February, 24 2021, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Terry Lodge, legal counsel, Toledo, OH, (419) 205-7084, tjlodge50@yahoo.com
Michael Keegan, Co-Chair, Don't Waste Michigan, Monroe, MI, (734) 770-1441, mkeeganj@comcast.net
Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist, Beyond Nuclear, Takoma Park, MD, (240) 462-3216, kevin@beyondnuclear.orgÂ
Bette Pierman, President, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Benton Harbor, MI, (269) 369-3993, bette49022@yahoo.com
Gail Snyder, Board President, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Chicago, IL, (630) 363-6417, gail.snyder@comcast.net
Environmental Coalition Intervenes Against Holtec Takeover of Palisades Atomic Reactor
Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste Michigan, and Michigan Safe Energy Future Petition U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Raising Health, Safety, Environmental, and Financial Concerns
WASHINGTON
Meeting the agency's truncated 20-day deadline, an environmental coalition's legal counsel, Toledo, Ohio attorney Terry Lodge, has submitted a petition to intervene and request for hearing to NRC, on behalf of members of the groups, some of whom live less than a mile from the Palisades nuclear power plant on the Lake Michigan shoreline. The legal and technical challenges opposed to current owner Entergy Nuclear's license transfer to Holtec International for decommissioning purposes and high-level radioactive waste management include Holtec's disqualifying bad corporate character, and its unnacceptable bids to drain the already woefully inadequate Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Fund for non-decommissioning expenses, such as irradiated nuclear fuel management and site restoration.
The intervention also objects to Holtec's large underestimation of both decommissioning expenses, as well as irradiated nuclear fuel management expenses. For example, the coalition's expert witness, Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, and a former senior advisor to the U.S. Energy Secretary, has shown that Holtec has given no consideration to high burnup irradiated nuclear fuel's higher thermal heat load and radioactivity levels, even though it comprises a large fraction of the fuel to be stored on-site, and likely for much longer than Holtec's overly optimistic year 2066 terminus date.
Lastly, the coalition has argued for NRC to undertake a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, to address: the site's radioactive contamination of soil and groundwater; various "low" level radioactive waste streams, such as steam generators and highly radioactive Reactor Vessel Internals; the need for repackaging irradiated nuclear fuel from non-transportable and even defective current containers into new replacement containers; and increasing radiologic risks due to the current historic high, and worsening, Lake Michigan water levels.
Holtec's proposed takeover would also include Palisades' sibling, the Lake Michigan shoreline Big Rock Point nuclear power plant site in Charlevoix, Michigan, as part of the package deal. Although NRC in 2006 approved the decommissioned site's release for unrestricted use, watchdogs remain very concerned about significant documented radioactive contamination abandoned there. In addition, eight casks of highly radioactive waste are still stored there, with nowhere else to go.
"With no ability to unload the high-level radioactive waste from an already known defective VSC-24 cask, and potentially additional faulty casks of this and other models in the future, Entergy and Holtec have teed up a cataclysmic disaster on the shore of Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is about to eat Palisades, and this unaddressed problem amounts to 'Criminal Negligence,'" stated Michael J. Keegan, Co-Chairman of Don't Waste Michigan in Monroe, MI.
"We continue to call for a safe and complete decommissioning which requires the removal of all radioactive waste that will likely be stored onsite indefinitely," said Bette Pierman, President of Michigan Safe Energy Future in Benton Harbor, MI. "It must be secured in non-permeable hard casks because of the highly radioactive waste. We strongly question Holtec International's decommissioning proposal with no guarantee of this to safeguard our health and that of our precious Lake Michigan. We also have serious concerns about the current Decommissioning Trust Funds--which were previously raided by Consumers Power and Entergy--to cover the complete costs of cleanup and restoration of the Palisades site. We do not want Holtec to leave Michigan ratepayers with a bill and a radioactive legacy," Pierman added.
"We object to NRC allowing Holtec to drain $166 million from the Palisades Nuclear Decommissioning Trust Fund for unrelated high-level radioactive waste management expenses, because that will severely shortchange the cleanup of documented extensive hazardous radioactive contamination of soil and groundwater," said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist with Beyond Nuclear, a national watchdog group based in Takoma Park, MD. "Abandoned radioactive contamination will flow downstream over time, into Lake Michigan and inland aquifers, both drinking water supplies. The radioactivity will not dilute, but rather bio-concentrate up the food chain, endangering current and future generations," Kamps added.
"As people who share the same Lake Michigan drinking water supply with 16 million other people, we are deeply concerned with how the Palisades closure and decommissioning is handled," stated Gail Snyder, Board President of Nuclear Energy Information Service, based in Chicago, IL. "Having witnessed the numerous highly questionable dealings surrounding the decommissioning of the Zion nuclear reactors in Illinois from 2010 to the present, we are highly suspicious of Holtec's motives and capability to conduct a credible and safe decommissioning, and skeptical that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will do more than a check-box oversight of the project. For those reasons constant and direct oversight from state and federal legislators in Michigan is imperative," Snyder warned.
Beyond Nuclear, Don't Waste Michigan, and Nuclear Energy Information Service have also intervened against Holtec's proposal to target majority minority (Hispanic, Indigenous) New Mexico with the country's high-level radioactive waste dump, a so-called "consolidated interim storage facility" (CISF) for irradiated nuclear fuel that risks becoming de factopermanent surface storage. Terry Lodge serves as legal counsel for Don't Waste Michigan and Nuclear Energy Information Service, and five additional grassroots environmental groups from across the U.S., in that proceeding as well. NRC has rejected all opponents' appeals, and the groups have now appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second highest court in the land.
"At the very top of the list of CISF non-starters is highly radioactive waste barge shipments, from Palisades to the Port of Muskegon, for offload onto a train for export out to the Southwest," said Terry Lodge, the environmental coalition's legal counsel. "Irradiated fuel sunk to the bottom of Lake Michigan could cause ruinous radioactive releases into the drinking water supply for tens of millions of people downstream in seven states, two provinces, and a large number of Indigenous Nations. Radioactive steam generator barge shipments across Lake Michigan, through Chicago's waterways, and down the Mississippi River could likewise lead to drinking water catastrophes," Lodge added.
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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US Dodges Growing Calls for Probe of Mass Graves at Gaza Hospitals
"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," said one legal expert.
Apr 24, 2024
While continuing to give Israel billions of dollars in support to wage war on the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration this week has declined to join the growing global demands for an international probe into mass graves discovered at hospitals in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Two journalists on Tuesday questioned Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, about the administration's response to the hundreds of bodies found at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as well as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk's call for an independent investigation.
"Would you support such an independent investigation?" Said Arikat asked during a press briefing. Patel responded, "Right now, Said, we are asking for more information... That is squarely where we are leaving the conversation."
Patel added that "I don't have any details to match, confirm, or offer as it relates to that. We're aware of those reports, and we have asked the government of Israel for additional clarity and information. And that's where I'm at."
When Said asked a follow-up about potential U.S. support for a probe, Patel reiterated that the administration is awaiting information from the Israeli government.
Later, Niall Stanage asked Patel to explain U.S. "resistance" to supporting a probe, the spokesperson insisted that "it's not about resistance to this particular situation, it is me not wanting to speak in detail about something which Said posed as a hypothetical question when, from the United States' perspective, I don't have any additional information on this aside from the public reporting."
After Patel again stressed that the administration has asked Israel for more information, Stanage inquired, "And do you believe the government of Israel is a credible source in enlightening you?"
The spokesperson interrupted Stanage to say, "We do."
While supporting the six-month Israeli assault on Gaza that the International Court of Justice has found to be plausibly genocidal, the Biden administration is also arming Ukrainians' resistance to a Russian invasion. Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the Crisis Group's U.S. program and a former legal adviser at the State Department, pointed to the latter.
"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," Finucane said on social media in response to Stanage's questioning.
Meanwhile, European Union spokesperson Peter Stano made clear Tuesday that the E.U. supports an independent probe.
"This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed," Stano said. "That's why it's important to have independent investigation and to ensure accountability."
Human rights groups around the world joined the call for an independent investigation on Wednesday, as the official death toll in Gaza hit 34,262 with 77,229 people injured and thousands more missing and presumed dead beneath the rubble.
In an Arabic statement translated by Al Jazeera, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that the number of bodies found in the mass graves is "alarming, and requires urgent international action, including the formation of an independent international investigation committee."
The group added that some of those killed were subjected to "premeditated murder as well as arbitrary and extrajudicial executions while they were detained and handcuffed."
Amnesty International senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns Erika Guevara Rosas said in a statement that "the harrowing discovery of these mass graves underscores the urgency of ensuring immediate access for human rights investigators, including forensic experts, to the occupied Gaza Strip to ensure that evidence is preserved and to carry out independent and transparent investigations with the aim of guaranteeing accountability for any violations of international law."
"Lack of access for human rights investigators to Gaza has hampered effective investigations into the full scale of the human rights violations and crimes under international law committed over the past six months, allowing for the documentation of just a tiny fraction of these abuses," she noted. "Without proper investigations to determine how these deaths took place or what violations may have been committed, we may never find out the truth of the horrors behind these mass graves."
Guevara Rosas continued:
Mass grave sites are potential crime scenes offering vital and time-sensitive forensic evidence; they must be protected until professional forensic experts with the necessary skills and resources can safely carry out adequate exhumations and accurate identification of remains.
The absence of forensic experts and the decimation of Gaza's medical sector as a result of the war and Israel's cruel blockade, along with the lack of availability of the necessary resources for the identification of bodies such as DNA testing, are huge obstacles to the identifications of remains. This denies those killed the opportunity to have a dignified burial and deprives families with relatives missing or forcibly disappeared the right to know and to justice—leaving them in a limbo of uncertainty and anguish.
Noting that the International Court of Justice directed Israel to preserve evidence in its initial genocide case order, Guevara Rosas said that "amid a total vacuum of accountability and mounting evidence of war crimes in Gaza, Israeli authorities must ensure they comply with the ICJ ruling by granting immediate access to independent human rights investigators and ensuring that all evidence of violations is preserved."
"Third states must pressure Israel to comply with the ICJ orders by allowing the immediate entry into the Gaza Strip of independent human rights investigators and forensic experts, including the U.N.-appointed Commission of Inquiry and investigators of the International Criminal Court," she added. "There can be no truth and justice without proper, transparent independent investigations into these deaths."
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Sanders Launches Probe of 'Outrageously Overpriced' Ozempic and Wegovy
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chair said that the popular medications "will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot afford them."
Apr 24, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday opened an investigation into an "outrageously overpriced" medication manufactured by a Denmark-based company whose value by market capitalization is larger than the Scandinavian country's gross domestic product.
Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent a letter to Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, CEO of Novo Nordisk. The company makes semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) agonist used to treat Type 2 diabetes under the brand name Ozempic and, when sold as Wegovy, to treat obesity in adults with at least one weight-related comorbidity.
"The scientists at Novo Nordisk deserve great credit for developing these drugs that have the potential to be a game-changer for millions of Americans struggling with Type 2 diabetes and obesity," Sanders acknowledged. "As important as these drugs are, they will not do any good for the millions of patients who cannot afford them."
"Further, if the prices for these products are not substantially reduced they also have the potential to bankrupt Medicare, Medicaid, and our entire healthcare system," he added.
Sanders continued:
Today, Novo Nordisk is charging patients in the United States up to 15 times more for Ozempic and Wegovy than it charges patients in Canada, Europe, or Japan. For example, your company charges $969 in the United States for one month of Ozempic but just $155 in Canada and just $59 in Germany. Further, Novo Nordisk charges Americans $1,349 for one month Wegovy but just $140 in Germany and just $92 in the United Kingdom.
"Meanwhile," the senator noted, "researchers at Yale University estimate that both of these drugs can be profitably manufactured for less than $5 a month."
"The result of these astronomically high prices is that Ozempic and Wegovy are out of reach for millions of Americans who need them," Sanders said. "Unfortunately, Novo Nordisk's pricing has turned drugs that could improve people's lives into luxury goods, all while Novo Nordisk made over $12 billion in profits last year—up 76% from 2021. That is unacceptable."
As of March 2024, Novo Nordisk was Europe's most highly valued company by market capitalization. Its $554 billion market cap is significantly higher than Denmark's annual gross domestic product of approximately $410 billion, according to International Monetary Fund figures.
Sanders also pointed out that Novo Nordisk is charging different prices for Ozempic and Wegovy, even though they're "the exact same drug."
"Novo Nordisk charges Americans with obesity nearly $400 more every month than those with Type 2 diabetes for the same product provided in similar doses," he wrote.
"The unjustifiably high prices of Ozempic and Wegovy are already straining the budgets of Medicare and Medicaid and severely limiting access for patients who need these drugs," the letter says. "Last year, researchers at Vanderbilt University's Department of Health Policy and the University of Chicago's Department of Medicine estimated in the New England Journal of Medicine that it would cost Medicare over $150 billion a year to cover Wegovy and other similar weight loss drugs."
"To put this in perspective, the cost of all retail prescription drugs covered by Medicare in 2022 was less than $130 billion," Sanders added.
"As chairman of the committee, I am asking Novo Nordisk to substantially reduce the price of Ozempic and Wegovy so that these important drugs can be available to Americans with Type 2 diabetes and obesity," he wrote.
Existing law empowers the government to step in to lower drug prices in service of the public interest. Under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980—legislation meant to promote the commercialization and public availability of government-funded inventions—federal agencies reserve the right to "march in" and authorize price-lowering generic alternatives to patented medications developed with public funding.
However, U.S. administrations—including President Joe Biden's—have been loath to exercise "march-in" rights.
Under pressure from the public and lawmakers led by Sanders, Novo Nordisk last year announced that it would cut prices by up to 75% for some of its insulin products.
Responding to Wednesday's letter, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America—Big Pharma's leading lobbyist—accused Sanders of "attacking an innovative company to advance a political agenda instead of addressing the real cause of affordability challenges."
Noting Novo Nordisk's bigger-than-Denmark market cap, Warren Gunnels, the HELP Committee's majority staff director, wrote on social media that the company "made over $12 billion in profits last year by, among other things, charging Americans $969 for Ozempic while it can be purchased for $59 in Germany and costs $5 to make."
"Our political agenda is to end this greed," he added. "Guilty. As. Charged."
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Texas State Troopers in Riot Gear Crack Down on UT Students' Gaza Protest
"Why do we even have these institutions of higher learning if we won't let students speak their conscience and protest?" said one University of Texas professor.
Apr 24, 2024
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
Civil rights advocates on Wednesday expressed alarm at a rapid escalation by Texas state troopers who descended on a student-led protest at University of Texas at Austin, which was organized in solidarity with Gaza and other U.S. college students taking part in a growing anti-war movement.
UT students gathered on campus at midday and were promptly given two minutes to disperse by state troopers, who had already been called to the scene.
The troopers were equipped with riot gear, with some carrying assault rifles and several stationed on horses.
Erick Lara, a 20-year-old sophomore, told The Dallas Morning News that the nonviolent protest transformed "within minutes" after the police began arresting demonstrators.
"I didn't think it would escalate this far," he told the outlet. "And I didn't think there would be this much police intervention from what's supposed to be a peaceful protest. Not very peaceful when there's a bunch of aggressors around, especially on horses."
The organizers called the gathering "The Popular University" and said it was aimed at pressuring UT to "divest from death."
The protesters walked out of their classes to demand UT divest from weapons manufacturers in order to end its complicity in Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 34,262 Palestinians.
Student-run newspaper The Daily Texanreported roughly 50 state troopers were deployed to stop the initial protest of about 150-200 people.
Ryan Chandler, a reporter for NBC affiliate KXAN-TV and UT alum, reported that there were at least 10 students detained.
"Went here for four years, never saw anything like this," said Chandler, posting a video of a group of police pushing one student to the ground and arresting them.
Joseph Pierce, a Stony Brook University professor who attended graduate school at UT, also said the escalation was an unusually "drastic response to students advocating for an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people."
"It is a response that did not occur when in 2005 we protested the anti-gay marriage bill; in the late 2000s when we protested anti-immigration bills; in the 2010s when we protested the open-carry bill," Pierce said. "It is a clear attempt at silencing Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish voices."
The students faced the state troopers in a standoff on the university's main street.
"This violence against peaceful student protesters at UT Austin is absolutely horrifying—and should be condemned in the strongest terms by every politician and mainstream journalist," said former New Yorker editor Erin Overbey.
UT media and Middle East studies professor Nahid Siamdoust said the university "brought out everything but the kitchen sink to make sure" students couldn't erect an anti-war encampment like students at Columbia University, New York University, and other schools across the U.S. have in recent days.
The university had informed organizers with the on-campus Palestine Solidarity Committee on Tuesday that exercising their First Amendment rights in support of Palestinians in Gaza would "violate our policies and rules."
"The freedom to protest is integral to our democracy," said the ACLU of Texas Wednesday amid reports of the crackdown. "UT Austin students have a First Amendment right to freely express their political opinions—without threats of arrest and violence."
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