NATIONAL GRASSROOTS CALL-IN DAY TO STOP NUKE/COAL SUBSIDIES

NATIONAL GRASSROOTS CALL-IN DAY TO STOP NUKE/COAL SUBSIDIES

THURSDAY, APRIL 30

LET’S KEEP CONGRESSIONAL PHONES RINGING ALL DAY LONG!

April 24, 2009

Dear Friends,

Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are beginning to consider separate legislation that could have an enormous impact on our nation’s energy future. It is essential that we all weigh in now, in the strongest possible manner, to help shape that energy future. Let’s tell Congress loud and clear to support renewable energy and energy efficiency programs and to stop any more taxpayer support for dirty and dangerous nuclear power and coal technologies.

Washington-based groups like NIRS, PSR, FoE, NRDC and others are working hard to stop this legislation from becoming a gift to the nuclear power and coal industries. But the nuclear and coal industries have far more lobbyists and far more money than we do.

What those industries don’t have is YOU.

And YOU can make the difference.

On Thursday, April 30, let’s keep the phones in the Senate and House ringing all day long with a simple message: YES to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, NO to any more taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power and coal.

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

In the Senate, the Senate Energy Committee will begin considering a major new energy bill sponsored by Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). Efforts will be made to add nuclear power to the bill’s Renewable Electricity Standard, to add nuclear power to a so-called “Clean Energy Bank,” to add still more taxpayer loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors and coal plants, and so forth.

In the House, the House Energy Committee will begin considering the Waxman-Markey climate crisis legislation. And we’re going to see similar efforts in the House to add the same kind of nuclear and coal nonsense.

On April 30, please call both of your Senators and your Representative with the simple message: YES to renewables and efficiency, NO to nuclear power and coal.

And to help set the stage for thousands of phone calls, let’s now start clogging the Congressional e-mail boxes with thousands of your letters! You can e-mail your Senators here and you can e-mail your Representative here.

Please forward this Alert as widely as possible, please make sure all your friends and colleagues know about it and can participate. Post the info on your websites, blogs, Facebook & MySpace pages, Twitter it, spread the word! It will take many thousands of us to overcome the nuclear and coal industry’s lobbying efforts. But we CAN do it!

And please consider supporting our outreach and mobilization efforts with your contribution here. Honestly, your donations of any amount are both needed and very gratefully appreciated. We can’t do this work without you!

And now for some good news: yesterday, the Missouri utility Ameren UE announced that it is suspending its plans to build a new EPR reactor, Callaway-2! Congratulations to everyone in Missouri and elsewhere who have worked so hard to block Ameren’s plans to force ratepayers to pre-pay for this proposed reactor!

And some more good news: yesterday we learned that the FY 2010 budget resolution will NOT include the amendments from Sen. Crapo to support $50 billion in new taxpayer loan guarantees for new reactors and additional funding for reprocessing technologies. Again, thank you to everyone who took action over the past two weeks to object to those provisions!

Maybe it sometimes doesn’t seem like making a couple phone calls or sending some e-mails, or even contributing $5 or $10, makes a difference: but it does! And we’ve already seen it several times this year. Now we’re asking you to take action again–because your actions CAN make the difference.

We will keep you posted on the progress of the Senate Energy Bill and House Climate Bill. But please send your letters in now, call on April 30, and spread the word!

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

nirsnet@nirs.org

www.nirs.org

Via gmail.com

Grandmothers Counsel the World at The Evergreen State College

Please read article, cited after the quote. Articles open in a new window.

(Olympia and Tacoma, Wash.) The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers was formed almost five years ago out of a deep concern for “the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life.” The Council, which includes spiritual leaders from across the world, assembles to pray, share ancestral wisdom and counsel the world from multiple perspectives of distinctive cultures.

The Evergreen State College welcomes four North American members of this council of leaders of nations. The Grandmothers will share their views on the environment, resiliency, peace and knowledge in a time of unprecedented global change.

http://www.olyblog.net/members-international-council-indigenous-grandmothers-arrives-early-may

Navajo celebrates HRI ruling / Company says they are still moving forward to mine uranium in Indian Country

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WINDOW ROCK — Ever since Johnny Livingston was a little boy, he remembers seeing Navajo families grazing their livestock on a portion of land within Churchrock Chapter known as Section 8, now owned by uranium mining company Hydro Resources Inc.

In 2006, as part of his declaration to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding jurisdictional issues over the land, the former Churchrock Chapter president identified Navajo families having Bureau of Indian Affairs grazing permits for the disputed area.

“Livestock owned by these and other Navajo families have grazed on Section 8 and its contiguous sections for as long as I can remember, including to this day,” he said

http://www.gallupindependent.com/2009/04April/042209navajocelebrates.html

Sixth death linked to radiation scare lab

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A SIXTH person who worked in a university building linked with a radiation scare has died from cancer.

Professor Tom Whiston, 70, worked in Manchester University’s Rutherford Building and developed terminal cancer.

The building once housed the laboratories used by physicist Ernest Rutherford, who worked with radioactive materials.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1111768_sixth_death_linked_to_radiation_scare_lab

Search is on for Canadian nuclear waste site

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The search is on for a community willing to be a host site for Canada’s nuclear waste.

In May, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization will be releasing a proposal for how Canada’s waste should be managed.

As of 2008, this country has two million used-fuel bundles in storage, which have built up over the last 40 years. The NWMO is looking for a community willing to store them.

http://www.northernnews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1537884

Senator’s bill seeks Yucca Mountain refunds–’No one should … pay for an empty hole in the Nevada desert’

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WASHINGTON — A bill introduced in the Senate would begin refunding billions of dollars to electricity consumers if President Barack Obama follows through on his vow to end the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program.

The bill by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., would dismantle the special fund dedicated to building a repository in Nevada for 77,000 tons of used nuclear fuel and waste generated by utilities and government defense programs.

If the Yucca project is scrapped, the money should be returned, Graham said in a statement with his bill, which was introduced Wednesday

http://www.lvrj.com/news/43610137.html

A new Yucca Mountain in New Mexico?

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WASHINGTON — Is a salt formation in New Mexico the new Yucca Mountain?

A trade industry publication reports today that discussions are underway to promote an existing facility in New Mexico as an alternative to storing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in the desert north of Las Vegas.

The Obama administration has promised to “scale back” funds for the Yucca Mountain project, and the president has vowed it will not open as a waste dump. A report last week indicated the fiscal 2010 funding cut would be severe.

The existing Waste Isolation Pilot Project, which handles lower-level waste in salt formation in New Mexico, has been mentioned as a possible replacement.

Downwinders closer to justice

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TRI-CITIES — Neighbors in the Tri-Cities, exposed to radioactive material from the Hanford Nuclear Facility, are one step closer to getting justice.

For the past 20 years, the affected neighbors have been in and out of court, trying to get the contractors who ran Hanford to accept responsibility for what happened.

On Tuesday, a federal judge asked both sides to lay out a road map to resolve close to 2,000 cases

http://www.kxly.com/Global/story.asp?S=10225813

Don’t gamble with nuclear

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The Vermont Attorney General’s Web site states, “Vermont’s gambling laws are designed to ensure that only nonprofit organizations can operate games of chance and that all the proceeds from such games, except for prizes and reasonable expenses, go to charity.” Yet Entergy (a for-profit corporation) gambles with our lives, the lives of our children and our environment by continuing to operate Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. With every passing day, with every additional accident, the odds that the plant is safe, clean and reliable worsen.

As wheelers and dealers, the Douglas administration, the Public Service Board, the Department of Public Service, and the Legislature are complicit in the corporate gamble. On top of that, the gambling tickets are bought with the money we pay in taxes — talk about bailouts.

Safe and clean energy means energy that does not affect the health of our children and families, the health of the animals on our farms or the health of the environment. Vermonters have demonstrated, over and over again, their desire for reliable, safe, clean renewable energy. It is time for Governor Douglas, his administration and the Legislature to stop gambling with our lives. It is time to shut down Entergy Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant for good and to start building healthy relationships with businesses that supply us with safe, renewable, green energy sources.

http://www.timesargus.com/article/20090423/OPINION02/904230306

Oyster Creek an accident waiting to happen

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Anuclear plant reactor tries to safely contain more radioactivity than is in the fallout of 1,000 Hiroshima atom bombs.

The Oyster Creek spent fuel rod pool contains much more deadly radioactivity. The pool has a flimsy roof that could easily be penetrated to cause a fuming meltdown.

Who would have thought that the World Trade Center could be destroyed so easily? As for nuclear power plants, we haven’t seen anything yet.

There is an official rule. It says that a mere 10-mile evacuation zone is perfectly adequate. This is idiotic.

http://tritown.gmnews.com/news/2009/0423/letters/012.html