In an unprecedented shady deal, Texas Utilities Electric Co has agreed to rescue its 87% completed Commanche Peak plant from interminable hearings by paying $4.5 million ransom to CASE, a group of legalistic saboteurs, for withdrawing their alle-gations from the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the NRC. This in addition to the money they had to pay regularly to "inter-venors." Plus $5.5 million to settle the demands of "whistle-blowers" who claimed to have been harassed, plus up to $150,000/year over the next 5 years for consultants, for CASE
¾ and this is the new part¾will now make its own safety inspections even after the plant is licensed. CASE was originally started by the "traveling allegers" of GAP, as described by R. Isaac, Amer. Spect.Nov. 85. [TUE has not yet agreed to pay for a PR agency indignantly trumpeting the high cost of reactors.]
The New York Legislature has adjourned without approving Cuomo's Shoreham deal. Legislators are having second thoughts on the cost, sometimes using the Greenhouse Effect as an excuse why that hadn't occurred to them earlier. Cuomo is in a cuorner: if Long Islanders will not pay his 65% rate hike over 10 years, he threatens to make them pay even more. Or even, some say, let the plant open after all.
Unsigned on Reagan's desk lies an Executive Order authorizing FEMA to plan and organize emergency evacuation in the vicinity of nuclear plants [Seabrook & Shoreham] where state authorities [Dukakis & Cuomo] refuse to cooperate. Energy Secretary Harrington (a decent man whom Nancy somehow over-looked) is pushing for a signature, as is N.H. Governor Sununu (a scientist forced into politics
¾an amazing case of an honest politi-cian). But Reagan cannot make up his mind; the Washington Post might not like it if he signed.And neither would notorious anti-nuke Sen. Humphrey (R-N.H.), who called on Reagan in mid-July urging him not to sign it. Humphrey has been panhandling for an outfit called Coalition for a Conservative V.P. (Weicker? Lugar? Humphrey?). Like the rest of us, longtime AtE subscriber Dr Susan Huck is showered with GOP panhandling letters. She returns them all with a note "Not a cent until Reagan pardons North!" For the next four years the turkeys will aim to please only the evening news; but for the next six weeks they will listen to you, or at least to your pocket book.
What's so extraordinary about Dukakis' granting unguarded furloughs to jailed murderers who use it to rape women in front of their bound husbands? Since July 1986, when he prevented the completed Seabrook plant going on line, the man has helped to cause the premature deaths of some 150 New Englanders by fossil-fired power. And not by furloughed murderers: all by his li'l self.
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Vol. 16, No. 1
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 16, No. 1 Date: December 01, 2004 01:51 PM Title: The new venality
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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