April, 19 2011, 03:34pm EDT
Beyond Nuclear Petitions US NRC for Suspension of 21 Atomic Reactor Licenses in Wake of Japanese Nuclear Catastrophe
Watchdog group alleges General Electric Boiling Water Reactor Mark 1 design’s weak containment, inadequate experimental venting back fit, and radioactive waste storage pool are accidents waiting to happen
TAKOMA PARK, MD
Today the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) docketed an emergency enforcement petition filed by the environmental watchdog group Beyond Nuclear. Beyond Nuclear's petition calls for the suspension of operating licenses at 21 General Electric Boiling Water Reactors of the Mark 1 design (GE BWR Mark 1s). Beyond Nuclear has filed the petition in the wake of catastrophic failure of just such containment systems at identical atomic reactors in Fukushima, Japan at the Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. In addition, Beyond Nuclear has highlighted the extreme risk posed by GE BWR Mark 1 high-level radioactive waste storage pools, at a total of 24 such reactors in the U.S., which lack emergency backup power supplies for circulating cooling water in the event of a loss of electricity from the primary grid. Lack of cooling water circulation in high-level radioactive waste storage pools can result in boil off, subsequent irradiated nuclear fuel fire, and large-scale releases of hazardous radioactivity directly into the environment, as has occurred at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 4.
Beyond Nuclear's Reactor Oversight Project Director, Paul Gunter, has identified 21 GE Mark 1 BWRs in the United States that utilize the Fukushima Dai-Ichi style, free-standing primary containment structure composed of a carbon steel drywell, connected by large diameter piping to the carbon steel suppression chamber referred to as the wet well or torus, which altogether comprises the safety-credited pressure suppression containment system. The 21 GE BWR Mark 1 atomic reactors at risk of catastrophic containment failure in the U.S. are, in alphabetical order: Browns Ferry Units 1, 2, and 3 in Alabama; Cooper Unit 1 in Nebraska; Dresden Units 2 and 3 in Illinois; Duane Arnold Unit 1 in Iowa; Fermi Unit 2 in Michigan; Fitzpatrick Unit 1 in New York; Hatch Units 1 and 2 in Georgia; Hope Creek Unit 1 in New Jersey; Monticello Unit 1 in Minnesota; Nine Mile Point Unit 1 in New York; Oyster Creek Unit 1 in New Jersey; Peach Bottom Units 2 and 3 in Pennsylvania; Pilgrim Unit 1 in Massachusetts; Quad Cities Units 1 and 2 in Illinois; and Vermont Yankee Unit 1 in Vermont.
"The Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe in Japan has dramatically illuminated the grave risks and unforgiving consequences of a severe accident combined with the fundamental failures of the GE BWR Mark 1 containment concept, design, construction, and subsequent experimental retrofit which unsuccessfully attempted to mitigate these significant flaws," said Gunter. "Any loss of cooling to the reactor core could lead to pressure build up that could breach these old, small, weak, badly designed and built containment structures," he added.
Gunter recounted that high-level U.S. nuclear power regulators have long identified the undue risks associated with GE BWR Mark 1 type containments. In 1972, Dr. Stephen Hanauer of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) warned about the buildup of explosive hydrogen gas during a reactor core accident in such relatively small containment structures, and urged that "the AEC adopt a policy of discouraging further use of pressure suppression containments...".
At Fukushima Dai-Ichi Units 1, 3, and 4, such hydrogen explosions severely damaged or entirely destroyed the secondary containment buildings. This happened despite attempts, in the earliest days of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear catastrophe, to vent radioactive steam into the environment in an effort to prevent catastrophic rupture of the containment structures.
Also, at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 2, failure of the containment venting system led to a large hydrogen explosion within the primary containment structure which has very likely severely damaged the wet well/torus, creating a direct pathway to the environment for hazardous radioactivity releases. This is made all the worse by the likelihood that the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 2 nuclear fuel core has melted through the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel.
"It is unreasonable to back fit an identified severe design flaw with a venting system to deliberately defeat the purpose of a leak tight containment in order to save it from catastrophic failure based on the unlikelihood that the task will be required," Gunter surmised.
In addition, safety concerns over the substandard Mark I pressure suppression containment system were again affirmed in 1986 by Dr. Harold Denton, Director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at NRC. Denton told a nuclear industry conference that this flawed reactor containment type has as high as a 90% chance of failure if challenged by severe accident conditions.
Beyond Nuclear's emergency enforcement petition, brought under Title 10, Part 2.206 of the Code of Federal Regulations, also calls for emergency diesel generators and backup batteries to be connected to 24 GE BWR Mark 1 reactor units' storage pools for high-level radioactive waste. Currently, these elevated storage pools for irradiated nuclear fuel are located outside of credited primary containment structures and lack "Class E1" safety-related backup power supply systems in the event of a loss of electricity from the primary grid for running cooling water circulation pumps. These 24 pools include those at the permanently closed Millstone Unit 1 atomic reactor in Connecticut, as well as the Brunswick Units 1 and 2 atomic reactors in North Carolina.
"It is incredible that pools for storing high-level radioactive wastes in the U.S. are not connected to emergency backup power supplies," said Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear. "Any loss of the electrical grid - whether due to tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, or even wildlife or tree branches touching power lines - could begin pool boiling within hours, leading to complete boil off within a day or two, followed by a radioactive waste inferno within hours of the irradiated nuclear fuel losing its cooling water cover," Kamps added.
"Whereas Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 4's pool contained around 130 tons of high-level radioactive waste, pools in the U.S. are crammed with significantly more," Kamps added. "For example, Fermi Unit 2 in Michigan - the largest GE BWR Mark 1 in the world - has well over 500 tons of high-level radioactive waste crammed into its pool. This means that without the primary electrical grid, the pool could begin boiling in just over four hours, could boil dry and catch fire all that much more quickly, and the consequences downwind would be multiple times worse than the still-unfolding catastrophe at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 4's pool," Kamps concluded.
A 1997 study commissioned by the NRC estimated the median consequences of a high-level radioactive waste storage pool fire, which included: 54,000 to 143,000 latent cancer deaths downwind; 770 to 2,700 square miles of agricultural land condemned; and economic costs due to evacuation of $117 to 566 billion ($158 to 765 billion when adjusted for inflation to current dollar values).
Beyond Nuclear's 2.206 emergency enforcement petition, and NRC's docketing announcement, are posted at the top of Beyond Nuclear's homepage, www.beyondnuclear.org, and can be provided upon request.
Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.
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Blinken Hasn't Ended Aid for Israeli Military Units Tied to Killings, Rapes
"Blinken continues a very long American tradition of very selective enforcement of human rights laws," said one critic.
Apr 18, 2024
Amid global condemnation of Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip and the Biden administration's complicity, ProPublicarevealed Wednesday that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has for months ignored staff recommendations to cut off American aid to Israeli military and police units accused of human rights violations including killings and rapes.
"The incidents under review mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel," which was the catalyst for the current Israeli escalation in Gaza, reported ProPublica's Brett Murphy. "They include reports of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli Border Police; an incident in which a battalion gagged, handcuffed, and left an elderly Palestinian American man for dead; and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails."
Murphy obtained government documents and emails and spoke with current and former U.S. State Department officials, who said the recommendations from the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum—named for former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored laws restricting aid to human rights abuses—were sent to Blinken in December and "they've been sitting in his briefcase since then."
While U.S. President Joe Biden has gradually increased his criticism of Israeli forces killing civilians in Gaza, "multiple State Department officials who have worked on Israeli relations said that Blinken's inaction has undermined Biden's public criticism, sending a message to the Israelis that the administration was not willing to take serious steps," Murphy wrote.
The Israeli government did not respond to the reporter's request for comment, but a U.S. State Department spokesperson did. "This process is one that demands a careful and full review," the American representative said, "and the department undergoes a fact-specific investigation applying the same standards and procedures regardless of the country in question."
Global critics have long accused the U.S. government of giving Israel special treatment while Israeli officials and troops subject Palestinians to apartheid, ethnic cleansing, occupation, settler colonization, and now "plausibly" genocide, according to the International Court of Justice. Since October, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed at least 33,970 people in Gaza.
The reporting sparked a fresh wave of outrage. The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights declared that "this is how Antony Blinken will go down in history: for enabling Israel to commit the gravest of war crimes with U.S. tax dollars."
Alex Kingsbury, a member of The New York Times editorial board, noted that "Blinken continues a very long American tradition of very selective enforcement of human rights laws," while Brandon Friedman, a former Obama administration official, said that "this would be a career ender for a normal Cabinet secretary under normal circumstances."
Democracy for the Arab World Now "submitted Leahy sanctions requests for two of the Israeli units that Antony Blinken has putzed and punted on, in breach of U.S. law, despite clear evidence of despicable abuses—[including] torture, executions, and even murder of an American," according to executive director Sarah Leah Whitson. "But Antony Blinken insists on special privileges and exemptions for Israel, refusing to hold it accountable, U.S. law be damned."
@StateDept In 2023, we documented Israel counter-terrorism YAMAM unit\u2019s abuses, including two extrajudicial killings & two indiscriminate and reckless killings, including of a child in Jenin in March 2023, constituting gross violations of human rights under Leahy Law & war crimes under Rome\u2026— (@)
The Council on American-Islamic Relations' Robert S. McCaw said in a statement that "despite these internal report State Department reports detailing egregious human rights abuses by the Israeli government, including allegations of rape and torturing children in the West Bank, Secretary Blinken has ignored his own staff and continued to greenlight weapon shipments to the responsible Israeli military and police units."
"The glaring disconnect between the gravity of the accusations and his refusal to act on them is deeply disturbing," McCaw added. "Secretary Blinken must halt any further weapons transfers that the Israeli government will use to commit more human rights violations."
Human rights attorney Qasim Rashid pointed out that in contrast with how the Biden administration has treated Israel, the U.S. government pulled funding from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East—as Palestinians in Gaza starve to death—over the "mere allegation" that a small number of staff were involved with Hamas.
"If we had been applying Leahy effectively in Israel like we do in other countries, maybe you wouldn't have the IDF filming TikToks of their war crimes now because we have contributed to a culture of impunity," Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and a member of the forum who resigned in protest in October, told Murphy.
Another State Department official, Annelle Sheline, stepped down late last month as a foreign affairs officer at the Office of Near Eastern Affairs in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. She said that with the U.S. government continuing to arm Israel as it devastates Gaza, "trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible."
Sheline's resignation came just days after the Biden administration accepted Israeli government assurances that its use of U.S.-supplied weapons complies with international law—which human rights advocates and officials worldwide, including some congressional Democrats, have challenged over the past few weeks.
Over two dozen Democrats wrote Wednesday to Blinken and two other top officials that "we remain concerned by the stark differences and gaps in the statements being made by the State Department and White House on how Israel has not been found to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance, which are contradictory to those made by prominent experts and global institutions."
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Amid new reporting that former U.S. President Donald Trump's economic advisers are urging him to cut the federal payroll tax, a key revenue source for Social Security and Medicare, advocates on Thursday urged voters to remember that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has long threatened to do just that.
"Don't be fooled," said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, which lobbies to strengthen the social safety net for retired Americans. "At the end of his term in office, Trump delayed Social Security's dedicated revenue paid from workers and their employers. He was quite explicit that, if reelected, he would convert that delay into a permanent cut."
Altman was referring to an executive order Trump signed in August 2020, allowing companies to delay payroll tax payments—an option most companies declined to take as the Treasury Department made clear they would have to pay all of the deferred taxes the following year and that employees would see smaller paychecks as a result of the program.
Trump promised to make the payroll tax cut permanent, and as Reutersreported late Wednesday, the former president is discussing the proposal with economic advisers including Fox News host and former National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and right-wing commentator Stephen Moore.
The former president is weighing cuts to Social Security's revenue stream even as Republicans complain that the popular program is unaffordable and push to raise the retirement age to delay Americans' use of the funds.
The GOP has long claimed Social Security is headed toward insolvency and pushed to privatize the program or cut benefits, but last year's Social Security trustees report found that the program's trust fund currently has a $2.85 trillion surplus and could pay 80% of benefits for the next 75 years even if Congress takes no action to expand it—as long as it continues to be funded through taxes.
"Social Security can only pay benefits if it has sufficient dedicated revenue to pay its costs. That is why it doesn't contribute even a penny to the deficit," said Altman. "If Trump succeeds in slashing that dedicated revenue so that it is no longer sufficient to fully cover the cost, it will result in an automatic benefit reduction. This would happen without any Republicans having to vote for the cuts, or Trump having to sign them into law."
"He is dusting off the old Republican playbook and bringing back the strategy known informally as 'Starve the Beast,'" said Altman of Trump. "In this case, Social Security is the beast."
Along with cutting payroll taxes, which are paid by workers and employees and amount to 7.65% of each employee's gross pay in order to fund senior citizens' post-retirement income, Trump has proposed extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the vast majority of which benefited the wealthiest Americans, according to the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy.
Altman noted the contrast between Trump's tax proposals and those of President Joe Biden, who has proposed strengthening Social Security and extending its solvency by requiring people with wealth over $100 million to pay at least 25% in income taxes, raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, and quadrupling the stock buyback tax to disincentive companies lavishing their shareholders with their profits instead of investing in their workforce.
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"Supreme corruption demands supreme transparency," said one campaigner behind the new effort.
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A trio of progressive watchdog groups on Thursday unveiled a new database detailing the "troubling connections" between the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices, the conservative organizations that have intervened in cases before the court, and the wealthy donors funding them.
Take Back the Court, Revolving Door Project, and True North Research published the database at SupremeTransparency.org, which "shines a spotlight on the complex web connecting justices to powerbrokers and the organizations that those powerbrokers fund, lead, and are otherwise linked to."
The watchdogs found that nearly 1 in 7 amicus briefs filed during the 2023-24 Supreme Court term were lodged by at least one powerbroker-affiliated organization. This affects 32 different cases before the court.
"The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue."
For example, in Moore v. United States—in which the Supreme Court could preemptively ban or limit wealth taxes—half of all amicus briefs were filed by groups affiliated with right-wing powerbrokers.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, groups funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch want to scupper the Chevron deference, a 40-year precedent under which judges defer to the legal interpretations of federal agencies if Congress has not passed any laws on an issue. Powerbroker-affiliated organizations have filed more than one-third of the amicus briefs seeking to overturn the Chevron doctrine.
"Far too often people with insidiously close ties to justices like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, such as Harlan Crow and Paul Singer, signal their interest in the outcome of cases by funding, leading, or influencing organizations that file amicus briefs," Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser said in a statement.
"There is just as much of a conflict of interest when a justice hears a case involving a benefactor as a named party and one in which the person who illicitly enabled their luxurious lifestyle is 'merely' similarly situated to one of the parties," Hauser added.
According to SupremeTransparency.org:
The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue. The right-wing justices that make up the court's supermajority frequently toy with precedent and the rule of law to issue opinions that not only defy the will of a majority of Americans, but also rewrite constitutional principles, overturn widely respected legal precedents, and gut longstanding rules that protect the public interest.
In just the 2021 and 2022 Supreme Court terms alone, the court overturned Roe v. Wadeafter 49 years; gutted both the decades-old Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act; overturned a 100+ year old gun safety law; eroded the National Labor Relations Act (adopted as part of New Deal reforms to protect workers); broke with their own procedures regarding standing to sue in order to block student debt relief; and reversed decades of precedent to end the decadeslong practice of race-conscious college admissions policies that promoted diversity and redressed discrimination. But this radically reactionary court and its radically reactionary justices aren't acting alone.
"Supreme corruption demands supreme transparency," said Take Back the Court president Sarah Lipton-Lubet. "It's no secret that the many of the rich benefactors cozying up to the conservative justices are the same people who fund right-wing organizations with business before the court."
"But too often, stories about the Supreme Court don't connect these dots—and as a result, they leave us with an incomplete picture," she continued. "The truth is right-wing powerbrokers are seemingly paying to play; they're funding groups that are weighing in on court cases even as they buy access to the justices who will rule on those cases."
"It's just one of the ways our Supreme Court is deeply, fundamentally broken," Lipton-Lubet added. "And it's a reminder of how urgent and necessary it is that we reform this corrupt court."
Last year, the Supreme Court adopted a Code of Conduct that contained few new rules, no enforcement mechanism, and was widely panned as a toothless public relations stunt. Bolder proposals for reforming the high court include term limits and increasing the number of justices.
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