April, 17 2018, 12:00am EDT
![Beyond Nuclear](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012684/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear, (240) 462-3216, kevin@beyondnuclear.org, Michael J. Keegan, Don’t Waste Michigan, (734) 770-1441, mkeeganj@comcast.net, Terry Lodge, legal counsel, (419) 205-7084, tjlodge50@yahoo.com
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Beyond Nuclear v. NRC Appeal on Fermi 3
Despite setback, environmental coalition vows ongoing resistance against proposed new reactor.
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear Beyond Nuclear's appeal against the proposed new Fermi 3 atomic reactor. Despite this, the environmental coalition has vowed to continue its resistance.
The appeal focused on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) exclusion of the transmission line corridor from the National Environmental Policy Act's (NEPA) required "hard look" at all environmental impacts of major federal actions, such as NRC approval of a combined construction and operations license application (COLA) for the Fermi 3 atomic reactor, a General Electric-Hitachi (GEH) so-called "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor" (ESBWR). Fermi 3 is the flagship ESBWR in the U.S., and internationally.
The Fermi nuclear power plant is located in southeast Michigan, on the Lake Erie shoreline, south of Detroit, north of Toledo, immediately adjacent to Ohio and Ontario, Canada.
"We regret that the Supreme Court didn't take the opportunity to teach an instructive lesson to an important regulatory agency that NEPA, the environmental impact statement law, can't be weakened to address only the environmental damage that the agency wants the public to know about," said Terry Lodge, attorney for Beyond Nuclear and the other grassroots opponents of Fermi 3. "The NRC's decision to allow its staff to reshape the project undermines the public's right to know, and worse, mocks the public's right to participate in very important decisions."
Lodge, a Toledo-based attorney, has represented an environmental coalition opposed to Fermi 3 (Beyond Nuclear, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Citizens Environmental Alliance of Southwestern Ontario, Don't Waste Michigan, and Sierra Club) since NRC docketed the DTE (formerly Detroit Edison) Fermi 3 license application filed in September 2008. DTE first announced its intention to construct and operate Fermi 3 in February 2007.
"DTE investors will be forever indebted to environmental intervenors for having held the company's feet to the fire long enough for them to realize what an economic boondoggle the pursuit of a Fermi 3 reactor would be, one that would leave their company in economic ruin," said Michael Keegan, a four-decade watchdog on the Fermi nuclear power plant in Monroe, MI. "This is now the case at two failed reactors at Summer, SC and at two more failing reactors at Vogtle, GA. Westinghouse has gone bankrupt, and General Electric is on the ropes. The 'Nuclear Renaissance' has failed miserably, and DTE has dodged that radioactive economic bullet, by not proceeding with Fermi 3. Intervenors prevented DTE from breaking ground in January 2011 by forcing compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. We will be there again to force compliance should a transmission line corridor commence, or any other aspect of this proposed new atomic reactor," stated Michael J. Keegan with Don't Waste Michigan.
NRC's decision to not include the transmission line corridor at Fermi 3 in its NEPA-required Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) followed a 2007 agency rule change spearheaded by NRC Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield. Changes to the definition of "Limited Work Authorizations" (LWAs) for "pre-construction activities" - to include major features such as Fermi 3's proposed 11-mile long, 300-feet wide transmission line corridor - represented a reversal of decades-old NRC policy. In fact, NRC had previously defended its right to regulate transmission line corridor construction and operation, asserting its jurisdiction to include such safety-related structures, systems, and components in its environmental impact statements, at not only Fermi, but other proposed Michigan reactors, as well as those in other states. Merrifield's rule change redefined the word "construction" under NRC regulations, creating a huge loophole in NEPA to excuse major "non-nuclear" construction projects from agency EIS's, despite their major impacts on the environment.
After orchestrating the Orwellian rule change, NRC Commissioner Merrifield went immediately to work for the Shaw Group, an atomic reactor construction firm engaged at that time in new build underway in the U.S. Southeast, for an annual salary of more than one million dollars. An NRC Office of Inspector General investigative report documented that NRC Commissioner Merrifield had been courting his private sector job in the many months during which he also led the LWA rule change, an ethical violation that prompted U.S. attorneys to consider criminal charges, which were ultimately not pursued. The "Merrifield-Go-Round" revolving door scandal is considered one of the worst in NRC's history. (See the Beyond Nuclear comprehensive backgrounder, posted online at: https://www.beyondnuclear.org/new-reactors/2015/7/29/beyond-nuclear-appeals-scandalous-nrc-rule-that-has-long-und.html ).
"We have not yet begun to fight," said Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear. "Whether it is educating elected officials at the local, state, and federal level, opposing ratepayer and/or federal taxpayer subsidies, and even non-violent civil disobedience and direct action in the spirit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we will remain vigilant until Fermi 3 in cancelled once and for all, Fermi 2 is permanently shut down, and the 'We Almost Lost Detroit' Fermi 1 nuclear power plant is decommissioned, all of the nuclear complex's radioactive contamination completely cleaned up, and its forever deadly highly radioactive wastes safeguarded and secured."
"We Almost Lost Detroit" is the title of a 1975 book by John G. Fuller, as well as a song by Gil Scott-Heron, documenting the October 5, 1966 partial meltdown at the Fermi Unit 1 atomic reactor. Fermi 3 would be built on the exact spot where Fermi 1 partially melted down, as noted by environmental intervenors on the official NRC record (see: https://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/7/3/declaration-of-independence-from-proposed-fermi-3-new-atomic.html). The environmental coalition marked the 50th annual commemoration of the Fermi 1 meltdown on October 5, 2016 in downtown Monroe, MI (see: https://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclear-power/2016/9/26/october-5-2016-50-years-since-the-we-almost-lost-detroit-par.html), three years to the month after the bitterly contested Fermi 3 NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hearings in the same location.
In this sense, today's resistance to Fermi 3 carries on the tradition of United Auto Workers attorney Leo Goodman, who challenged the Fermi 1 license on behalf of the health and safety of the union's 500,000 members, and their families, in the immediate area, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC, NRC's forerunner), by a vote of 7 to 2. However, the dissenting opinion, in strong language, described the enabling Atomic Energy Act of 1954, granting the nuclear power industry, and its so-called regulatory agency, carte blanche to put the public at risk, as a dark day for democracy - not to mention for the protection of health, safety, and the environment - in the United States.
The ongoing resistance includes an event on Wed., April 18, 2018, as announced by the Alliance to Halt Fermi 3 at its website: https://www.athf3.org/. The "Radiation Knows No Borders" Emergency Preparedness Forum, will feature presentations by: Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear; Shawn-Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace Canada; Bushra Kazmi, M.D. of the Infection Prevention Program at Garden City Hospital; and Michael Keegan of Don't Waste Michigan, and the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes, and a Monroe County Emergency Planning Zone resident. The event, to be held at the University of Detroit Mercy, Life Sciences Building, Room 113, 4001 West McNichols Road, Detroit, MI 48221, will take place from 7-9pm, Wed., April 18, 2018 - eight days before the 32nd annual commemoration of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. The title for the event is "Lessons NOT Learned from Chernobyl: Radiation Knows No Borders."
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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The Gaza Project Exposes Israel's 'Chilling Pattern' of Killing Journalists
"This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I can remember," said one campaigner. "The impact on press freedom in Gaza, in the region, and the rest of the world is something we cannot accept."
Jun 26, 2024
With more than 100 media professionals—nearly all of them Palestinian—killed in Gaza since October, a group of 50 reporters from 13 international organizations this week shared the results of a new investigative journalism initiative aimed at exposing the deadly toll Israel's onslaught has taken on those reporting it to the world.
The Gaza Project—led by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories—"analyzed nearly 100 cases of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, as well as other cases in which members of the press have been allegedly targeted, threatened, or injured since October 7," when Hamas-led attacks on Israel left more than 1,100 people dead and over 240 others kidnapped.
"Faced with what is being reported as the record number of journalists killed, Forbidden Stories, whose mission is to pursue the work of journalists who are killed because of their work, set out to investigate the targeting of journalists," the group said
"For four months, Forbidden Stories and its partners investigated the circumstances of their killings, as well as those who have been targeted, threatened, and injured in the West Bank and Gaza," it added. "These investigations point to a chilling pattern and suggest some journalists may have been targeted even though they were identifiable as press."
Gaza Project member Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned what it called an "apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families," noting cases in which media workers were killed while wearing press insignia and after being threatened by Israeli officials.
"This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I can remember," CPJ program director Carlos MartÃnez de la Serna said of the ongoing war. "The impact on press freedom in Gaza, in the region, and the rest of the world is something we cannot accept."
Basel Khair Al-Din, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza who believes he was targeted by a drone strike while wearing a press vest, said, "Whereas this press vest was supposed to identify and protect us, according to international laws, international conventions, and the Geneva Conventions, it is now a threat to us."
"It's this vest that almost got us killed, as has happened to so many of our fellow journalists and media workers," he added.
Groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have called for official investigations into Israeli killing of journalists including an October 13 attack that killed 37-year-old Lebanese Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded half a dozen other journalists who were covering cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.
Dylan Collins, an American deputy editor at Al Jazeera English, was wounded while administering first aid to Christina Assi, an Italian Agence-France Presse journalist whose legs were blown off in the attack.
Reutersdetermined that an Israeli tank crew "fired two shells in quick succession" at the journalists, who HRW said were "clearly identifiable as members of the media, and had been stationary for at least 75 minutes." HRW "found no evidence of a military target near the journalists' location."
Amnesty International, meanwhile, asserted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike was "likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime."
Asa Kasher, the lead author of the IDF's Code of Ethics, toldForbidden Stories that "no member of the press should have been killed under normal circumstances of hostilities in Gaza."
"It shouldn't happen, even a single one," he added. "It's illegal. It's unethical. The person who does it should be brought to court."
Israel's alleged deliberate targeting of journalists is part of the evidence presented in a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel being reviewed by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Separately, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), also located in the Dutch city, is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination and forced starvation in the case of the Israelis and extermination, rape, and torture in the case of Hamas.
The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders last month filed a third ICC complaint alleging "war crimes against journalists in Gaza."
According to Palestinian and international officials, at least 37,718 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed during Israel's 264-day assault on Gaza, which has also left more than 86,300 people wounded and 11,000 others missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of homes and other bombed-out buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced, and the Israeli siege on Gaza has caused widespread—and deadly—starvation and what the head of the United Nations food agency called a "full-blown famine" in northern parts of the strip.
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'Democracy Must Be Respected': Bolivian Leader Replaces Military Chiefs Over Coup Attempt
Leftists and political leaders around the world slammed the coup effort as Bolivia's trade union federation called for an emergency mass mobilization and a general strike.
Jun 26, 2024
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Bolivian President Luis Arce replaced top military leaders on Wednesday in response to an attempted coup d'état in which troops took over Plaza Murillo in La Paz and rammed an armored vehicle into the doors of the presidential palace so soldiers could storm the building.
"We denounce irregular mobilizations of some units of the Bolivian army," Arce, a member of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) party,
said on social media. "Democracy must be respected."
As
The Associated Pressreported:
In a video of Arce surrounded by ministers in the palace, he said: "The country is facing an attempted coup d'état. Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize."
Arce confronted the general commander of the army—Juan José Zúñiga, who appeared to be leading the rebellion—in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. "I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination," Arce said.
Zúñiga told local media that "the three chiefs of the armed forces have come to express our dismay. There will be a new Cabinet of ministers, surely things will change, but our country cannot continue like this any longer."
Sharing his demands, Zúñiga said, "Stop destroying, stop impoverishing our country, stop humiliating our army."
The general claimed that the air force, army, and navy were "mobilized" and "the police force is also with us."
Meanwhile, "Arce swore in three new leaders of the armed forces," according toBuenos Aires Herald managing editor Amy Booth. "At the ceremony, army Commander in Chief Wilson Sánchez ordered the forces back to their barracks and at the moment they seem to be listening."
Despite the rift between former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who remains head of MAS, and Arce, who was his finance minister, Bolivia's ex-leader also spoke out against the military action on Wednesday, declaring that "the coup d'état is brewing."
"At this time, personnel from the armed forces and tanks are deployed in Plaza Murillo," Morales said. "They called an emergency meeting at the army general staff in Miraflores at 3:00 pm in combat uniforms. Call on the social movements of the countryside and the city to defend democracy."
After the change in military leaders, Morales—who has denounced his own 2019 ouster as a coup—demanded that "a criminal process" targeting "Zúñiga and his accomplices" begin immediately.
Wednesday evening, Bolivia's attorney general ordered "all legal actions that correspond to the initiation of the criminal investigation against Gen. Juan José Zúñiga and all other participants in the events that occurred," according toKawsachun News.
The Bolivian Workers' Center (COB), the South American country's trade union federation, had "called for an emergency mass mobilization and a general strike in response to the ongoing coup attempt," Progressive International highlighted on social media.
Progressive International also urged "international attention to these grave violations of Bolivian democracy."
Condemnation of the coup attempt and expressions of solidarity with those opposing it were shared around the world.
"We condemn the attempted coup in Bolivia and send our solidarity to President Luis Arce and his democratically elected government," declared the Peace & Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn, a member of the U.K. Parliament who used to lead the Labour Party.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that "I firmly condemn the attempts to overthrow the democratically elected government of Bolivia. The European Union stands by democracies. We express our strong support for the constitutional order and rule of law in Bolivia."
U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) emphasized that she is "standing in solidarity with the Bolivian people as they fight to preserve their democracy," and "the coup attempt must be unequivocally condemned."
The Democratic Socialists of America's International Committee wrote on social media that "we extend our solidarity to the Bolivian people during this imminent emergency."
Morales said later Wednesday that "we appreciate all the expressions of solidarity and support for Bolivian democracy expressed by presidents, political and social leaders of the world. We are convinced that democracy is the only way to resolve any difference and that institutions and the rule of law must be respected. We reiterate the call for all those involved in this riot to be arrested and tried."
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'Insult to Democracy': Sanders Says Citizens United the Real Story of Bowman Defeat
"Campaigns should be about a clash of ideas, not which candidate can raise more money from the oligarchs," Sanders said after the defeat of Bowman, a progressive who was the target of huge dark-money spending.
Jun 26, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday responded to the defeat of Rep. Jamaal Bowman, whom outside groups spent record-breaking sums to oust in a Democratic primary in New York this week, by condemning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and calling for a public campaign finance system.
Outside groups, mainly super political action committees (PACs), poured in more than $17.7 million to oust Bowman (D-N.Y.) and less than $3 million to help him. The beneficiary of the lopsided spending was challenger George Latimer, a Westchester County official, who won the primary with about 58% of the vote to Bowman's 42%.
Progressives have decried the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which, through its super PAC, paid more than $14 million for ads that either supported Latimer, who is pro-Israel, or attacked Bowman, who is pro-Palestine—the most ever spent on a U.S. House of Representatives race by a non-party-affiliated group.
Sanders (I-Vt.), in a statement, drew a wider target: the campaign finance system that AIPAC was able to exploit.
He called for a reversal of the "disastrous" Citizens United decision—a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that allowed unlimited outside spending on elections, on the basis of freedom of speech, increasing the power of rich donors and corporations.
"Buying elections is not 'freedom of speech'," Sanders, who campaigned for Bowman, said.
"It is an outrage and an insult to democracy that we maintain a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaire-funded super PACs to buy elections," he added.
The pundits will draw their conclusions about the NY-16 race. Here’s mine:
$23m was spent to defeat @JamaalBowmanNY.
It is an outrage and an insult to democracy that we maintain a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaire-funded super PACs to buy elections. pic.twitter.com/x3W8JlLwK3
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 26, 2024
Sanders' statement comes amid a flurry of analyses of the race from legacy media outlets, many of which frame the result as a blow to the left wing of the Democratic Party.
"Bowman's win in 2020 seemed to herald an ascendant progressive movement," according toThe New York Times. "In 2024, the center is regaining power."
As The Atlanticreported, "The New York progressive veered too far left of his constituents."
Neither article mentions Citizens United or campaign finance reform, or the fact that redistricting in 2022 left far more of Bowman's seat in the suburbs than had been the case in 2020, with just a small slice in the Bronx that remained in the 16th district.
Bowman won 84% of the vote in the northern slice of the Bronx that remained in his district, but was beaten soundly in Westchester County, which is wealthy and has a sizable Jewish population that mobilized for Latimer.
Bowman had weaknesses as a candidate that may also make his race of limited use as a bellwether in other centrist v. progressive primary battles, the most notable of which features Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) against an AIPAC-backed challenger, Wesley Bell. Polling shows a very tight race.
Bowman received some criticism after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor for pulling a fire alarm at the Capitol last year, in what he said was an accident. He has also been accused of "subpar constituent work," according toThe New Republic.
Most notably, Bowman was caught on video saying that claims of Hamas sexual violence on October 7 were unsubstantiated "propaganda," though he later reversed his position and condemned the sexual violence.
If the political establishment has drawn significance from the Bowman defeat, it's a significance that progressives to some degree invited, albeit in a different framing.
During the campaign, Sanders had called the Bowman-Latimer race "one of the most important in the modern history of America" because it was about whether the "billionaire class" could control Congress.
For Sanders, the lesson of the race should be the need for fundamental reforms, including the abolishment of Citizens United and the institution of public campaign finance mechanisms.
"We must also move to the public funding of elections," Sanders said. "Campaigns should be about a clash of ideas, not which candidate can raise more money from the oligarchs."
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