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Murkowski calls on Obama to stop meltdown at Nuclear Regulatory CommissionAlaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is troubled by the bizarre reports of infighting at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As first reported by Politico, an October letter sent to the White House by four NRC commissioners was released Friday. The letter said that the chairman of the agency, Gregory Jaczko, had “intimidated and bullied senior staff,” and has been interacting with the commission with “such intemperance and disrespect” that the agency is not functioning as it should. “I have serious concerns about the ability of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to protect the safety of the nation's 104 commercial nuclear reactors under the divisive leadership of Chairman Jaczko,” Murkowski wrote in a press release. She called on President Obama to address the concerns of the commissioners, three of whom are Obama appointees and two of whom are Democrats. Jaczko is a former aide to Sen. Harry Reid and to Democratic Rep. Ed Markey. It’s hard to get a handle on the what’s going on at NRC, but no doubt highly reactive politics surrounding nuclear energy comes into play. Upon release of the letter, Markey launched his own missile: a 23-page report that apparently had long been in the making. The report defends Jaczko and targets the commissioners. He claims, among others things, that following Japan's Fukushima disaster in March, the commissioners “attempted to slow down or otherwise impede the adoption of the safety recommendations made by the NRC Near-Term Task Force on Fukushima.” Such actions by the commissioners, Markey said, have “caused a regulatory meltdown that has left America’s nuclear fleet and the general public at risk.” The commissioners also accuse Jaczko of shutting down a technical review of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, which Reid has fought against. “The president needs to immediately address the concerns raised by the four commissioners if he wants members of Congress and the public to have faith in the agency,” Murkowski wrote. Here’s Murkowski's release in full:
Contact Amanda Coyne at amanda(at)alaskadispatch.com Hey I'm no fan of the congress or government in general these days. But its not just republicans being the problem child. The democrats are just as bad. they cant handle a GOP bill getting through even when they agree with it for the same political reasons the GOP are blocking things... Its not Democrats or Republicans, its incumbents with the hands so far down in lobbyists pockets they are no longer your representatives, they are simply bought and paid for talking heads for the lobbyists. Compromise works BOTH ways and anyone that believes its JUST the Republicans or JUST the Democrats are just as much the problem as the lobbyists themselves. We need legitimate term limits in congress to prevent the current establishment of the house of lords ruling over the common people... making mandates from on high no matter how bad it ends up or is received. The healthcare bill rushing through thousands of pages of legislation without reading it and properly studying the impact of certain unconstitutional elements was just one prime example of what the incumbent powers expect of its members. Vote for it, then find out what it does... Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain... We live with the needs of nuclear power, and yes it should be reasonably regulated, but not abjectly made to cease to exist. Even here in Alaska we are getting a nuclear power plant out near the HARRP array. This small plant is a shining example of small low risk nuclear energy opportunities. The Toshiba 4S plant producing 50MegaWatts, and the Healy Clean Coal Plant producing 25MegaWatts is more then enough for immediate interior needs. Both are on stalls due to EPA and NRC. Meanwhile these areas are struggling with massive energy costs... Alaska has the resources, we have the massive territory, we have the will to innovate and build. Unfortunately we also have an abundance of roadblocks from political agendas that do nothing but continue to halt progress and burden Alaskans with high energy costs. Oh, heck. Lisa can fix this herself. All she has to do is get another nasty Middle East war started with somebody. They can pack all the artillery shells with the spent nuclear fuel---which is what they did in Iraq----pollute another entire country with our nuclear waste, which takes care of the need for a dump site in Nevada.....and obviously, who cares if our own soldiers come back with all sorts of diseases and problems caused by exposure to nuclear waste? Not our government. Not Lisa Murkowski. Then, she can use some of the six trillion dollars she helped extort out of the Japanese government as reparations for environmental damage to Alaska and the American West Coast, which was supposed to be used to do a state of the art clean up of the ocean water and atmosphere, trapping all those wild isotopes and well, not one thin dime has appeared, has it? Not one isotope monitor, much less any catalysts or other equipment to actually clean up the mess. My thought to you would be----what's going on that Murkowski is the LEAST LITTLE BIT interested in the NRC? We don't have any nuclear plants in Alaska, and thanks to our earthquakes, we never will. Something is going on. Something is attracting Murky. And there is only one thing known to attract Murky----money. So did the NRC by some strange chance actually get a chunk of the Japanese money? Is Murkowski sniffing around, thinking that maybe she should try to wrestle some of it out of their grip for radiation remediation in Alaska? Imagine this---Lisa Murkowski in a dark hallway at night, coming toward you in one of her ultra-mean business suits, heels clicking on the tile, staring at you with dead shark eyes, that evil jaw set at an angle, and ask yourself this question: are there chills going up your spine? I'm pretty sure that being ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has something to do with her interest in the NRC. I'm also beginning to wonder what planet you're on. And the last part was really unnecessary. Real classy. Talk about unusual. Since when has bizarre ever bothered Lisa? One could use the same arguments for Sen. Murkowski's role in the meltdown of our country's democracy through Republican obstructionism and this serious breach of the public's trust. |
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