Yes, Virginia. It's all about Yucca…
Today's the day when the politically-charged Nuclear Regulatory Commission coup d'etat gets its final push in Darrell Issa's [R-CA] House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. I don't know if the hearings are being broadcast live on CSPAN, but I don't have the bandwidth to follow anyway, will have to read the blow-by-blow later.
I detailed the blow-up on Monday in my diary A Very REAL Nuclear Conspiracy, and added links to the documentation that makes liars of the four NRC Commissioners who have lined up against Chairman Greg Jaczko in the Tuesday installment of my ongoing series, Fukushima Docs 9: A Real Outrage. Bottom line, the White House has refused to offer Chief of Staff Bill Daley's testimony to Issa's hearing, saying only that Obama continues to support his named NRC Chair.
UPDATE from the hearing:
The Hill reported yesterday on a new report Issa had his Republican committee staff write up and release on Tuesday which reiterates the claim that Jaczko is "overstepping" his authority and "undermining" his colleagues. Which, according to Issa - who receives more money from the nuclear industry than any other politician in D.C. - "threatens" the mission and values of the NRC.
Issa, of course, doesn't have a clue about what the NRC's mission actually is, since it was split off from the old AEC back in 1975 because of "an inherent conflict of interest" between industry promotion and public health and safety. In the wake of the terrible nuclear distaster that is Fukushima Daiichi earlier this year, the renewed corruption of the nuclear regulatory agency by industry shills has indeed caused a serious threat to the NRC's "mission and values." It's coming from Issa's benefactors in the industry, however, not from the administration's true concern for the safety of nuclear power reactors and operations in this country. Seems the industry is still running things at NRC via its lobbying arm NEI, and the industry isn't happy at all with Jaczko's focus on safety.
Also yesterday the Las Vegas Sun reported that the real root of the unrest is Yucca Mountain. Which Jaczko lobbied his Obama-appointed colleague William Magwood to vote to end, in keeping with Obama's policy on the project and Jaczko's previous boss Harry Reid's long record of opposition.
Jaczko's review of regulations in the wake of Fukushima was just the last straw, as the industry's opposition to doing anything to bolster the safety of reactors and operations is being continually challenged by a series of nuclear emergencies this year involving fires, floods, station black-outs and even a historic earthquake in central Virginia. Jaczko has been very hands-on in all these emergencies, and has strengthened NRC resident inspectors' oversight at numerous nuclear plants throughout the country.
The Las Vegas Sun's J. Patrick Coolican wrote on Monday that the Scuffle at NRC has stench of industry influence behind it, and it is very clear that this coup is a desperate attempt by the industry to control its own rules and regulations even more obviously than it has before the loss of Yucca Mountain's promised waste repository and Fukushima's ruination of Japan conspired to highlight just how expensive and terminally foolish further expansion of this filthy industry would be. These things have put a real crimp in the industry's planned "Nuclear Renaissance," and now they're striking back.
There are many crazy things happening politically, socially and economically in the world right now. Nations are teetering on the abyss of engineered depression, reactionary politics threaten to throw civilization back to the Spanish Inquisition, and reliance on fossil fuels and nukes for necessary energy threatens to completely destroy the ability of this planet to support our form of life altogether. This drama is a play-out of that last concern, and how things turn out is vitally important to the future. If there is to be a future.
They're back to pushing Yucca despite scientific evidence that the project simply isn't viable because the secret plans to dump the world's stockpiles of nuclear waste in western Australia or Mongolia got leaked and the people of those regions put their collective feet down. They absolutely must have a place to store the waste of 50 years' worth of too expensive to justify means of boiling water, and nobody wants it. Bottom line this scuffle?
People I talked to say this row is really about the strong record of Jaczko on nuclear safety and public health issues, including on Yucca Mountain.
The nuclear industry knows he won’t carry its water, so industry allies are trying to force him out.
We should be paying close attention. Thus my third heads-up this week - it truly is world-shaking important, despite the odor of political game-playing we are all sick to death of these days. We cannot allow the nuclear industry to succeed in this coup d'etat over the government regulatory apparatus. We need to support Obama, Jaczko, Reid and Markey for standing on our side against that most corrupt of corrupt industries. Because if the industry wins this fight, we'll never get another chance NOT to host our own vast dead zones forever after.
Thanks for reading.
