Environment
Congress stands at the brink of the global-warmed nuclear powered abyss. Again.
In a victory for green power, a massive grassroots/internet campaign forced removal from the national Energy Bill of blank check loan guarantees to build atomic reactors.
But as you read this, House and Senate Democrats and Republicans are negotiating the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) has slipped in $25 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans for new nukes. The nuke reactor guarantees are bundled with $10 billion for renewable energy, $10 billion to turn coal into liquid vehicle fuel, $2 billion to turn coal into natural gas and another $2 billion to build a uranium enrichment plant.
Safe energy supporters are demanding (see www.nirs.org) that American taxpayers not be forced to pay for another fifty years of radioactive failure.
In a victory for green power, a massive grassroots/internet campaign forced removal from the national Energy Bill of blank check loan guarantees to build atomic reactors.
But as you read this, House and Senate Democrats and Republicans are negotiating the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) has slipped in $25 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans for new nukes. The nuke reactor guarantees are bundled with $10 billion for renewable energy, $10 billion to turn coal into liquid vehicle fuel, $2 billion to turn coal into natural gas and another $2 billion to build a uranium enrichment plant.
Safe energy supporters are demanding (see www.nirs.org) that American taxpayers not be forced to pay for another fifty years of radioactive failure.
The eyes of the world are now on the US Senate. Our oil-endangered species anxiously awaits even a tiny American step toward fighting global warming and saving the planetary environment.
But the battered and embattled Energy Bill now being held hostage by the Republican neo-con minority hides two huge victories tentatively won by the No Nukes/safe energy movement. If those victories hold, the odds on human survival could take a quiet but huge leap forward.
The key issues now in the Energy Bill's limelight are big tax break/subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, and a Renewable Electricity Standard that would require a certain percentage of our electric power to come from green sources such as wind, solar, bio-fuels and more.
But the battered and embattled Energy Bill now being held hostage by the Republican neo-con minority hides two huge victories tentatively won by the No Nukes/safe energy movement. If those victories hold, the odds on human survival could take a quiet but huge leap forward.
The key issues now in the Energy Bill's limelight are big tax break/subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, and a Renewable Electricity Standard that would require a certain percentage of our electric power to come from green sources such as wind, solar, bio-fuels and more.
Within a matter of days Congressional back-room deals may rubber stamp huge taxpayer loan guarantees to build dozens of what amount to pre-deployed "dirty bombs" for terrorists.
The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, showed that atomic power plants are supremely vulnerable. The first jet that hit the World Trade Center flew directly over Indian Point, whose two active reactors---plus one more that's retired---sit next to some very fragile high-level waste storage pools.
Had that first jet hit Indian Point, 35 miles north of Manhattan, with tens of millions of Americans closely downwind, the devastation would have been unimaginable. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found that Al Quaeda at one point considered crashing two planes into two nuclear facilities as part of its original plan.
The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, showed that atomic power plants are supremely vulnerable. The first jet that hit the World Trade Center flew directly over Indian Point, whose two active reactors---plus one more that's retired---sit next to some very fragile high-level waste storage pools.
Had that first jet hit Indian Point, 35 miles north of Manhattan, with tens of millions of Americans closely downwind, the devastation would have been unimaginable. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found that Al Quaeda at one point considered crashing two planes into two nuclear facilities as part of its original plan.
Long-time safe energy author/activist Harvey Wasserman has put out YouTube video in conjunction with the NukeFree.org campaign to stop the nuclear bailout provisions in the national Energy Bill now before Congress. The video answers attacks by the reactor industry on the hugely successful "For What It's Worth" song by Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Ben Harper and Keb Mo now being circulated through NukeFree.org. Check it out!
The nuclear power industry is back to where it always goes when it wants to build new reactors---the taxpayer trough.
And those of us who've been fighting them for decades are doing it again, now with help from the musicians' community, and a petition drive (at nukefree.org) aimed at stripping the radioactive subsidies from the national Energy Bill now before Congress.
Time after time over the past half-century, the atomic energy industry has gone to the government to demand massive amounts of money. The most recent public gouging came during the Great Deregulation Scam of 1999-2001. As Enron and its cronies contrived phony energy shortages and nearly bankrupted California, the atomic pushers went before America's state legislatures and asked for a massive bailout. They complained that with the coming age of deregulation (about two dozen states deregulated their electricity businesses) nuclear power plants were too expensive, inefficient and obsolete to compete in the coming green age.
And those of us who've been fighting them for decades are doing it again, now with help from the musicians' community, and a petition drive (at nukefree.org) aimed at stripping the radioactive subsidies from the national Energy Bill now before Congress.
Time after time over the past half-century, the atomic energy industry has gone to the government to demand massive amounts of money. The most recent public gouging came during the Great Deregulation Scam of 1999-2001. As Enron and its cronies contrived phony energy shortages and nearly bankrupted California, the atomic pushers went before America's state legislatures and asked for a massive bailout. They complained that with the coming age of deregulation (about two dozen states deregulated their electricity businesses) nuclear power plants were too expensive, inefficient and obsolete to compete in the coming green age.
The Environment Ministers of Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia and Norway supported by Luxembourg and Iceland meet in Vienna today, in order to enhance cooperation and contribute further to the discussions on the role of nuclear power in the climate change and energy efficiency debates.
The principal issues discussed were nuclear safety and security, the need for more and better information to be provided to countries neighbouring nuclear states; issues of transparency regarding nuclear projects, transparency regarding the true costs of nuclear power as well as alternatives to nuclear power and the need to ensure the development and provision of sustainable energy supplies and services.
In their discussions, Ministers
The principal issues discussed were nuclear safety and security, the need for more and better information to be provided to countries neighbouring nuclear states; issues of transparency regarding nuclear projects, transparency regarding the true costs of nuclear power as well as alternatives to nuclear power and the need to ensure the development and provision of sustainable energy supplies and services.
In their discussions, Ministers
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* Reaffirmed that it remains the sovereign right of each country to decide on its energy mix.
* Reiterated that the inherent safety, environmental and proliferation risks associated with the nuclear energy option remain.
He looked like the fool he is, the liar, deceiver, hypocrite and evil man that he is. That’s how TV coverage showed George Bush speaking at his sham “major emitters” climate conference at the State Department on Thursday and Friday. There he was, acting as if he had the credentials to lead the world in the make-or-break battle to immediately slow and, over time, stop and reverse global heating.
Comments by delegates from the 16 countries invited to this conference, as reported in news stories, were mostly tepid, downright dismissive sometimes.
Comments by delegates from the 16 countries invited to this conference, as reported in news stories, were mostly tepid, downright dismissive sometimes.
Letters received yesterday by The Cornucopia Institute, Organic Consumers Association, and the Center for Food Safety from Aurora Organic Dairy, based in Boulder, Colorado, threatened the three public interest groups with a lawsuit if they did not retract statements they had made concerning Aurora and refrain from filing a lawsuit against Aurora alleging consumer fraud.
The legal threats by Aurora are the latest salvo in a media battle stemming from formal legal complaints filed by The Cornucopia Institute in 2005 and 2006 with the USDA over Aurora’s alleged organic management practices. On April 16, 2007, the USDA confirmed Cornucopia's allegations by making administrative findings that the giant industrial-scale dairies, milking thousands of cows each, were not providing their cattle with pasture, as required by law, had illegally brought conventional cattle into their operations, and had committed a number of other serious improprieties.
The most serious finding, resulting from the USDA investigation, was that Aurora sold, labeled, and represented milk as organic when in fact it was not, in "willful violation" of the law.
The legal threats by Aurora are the latest salvo in a media battle stemming from formal legal complaints filed by The Cornucopia Institute in 2005 and 2006 with the USDA over Aurora’s alleged organic management practices. On April 16, 2007, the USDA confirmed Cornucopia's allegations by making administrative findings that the giant industrial-scale dairies, milking thousands of cows each, were not providing their cattle with pasture, as required by law, had illegally brought conventional cattle into their operations, and had committed a number of other serious improprieties.
The most serious finding, resulting from the USDA investigation, was that Aurora sold, labeled, and represented milk as organic when in fact it was not, in "willful violation" of the law.
CORNUCOPIA: In a startling revelation today The Cornucopia Institute made public a document indicating that not only did the USDA find that the nation's largest organic factory-farm dairy operator "willfully" violated the federal organic standards, but that one of its certifiers, the Colorado Department of Agriculture, had, also, "willfully" failed to legally perform their oversight responsibilities under the federal regulations.
In a letter dated April 16, 2007, Mark Bradley, Director of the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP), notified Colorado of a formal Notice of Proposed Suspension of its accreditation as a certifying agent for organic livestock.
USDA investigations of both Aurora Organic Dairy, operating factory farms in Texas and Colorado, and their certifiers, were prompted by a formal legal complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute in 2005. The USDA confirmed Cornucopia's allegations that the giant industrial-scale dairies, milking thousands of cows each, were not providing their cattle with pasture, as required by law, had illegally brought conventional cattle into their operations, and a committed a number of other serious improprieties.
In a letter dated April 16, 2007, Mark Bradley, Director of the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP), notified Colorado of a formal Notice of Proposed Suspension of its accreditation as a certifying agent for organic livestock.
USDA investigations of both Aurora Organic Dairy, operating factory farms in Texas and Colorado, and their certifiers, were prompted by a formal legal complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute in 2005. The USDA confirmed Cornucopia's allegations that the giant industrial-scale dairies, milking thousands of cows each, were not providing their cattle with pasture, as required by law, had illegally brought conventional cattle into their operations, and a committed a number of other serious improprieties.
Watchdog: Organic Community “Taking the Law into Its Own Hands”
CORNUCOPIA, WI: Announcing the filing of additional legal complaints with the USDA, and threatening civil litigation, the nation's most aggressive organic watchdog, The Cornucopia Institute, blasted the USDA for not penalizing the industry's largest organic milk producer after government regulators found that they have perpetrated consumer fraud by violating the federal organic labeling law.
On August 29, the USDA announced that Colorado-based Aurora Organic Dairy had willfully violated 14 provisions of the regulations of Organic Food Production Act. Aurora operates a dairy processing facility in Colorado and five giant factory-farms in Texas and Colorado. The USDA investigation began after the agency was alerted to organic irregularities at Aurora’s operations over two years ago.
CORNUCOPIA, WI: Announcing the filing of additional legal complaints with the USDA, and threatening civil litigation, the nation's most aggressive organic watchdog, The Cornucopia Institute, blasted the USDA for not penalizing the industry's largest organic milk producer after government regulators found that they have perpetrated consumer fraud by violating the federal organic labeling law.
On August 29, the USDA announced that Colorado-based Aurora Organic Dairy had willfully violated 14 provisions of the regulations of Organic Food Production Act. Aurora operates a dairy processing facility in Colorado and five giant factory-farms in Texas and Colorado. The USDA investigation began after the agency was alerted to organic irregularities at Aurora’s operations over two years ago.