa Rainwater van Suntum
Indian Point Campaign Director
Riverkeeper
Garrison, N.Y., May 17, 2005
*****************************************************************
31 [NukeNet] VT Yankee officials threaten to close plant
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 15:56:45 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
VY officials threaten to close plant
By CAROLYN LORIé
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
Saturday, May 21, 2005
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102%257E8860%257E2881127,00.html
BRATTLEBORO -- Calling the current bill on dry cask storage
"totally unacceptable," and threatening to shut the plant
down early, officials at Vermont Yankee said they will
oppose passage of the bill as it makes it way through the
Vermont Legislature.
Approved by the Committee on Natural Resources and Energy,
the bill includes an annual $4 million payment from plant
owner Entergy to the state in exchange for permission to
store high-level nuclear waste in concrete containers known
as dry casks.
Annual payments will be required as long as the spent fuel
is stored at the Vernon site, even after the plant is shut down.
Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the charge
was "totally unacceptable and unfair."
"It's unfair on all levels," he added.
According to Williams, the bill could jeopardize the
continued operation of the nuclear reactor.
"This kind of charge wasn't anticipated [when the plant was
purchased in 2002], so it wasn't part of the business plan,"
said Williams. "If it becomes uneconomical to run [the
plant], it will be shut down, absolutely."
The reactor supplies the state with one-third of its
electricity and employs over 500 people. That number swells
to almost 1,000 during refueling outages, which occur every
18 months.
It is currently licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to run until 2012, but plant officials have
stated that they intend to apply for a license extension. If
it is granted, the plant could operate until 2032.
Concerns about premature shutdown of the plant had some
criticizing the bill, including members of the Vermont
Energy Partnership -- a recently formed group that includes
representatives from business, labor and community
organizations.
"This is a money grab, pure and simple," said member Vicky
Tebbetts, in a press release. Tebbetts is vice president of
communications and government relations for the Vermont
Chamber of Commerce.
"Rather than making sure that our lowest cost and most
reliable power stays on line, or finding comprehensive
solutions to our significant energy challenges, legislators
are enacting a totally arbitrary tax," she said.
Local representatives on the Natural Resources and Energy
Committee, however, said that finding solutions for the
state's energy future was exactly what they had in mind when
crafting the legislation.
"What we've done with this bill is address short-term
concerns with long-term goals and that is not easy to do,"
said Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro.
The bill calls for the establishment of a renewable energy
fund that will receive the payments from Entergy. It will be
administered by the Department of Public Service.
Given the federal government's failure to open a national
repository for high-level nuclear waste, Edwards said the
committee had to consider the possibility of the spent fuel
remaining in Vernon indefinitely.
Though the bill calls for a minimum annual payment of $4
million -- that figure will increase roughly with the rate
of inflation -- it allows Vermont Yankee officials to appeal
to the Vermont Public Service Board for redress if it proves
to be a financial hardship.
"That's a huge thing," said Edwards, of the possibility for
changing the yearly charge.
Plant officials will not release financial figures, claiming
financial propriety. However, estimates based on 2002 data
from the sale show the company stands to make an additional
$40 million to $50 million a year, if its bid to increase
power by 20 percent is approved.
The "uprate" application with the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is under consideration.
Local anti-nuclear groups lauded the bill, saying it
reflected the wishes of many Windham County residents.
"The Natural Resources and Energy Committee has done a good
job," said Ed Anthes of Nuclear Free Vermont, in an e-mail
to the Reformer. "There is recognition that the burden
created by [Vermont Yankee's] nuclear waste will be borne by
future generations long after electric production has stopped."
The bill is now under consideration by the House Ways and
Means Committee. Before going to the floor for a full vote,
it must also be passed by the Appropriations Committee.
Finally passage will require approval by the Senate and Gov.
James Douglas.
At that point, Vermont Yankee officials can apply to the
Vermont Public Service Board for a certificate of public
good. The quasi-judicial process can take up to one year.
According to plant officials, in order to keep the plant
running without interruption, construction on the dry casks
must begin by spring 2006.
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32 NRC: NRC to Discuss Preliminary Results of an In-Depth Inspection at Perry Nuclear
Power Plant
News Release - Region III - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region III
No. III-05-029 May 23, 2005
CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company in
Painesville, Ohio, on Thursday, May 26, to discuss the
preliminary results of an in-depth inspection conducted at the
Perry Nuclear Power Plant. The plant is located at Perry, Ohio.
The meeting, which will be open to the public for observation,
is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. in the Barberry Room at the
Renaissance Quail Hollow Resort, 11080 Concord-Hambden Road,
Painesville. Before the meeting is adjourned, NRC staff will be
available to answer questions from the public.
The three-part inspection was conducted by the NRC as a part of
its heightened oversight of the plant, which resulted from past
problems with safety system equipment. The inspection focused on
the utilitys corrective action program ( how it finds,
evaluates, and fixes problems), the plants operating procedures,
staff and management performance, engineering, emergency
planning. The inspection also reviewed the plants performance
during its recent refueling outage. The team began the first
part of the inspection in January.
The Perry plant continues to operate safely, said James
Caldwell, NRC Regional Administrator. However, the NRC has
increased its oversight of the Perry plant because of previous
equipment problems. This extensive inspection was conducted to
provide the agency with important insights into plant operations
and the effectiveness of FirstEnergys performance improvement
initiatives.
In August of last year, the NRC announced it was increasing
scrutiny over the Perry plant as a result of several equipment
problems which occurred during the period October 2002 through
May 2004. The NRC found that these problems were of low to
moderate safety significance and, in two of the instances, the
utility had not taken adequate corrective action initially to
resolve the problems.
The final inspection report will be publicly available in the
NRCs Agencywide Documents Access and Management System, or
ADAMS, at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Use Docket
Number 05000440 to locate the report. Help in using ADAMS is
available from the NRC Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209.
Last revised Monday, May 23, 2005
*****************************************************************
33 OMB Watch: NRC's meltdown (or let down) on safety
Monday, May 23, 2005
NRC's meltdown (or let down) on safety If the unthinkable
happens — another Three Mile Island, or a terrorist attack that
breaks through the flimsy security of our nation’s nuclear power
facilities — would you know in time to evacuate? Maybe you have
heard the test drill of one of those emergency alert sirens and
think that the trademark wail would warn you to get away.
But what if the power is out? The power, that is, that enables
those sirens to operate? Well, then, surely those sirens have
battery back-ups, right?
Wrong. “In the event of a nuclear accident or an act of
terrorism at a U.S. nuclear power station simultaneously
occurring with an electrical grid failure, only 27% of the
nation’s 62 nuclear power emergency planning zones using public
notification siren systems are prepared to fully operate their
emergency sirens independent of the main power lines,” warns the
Nuclear Information and Resource Center. In response to a
citizen petition for emergency enforcement petition, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission revealed that some but not all of the
sites without backup power are preparing to create battery
backups.
The NRC actually denied the petition, arguing that the concerned
citizens should instead use a petition for rulemaking process
that can take as long as two years.
Get more information, including a list of known nuclear power
stations with emergency planning zone siren failures, at the
NIRS website.
Posted by Robert Shull
© 2005 OMB Watch 1742 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
20009 202-234-8494 (phone) 202-234-8584 (fax)
*****************************************************************
34 NRC: NRC Ends License for Trojan Nuclear Power Plant, Releases Site for Unrestricted Use
News Release - 2005-08
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
No. 05-082 May 23, 2005
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted the request of
Portland General Electric (PGE) to terminate its license for the
Trojan nuclear power plant, which closed permanently in November
1992, and has released for unrestricted use the area where the
plant formerly operated. The facility was located in Columbia
County, Ore., about 42 miles north of Portland.
PGEs NRC license to store spent fuel removed from the reactor at
an independent installation on another portion of the site will
remain in effect and is not affected by this action.
Trojan began commercial operations in May 1976, with a net
electrical output rating of 1130 megawatts electric. After PGE
decided to cease operation of the reactor permanently, it
conducted cleanup and decommissioning activities in accordance
with its NRC-approved license termination plan from February
2001 to December 2004. The NRC offered the public an opportunity
for a hearing on the plan, but no request was filed.
Decommissioning activities included dismantlement of the reactor
and decontamination. The reactor vessel, which represented most
of the remaining radioactive material, except for the spent
fuel, was removed from the site in 1999.
In December 2004, PGE submitted an application for termination
of its license, indicating that it has completed radiological
decommissioning and that final radiation surveys of the site
show that it meets NRC criteria for decommissioning and release
for unrestricted use.
NRC conducted a number of on-site inspections of the licensees
actions during the decommissioning process to verify that
decommissioning and cleanup were being conducted as described in
the license termination plan and to evaluate the quality of this
activity. The agency also conducted independent measurements to
verify the companys final radiation surveys. NRC has concluded
that (1) dismantlement and decontamination activities were
performed in accordance with the approved license termination
plan and (2) the final radiation surveys and associated
documentation demonstrate the facility and site have met the
criteria for decommissioning in Part 20 of the Commissions
regulations. Therefore, the license has been terminated.
Last revised Monday, May 23, 2005
*****************************************************************
35 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding
FR Doc E5-2581
[Federal Register: May 23, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 98)] [Notices]
[Page 29543-29544] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23my05-83]
of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Kennecott
Uranium Company, Rawlins, WY AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
ACTION: Notice of availability.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen J. Cohen, Project
Manager, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle
Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC,
20555-0001.
Telephone: (301) 415-7182; fax number: (301) 415-5955; e-mail:
sjc7@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is issuing an amendment to Materials License No.
SUA-1350 issued to Kennecott Uranium Company (the licensee), to
authorize the reclamation of contaminated soil and ground water
at its Sweetwater Uranium Project near Rawlins, Wyoming.
NRC has prepared
[[Page 29544]] an Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of
this amendment in accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Part
51. Based on the EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No
Significant Impact (FONSI) is appropriate. The amendment will be
issued following the publication of this Notice.
II. EA Summary The purpose of the proposed amendment is to
authorize the remediation of soil and ground water contaminated
with diesel range organics (DRO), radium-226, and minute amounts
of volatile organic compounds at the licensee's Sweetwater
Uranium Project.
Specifically, the amendment will allow the licensee to excavate
contaminated soils and extract contaminated ground water from the
catchment basin area and dispose of these contaminated materials
(11e.(2) byproduct material) within the existing tailings
impoundment.
On May 12, 2004, Kennecott Uranium Company requested that NRC
approve the proposed amendment. The staff has prepared the EA in
support of the proposed license amendment. Staff considered
impacts to land use, geology and soils, water resources, ecology,
meteorology, climatology, air quality, socioeconomics, historical
and cultural resources, public and occupational health, and
transportation.
The staff found that the impacts of the proposed action were not
significant because these actions would remove contamination
sources and residual contamination, and they will occur within a
small portion of the NRC-licensed area that was previously used
as part of the milling process. Consequently, these actions will
prevent the spread of contamination to environmental resources
without causing significant impacts to historical and cultural
resources, local economy and social resources, and transportation
networks.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the EA, NRC
has concluded that there are no significant environmental impacts
from the proposed amendment and has determined not to prepare an
environmental impact statement.
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action,
including the application for amendment and supporting
documentation, are available electronically at the NRC's
Electronic Reading Room at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, you can
access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System
(ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public
documents. The ADAMS accession numbers for the documents related
to this notice are as follows:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------- ADAMS accession Document No. Date
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------- Sweetwater Uranium Project, Request for
ML041450434 05/12/04 Amendment to License Conditions 11.3 and
11.5..................................... Sweetwater Uranium
Project, Request for ML041480493 05/12/04 Amendment to
License Condition 9.10...... Sweetwater Uranium Project, Revised
Site ML041530053 05/25/04 Contour Map, Contours for
Contaminated Soil, Excavated Areas.................... E-mail
Acknowledgment of May 12, 2004, ML041800207 06/24/04
Amendment Request........................ Fax Report on the
Threatened and ML050450091 9/21/04 Endangered
Species of Sweetwater County.. Request for Additional Information
ML043070658 10/28/04 Concerning Source Materials License SUA-
1350..................................... Sweetwater Uranium
Project, Response to ML043520255 12/15/04 October 28,
2004, Request for Additional
Information.............................. E-mail Acknowledgment
of Response to ML050100257 01/04/05 Request for
Additional Information....... Sweetwater Uranium Project Response
to ML050350266 1/18/05 Comments Regarding Natural
Uranium and Thorium-230 Remediation in Subsurface
Soils.................................... Draft Environmental
Assessment for ML050610246 2/28/05 Amendment to
Source Materials License SUA- 1350 for the Catchment Basin
Reclamation.
Wyoming DEQ's Review of the Draft ML050980238
04/04/05 Environmental Assessment, Catchment Basin Remediation
Amendment Request............ Fish and Wildlife Service's
Comments on ML051170286 04/14/05 Draft Environmental
Assessment for Kennecott Sweetwater Proposed Amendment..
Environmental Assessment for Amendment of ML051220285
5/20/05 Source Materials License SUA-1350 for the Catchment Basin
Reclamation..............
If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in
accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's
Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209,
301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. These documents may
also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at
the NRC's PDR, O 1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will
copy documents for a fee.
Dated at Rockville, MD, this 6th day of May, 2005.
For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stephen J. Cohen, Project Manager, Uranium Processing Section,
Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and
Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E5-2581 Filed 5-20-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
36 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the
FR Doc E5-2582
[Federal Register: May 23, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 98)] [Notices]
[Page 29543] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23my05-82]
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request
AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice
of the OMB review of information collection and solicitation of
public comment.
SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the
following proposal for the collection of information under the
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C.
Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an
agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not
required to respond to, a collection of information unless it
displays a currently valid OMB control number.
1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Extension.
2. The title of the information collection: 10 CFR 81, Standard
Specifications for Granting of Patent Licenses.
3. The form number if applicable: Not applicable. 4. How often
the collection is required: Applications for licenses are
submitted once. Other reports are submitted annually or as other
events require.
5. Who will be required or asked to report: Applicants for and
holders of NRC licenses to NRC inventions.
6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 1. 7. The
estimated number of annual respondents: 1. 8. An estimate of the
total number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement
or request: 37; however, no applications are anticipated during
the next three years.
9. An indication of whether Section 3507(d), Pub. L. 104-13
applies: Not applicable.
10. Abstract: 10 CFR Part 81 establishes the standard
specifications for the issuance of licenses to rights in
inventions covered by patents or patent applications invested in
the United States, as represented by or in the custody of the
Commission and other patents in which the Commission has legal
rights.
A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of
charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North,
11555 Rockville Pike, Room 0-1F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB
clearance requests are available at the NRC Worldwide Web site:
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The
document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days
after the signature date of this notice.
Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer
listed below by June 22, 2005. Comments received after this date
will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of
consideration cannot be given to comments received after this
date.
John A. Asalone, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
(3150-0121), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and Budget,
Washington, DC 20503.
Comments can also be e-mailed to John_A._Asalone@omb.eop.gov or
submitted by telephone at (202) 395-4650.
The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 16th day of May, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information
Services.
[FR Doc. E5-2582 Filed 5-20-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
37 NRC: Appointments to Performance Review Boards for Senior Executive
FR Doc E5-2584
[Federal Register: May 23, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 98)] [Notices]
[Page 29545-29546] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23my05-86]
Service; Correction AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Appointments to Performance Review Boards for Senior
Executive Service; Correction.
SUMMARY: This document corrects a notice published on May 17,
2005 (70 FR 28324), that announces the appointments to the NRC
Performance Review Boards. This notice is necessary to correct an
omission in the listing.
On page 28324, in the third column, insert ``Annette Vietti-Cook,
Secretary of the Commission'' after the listing for ``Jack R.
Strosnider, Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards.'' Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 17th day of May,
2005.
[[Page 29546]] For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Carolyn J. Swanson, Secretary, Executive Resources Board.
[FR Doc. E5-2584 Filed 5-20-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
38 Reuters AlertNet: Investors bet on change in German nuclear stance
23 May 2005 12:35:40 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Mantik Kusjanto
FRANKFURT, May 23 (Reuters) - Investors snapped up top
utilities E.ON and RWE on Monday as they bet
that a change in Germany's national government in an early
election could also lead to a revision in nuclear energy policy.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Sunday said he would seek
general elections a year early after his party suffered a
crushing defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia -- Germany's most
populous state, whose economy is bigger than that of Australia,
the Netherlands, Brazil or Russia.
E.ON and RWE shares rose and were top gainers of the German
blue-chip DAX index <.GDAXI>, with E.ON rising 3.4 percent to
69.50 euros, and RWE up 2.6 percent at 48.38 at 1150 GMT.
"People are starting to factor in a change in government that
would benefit both utilities," said Matthias Heck, analyst of
Sal. Oppenheim, adding that his firm estimated that the
opposition's chance of winning is 60 percent.
In a survey by ARD television on Sunday, 46 percent of
respondents said they would vote for opposition CDU, compared to
29 percent for the ruling SPD.
Nuclear operators and the current central government agreed in
2000 to the closure of reactors by 2021. But the CDU opposition
party had said it would allow the country's nuclear generators
to operate beyond 2021 if it were elected.
Morgan Stanley said in a report last week both utilities would
require very limited capital expenditures to extend nuclear
stations' lifetime, while their replacement with conventional
plants would require significant investments.
"If the replacement plants were 50 percent coal and 50 percent
combined cycle gas turbine, we estimate this would result in
about 4.1 billion euros of total capex for RWE and 6.3 billion
for E.ON over an average period of about 15 years."
Germany's 17 existing nuclear plants have an installed capacity
of around 20,600 megawatts, supplying about one-third of the
country's electricity.
Germany is Europe's second-biggest producer of nuclear power
after France, which meets nearly 80 percent of its electricity
requirements from nuclear sources.
SOLAR SUFFERS
As nuclear-linked shares gained favour, solar energy stocks
suffered on worries there would be fewer subsidies in case of
Schroeder's defeat. SolarWorld plunged 10 percent to
102.50 euros.
About a third of E.ON's generating capacity is nuclear,
compared with rival RWE's 19 percent. Others with exposure to
nuclear power plants include EnBW and Vattenfall
Europe .
Ralf Oberbannscheidt, a DWS fund manager, said: "(Lifespan) is
important for both E.ON and RWE because a big portion of their
power generation comes from nuclear plants."
JP Morgan said in a recent report: "The operating effectiveness
and quality of the German nuclear plants is considered to be
best-in-class and so a 15-year extension, for example, should be
easily justifiable in operational terms."
French nuclear plants are given a lifespan of 60 years, nearly
twice that of German ones because of the German decision to
scrap nuclear. Scandinavian plants have a lifespan of about 45
years.
Oppenheim's Heck said E.ON's fair price target would increase
by about 5.20 euros a share and RWE's by 4.50 euros each if the
lifespans of their nuclear plants were extended by an average of
eight years.
Nuclear plants are expensive to build and, despite producing
virtually no greenhouse emissions, face fierce opposition from
environmentalists on perceived safety grounds.
As the economic downturn continues, Germany is struggling to
juggle the impact of shutting nuclear plants and its commitment
to limit the emission of greenhouse gases.
"The German government is now almost alone on its path of
exiting nuclear. Not many other countries are following the same
direction. I should say there are none," E.ON Chief Executive
Wulf Bernotat said recently.
Mon May 23 12:38:00 2005
*****************************************************************
39 ITAR-TASS: Bodman arrives in Moscow for talks on coop in energy sector
23.05.2005, 21.49
MOSCOW, May 23 (Itar-Tass) - U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman
arrived in Moscow on Monday for talks with Russian officials on
cooperation on nuclear power engineering and energy security.
Bodman said ahead of the visit that Russia is a key U.S. partner
in nuclear and energy security. He expressed the hope that the
United States and Russia will step up energy cooperation and
investments in this field, and strengthen interaction on nuclear
security.
While in Moscow, Bodman will meet with Russian Prime Minister
Mikhail Fradkov, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Economic
Development Minister German Gref.
Earlier in the day, he held talks with Russian Industry and
Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko. The Russia-U.S. Energy
Working Group will gather in Washington on July 9-10 to discuss
urgent steps towards strengthening cooperation in the energy
sector between the two countries.
A decision to this effect was adopted on the results of the
talks between Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor
Khristenko and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.
After the Monday two-hour tete-a-tete talks Khristenko said, “We
briefed on topical issues of our energy dialogue.”
Bodman stressed that the strengthening and further development
of the Russian-U.S. energy dialogue will help increase world
energy security and stabilise global energy supplies. He
confirmed the U.S. drive for increasing Russian energy supplies,
in particular liquefied natural gas.
Khristenko said further development of the energy dialogue
depends of both sides’ efforts to eliminate uncertainty in the
energy sector. In his view, “it is necessary to involve other
agencies in the dialogue.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W.
Bush adopted a statement on energy cooperation in Bratislava on
February 24.
In the statement the presidents agreed “to work to carry out a
concept of energy interaction in all aspects that was formulated
in the joint statement in May 2002 with the use of mechanisms of
the Business Energy Dialogue and the Energy Working Group.” To
this end, Putin and Bush instructed the ministers “to continue
the energy dialogue and rivet special attention to ensuring
energy security, diversifying energy resources, increasing
transparency of the business and investment climate, removing
obstacles for developing trade partnership; to work out
recommendations for intensifying and developing the energy
dialogue.” These recommendations “are designed to reveal
barriers in trade and investments in the energy sector, and to
put forth initiatives to remove them.”
Putin and Bush supported “the creation of transparent tax,
legal, administrative and contract conditions for cooperation
between our companies, developing a network of Russian pipelines
that will create prerequisites for increasing oil and gas
supplies, including on the American market.”
In addition, the presidents of the two countries showed
“interest in growing American private investments in order to
increase production of liquefied gas in Russia and export it on
the U.S. market.” Putin and Bush also called for expanding
mutual investments in the energy sector.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
40 Post-Crescent: Kewaunee nuclear plant deal spurs lawsuit from groups
Posted May 22, 2005
By Richard Ryman
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers
The Citizens Utility Board and other advocacy groups sued the
state Public Service Commission Friday to block the sale of the
Kewaunee Nuclear Plant.
The commission voted 3-0 in March to approve the sale of the
plant, co-owned by Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay,
to Dominion Resources Inc. of Richmond, Va. Commissioners had
blocked the deal in 2004, but reconsidered their decision after
conditions were added to ease their concerns about ratepayer
protection, nuclear waste storage and any future sale of the
plant.
“When the commission approved the deal, they accepted these
conditions Dominion offered. That’s what we are challenging is
the enforceability of those conditions,” said Charlie Higley,
executive director of Madison-based Citizens Utility Board.
“Last March, when the commission approved the sale with the new
conditions, they determined that the conditions were legally
binding, that they protect ... citizens for the long term and
that they provide economic benefits to ratepayers,” said Linda
Barth, commission spokeswoman.
Rick Zuercher, manager of nuclear public affairs for Dominion,
said, “This has been going on for more than a year now and has a
lot of public support in the area. We still think it’s the right
thing to do. We think it’s good for consumers and it’s a good
thing for Dominion.”
Joining the Citizens Utility Board in the suit are Local 2150 of
the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Municipal
Electric Utilities of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Industrial Energy
Group, Higley said.
Plant owners Wisconsin Public Service Corp., a subsidiary of WPS
Resources Corp. of Green Bay, and Wisconsin Power & Light, a
subsidiary of Alliant Energy, will receive $220 million in the
transaction. In addition, customers will get back $193 million
from one decommissioning fund and any money left after
decommissioning from another.
Through 2013, the utilities will purchase electricity from the
plant at a price comparable to the cost they would pay if they
still owned it, and are first in line to negotiate a new deal
after 2013.
Richard Ryman writes for the Green Bay Press-Gazette.
greenbaypressgazette.com
*****************************************************************
41 NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting
FR Doc 05-10285
[Federal Register: May 23, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 98)] [Notices]
[Page 29545] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23my05-85]
DATE: Weeks of May 23, 30 June 6, 13, 20, 27, 2005.
PLACE: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland.
STATUS: Public and Closed.
MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: Week of May 23, 2005 Monday, May 23,
2005 10 a.m. Discussion of Intergovernmental Issues (Closed--Ex.
9) 1:30 p.m. Discussion of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1)
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 9:25 a.m. Affirmation Session (Public
Meeting) a. Final Rule to Amend 10 CFR Part 9, Subpart A,
``Freedom of Information Act Regulations,'' and Subpart B,
``Privacy Act Regulations'' 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Results of the
Agency Action Review Meeting (Public Meeting) (Contact: Lois
James, 301-415-1112) This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address http://www.nrc.gov .
1 p.m. Briefing on Threat Environment Assessment (Closed--Ex. 1)
3 p.m. Discussion of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1) Week of May
30, 2005--Tentative Wednesday, June 1, 2005 9:30 a.m. Discussion
of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1) Thursday, June 2, 2005 9:30
a.m. Briefing on Office of International Programs (OIP) Programs,
Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting) (Contact: Margie Doane,
301- 415-2344) This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address http://www.nrc.gov .
2:30 p.m. Discussion of Management Issues (Closed--Ex. 2 & 9)
Note: new time, originally scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Week of June
6, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the Week
of June 6, 2005.
Week of June 13, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled
for the Week of June 13, 2005.
Week of June 20, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled
for the Week of June 20, 2005.
Week of June 27, 2005--Tentative Tuesday, June 28, 2005 9:30 a.m.
Briefing on Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Program (Public
Meeting) (Contact: Corenthis Kelley, 301-415-7380) This meeting
will be webcast live at the Web address http://www.nrc.gov .
* The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call (recording)--
(301) 415-1292. Contact person for more information: Dave
Gamberoni, (301) 415-1651.
* * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the
Internet at:
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html. * * *
* * The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to individuals with
disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable
accommodation to participate in these public meetings, or need
this meeting notice or the transcript or other information from
the public meetings in another format (e.g. braille, large
print), please notify the NRC's Disability Program Coordinator,
August Spector, at 301-415-7080, TDD: 301-415- 2100, or by e-mail
at aks@nrc.gov. Determinations on requests for reasonable
accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis.
* * * * * This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition,
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic
message to dkw@nrc.gov. Dated: May 18, 2005.
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 05-10285 Filed 5-19-05; 9:32 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
42 [NukeNet] Japan and the nuclear option
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 16:03:20 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Concerns expressed that Japan might acquire nuclear weapons
On Thursday, May 19 Japan reiterated its opposition to the International
Atomic Energy Agency chief's proposal for a voluntary moratorium on new
nuclear-fuel cycle facilities. According to Kyodo News, Japan's delegate to
the talks, Takeshi Nakane, said that Mohamed ElBaradei's proposed five-year
moratorium is not appropriate and would probably obstruct the use of atomic
energy for peaceful purposes under long-term programs.
This suggests that he believes that non-proliferation is less important
than defending Japan's atomic energy program. The main aspect of this
program that he wants to defend, of course, is the Rokkasho Reprocessing
Plant, which is due to commence trials using spent fuel in December this
year. If it ever operates at full capacity, it will extract 8 tons of
plutonium per year, enough for 1,000 Nagasaki style bombs each year, from
the spent nuclear fuel produced by Japan's nuclear reactors.
The Japanese government might not think this is a cause for concern, but
the rest of the world sees things differently. In a report dated May 19,
2005 the United States Senate Republican Policy Committee highlighted the
possibility that Japan might choose to acquire nuclear weapons if North
Korea tests a nuclear weapon. CNIC doesnft take the view that North Korea
will in fact test a nuclear weapon, but the views of the Republican
Senators regarding Japan are worth quoting.
"A test in North Korea would certainly raise the prospect of a major public
debate in Japan over whether to turn its latent nuclear capabilities in its
civilian and space sectors into an overt nuclear weapons program," It goes
on to say, "US officials would explain to their Chinese counterparts that
they are looking for a mutually beneficial outcome...For the Chinese, such
an outcome might include U.S. restraint on Japan's and Taiwan's nuclear
ambitions. US policy makers would then note that, should the Chinese not
agree to help resolve the nuclear crisis in this manner, the United States
may not be able to restrain nuclear proliferation efforts within the region
as much as it may like to."
The Senate Republican Policy Committee says that Japan should state that it
isn't currently seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. This is an excessively
cautious demand. Japan should state that it isn't now and never will seek
to acquire nuclear weapons. It should also go further and state that it
will not start up the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. By voluntarily applying
Mahomed ElBaradei's moratorium to the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, Japan
would give the rest of the world, in particular its East Asian neighbours,
some grounds for believing its reassurances.
Japan might like to believe that nobody notices the 40 odd tons of
plutonium that it already has stashed away and the huge stockpile that it
will accumulate if Rokkasho ever becomes operational, but just because
Japan is oblivious to the outside world doesn't mean the outside world
isn't watching Japan. Japan is behaving like a little child playing
peekaboo. She thinks that when she closes her eyes no one can see her.
Adults might humour a little child, but when the risks are so great, why
should the rest of the world humour Japan?
Philip White
International Liaison Officer
References:
1. "New nuclear-fuel cycle moratorium opposed by Japan", Kyodo article in
Japan Times 21 May 2005
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050521b3.htm
2. Speech by Mohamed ElBaradei at the NPT (2 May 2005)
http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/statements/npt02iaea
3. "Anticipating a North Korean Nuclear Test: What's to Be Done to Avert a
Further Crisis", United States Senate Republican Policy Committee, 19 May
2005
http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/May1905NKNuclearDF.pdf
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
43 Guardian Unlimited: Whistleblowers Gain Respect in Japan
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday May 23, 2005 6:46 PM
AP Photo XJK101
By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - For much of his 30-year career, Hiroaki Kushioka's
office was a closet-like room. A college graduate, he would pass
the time gardening or shoveling snow. His bosses denied him
promotion and repeatedly pressured him to quit.
His offense? Being a whistleblower, in a nation where corporate
loyalty is so highly valued that employees who report managerial
misdoing are shunned as traitors.
That's why the battle this 59-year-old waged to expose
price-rigging in the trucking company that employed him has been
solitary and has gone largely unnoticed until recently.
``If I hadn't done it, I would have regretted it,'' he said in
an interview.
But Kushioka, a man with fiery eyes and an insistent tone, may
have helped break new ground: Japan recently passed its first
law to protect whistleblowers from workplace retribution.
The law, taking effect next April, is a response to a spate of
scandals that have hit Japan Inc. over the last several years -
the cover-up of auto defects at Mitsubishi Motors Corp.,
mislabeling of meat at Snow Brand Foods Co., hiding of bad debts
at UFJ Bank.
Those scandals and others at police departments, hospitals and a
nuclear power plant all surfaced because of whistleblowers.
As Japanese companies globalize, concern about corporate
governance and transparency is growing. In recent years,
companies fearing for their image have set up hot lines for
whistleblowers.
But consumer advocates and legal experts say the law is just a
start and Japan remains far behind the United States and other
industrialized nations in protecting whistleblowers from
retribution.
Kushioka and others say the law's protections don't go far
enough, pointing to a passage that instructs people to talk to
their company before going to the media or outside authorities
unless lives are at risk.
They argue that talking to the company won't work because a
management gone bad is apt to squelch a whistleblower rather
than respond in good faith.
But proponents of the law say it's a start.
``Up to now, in Japan, where old-style thinking is so
entrenched, people have kept silent,'' said Kazuko Miyamoto, a
consumer rights advocate who sat on the panel that worked on the
law. ``Most scandals here are carried out systematically by
companies, not individuals, and the entire company tends to get
involved in cover-ups.''
In a society where corporations offer lifetime employment and
demand family-like team work, whistleblowers risk being
ostracized by colleagues and demoted. Strict labor laws make it
hard to fire workers, so harassment is used to force out
undesirable workers.
Ostracism is so common it has a name, ``madogiwa,'' or ``sitting
by the window.''
Kushioka's battle began when he was an eager recruit with a law
degree at Tonami Transportation Co. Ltd., a major haulage firm
in northern Japan, and discovered it was illegally inflating
bills in a cartel.
When his bosses and labor union took no action, he went to the
newspaper that gave him his college scholarship, then to
lawmakers and prosecutors.
Over the years, he was stuck at an entry-level salary and he
passed his time at work planting tulips and potatoes. While his
wife quietly supported his fight, his two children never knew
what he was enduring. He wanted to spare them worries.
This year Kushioka got some vindication for his long ordeal when
a court ruled he was a whistleblower deserving protection and
ordered his employer pay him 13.5 million yen ($128,000) in
compensation. He had held off suing until 2002, waiting until
his children finished school and his son got a job.
The trucking company is not appealing the ruling, noting in a
brief statement that the view on whistleblowers has changed over
the last 30 years. The company declined further comment.
Kushioka is appealing to a higher court, demanding an apology
from the company.
Yoichi Shimada, professor of law at Waseda University in Tokyo,
hopes Japanese companies will now set up their own system to
solve problems. ``Up to now, whistleblowers for the most part
have ended up with tragic lives. And brave individuals had to
give up their whole lives,'' he said.
But Kushioka, who reaches retirement age next year, doesn't feel
his years of isolation were a waste.
``Every company needs a whistleblower,'' he said. ``I've led a
very meaningful life.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
44 Lone Star Iconoclast: Connecticut Senate Okays Bill To Study Health Effects Of DU
HARTFORD — The Connecticut Senate last Wednesday approved its
part of a measure to have the state study the health effects of
depleted uranium and other toxic substances on military
personnel.
The vote was 34 to zero, and now awaits action in the
Connecticut House.
The Senate legislation establishes a health registry for
Connecticut veterans and military personnel returning from
Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.
The Iconoclast published a feature story two weeks ago about
concerns over soldiers becoming seriously ill after being
exposed to radiation in war zones and the federal government
ignoring mandates for testing.
Depleted uranium is used in weaponry and armor.
Copyright ©2004 The Lone Star Iconoclast
*****************************************************************
45 St. Petersburg Times: Russia Urged to Pay For Nuclear Safety -
#1072, Tuesday, May 24, 2005
By Anatoly Medetsky
STAFF WRITER MOSCOW - A U.S. report on nuclear security has
called on Russia to contribute more money and resources to
safeguard its nuclear weapons stockpiles at home and abroad,
rather than relying on U.S. funding.
"We call for transforming the U.S.-Russian cooperation from a
donor-recipient relationship into a genuine partnership in which
Russia would contribute more of its own resources and more
openness and the United States would fully integrate the ideas
and expertise of Russian experts," said Matthew Bunn of Harvard
University's Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs, presenting the report in Moscow on Monday.
The report, titled "Securing the Bomb 2005: The New Global
Imperatives" and coauthored by Bunn and Anthony Wier, another
Belfer Center researcher, was released in Washington earlier
this month.
Bunn said there was a 5 percent to 10 percent chance of a
terrorist attack involving a nuclear bomb in the next 10 years.
He said that Russia had made some progress on guarding its
nuclear facilities, but there was still more to do. Guards
sometimes patrol facilities without weapons, turn off the
intruder alarm so as not to bother checking if it goes off and
leave security doors open for their own convenience, Bunn said.
Alexei Arbatov, head of the Center for International Security
at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy
and International Relations, said he doubted the United States
and Russia could become true partners in the non-proliferation
effort. The two countries did not have the experience of
military cooperation that would enable them to trust each other,
and levels of political trust have also been waning lately, he
said.
The report comes amid an atmosphere of growing distrust between
Washington and Moscow over nuclear weapons proliferation.
Russian defense analysts say a U.S. missile defense system under
development could be aimed against threats from countries
including Russia, and President Vladimir Putin has said that
Russia is developing missiles that would be able to penetrate
that system, Arbatov said.
"We are still looking at each other as potential enemies," he
said. "Under these circumstances we cannot count on cooperation."
The report recommended that both countries appoint a senior
official to take over the responsibility for nuclear security
from a handful of agencies that currently handle the issue.
[Copyright] copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1993-2004
*****************************************************************
46 News Release: Idaho new Yucca Mountain?
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 16:03:28 -0700
Snake River Alliance
Idaho's Nuclear Watchdog
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, May 23, 2005
CONTACT INFORMATION
Jeremy Maxand, Executive Director
(208) 344-9161 office
(208) 850-9334 cell
"Idaho lab under consideration as nation’s “interim” Yucca Mountain"
"House committee calls for commercial nuclear fuel to be stored and
reprocessed at DOE facility"
The House Energy and Water Appropriations Committee is calling for a plan
that could turn Idaho into the nation’s “interim” Yucca Mountain and restart
commercial spent fuel reprocessing, a practice that was ended in the 1970s
because of proliferation risks. The committee is recommending that the
federal government take title to the nation’s commercial spent nuclear fuel,
ship it to one of three DOE sites, including the Idaho National Laboratory,
and restart spent fuel reprocessing, a process that generates large volumes
of extremely dangerous radioactive wastes.
State and national public interest groups are calling for the removal of
the language from the bill, arguing it could undermine state and tribal
agreements, such as Idaho’s 1995 Settlement Agreement, reverse decades of
public policy without one public hearing banning the reprocessing of spent
fuel, run counter to the US’s nonproliferation efforts, cause the same
environmental damage as past reprocessing, and ultimately cost tens of
billions of dollars.
“Reprocessing is the must take step between a nuclear reactor and a nuclear
bomb,” said Jeremy Maxand, executive director of the nuclear watchdog group
Snake River Alliance. “We urge Idaho’s representatives Simpson and Otter to
vigorously oppose this legislation. We cannot change such an important
public policy without any public debate, particularly when doing so would
have such dire consequences for efforts to control the proliferation of
nuclear weapons and for the environment.”
The three sites under consideration as interim storage sites the Idaho
National Laboratory, Hanford in Washington State, and the Savannah River
Site in South Carolina have all reprocessed spent nuclear fuel in the past
and, as a result, all have some of the most serious nuclear waste cleanup
problems in the country.
Both the Idaho and South Carolina sites were recently included in federal
legislation granting the DOE authority to reclassify high-level waste;
Hanford was not included in the legislation.
The House is expected to vote on the appropriations bill as early as
Tuesday, May 24, 2005. The bill can be found at:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_reports&d
ocid=f:hr086.109.pdf
-- 30 --
The Snake River Alliance is an Idaho-based grassroots group working through
research, education, and community advocacy for peace and justice, the end
to nuclear weapons production activities, and responsible solutions to
nuclear waste and contamination.
Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\Idaho Yucca Release May 23 2005.doc"
*****************************************************************
47 [NukeNet] House funds interim nuclear storage
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 15:56:47 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Department of Energy sites in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina are
named as potential "interim" sites for "spent" fuel that would have gone to
Yucca Mountain.
Thanks to Ellen at NucNews.net for compiling these...
1- House: Interim Storage Needed at Nuke Dump (5/12)
2- House panel OKs funds for moving nuke waste (5/13)
3- House panel votes to boost funds for interim nuclear
storage (5/18)
4- Panel urges stopgap waste sites (5/19)
--
House: Interim Storage Needed at Nuke Dump
By ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 12, 2005; 7:05 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051201287_pf.html
WASHINGTON -- A House spending panel is directing the Energy
Department to start sending nuclear waste to an interim
storage site next year, a shift from the Bush
administration's focus on the troubled Yucca Mountain dump
in Nevada.
Rep. David Hobson, chairman of the House Appropriations
subcommittee on energy and water, included $10 million for
the effort in a spending bill the subcommittee passed on
Thursday.
The legislation, approved by voice vote, directs the
department to select one or more aboveground sites that will
be ready in 2006 to accept some of the thousands of tons of
commercial reactor fuel and defense waste now accumulating
in 39 states.
Hobson said he remains committed to Yucca Mountain, the
planned underground dump for the nation's nuclear waste, but
that delays to the project have made interim storage
necessary. The bill does not specify a storage site.
Yucca Mountain has endured a string of problems. The most
recent concerned allegations that government workers on the
project falsified data. Also, the department recently
abandoned a 2010 completion date and did not set a new one.
The government is facing billions of dollars in potential
liability from nuclear utilities because it promised to
start accepting their waste in 1998, but failed to make good.
"I'm trying to bridge that gap between the time that Yucca
Mountain opens," Hobson, R-Ohio, told reporters after the
subcommittee vote.
"We're incurring a lot of litigation when we don't get the
spent fuel rods out from these power plants like we said we
were going to do," he said. "This way we could eliminate
that, cut down on the security problems they have, and put
them into some aboveground sites."
Hobson's bill still grants President Bush's 2006 spending
request for Yucca Mountain. Bush proposed $651 million in
his budget plan released in February; Hobson's subcommittee
would fund the project at $661 million, with the additional
money going for the interim storage plan.
An Energy Department spokeswoman said the department remains
focused on Yucca Mountain, which was approved by Congress in
2002 to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste beneath the
desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"We are reviewing the legislation, but obviously we are
continuing to work toward a permanent geologic repository at
Yucca Mountain," Anne Womack Kolton said.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., favors
legislation to permanently leave nuclear waste at the
reactor sites where it now sits.
On the Net:
Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site:
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/
House Appropriations Committee: http://appropriations.house.gov/
----
House panel OKs funds for moving nuke waste
By Suzanne Struglinski
WASHINGTON BUREAU, Las Vegas SUN
May 13, 2005
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/may/13/518752628.html
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department may get $10 million to
start moving nuclear waste to an interim storage site as
early as 2006, based on a provision included in a House
spending bill Thursday.
The House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee
approved $661 million for the Yucca Mountain project,
fulfilling the department's budget request while adding an
additional $10 million in a vague request to begin moving
waste to other department sites.
"It's time to rethink our approach to dealing with spent
fuel," Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, said.
"It's irresponsible the policies we have now. It delays us."
The bill does not name a site to take the waste or implement
a specific policy but gives the department the ability to
start moving waste to a site as early as next year, Hobson said.
"This stuff is not in the safest place right now," Hobson
said. "This is a vision to move forward."
The Energy Department plans to store 77,000 tons of nuclear
waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The department was supposed to move the waste in 1998 but
the project has suffered a series of delays and setbacks.
Hobson said the effort should not been seen as losing
confidence in the Yucca Mountain project, saying it is
"critical" the government gets the project "done right and
done soon."
"I have 100 percent of the funding in there," Hobson said.
"I will fight to the death for Yucca Mountain just as my
opponent says he will fight against it."
Hobson's "opponent," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid,
D-Nev., is the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations
Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. Reid works to cut
the Yucca budget every year and disagrees with Hobson's
effort for it to move forward.
Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen this is an acknowledgement that
the department cannot move forward on Yucca. She noted that
the House usually asks for more than the department's
request but usually gets less after final negotiations with
Reid.
She said the ongoing investigations into possibly falsified
data at the project give Reid "added ammunition" in his
fight to lower the funding.
"It's proof that was he has been saying over the years about
this money going down a dark hole," Hafen said.
The additional $10 million can go toward casks or plans to
move waste to a site. It builds on the request the
department already had to buy casks, committee spokesman
John Scofield said. It gives the department the ability to
pick a site or sites, make plans and decide how to move forward.
The subcommittee will not release the exact language in the
bill until the House Appropriations Committee takes it up
next week. The Senate will not begin finalizing its bill at
least until after the Memorial Day recess.
Hobson said he has a site in mind but would not offer
details. He also said it could be more than one site.
"It is not in Nevada," Hobson said. "If one happens to be in
Ohio, OK."
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, an interim storage site
can not be in Nevada. Congress killed an effort to amend the
law and have temporary storage at Yucca Mountain five years ago.
Hobson suggested in March that the Nevada Test Site could
serve as a site to store waste for 100 to 500 years as
scientists figured out a better way to store or reprocess fuel.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., spokesman Jack Finn did not want
to comment until had seen a copy of the exact language.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., opposes any funding for Yucca
Mountain, according to spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer. He wants
to see the country invest money on "21st century technology"
to fight the waste problem and keeping waste safe where it is.
David Cherry, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.,
called the proposal an "absolute non-starter."
"There is nothing in there to be in agreement with," Cherry
said.
He said she would oppose any plan to move waste away from
nuclear power plants. An interim site, with the final
destination still at Yucca, creates a double risk for
terrorist attacks or accidents.
He said there is no plan on how to move it or where it would go.
But Hobson says the Energy Department accepts waste from
foreign reactors already to store at some of its facilities
and nuclear waste is moved around the country all the time.
"Give me a break, we have to get real," Hobson said. "This
is not brain science. This is not inventing a new wheel."
Hobson said the country loses about $500 million every year
Yucca Mountain does not open. He emphasized that other
countries are reprocessing fuel and storing nuclear waste
with no problems. The government has not fulfilled its
contract with nuclear companies to take the waste and legal
decisions force the government to pay damages to some utilities.
The bill also puts an additional $5 million to the Advanced
Fuel Cycle Initiative. The department will have to pick a
process to use to recycle nuclear waste by 2007, according
to the subcommittee.
Hobson included the extra money because it is "time we
rethink our reluctance to reprocessing fuel."
"I don't want to get to 'Yucca Mountain Two' right away,"
Hobson said.
The recycling would be aimed at how to decrease the amount
of existing waste without creating dangerous byproducts or
more waste in the process.
----
House panel votes to boost funds for interim nuclear storage
By Joe Bauman
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
Wednesday, May 18, 2005 Deseret Morning News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view2/1,4382,600134701,00.html?textfield=nuclear
A U.S. House subcommittee has voted to increase
funding for interim storage of high-level nuclear waste by
$10 million, with the group's chairman expressing doubts
about the viability of the planned Yucca Mountain permanent
storage site.
Deciding to favor interim storage over permanent
could amount to an acknowledgement that Yucca Mountain is
far behind schedule.
The money would go to a U.S. Department of Energy
interim facility, so the funding is not aimed at the
industry-owned Private Fuel Storage site proposed for Skull
Valley, Tooele County. But it doesn't preclude construction
of the Tooele plant, raising the possibility of more than
one temporary facility.
In addition, the markup by the House Energy and Water
Developments Subcommittee torpedoed funding for developing
the controversial "bunker-buster" nuclear weapon. Some
Utahns worried that if the bunker buster were built it would
be tested at the nearby Nevada Test Site.
The subcommittee, part of the House Committee on
Appropriations, last week approved a $29.7 billion funding
bill, to be debated by the full committee today. It would
appropriate $661 million for Yucca Mountain.
A committee press release notes the amount is $84
million above the fiscal 2005 funding and "$10 million over
the request" by the Bush administration.
The Yucca Mountain site is in trouble because of
fierce opposition by a top Democrat, Sen. Harry Reid,
D-Nev., and officials of the state of Nevada. Also, it has
recently been slammed by scandal, including claims of
falsifications involving scientific studies of the
underground site's ability to withstand water erosion
through the eons.
The chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. David Hobson,
R-Ohio, seemed to question whether Yucca Mountain remains
viable. But he supported continuing to spend millions of
dollars on the project.
However, the $10 million extra, according to the
committee, would start moving "spent nuclear fuel away from
reactor sites to an interim DOE (Department of Energy)
storage facility."
That apparently excludes funding for the Private Fuel
Storage site proposed for Skull Valley for the immediate
purposes of the bill. PFS, awaiting licensing by the nuclear
Regulatory Commission, is a private facility, not a DOE site.
In comments about the appropriations bill that
wereposted on the committee's Web site, Hobson commented
that the subcommittee did not fund Yucca Mountain as
strongly as he would have liked.
"I don't like going forward with so little money for
Yucca Mountain, but we are playing the hand that we were
dealt," he said. Hobson added he remains "hopeful that the
administration will come to its senses, or that the Senate
will find a creative way to keep Yucca alive."
John Scofield, spokesman for the appropriations
committee, told the Deseret Morning News that the $10
million was added to a like amount already in the bill, for
a total of $20 million, "to expedite the storage of special
nuclear materials at an interim facility." Special refers to
high-level radioactive waste.
He said the bill does not specify which facility to
use for the interim storage.
The subcommittee markup deleted funding for
"bunker-buster" nuclear weapons research. Anti-nuclear
activists had feared the weapons would be tested at the
Nevada Test Site.
Vanessa Pierce of the Healthy Environment Alliance of
Utah said the subcommittee trimmed $4 million for
bunker-buster research, "which was the total amount that had
been requested for it on the nuclear side."
Pierce added, "That is a huge victory."
She noted that a recent report by the National
Academy of Sciences predicts that bunker-buster weapons used
in warfare would kill many people other than those inside
the underground fortresses they are designed to penetrate.
"If we use a bunker buster, there will be thousands
to millions of innocent civilian casualties," said Pierce,
HEAL's program director. "And that's not a fate we would
wish for anyone."
Closer to home, Pierce said, if the weapon were
developed "there's a chance it would be tested, and Utahns
would be put at risk for being downwind a second time." By
"second time," she was referring to the nuclear bombs
detonated above ground at the Nevada Test Site during the
1950s and '60s, dumping radioactive fallout on Utah and
other states.
Although the bunker buster would be designed for
underground warfare, Utahns may be nervous because in the
past venting has occurred at the Nevada Test Site.
In 1970, a 10 kiloton nuclear bomb in a test
code-named Baneberry exploded 900 feet underground at the
Test Site. It vented, with material breaking the surface.
Baneberry spewed a cloud of radioactive debris into the
atmosphere.
----
Panel urges stopgap waste sites
Delays at Yucca Mountain cause House members to seek interim
plan for spent fuel
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Las Vegas Review-Journal
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/May-19-Thu-2005/news/26553353.html
WASHINGTON -- A House committee approved a bill Wednesday
that presses the Department of Energy to pursue stopgap
storage sites for nuclear waste as delays mount at Yucca
Mountain.
The panel directed the department to consider placing spent
nuclear fuel on federal reservations in Washington state,
Idaho or South Carolina or other federally owned sites,
closed military bases or fuel storage facilities not
operated by the government.
The proposal, led by Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, represents a
turn in the decades-long effort to dispose of high-level
radioactive spent fuel gathering at nuclear power plants.
Hobson, who leads a House energy subcommittee, said his
purpose was not to replace plans for a Yucca Mountain
repository in Nevada but to provide a cushion for the project.
It has been set back in recent years by legal rulings,
underfunding by Congress and allegations that
quality-assurance documents might have been falsified.
"Yucca Mountain is going to happen, but in the interim, I
have to have some solution," Hobson said.
"It helps bridge the time until (Yucca Mountain) is open,
and it helps underwriters," Hobson said.
Underwriters will decide whether to loan billions of dollars
to utilities to build new power plants amid uncertainty
about how their spent fuel will be managed.
In the late 1990s, the Energy Department supported storing
nuclear waste at a temporary site near Yucca Mountain.
Hobson's proposal marks the debut of an idea to gather
nuclear waste on government land elsewhere, officials said.
The bill approved Wednesday must navigate the House and the
Senate. The measure has gotten a lukewarm reception from the
Energy Department and some in the nuclear industry who fear
it might distract attention from completing the Nevada
repository.
"We're trying to say let's look at this and let's get it
started," Hobson said.
Nevada lawmakers, who oppose Yucca Mountain, were split on
the proposal.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he saw it as a sign that
lawmakers are recognizing flaws at the Yucca site, which
critics call unsafe and unsuitable for nuclear waste storage.
"The fact that they are looking at alternatives is a
positive," Porter said.
But Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said setting up interim
storage in other states does little to stop a Nevada repository.
"I don't think it takes the pressure off Yucca Mountain,"
she said. "It's just a temporary solution."
Hobson inserted his provision into a report with the Energy
Department's annual spending bill.
As approved Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee,
the bill allocates $661 million to continue work at Yucca
Mountain, $10 million more than the Energy Department requested.
The committee told the agency to use the $10 million, plus
another $10 million within its budget, to start exploring
interim storage. The committee told DOE to send Congress a
study within four months.
The proposal was coupled with a new push for the Energy
Department to speed research of recycling technologies that
could reduce the volumes and toxicity of spent nuclear fuel.
The committee directed DOE to recommend by October 2008 some
form of waste reprocessing.
New forms of reprocessing being used in Europe can reduce
risks that caused the United States to abandon commercial
reprocessing in the 1970s, the committee said in its report.
_______________________________________________________________________
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48 Las Vegas RJ: POLITICAL NOTEBOOK: Official warns Nevadans against lowering
Yucca guard
Monday, May 23, 2005
Loux believes project is dead, but it will take a couple more
years before state's residents can officially celebrate its
demise
By ERIN NEFF REVIEW-JOURNAL
Bob Loux, director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects,
talks to a reporter on Feb. 8 after testifying to the Senate
Finance Committee in the Legislative Building in Carson City.
He's encouraging continued vigilance in the face of a recent
poll that found 46 percent of residents supported ending funding
for the state's anti-Yucca Mountain efforts.
Photo by K.M. Cannon.
Gov. Kenny Guinn talks in his office in Carson City on Jan 21.
The governor doesn't want to start interviewing potential
successors for Attorney General Brian Sandoval just yet.
Photo by Cathleen Allison/Associated Press.
Bob Loux has had his battles with the Department of Energy over
the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
Now the director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects is
battling a different kind of opponent: the state's own
residents.
A recent poll, commissioned by the Review-Journal and
reviewjournal.com, found that 46 percent of residents supported
ending funding for the state's anti-Yucca Mountain efforts.
Forty-four percent wanted to continue the funding.
Those numbers are down considerably from the number of Nevadans,
70 percent, who oppose the project.
"We may be a victim, partially, of our own success or (the
Department of Energy's) failures," Loux said. "We've been making
a lot of noise about the project being dead."
Nevada's congressional delegation has been on a rampage since
the release of e-mail messages from Yucca scientists suggesting
there were attempts to falsify data.
Several Nevada officials have declared the project dead, even
though Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman recently refused to halt
the project.
State lawmakers have also cut $1 million from a $2 million
budget request Gov. Kenny Guinn proposed to fund the state's
legal challenges to the repository.
Loux said he thinks the project is dead, but that Nevadans won't
be able to officially celebrate for about one or two more years.
"You are going to see the end of Yucca Mountain when the nuclear
energy leaders come to Congress and pressure them for an
alternative to Yucca," Loux said. "I think we are going to start
to see that and to see Congress change within the next few
years."
Dual purposes
Three elected officials hoping to be the next governor of Nevada
each had a different take on where to campaign this past
weekend.
Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, a two-term Republican, drove to tiny
Hawthorne to meet with residents about the proposed closing of
the Army Ammunition Depot. Her official duty came as head of the
state's economic development efforts. Unofficially, it was a
chance to court the rurals.
Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, took part in an
Armed Forces Day celebration on the Capitol Mall in Carson City.
His official duty was as a legislative leader. Unofficially, it
was an homage to veterans who vote.
Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, drove to Elko to
deliver the commencement address at Great Basin College. Her
official duty was as a legislative leader serving on the
committee which finances higher education. Unofficially, it was
a rural tour for votes.
Guinn waiting on AG
Gov. Kenny Guinn said he doesn't want to start interviewing
potential attorney general candidates until things in
Washington, D.C., settle down enough for Brian Sandoval to
officially get his federal court nomination.
"It's not finished yet and he still has a job to do," Guinn said
of the process.
The slow-down in the Capitol, as a result of the filibuster
fight, has left Sandoval in a holding pattern.
But that isn't keeping those who want the job still.
State Sen. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, is believed to be the
favorite for appointment to the position when Sandoval takes the
expected federal position. Guinn has said he will not merely
appoint a caretaker to the position, but will pick someone ready
to run for the seat in 2006 when the term expires.
To that end, Amodei has been making the rounds amid his
legislative duties, even making an appearance at the Clark
County Lincoln Day dinner several weeks ago.
University Regent Bret Whipple also has applied for the
position, and Las Vegas attorney George Chanos has recently
expressed interest in the job as well. Chanos is married to
Adriana Escobar-Chanos, the state attorney general's office
consumer advocate.
Marshal eyes race
Kate Marshal, a former deputy attorney general who also has
worked for the Department of Justice on anti-trust cases, is
exploring a bid for secretary of state.
The Reno-based attorney has represented a telecommunications
company before the state Public Utilities Commission and worked
to launch the state attorney general's anti-trust unit under
Frankie Sue Del Papa's administration.
"It's not that much of a stretch to go from anti-trust to
securities," Marshal, 45, said of the secretary of state's job.
She may be in a primary with state Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las
Vegas, who is considering a bid.
"If I run, I'll run to win," Marshal said.
At least four Republicans also have declared their candidacy for
the race: former assemblywoman Merle Berman; former chief deputy
secretary of state Dale Erquiaga; Clark County GOP Chairman
Brian Scroggins; and Danny Tarkanian, son of Las Vegas City
Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian.
Contact political reporter Erin Neff at 387-2906 or
ENeff@reviewjournal.com.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
49 Bellona: Recovery of radioactive leakage in UK to take four weeks
The recovery of highly radioactive leakage resulting from a leak
discovered April 18 within the fuel clarification cell of the
Thorp reprocessing facility at the UK’s Sellafield site began
late last week, and will take around four weeks to recover a
British Nuclear Group official told Bellona Web.
2005-05-23 14:22
On April 18, a camera-based investigation of the clarification
cell revealed that a pipe leading from one of the reprocessing
facility’s so-called Accountability Tank had ruptured and caused
a leak of some 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium dissolved in
nitric acid onto the for of the clarification cell. The clean up
operation began May 19. There are as yet no cost estimates as to
how much the clean up effort will cost
The BNG official sad that the incident—which ranked a
“3”corresponding to a “serious incident” on the International
Nuclear Event Scale (INES)—that conditions within the cell
remain stable and safe. The “3” rating on the INES sale is one
step short of a nuclear “accident without significant off-site
risk.
Thorp’s fuel clarification cell comprises a stainless
steel-lined space 60 metres long, 20 metres wide and 20 metres
high and its concrete walls are 2 to 3 metres thick to absorb
radiation. Another BNG official, Sellafield’s spokesman Nigel
Monckton, said the cell was designed to withstand the
possibility of a leak and, because stainless steel does not
dissolve in nitric acid, the leak has been contained.
Thorp’s raw materials are the used fuel rods from nuclear power
stations. After receipt at Thorp, they are stored for several
months to allow the radioactivity of short-lived fission
products to decay to safer levels. The 1-metre long,
1-centimetre diameter tubular rods are then cut up into small
chunks and lowered in baskets into strong nitric acid.
The uranium, plutonium and fission products dissolve and the
remnants of the steel rods are removed. But the fluid remaining
from the process, called liquor, still contains small shards of
steel, or tailings, from burrs created as the rods were chopped
up. So the liquor must be centrifuged to get rid of the steel
contaminants, a process called clarification. It is at this
clarification stage that the leak occurred.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
50 NRC: USEC, Inc.; Establishment of Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
FR Doc E5-2583
[Federal Register: May 23, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 98)] [Notices]
[Page 29544-29545] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr23my05-84]
Pursuant to delegation by the Commission dated December 29, 1972,
published in the Federal Register, 37 FR 28710 (1972), and the
Commission's regulations, see 10 CFR 2.104, 2.300, 2.303, 2.309,
2.311, 2.318, and 2.321, notice is hereby given that an Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board is being established to preside over
the following proceeding: USEC, Inc.
(American Centrifuge Plant) A Licensing Board is being
established pursuant to a May 12, 2005 Commission memorandum and
order (CLI-05-11, 60 NRC--) in this proceeding regarding the
application of the USEC, Inc., (USEC) for a license to possess
and use source, byproduct, and special nuclear material and to
enrich natural uranium to a maximum of ten percent U- 235 by the
gas centrifuge
[[Page 29545]] process at a facility, to be known as the American
Centrifuge Plant, that would be located in Piketon, Ohio. At the
outset of this proceeding, the Commission indicated it would make
threshold standing determinations itself, and would refer the
petitions of persons with the requisite standing to the Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board Panel for further adjudicatory
proceedings (CLI-04-30, 60 NRC 426, 429 (2004); see also 69 FR
61411 (Oct. 18, 2004)). In its May 12 issuance, the Commission
found that both organizational petitioner Portsmouth/ Piketon
Residents for Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS) and
individual petitioner Geoffrey Sea have standing to intervene
and, accordingly, referred their petitions and associated
contentions to the Panel for further appropriate action.
The Board is comprised of the following administrative judges:
Lawrence G. McDade, Chair, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
Panel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001. Dr. Paul B. Abramson, Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board Panel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001.
Dr. Richard E. Wardwell, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
All correspondence, documents, and other materials shall be filed
with the administrative judges in accordance with 10 CFR 2.302.
Issued at Rockville, Maryland, this 17th day of May, 2005.
G. Paul Bollwerk, III, Chief Administrative Judge, Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board Panel.
[FR Doc. E5-2583 Filed 5-20-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
51 Vermont Guardian: Activists oppose plan to use plutonium fuel in commercial nuclear reactors
Opposition mounts against use of plutonium fuel in nuclear
reactors
By Ron Chepesiuk | Special to the Vermont Guardian
The imminent use of fuel converted from nuclear warheads in a
U.S. commercial nuclear reactor poses major security and
environmental risks, and could spur U.S. nuclear weapons
production, critics fear.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is scheduled to begin
testing the use of fuel rod assemblies made from converted
weapons-grade plutonium at Duke Energys Catawba reactor in South
Carolina beginning later this spring.
If the tests are deemed successful, Duke is expected to ask
federal regulators for approval to use MOX (oxide fuel made from
plutonium mixed with uranium) in its reactors beginning in about
2010.
Nuclear watchdogs are still hoping the MOX project can be
stopped or at least delayed. They worry that MOXs widespread use
will help spur a disturbing trend, blurring the fine line
between the commercial and military nuclear weapons industries.
The world will be less safe if the U.S. government can get away
with using plutonium, a strategic military material, in
commercial nuclear power stations, warned Michael Mariotte,
executive director of the Washington-based Nuclear Information
and Research Service.
In September 2004, the U.S government shipped weapons-grade
plutonium, a key ingredient used to make nuclear weapons, from
Charleston, SC, to the Cadarache nuclear complex in southern
France. There, Areva, a state-owned company, turned the
plutonium, which had been taken from nuclear warheads, into
reactor fuel.
Currently, the United States doesnt have the facilities to do
the process.
On March 22, two British freighters picked up the cargo of four
MOX fuel rod assemblies and departed for Charleston. On April
29, Greenpeace International announced that the shipment had
arrived at the Catawba Nuclear Power Station near Rock Hill, SC
(population about 60,000), where the U.S. Department of Energy
plans to test the assemblies for use in commercial nuclear
reactors. The DOE oversees the station and the program.
Catawba is operated by Duke Power, a subsidiary of Duke Energy,
one of the nations largest electric utilities with more than two
million customers in North and South Carolina. While European
countries have used MOX fuel in nuclear reactors since the
1960s, Catawba will be the first commercial reactor in the
United States to do so. It will be the first reactor in the
world to use weapons-grade plutonium.
According to the DOE, the goal of the MOX test program is to
dispose of 37.5 metric tons of plutonium taken from nuclear
weapons by burning it in U.S. nuclear reactors. Washington
contends that applying the MOX technology in the United States
is a key element of the international program to dispose of
surplus plutonium from nuclear weapons and help reduce the risk
that terrorist groups or rogue nations might obtain the
material.
But scientific and environmental groups charge that the program
threatens the environment and national security, and provides a
cover for Uncle Sams goal of expanding its nuclear weapons
program. Internationally, more than 200 environmental and other
organizations have signed a statement pledging to stop the MOX
program in the United States, Russia, France, and England.
Greenpeace International monitored the movement of the plutonium
to the Cadarache complex and back to the United States. We were
so disturbed by the poor level of security that we commissioned
a study by a leading nuclear consultant to assess it, said Tom
Clements, Washington-based senior advisor for Greenpeaces
International Nuclear Campaign.
According to a Greenpeace report, the consultant found that the
the risk of a successful terrorist attack against the U.S.
transport (from Charleston to France) was high, with access to
plutonium a matter of seconds from commencement of attack.
The tests planned at Catawba are dangerous, said Louis Zeller,
Nuclear Campaign Coordinator with the North Carolina-based Blue
Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL). The reactors are not
designed to use plutonium, he said.
The movement of plutonium is another dangerous component of the
plan, according to Mariotte. In this post-9/11 era, when
terrorism is such a concern, its wise to move plutonium about as
little as possible, he said. Besides, the processing of
plutonium exacerbates the nuclear waste problem, since the
nuclear reactors will generate a high level of waste once the
MOX fuel is used in them.
John LaFarge, co-director of Nukewatch, an environmental peace
and action group based in Luck, WI, agreed. Turning
weapons-grade plutonium into fuel will be a dirty process, he
explained. It will worsen our countrys nuclear waste problem.
Duke Power has downplayed the safety, security, and
environmental concerns. On March 10, Steve Nesbit, the MOX fuel
manager at the Catawba Station, told the Rock Hill Herald that
U.S. nuclear power plants are among the worlds best protected,
and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has put Dukes
MOX application through a rigorous review process for both
security and safety. According to Nesbit, Claiming this
[Catawba] is a weak link where these materials could be stolen
is pretty far-fetched.
On March 8, 2004, the NRCs Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
(ASLB) agreed to hear BREDLs objections to the experimental MOX
project. Almost a year later, BREDL lost the decision before the
NRC board, and Duke was given a green light to test the MOX
fuel.
In challenging Dukes MOX plan, BREDL has been denied access to
federal documents, which it says can help prove that Dukes
security measures are dangerously inadequate. On March 10, an
NRC-appointed board ruled that Duke is entitled to exemptions
from some security requirements in handling the MOX fuel.
The U.S. government now considers security at the countrys 101
commercial nuclear plants so sensitive that the boards decision
was sealed from public scrutiny. Instead, the NRC issued a
two-page summary.
We question why Duke would want a security exemption in this day
and age, Mariotte said. Thats just plain crazy.
The NRC disagrees. We feel that there is reasonable assurance
that the use of MOX fuel at Catawba will be safe and will comply
with the commissions regulations, Tad Marsh, director of the
NRCs Division of Licensing Project Management, told Nuclear News
International magazine in March. Additional proactive measures
proposed by Duke will provide enhanced security for MOX fuel
assemblies, beyond the measures eventually in place for the
conventional uranium fuel.
BREDL challenged the decision in a petition to the NRC, arguing
that the NRC staffs decision was unlawful because it was made
before the ASLB had ruled on BREDLs challenge of Dukes
application for exemption from certain NRC security regulations.
In its petition, BREDL said that the license amendment should be
revoked because it is grossly inconsistent with the
commissioners post 9/11 policy of ensuring the rigor of security
at its licensed nuclear facilities.
On April 18, the NRC issued the public version of its final
decision on BREDLs challenge. The judges granted Dukes exemption
but imposed four conditions that Duke is required to meet in
order to receive the fuel at Catawba. They included requirements
that Duke modify its security procedures regarding plutonium
fuel and upgrade its security monitoring procedures during
acceptance of plutonium fuel. The fuel has since arrived, but
the changes are yet to be made.
Meanwhile, the test fuel assemblies from France will be stored
in an underwater facility before being loaded into the reactors,
a procedure that is expected to begin sometime in late spring.
The testing is expected to take three years.
A mixed oxide fuel fabrication facility is being proposed at the
Savannah River Plant, a sprawling 300-square-mile operation run
by DOE near Aiken, SC, which produced much of the plutonium and
tritium for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal during the Cold
War. The purpose of the new 41-acre facility, which is expected
to cost U.S. taxpayers about $2.4 billion, would be to convert
the 37.5 tons of weapons grade plutonium into MOX fuel.
Anti-MOX activists say the plutonium would have to be
transported across hundreds of miles of isolated countryside to
Dukes reactors in North and South Carolina.
Commenting on the NRCs draft environmental impact statement for
the proposed fabrication facility in 2003, BREDL focused on
security. This overland transport link would give a unique
opportunity to those who might want to intercept and divert fuel
for weapons use, BREDL noted. The fully fabricated fuel rod
assemblies would be the most desirable form for groups who would
go after the plutonium for unlawful use in their own explosive
devices. [The] DOE admits this vulnerability.
Posted May 23, 2005
Vermont Guardian
site map| contact information| privacy policyNorthern Vermont:
PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404
Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT
05301
Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382
©2005 Vermont Guardian |
*****************************************************************
52 L.A. Daily News: Plans for houses near lab a concern
Published: Sunday, May 22, 2005 - 9:55:21
By Kerry Cavanaugh, Staff Writer
Although officials and documents say soil or water was never
tested for toxics and radioactivity, developers are poised to
break ground on a 147-home project downhill from the Santa
Susana Field Lab -- and outraged environmental activists are
demanding a review.
Approved by the city in 2001, the Sterling Homes development
would build luxury houses about 1.3 miles east of the Simi Hills
lab, where a partial nuclear meltdown occurred in 1959, and
Boeing continues testing rocket engines.
State and federal officials are overseeing the cleanup of
chemical and radioactive pollution at the lab, and regulators
have detected contamination on some neighboring properties --
though they have not tested for the long list of problem
pollutants directly on the Sterling Homes land.
A spokesman for Centex, which purchased the project from the
original developer, SunCal Homes, said records show that all
environmental requirements were met as part of the approval
process for what was then called Dayton Canyon Estates.
But documents buried deep in city archives show that the
developer's consultants based their assessment on only a visual
survey of the property and never actually sampled soil or water
or tested for toxic contaminants.
"Given the scope of services for this assessment were limited,
and that soil and groundwater sampling or analytical testing for
contamination were not undertaken, it is possible that currently
unrecognized contamination may exist at the site," the
environmental impact statement concludes.
Nearby residents now worry there may be hidden chemical or
radioactive contamination that could become airborne during
construction or endanger new homeowners, and they are calling
for further analysis.
"It's insane that this development has passed an environmental
impact report in Los Angeles without even one test," said Bonnie
Klea of West Hills, a former secretary at the Santa Susana Field
Lab.
"You're not going to see this stuff on the surface. It just
seemed to me to be so ridiculous to look at property that's a
mile from a test site and nuclear facility and be able to think
you can tell there's something wrong with it just by looking at
it."
Late Friday, Centex spokesman Ken Smalling said the company had
just discovered maps showing that some sort of tests had been
done on the site by SunCal, but that Centex officials didn't
know specifically what was done or what the results were.
"We're a responsible builder of family communities, and will
continue testing and evaluation as the project progresses during
its development phase," Smalling said.
Klea and her neighbors say they tried for the last year to get
help from Councilmen Dennis Zine and Greig Smith, but only
recently got the officials' attention.
Zine said he has serious concerns about the lack of tests
conducted during the environmental review process. He vowed to
enlist the City Attorney's Office, if necessary, to ensure the
soil and water on the site are analyzed.
"I'm not going to let him proceed when there's still a question
mark when it comes to safety," said Zine, whose district abuts
the proposed development.
Smith, whose district includes Dayton Canyon and who worked for
then-Councilman Hal Bernson when the project was approved, has
asked the Planning Department to go back and ensure the plans
were properly scrutinized.
"We want to make sure we followed the letter of the law and
that we went the extra mile," said Smith's chief of staff,
Mitchell Englander.
Sterling Homes promises luxury Spanish-theme homes in lush,
oak-lined Dayton Canyon, which was annexed to the city in 2001.
There were concerns about traffic the project would generate
along Roscoe Boulevard and Valley Circle, but toxic
contamination wasn't among the chief concerns.
Emily Gabel Luddy, who oversees the environmental review
section of the Los Angeles Planning Department, said planners
relied heavily on input from other agencies.
"This environmental review was sent to the state of California
and we received no comments from any of the agencies
responsible."
State officials said it was the city's responsibility to
determine environmental hazards.
"They're the ones who approved the project. They're the ones
who did the EIR. Our department, our focus is Santa Susana,"
said Jeanne Garcia, a representative of the California
Department of Toxic Substances Control, which is overseeing the
chemical cleanup at the lab.
The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board several
years ago found perchlorate -- a chemical that can cause thyroid
problems -- leaking into Dayton Canyon Creek from a former
rocket-fuel storage area at the field lab.
Boeing removed tons of perchlorate-tainted soil from the lab,
and the water board tested soil at Chatsworth Reservoir and
Dayton Canyon, near the Sterling Homes project, in 2003 but
found no perchlorate.
"That test was there to confirm the information we already had
from sampling" from the field lab, said Water Board Executive
Officer Jon Bishop. "If we had found anything in the sample, we
would have done more testing."
On the Ventura County side of the field lab, Simi Valley and
Ventura County officials have required some testing of soil and
groundwater in nearby development projects.
Last year the Board of Supervisors passed a new ordinance that
requires new projects to test for the toxic solvent TCE and
rocket-fuel chemical perchlorate before approval.
Boeing officials have said they believe the contamination
remains encapsulated on top of the hill, with tainted
groundwater trapped in rock that acts like a sponge.
"There's no evidence of any kind of contamination or pollution
that we're aware of on that (Sterling Homes) property," Boeing
spokesman John Mitchell said. "We do ongoing testing of surface
water. We're certainly aware of what goes off-site."
Community activists said they remain concerned about the lack
of thorough testing.
"If it's clean, I think that's great. I would be relieved,"
said Christina Walsh, executive director of
cleanuprocketdyne.org. She lives a block from the Sterling
development.
"But I want to know and I want to know that the city is looking
out for me and the future residents."
---
Kerry Cavanaugh, (818) 713-3746 kerry.cavanaugh@dailynews.com
Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Daily News
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53 Daily Californian: Livermore Lab Not Secure, Study Says -
By TRACI KAWAGUCHI
Contributing Writer
Monday, May 23, 2005
UC-run Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory should move all
of its weapons-grade nuclear materials to other labs because the
lab’s proximity to San Francisco prevents the lab from
adequately protecting the materials from terrorists, according
to a report released Thursday by a government watchdog
organization.
The study, conducted by the Project on Government Oversight,
cited a lack of security precautions to safeguard the Livermore
lab, located east of San Francisco, and said the lab should
remove all weapons-grade nuclear material to counter rising
security costs.
The Department of Energy’s decision to strengthen its security
policy for labs with weapons-grade nuclear materials is also
contibuting to rising costs, said report author Peter Stockton.
According to the report, shrinking the size of nuclear material
reserves at six of the nation’s sites, including the Livermore
lab, could slash security costs by $3 billion and decrease
susceptibility to a terrorist attack.
The report recommended that officials remove the weapons-grade
plutonium and uranium stockpile held at Livermore and ship it to
the energy department’s Device Assembly Facility in Nevada.
Lab spokesperson David Schwoegler said the report’s suggestions
would take too much time and be too expensive.
If the stockpile were relocated, “the cost to move, reclaim and
decontaminate our facilities would be in the millions of
dollars,” said Schwoegler.
Since attempts to shift low-grade materials have proven
unsuccessful, moving weapons-grade material would likely take
longer, he said.
To deter the risks associated with amped-up security measures
on the “encroaching residential community” surrounding the site,
government officials were forced to downgrade preventative
security measures at Livermore, opening the door to terrorist
attack, Stockton said.
Security concerns surfaced in February 2004 after a truck
rammed through the security fence surrounding the perimeter of
the lab, and traveled a “considerable distance inside the site”
before it was halted by security officials.
It was later discovered that “pop-up barriers” that had been
installed to secure the site but had not been activated by the
National Nuclear Security Administration 10 months after
installation, according to the report.
Livermore officials said the report is misleading and that the
lab has taken measures to establish an on-call response team
within the plutonium facility, cutting down valuable response
time.
“We upgrade (the response team’s) numbers, training and
weaponry as threats change. We feel we can protect our
facilities, our employees and our neighbors,” Schwoegler said.
The report also raised concerns over the overlapping research
conducted at the Livermore lab and another UC-run lab, Los
Alamos National Laboratory, given their similar research and
proximity to one another, Stockton said.
But the risk of steering away from the mission of the lab,
which has focused on nuclear weaponry research since its
inception, is also at stake.
“A major reason of concern is that they feel that if they lose
the materials, they’ll lose the site, but that doesn’t make any
sense,” Stockton said.
Traci Kawaguchi is an assistant news editor. Contact her at
tkawaguchi@dailycal.org.
(c) 2005 Berkeley, California dailycal@dailycal.org
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54 Daily Californian: As UC Preps for Lab Bid, DOE Ups Ante -
Contract for Management of Los Alamos Includes More Money,
Requires Corporate Involvement
By LISA HUMES-SCHULZ Daily Cal Staff Writer
Monday, May 23, 2005
The UC Board of Regents will vote Wednesday on whether to bid
to extend its management of Los Alamos National Laboratory after
the U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday in the final
request for proposals that bidders could receive up to $79
million per year to run the nuclear weapons facility.
The final request for proposals retains provisions that lured
corporate competitors to bid against UC, including a dramatic
increase in yearly management fees and the requirement that a
corporation be part of the final management team.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees
lab management for the department, set a July 19 deadline for
bids and expects to award the contract by Dec. 1. The
administration is working to extend UC’s current contract—which
expires Sept. 30—until a manager is selected.
The administration’s request includes a proposed increase in
the $8.7 million UC can currently receive for running the lab.
The winner of the contract, which will manage the lab for seven
years with a possible 13-year extension, could receive $53
million to $79 million each year for running the lab, according
to Tyler Przybylek, chair of the security administration board
that will award the contract.
“There’s certainly now enough compensation on the table,”
Przybylek said in a conference call Friday. “This money will
enable people to bring in corporate systems.”
The request strongly encourages academic and corporate bidders
to partner to compete for the lab. Three main teams have been
formed to bid for the lab so far.
Last week, UC announced it will team with global construction
giant Bechtel National Inc., national security firm BMX
Technologies, Inc. and engineering company Washington Group
International to enter a bid.
UC will compete against at least two other corporate-academic
teams, including Lockheed Martin Corp. with the University of
Texas, and Northrop Grumman Corp. with an undisclosed academic
partner.
The request also calls for a stand-alone pension plan for all
lab employees, which would exclude them from existing UC pension
benefits. UC has fought against such a plan, and UC lab
scientists have lauded the university’s existing benefits as
some of the best in the country.
The final draft calls for current employees to retain
“substantially equivalent” benefit plans, though it did not
detail what kind of benefits new employees would receive.
“It’s fair to say that across the DOE, stand-alones are the
norm,” Przybylek said. “It’s no poor reflection on the
university contract retirement plan.”
But state, university and lab officials have expressed concerns
that requiring a stand-alone plan could lead to an exodus of lab
employees and would severely harm scientific research at the
lab, which has been touted as the “crown jewel” of the national
laboratories.
“Morale is at an extreme low. We dedicated our professional
careers to the lab and the nation, and we’re terribly frightened
that it is going to be lost,” said Charles Mansfield, president
of the lab’s retiree organization.
Mansfield estimated that more than 1,000 the lab’s 14,000
employees have said they will retire regardless of who wins the
contract because of the stand-alone provision. He said the
number could reach 1,400 retirements.
When the provision was added to the request in a February
revision, UC officials said it was causing them “considerable
distress.”
“We are going to be paying very close attention to making sure
that their retirement, their benefits will be protected in this
or we won’t bid,” UC Regents Chair Gerald Parsky said in March.
“We want to give assurance to them that as part of the UC family
we are very cognizant of their concerns.”
Some elected officials also criticized a provision in the
contract that calls for a corporate manager, which Przybrylek
said will bring efficiency to the lab and allow universities to
focus on science.
U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher said the bid may encourage “a warming
toward bids offered by defense industry companies.”
“Our national labs have a long and proud history of being run
by academic institutions with an unquestionable commitment to
the highest standards of science,” Tauscher said in a statement
Thursday. “I want to caution the DOE and urge officials there to
carefully guard against the corporatization of science.”
UC officials would not comment on the specifics of the request,
though UC competition team leader Michael Anastasio said in a
statement that the university is pleased the “competition is
starting in earnest.”
The lab has seen a series of security, safety and financial
mishaps under UC management in the past two years, including the
loss of two classified storage devices, an incident which led to
a seven-month shutdown. It was later determined that the disks
did not exist.
The lab was put up for competitive bidding in May 2003, after
the lab was unable to account for $1.3 million in property and
used $14.6 million in lab monies for meal and travel expenses.
Many regents have said UC’s tarnished record in running the lab
could hurt its chances for the bid. However, 75 of the 1,000
points that will determine who wins the contract will be based
on past performance, compared to 325 for science.
“It could be that a contractor who has gone through a really
hard set of problems might be a better selection,” Przybylek
said, though he did not specifically mention UC.
Josh Keller of The Daily Californian contributed to this report.
Contact Lisa Humes-Schulz at lhschulz@dailycal.org.
(c) 2005 Berkeley, California dailycal@dailycal.org
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