Group items tagged

The United States remains "dangerously vulnerable" to chemical, biological and nuclear attacks seven years after 9/11, a forthcoming independent study concludes. And a House Democrats' report says the Bush administration has missed one opportunity after another to improve the nation's security. The recent political rupture between Russia and the U.S. only makes matters worse, said Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana Democratic congressman who helped lead the 9/11 Commission and now chairs the independent group's latest study.

The measure is winning adherents from both sides of the aisle-and upsetting ideologues of both parties High energy prices have become a bitterly contested political issue. Republicans are bashing Democrats for standing in the way of drilling for more oil and gas at home, while Democrats retort that their rivals are misleading the American public by saying that such drilling would significantly lower prices. Yet amid the partisan bomb-throwing over America's future energy policy, Washington is actually making a rare effort to forge a compromise.

The Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition insists Japan should remain under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, while opposition parties' policies vary on the issue, a survey by a nongovernmental organization opposed to atomic weapons found. The LDP and New Komeito say the U.S. nuclear shield is an "appropriate" deterrent, but the Democratic Party of Japan said there should be more debate, according to the survey conducted by the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament Japan NGO Network.

Japan's new government launched an investigation Friday into whether previous administrations entered secret security pacts with Washington, including one said to endorse U.S. nuclear-armed ships despite a policy of barring such weapons. The Democratic Party of Japan, which unseated the long-ruling Liberal Democrats in parliamentary elections last month, has vowed to improve transparency in government as well as review military ties with the U.S. Japan's previous governments have always denied secret deals, but some bureaucrats have recently said that long-standing speculation that they existed is correct, prompting new Foreign Minister Katsuya Okadato to launch an inquiry. "We will reveal everything we find," Okada told reporters in New York, according to Kyodo news agency. Four alleged pacts are subject to the investigation, including one between the two allies in 1960 giving tacit approval of port calls by U.S. military aircraft and warships carrying nuclear weapons.

Labour in the Dutch parliament wants the US to remove its nuclear weapons from the Netherlands. The presence of American nuclear arsenal at the Volkel airfield has never been officially admitted. A Dutch poster from the 1970s protested the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe. A Dutch poster from the 1970s protested the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe. Labour member of parliament Martijn van Dam on Thursday asked defence minister Maxime Verhagen, a Christian democrat, to officially call on Washington to remove its nuclear weapons from Dutch soil. Labour and the Christian democrats are coalition partners in the Dutch government, but Verhagen told parliament that he is not keen on following up on Van Dam's request. Verhagen said he opposes unilateral nuclear disarmament as long as international disarmament talks between the big powers are still ongoing.

German voters gave Chancellor Angela Merkel a second term on Sunday and a mandate to partner with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) in a government that will rein in the role of the state in Europe's largest economy. Merkel, 55, has ruled for the past four years in a "grand coalition" with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), an awkward partnership of traditional rivals.

Angela Seidler, a 41-year-old tour guide at E.ON AG's Grafenrheinfeld nuclear-power plant in southern Germany, may have to find a new career before she retires. "There are about six years of work" until the plant reaches a government-mandated production limit, Seidler said. After that, she said, "it's over for Grafenrheinfeld" -- unless voters grant a reprieve in Sept. 27 elections. Seidler works at one of Germany's 17 nuclear plants, which require an extension to operate beyond deadlines imposed in 2002 by Chancellor Angela Merkel's Social Democratic predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder. They won't get it unless Merkel, who wants to keep them open, wins the majority she needs to ditch her current coalition with the Social Democrats.

Nuclear files could "paralyse" German regional government A German regional government says it could no longer function if it gives public access to cabinet files about the establishment of a nuclear waste dump in its area. The admission comes from the Christian Democrat (CDU, conservative) government of the northern state of Lower Saxony, where 32 years ago a previous CDU government licensed the dump near the village of Gorleben, which at the time was close to the border with former communist East Germany. Asked to make the files available to the environment committee of the Lower Saxony parliament, the premier's office refused, arguing that the government's ""Handlungsfähigkeit" would be endangered. The word translates variously as legal capacity, ability to act, capacity to act, capacity to contract. The refusal was revealed by an opposition Social Democrat MP, Andrea Schröder-Ahlers, after the latest sitting of the committee. She says she suspects that something is being hidden.

When the budget fight got underway earlier this year, Democrats hammered Republicans for criticizing President Obama's blueprint without a plan of their own. Now, as House Democrats work on cap-and-trade legislation to reform greenhouse gas emissions--one of Obama's main domestic priorities, along with health care and education--House Republicans have crafted an energy plan of their own before the debate has hit full swing. House Republicans unveiled their energy plan yesterday. It includes offshore drilling leases, 100 new nuclear reactors in the next 20 years (and an extended look at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository), more Arctic drilling, and a $500 million prize for the first U.S. automaker to sell 50,000 cars that get 100 miles per gallon. Other prizes are included as well, administered by an energy trust fund.

In a triumph for President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed sweeping legislation Friday that calls for the nation's first limits on pollution linked to global warming and aims to usher in a new era of cleaner, yet more costly energy. The vote was 219-212, capping months of negotiations and days of intense bargaining among Democrats. Republicans were overwhelmingly against the measure, arguing it would destroy jobs in the midst of a recession while burdening consumers with a new tax in the form of higher energy costs. At the White House, Obama said the bill would create jobs, and added that with its vote, the House had put America on a path toward leading the way toward "creating a 21st century global economy."

RWE AG Chief Executive Officer Juergen Grossmann urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to scrap a plan to close Germany's nuclear reactors, saying an extension would protect the country from fuel price swings. "They're a predictable part of the power-generation cost" for Germany's industrial electricity users, Grossmann, who heads the country's second-largest utility, said in an interview at an energy conference in Berlin yesterday. "We hope to carry on our nuclear operations in Germany." RWE and competitor Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG are trying to build support before Merkel's September re-election bid. While she's in favor of extending nuclear power plants, her Social Democratic coalition partners oppose it. If she's able to form a partnership with the liberal Free Democratic Party, that may open the way to keeping reactors operating beyond 2021. "We don't need to mention that I would be in favor of extending the lifespan of nuclear power plants," Merkel told delegates at the conference.

On May 13, 2009, President Obama has turned to Gregory B. Jaczko, a PhD physicist with critical views of the nuclear power industry to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is the foremost agency overseeing atomic energy. Senate confirmation was not required because Jaczko was already a member of the commission. At present, he is the only Democrat on the NRC, but that is expected to change soon. Former Chairman Dale Klein and Kristine Svinicki are Republicans, but two seats on the five-member commission are vacant. Although no more than three members of any one political party can be appointed to the commission, it is expected that President Obama will name two additional Democrats, creating a 3-2 majority. Born October 29, 1970, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Albany, New York, Dr. Jaczko earned a bachelor's degree in physics and philosophy from Cornell University in 1993, and a doctorate in theoretical particle physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1999. Always interested in politics as well as science, while still at graduate school Jaczko applied for an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, which paid him to work with Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) as a Congressional Science Fellow. At the same time, he worked as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University teaching science and policy.

US lawmakers will include an amendment promoting nuclear power to a cap-and-trade carbon emissions bill now being discussed in a mark-up session, US House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told nuclear industry officials Tuesday. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told a Nuclear Energy Institute conference in Washington that the amendment would be offered by Michigan Democrat John Dingell at the markup of the energy legislation. Hoyer said the amendment would make clear in the Department of Energy's $18.5 billion Title 17 loan guarantee program for new reactors that a final "term sheet" from the Secretary of Energy constitutes a binding commitment. A term sheet is an agreement with specific terms for the loan guarantee. "That will allow energy projects to obtain the non-federal financing they need with surety that the federal government will proceed," Hoyer said.

The US should build 100 new nuclear power plants, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said April 25. Alexander delivered the GOP's response to President Barack Obama's weekly address, which did not touch on energy issues. "You'd think that if Democrats want to talk about energy and climate change and clean air, they'd put American-made nuclear power front and center," Alexander said. "Instead, their answer is billions in subsidies for renewable energy" from solar, wind and geothermal, he said. But these sources provide only about 1.5% of US electricity supply, so even doubling or tripling their generation wouldn't contribute very much, Alexander said. "When Republicans say, build 100 new nuclear power plants during the next twenty years, Democrats say, no place to put the used nuclear fuel. We say, recycle the fuel -- the way France does. They say, no we can't," he said. A transcript of Alexander's remarks is online at http://www.gop.com/News/NewsRead.aspx?Guid=92504368-37ec-4d4e-94bb-9edc4fc332 50.

French nuclear giant Areva signed a deal Thursday to develop uranium mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during a visit by President Nicolas Sarkozy to Kinshasa. "By its size and geological profile, the Democratic Republic of Congo offers significant uranium potential," the state-controlled firm said in a statement released in Paris. A survey of potential sites will be carried out in the DR Congo, which has vast reserves of diamonds, gold, copper and cobalt.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been given more time to provide U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson and Edward J. Markey the memos, reports and other decision documents on the disposal of depleted uranium. Alyson Heyrend, spokeswoman for the Utah Democrat, said agency staff was scrambling to pull together thousands of pages covered under the information request made two weeks ago. The documents were due Thursday. "We think they are trying in good faith to meet the request," she said. Matheson and the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee chairman, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote to the NRC March 19, demanding to know what's behind the NRC's decision to keep depleted uranium in the lowest-hazard category for radioactive waste. It's a regulatory status that one commission member calls a "loophole." The congressmen want to know who and what influenced the NRC's thinking.

"Since Sen. Lamar Alexander first began pushing the idea last spring of building 100 nuclear plants over the next 20 years, the proposal has increasingly become part of the national debate about the best way to generate electricity while lowering emissions that contribute to climate change. President Barack Obama and some congressional Democrats have proposed new loan guarantees and tax breaks for nuclear plants as a way to attract Republican support for climate-change legislation. Late last year, Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, was able to get Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia to sign on to his idea as part of legislation to promote clean energy. But Alexander's push also"

"THOUSANDS of jobs created by new nuclear power stations across Cumbria could be put at risk in the event of a hung Parliament. It follows revelations from the Liberal Democrats, who said it would push the Tories to halt the programme started by the Labour government. Lib Democrat energy spokesman Simon Hughes is demanding the government hold a public inquiry into plans for new power stations across the UK - which would assess whether the benefits of new nuclear build outweigh the "potential detriments.""

"Pressure on the government to organise an independent inquiry into a new generation of nuclear power stations will intensify today with a call for action from a group of 90 high-ranking academics, politicians and technical experts. The huge lobby says the "climategate" email scandal and other events have shaken public trust in the scientific governance of environmental risk, making a wider assessment of nuclear power more important than ever. Paul Dorfman, an energy policy research fellow at Warwick University who has been coordinating support for an inquiry, said more debate was needed for a decision on nuclear to have full democratic backing. "The kind of consultation we have had so far has been flawed and inadequate. The government has put the cart before the horse by wanting endorsement before either the design of the reactor and the way waste will be treated has been decided. There is a democratic deficit here that needs correcting," he said."

"Japan's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday revealed the findings of an investigation into secret pacts between Washington and Tokyo during the Cold War that are likely to have implications for the future of politics and ties with other countries. The investigation, ordered by the governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), revealed that despite the denials of former governments led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), often agreements were made behind closed doors that would likely have caused widespread protest and anger if their contents were made public. Most controversially, Japan agreed to turn a blind eye to U.S. nuclear weapons brought into Japanese territory. Other pacts detailed the share of the burden of cost between the two nations when the United States handed Okinawa to Japan, and permitted Washington to use bases in Japan without prior consultation in the event of instability on the Korean Peninsula."