June, 16 2016, 11:45am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Damon Moglen, 202-352-4223, dmoglen@foe.org
Stephen Kent, 914-589-5988, skent@kentcom.comÂ
US Court of Appeals Asked to Block Restart of Damaged Indian Point Nuclear Reactor
 Emergency petition alleges failure of nuclear regulator to protect the public
WASHINGTON
Friends of the Earth and other environmental organizations today filed an emergency petition with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asking that the court compel the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to prevent Entergy from restarting an aging Indian Point nuclear reactor which was found to have unprecedented parts failure in its critical core cooling system. Entergy, the owner and operator of Indian Point, has repeatedly stated that it intends to start the reactor within days.
The degradation and/or disappearance of more than one in three critical bolts in the Indian Point Unit 2 nuclear reactor cooling system was revealed during a refueling outage in March. Despite the unprecedented failure of critical bolts-damage greater than that seen in any reactor before in either the U.S. or around the globe-Entergy immediately announced plans to restart the reactor in June after simply replacing the bolts.
Previously, on May 24 Friends of the Earth filed an emergency petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission calling for intervention by the commissioners of the agency to prevent restart of the reactor until the Commission had fully diagnosed the root cause of the degradation and determined that the unit was safe to operate despite the failure of more than a third of the bolts. That petition also called for an immediate shutdown of the damaged reactor's twin, reactor Unit 3, to determine whether the reactor's bolts have also disintegrated.
Instead of the commissioners ruling on Friends of the Earth's Emergency Petition, a staff review board sent Friends of the Earth an email on June 3 announcing that the emergency petition had been referred to staff for review under the so-called 2.206 process which normally takes years to complete. The staff board denied Friends of the Earth's request for emergency action to prevent restart of Unit 2 with no rationale or evidence to support that determination. Without action by a federal court, Indian Point 2 will be restarted, long before the NRC's 2.206 process is completed.
In response, Friends of the Earth, joined by the Nuclear Information Resource Service and Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, have filed the emergency petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for writ of mandamus (agency action unreasonably delayed) to prevent restart of the flawed reactor while the NRC considers Friends of the Earth's request for the NRC to determine whether the unit can be made safe to operate. Given concerns that Entergy is racing to restart unit 2 in the face of mounting opposition, the petition asks that the Court issue an order directing the NRC to compel Entergy to power down reactor unit 2 pending final adjudication of the petition, in case the reactor has been rushed into service already.
Neither Entergy nor the NRC has provided a root cause analysis of the unprecedented degradation of bolts at Indian Point 2. Entergy hypothesizes that the bolts became brittle because of exposure to radiation and a hostile high temperature environment, but it offered no analysis to support it. In fact, Entergy has simply replaced the bolts without providing an analysis of why so many bolts.were degraded at Indian Point (one-third) compared with other similar reactors (average less than 3 per cent), or whether the remaining 557 bolts can be expected to hold, despite being exposed to the same environment. The company's objective is to restart the reactor in June, in time for the profitable peak summer air conditioning season. It has said that it will conduct an analysis of why the bolts broke or disappeared, but appears not willing to delay restarting Unit 2 under such a review has been done.
"This is a matter of common sense denied: if a machine breaks, you have to figure out what is wrong and then fix it," said Damon Moglen of Friends of the Earth. "Instead, at Indian Point, Entergy has decided that the priority is to get the damaged reactor up and running by summer to protect their profits. And the NRC is acting like a lap dog and not the watch dog assuring that the reactors are safe to operate. It has been repeatedly suggested that the NRC is a 'captured' agency, captive of the very industry they are directed by Congress to regulate. This is a disgraceful and shocking example of that corporate capture."
"In my day, the NRC was a real, independent regulator," said Dave Freeman, who was the head of the New York Power Authority in the mid-1990s, which operated the Indian Point nuclear reactors at that time. "Now the agency seems primarily concerned with facilitating rather than regulating the nuclear industry."
Just as the Space Shuttle Challenger was brought down by a seemingly minor faulty O-ring, Indian Point is in danger from untimely degradation and damage to key bolts. Located a mere 26 miles from New York City, a radiation release at Indian Point could reach Times Square in as little as 90 minutes in the right weather conditions, making evacuation of New York City impossible. The Indian Point reactors' licenses expired in 2013 and 2015, respectively, and the plant is operating beyond its 40-year life span while the NRC considers whether to extend the license for an additional 20 years.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
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Top G20 Ministers Back 2% Wealth Tax for Global Billionaires
"It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods."
Apr 25, 2024
Ministers from four major economies on Thursday called for a 2% wealth tax targeting the world's billionaires—who currently only pay up to 0.5% of their wealth in personal income tax—to "invest in public goods such as health, education, the environment, and infrastructure."
Fernando Haddad, Brazil's finance minister; Svenja Schulze, Germany's minister for economic cooperation and development; Enoch Godongwana, South Africa's finance minister; Carlos Cuerpo, Spain's minister of economy, trade, and business; and MarÃa Jesús Montero, Spain's first vice president and finance minister, made their case in an opinion piece for The Guardian.
"The argument behind such tax is straightforward: We need to enhance the ability of our tax systems to fulfill the principle of fairness, such that contributions are in line with the capacity to pay," they explained. "Persisting loopholes in the system imply that high-net-worth individuals can minimize their income taxes."
"What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires."
Brazil, Germany, and South Africa are all Group of 20 members while Spain is a permanent guest. The ministers noted that "Brazil has made the fight against hunger, poverty, and inequality a priority of its G20 presidency, a priority that German development policy also pursues and that Spain has ambitiously addressed domestically and globally."
"By directing two-thirds of total expenditure on social services and wage support, as well as by calibrating tax policy administration, South Africa continues to target a progressive tax and fiscal agenda that confronts the country's legacy of income and wealth inequality," they wrote.
The ministers continued:
It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods. One of the key instruments that governments have for promoting more equality is tax policy. Not only does it have the potential to increase the fiscal space governments have to invest in social protection, education, and climate protection. Designed in a progressive way, it also ensures that everyone in society contributes to the common good in line with their ability to pay. A fair share contribution enhances social welfare.
With exactly these goals in mind, Brazil brought a proposal for a global minimum tax on billionaires to the negotiation table of the world's major economies for the first time. It is a necessary third pillar that complements the negotiations on the taxation of the digital economy and on a minimum corporate tax of 15% for multinationals. The renowned economist Gabriel Zucman sketched out how this might work. Currently, there are about 3,000 billionaires worldwide. The tax could be designed as a minimum levy equivalent to 2% of the wealth of the superrich. It would not apply to billionaires who already contribute a fair share in income taxes. However, those who manage to avoid paying income tax would be obliged to contribute more towards the common good.
The five ministers cited estimates suggesting that "such a tax would potentially unlock an additional $250 billion in annual tax revenues globally—this is roughly the amount of economic damages caused by extreme weather events last year."
"Of course, the argument that billionaires can easily shift their fortunes to low-tax jurisdictions and thus avoid the levy is a strong one. And this is why such a tax reform belongs on the agenda of the G20," they added. "International cooperation and global agreements are key to making such tax effective. What the international community managed to do with the global minimum tax on multinational companies, it can do with billionaires."
Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott reported Thursday that "Zucman is now fleshing out the technical details of a plan that will again be discussed by the G20 in June. France has indicated support for a wealth tax and Brazil has been encouraged that the U.S., while not backing a global wealth tax, did not oppose it."
The French economist told Elliott that "billionaires have the lowest effective tax rate of any social group. Having people with the highest ability to pay tax paying the least—I don't think anybody supports that."
Except the billionaires, of course. "I don't want to be naive. I know the superrich will fight," Zucman added. "They have a hatred of taxes on wealth. They will lobby governments. They will use the media they own."
A few months ago, no one wanted to talk int. taxes, let alone on the super rich. Now we have a process (#G20), finance ministers (\ud83c\udde7\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7 \ud83c\uddff\ud83c\udde6 \ud83c\uddea\ud83c\uddf8 & others) supporting it, \ud83c\udde9\ud83c\uddea in part & everyone agreeing that proceeds should help fund climate and dev: https://t.co/ZldF557pAL— (@)
The ministers' opinion piece follows the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank's Spring Meetings last week, during which anti-poverty campaigners pressured the largest economies to address inequality with policies like taxing the superrich and to pour resources into the global debt and climate crises.
"The IMF and World Bank say that tackling inequality is a priority but in the same breath back policies that drive up the divide between the rich and the rest," Kate Donald, head of Oxfam International's Washington D.C. office, said last week. "Ordinary people struggle more and more every day to make up for cuts to the public funding of healthcare, education, and transportation. This high-stakes hypocrisy has to end."
Oxfam America policy lead Rebecca Riddell declared Thursday that "extreme inequality stands in the way of solving our most urgent global challenges. We need to tax the ultrawealthy."
"Read this brilliant new op-ed on the case for a global tax on billionaires, by ministers from Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and Spain," Riddell added, posting the piece on social media.
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200 Rights Groups Call On Biden to End 'Cruel' Expansion of Immigrant Detention
"This suffering does not advance any rational policy goal," said the advocacy groups. "It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane, and misguided."
Apr 25, 2024
Citing ample evidence of human rights abuses in U.S. immigration detention centers, 200 advocacy groups on Thursday demanded that the Biden administration reverse course on a planned expansion of detention facilities and said President Joe Biden's "further entrenching" of the government's reliance on detaining migrants marks "an utter betrayal" of his campaign promises.
The president's signing of a spending bill last month provided $3.4 billion for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), clearing the way for the agency to make space to jail 41,500 immigrants per day in facilities across the country.
After Biden campaigned on ending the use of for-profit detention centers, said the groups, he took office at a time when fewer than 15,000 people were being held in immigration detention facilities—which gave him "a remarkable opportunity to wind down a wasteful and abusive system."
But after the president's 2023 and 2024 budget requests signaled an intention of reducing detention funding—with ICE itself recommending that numerous facilities be closed due to "critical staffing shortages that have led to safety risks and unsanitary living conditions"—Biden last year requested supplemental detention funding as commentators and Republicans in Congress hammered the administration for allowing so-called "chaos" at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Your FY2025 budget request sought funding for 34,000 beds instead of the 25,000 sought in the two previous cycles," wrote the groups, including Amnesty International USA, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), and the Texas Civil Rights Project. "The result is unsurprising: the FY2024 spending bill you signed provides ICE $3.4 billion to jail an average of 41,500 immigrants per day, historically high funding surpassing all four years of the Trump administration."
The groups, which provide legal aid and other assistance to people who have been detained as migrants, said many of their clients "carry lifelong scars from the mistreatment and dehumanization they endured because of the United States' reliance on detention, mostly through private prisons and county jails."
The administration is seeking to expand a system, said the groups, in which the jails and prisons used have been found to "operate under insufficient standards."
The organizations cited a 2018 ACLU reportthat found inadequate medical care contributed to the deaths of more than half of the detained immigrants who died in custody between December 2015-April 2017; a 2021 case in which an LGBTQ+ man reported "physical and homophobic verbal abuse" at a facility in Louisiana; and the finding by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that the use of solitary confinement in detention centers "regularly meets the United Nations' definition of torture."
Biden signed the spending bill two weeks after Charles Daniel, a 61-year-old migrant from Trinidad and Tobago, died at a detention center operated by the private contractor GEO Group after being held in solitary confinement for four years. ICE has placed people in solitary confinement over 14,000 times in the last five years, according to PHR, for an average of 27 days each; U.N. experts say exceeding 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture.
"This suffering does not advance any rational policy goal," said the groups on Thursday. "Detention does not provide an efficient or ethical means of border processing, and it certainly does not indicate to migrants that they are welcome in the United States. It merely exists to further the political goal of deterrence, which is cruel, inhumane, and misguided—as even the most punitive forms of detention have been proven not to deter people from seeking safety or a better life."
Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks government data, found that as of April 7, more than 61% of ICE detainees have no criminal record, while "many more have only minor offenses, including traffic violations."
"Increasing the incarceration of immigrants is a grave mistake," said the groups, "and we urgently implore you to reverse course."
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Bernie Sanders to Netanyahu: 'It Is Not Antisemitic to Hold You Accountable'
"Please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government," said the Vermont senator to Israel's prime minister.
Apr 25, 2024
Jewish U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a scathing statement Thursday pushing back against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's characterization of burgeoning protests on American university campuses as "antisemitic," declaring, "It is not antisemitic to hold you accountable for your actions."
"No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children," said Sanders (I-Vt.). "It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population."
"Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that has done unspeakable harm to many millions of people," continued Sanders, who lost family members to the Nazi Holocaust. "But, please, do not insult the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in the Israeli courts."
No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000 – 70% of whom are women and children.
You will not distract us from this immoral war. pic.twitter.com/oDaiyU4ipD
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 25, 2024
Sanders' statement came a day after Netanyahu
falsely described student protesters speaking out against Israel's catastrophic war on Gaza as "antisemitic mobs" and likened the demonstrations to "what happened in German universities in the 1930s."
"It has to be stopped," Netanyahu said of the campus protests, which have faced violent police crackdowns.
Students at Columbia, Princeton, the City College of New York, the University of Texas at Austin, Northwestern, and other schools nationwide are demanding that the institutions divest from any companies that are participating in or benefiting from Israel's war on Gaza and publicly support an immediate cease-fire.
On Wednesday, hundreds of UT Austin students walked out of their classrooms and marched to the main lawn of the campus before police officers with horses and riot gear
arrived on the scene, arrested dozens, and assaulted some protesters.
"One woman said she saw a large police officer place his entire body weight to detain a young woman protesting," The Texas Tribunereported. "Law enforcement was also seen kneeling on individuals' backs and necks, pulling their hair, and in one case punching a protester in the nose."
Jeremi Suri, a professor of history at UT Austin, toldAl Jazeera that contrary to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's claim, there was "nothing antisemitic" about Wednesday's protests.
"These students were shouting 'free Palestine,' that's all," said Suri. "They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police—the state police, the campus police, the city police—an army of police almost the size [of] the student group... many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students."
In his statement Thursday, Sanders emphasized that criticism of Israel's massively destructive assault on Gaza cannot be conflated with antisemitism.
"It is not antisemitic to note that your government has obliterated Gaza’s civilian infrastructure—electricity, water, and sewage," said Sanders, who earlier this week voted against a foreign aid package that included $17 billion in additional U.S. military assistance for Israel.
"It is not antisemitic to realize that your government has annihilated Gaza's healthcare system, knocking 26 hospitals out of service and killing more than 400 healthcare workers," he continued. "It is not antisemitic to condemn your government's destruction of all of Gaza's 12 universities and 56 of its schools, with hundreds more damaged, leaving 625,000 students with no education."
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