Riverkeeper Website Indian Point Section Updated Today

Today we received an email from Lisa Rainwater announcing a slight redesign of the Riverkeeper website to make the Indian Point infomation it contains more easily navigable. I've been there a few times for information, although much of it is rather dated, not really up to the minute.

There a really good Word file there with listings of elected officials and their stance on Indian Point, many of them having expressed their opposition to the relicensing, which would still, even if we succeed in the preventing it, leave this plant up and running till 2012... which is scary enough, considering all the problems we know it's having.

I discovered here that Elizabeth Santander, the owner of Icon Interiors, 160 King Street in Chappaqua, advocated shutting down of Indian Point back in 2002. So did Edward Rosenfeld, of IFR Furniture Rentals in Hawthorne. Hmm... Maybe they should contact Josh Dorfman at Vivavi to share with him why green furniture designers should also support Rock The Reactors.

Or this press release about a private meeting between Congressman Eliot Engel and NRC Chairman Nils Diaz back on March 22, 2006. “I told the Chairman that the failure of the NRC to be proactive and transparent when addressing community concerns has led to the growing fear that any emergency situation at Indian Point can lead to disaster,” said Engel.

Also this Bill introduced on March 7, 2006, by Congressman Maurice Hinchey, a year to the day of the deadline for Entergy to file their relicensing request. "With radioactive material leaking out of Indian Point towards the Hudson River and the plant continuing to experience a wide array of other safety issues, it is quite clear that an Independent Safety Assessment is very much needed," Hinchey said.

Not every blog and website can do everything... the more the merrier... so I suggest we all help Riverkeeper update their data. Please go through everything, and if you see something that needs updating, email Lisa at Riverkeeper, let's make these files and these pages current again.

Counties Opposed to Relicensing

Westchester County
Rockland County
Ulster County
Suffolk County
Hudson County, NJ

Municipalities Opposed to Relicensing

Village of Airmont, NY
Village of Croton-on-Hudson, NY
Village of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY
Village of Hillburn, NY
Village of Irvington, NY
Village of Mamaroneck, NY
Village of Nyack, NY
Village of Piermont, NY
Village of Pomona
Village of Portchester, NY
Village of Rye Brook, NY
Village of Sloatsburg, NY
Village of Spring Valley, NY
Village of Upper Nyack, NY
Town of Bedford, NY
Town of Clarkstown, NY
Town of Greenburgh, NY
Town of Lewisboro, NY
Town of New Castle, NY
Town of North Castle, NY
Town of Pound Ridge, NY
Town of Putnam Valley, NY
Town of Ramapo, NY
Town of Somers, NY
Town of Yorktown, NY
Town of Harrison, NJ
Borough of Alpine, NJ
Borough of Tenafly, NJ
Newark, NJ

Labor Groups that have passed shutdown resolutions
1199 SEIU (Service Employees International Union), New York
District Council 37 (56 affiliated unions), New York
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, New York (NYC Chapter)
NYSUT-AFT Local 3882

More About Mobilizing Support from Municipalities, NYC Community Boards, School Boards, and Civic Groups.

February 8th...Your Chance To Demand ANSWERS From Riverkeeper

Chernobyl Riverfront Development

Are you one of those who find themselves FRUSTRATED at the lack of REAL EFFORT being put into the closing of Indian Point. Do you feel organizations such as IPSEC, Clearwater and Riverkeeper should be doing more, should be more public, should be organizing serious protests and citizen involvement in opposing the relicensing? Well, you have a chance to show up and SPEAK YOUR VOICE on February 8th, 2007. Quaint seminars and handing out educational materials are not going to close Indian Point.

We need the public PLUGGED IN TO THE PROCESS, we need tens of thousands of angry citizens joining their voices as one in this fight, not evening workshops with tea and cookies served afterward. Take this opportunity to turn this SEMINAR into an ACTION MEETING. Show up, bring your neighbors, bring your friends and ask Lisa Rainwater and Riverkeeper FLAT OUT...what are you doing to close down Indian Point, what are you doing to organize the citizens into ACTION TEAMS, what are you doing to put protesters out in front of Entergy, what are you doing to flood the public hearings with 1.000's of bodies?

Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action

Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY
(914) 323-7156

Thursday Feb. 8th:

“NUCLEAR POWER: NOT GREEN, NOT AN ANSWER TO GLOBAL WARMING”
Lisa Rainwater, Riverkeeper.

7:15 pm, West Room, Reid Castle.

Millstone Is More Of a Threat Than Ever

CONNECTICUT COALITION AGAINST MILLSTONE
www.mothballmillstone.org

January 26, 2007

September 11 Five Years Later: Millstone Is More Of a Threat Than Ever Five years after terrorists flew over the Indian Point nuclear reactors on the Hudson River bound for the World Trade Center...

Dear Members of the Energy & Technology Committee:

We note that Rep. Elizabeth Ritter recently extended an invitation to fellow members of the Energy & Technology Committee to visit Millstone’s dry cask storage installation in Waterford. Please refer to the minutes of your January 4, 2007 and January 11, 2007 meetings.

While we appreciate earnest efforts to inform your Committee about all aspects of Millstone operations, we write to be sure you are aware of the following:

1. Dominion’s application to the Siting Council to site a de facto permanent high-level nuclear waste storage installation is the subject of a legal challenge initiated by the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone; an appeal is now pending before the Appellate Court.

2. The approval defied the Waterford Conservation Commission’s decision and is contrary to Waterford’s zoning regulations, which prohibit permanent nuclear waste storage within the town.

3. The storage units are federally licensed for only 20 years; it is generally acknowledged that there will be no federal repository to take the waste before the licenses expire.

4. The federal regulator, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, did not evaluate the vulnerability of the above-ground, highly visible (see accompanying photograph) nuclear waste storage facility to acts of terrorism. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit recently ruled with regard to a dry cask storage application in California that the NRC erred in failing to take into consideration such vulnerability; the U.S. Supreme Court denied the utility’s pedtition to appeal.

5. Millstone’s above-ground storage installation is highly vulnerable to an airborne terrorist attack. (See photo.)

6. Dominion flagrantly misled the Siting Council when it represented the site is protected by state-of-the art perimeter security. When Dominion, through its lobbyist, Daniel Weekley, made such claim, it was deliberately disabling its perimeter security system because it was generating hundreds of false alarms. Dominion’s security was and is a travesty. These facts have become known through whistleblower disclosures.

7. High-level nuclear waste dry-cask installations in the U.S. have been plagued with defects. Components made in Japan do not meet U.S. quality control standards.

8. The NRC’s approval of Millstone’s high-level nuclear waste storage disallowed any public hearing or other public input.

9. The facility is designed to continuously release high levels of radiation requiring limited worker exposure. Direct unshielded exposure results in a lethal dose of radiation.

10. Millstone’s above-ground and highly visible dry-cask storage facility is located but yards away from Jordan Cove, an active recreational area and estuary of the Long Island Sound, which affords waterborne access.

11. Ex-Governor John G. Rowland’s office facilitated Siting Council approval of the facility, according to DEP records made available under the Freedom of Information Act. Mr. Weekley arranged for Dominion to fly the chairman of the Siting Council, its executive director and a voting member of the Siting Council to out-of-state nuclear facilities to acquaint them with dry-cask storage installations, a fact withheld from the public during the Siting Council’s proceedings. The then-Ethics Commission gave a green light to this arrangement, calling it a “gift to the state.” Current standards of ethics would disallow such an arrangement today.

12. Dominion represented that the dry cask storage facility was needed in order to keep Millstone Unit 2 operating. Unit 2 had filled its wet storage pool to capacity. Unit 2 - which began operations 31 years ago - has been troubled-plagued. Most recently, it was put under special scrutiny by the NRC because of the high number of defective equipment-related unplanned shutdowns. Its operational history was so bleak that the DPUC declared Millstone Unit 2 “no longer used and useful” and removed it from the rate base c. 1998. Millstone Unit 2 is an accident waiting to happen.

Sincerely,

Nancy Burton
147 Cross Highway
Redding Ridge CT 06876
Tel. 203-938-3952

Clearwater, IPSEC, and Riverkeeper-The Emperor Has No Clothes

If one follows the story, Governor Eliot Spitzer, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, Congressman John Hall, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, even Andy Spano want Indian Point shut down. Singing sensations like Pete Seeger, Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt want the aging reactors that are Indian Point entombed and turned off forever. The big money players like Clearwater, IPSEC and Riverkeeper with their Hearst and Kennedy family ties want the reactors shut down...problem is, in their own naive ways, in their money, wealth and fame, are these people playing into Entergy's hands?

Let's look at IPSEC as one example. They want things handled locally, and quietly...GOD FORBID we put pickets out in front of the plant like the seven women in front of Vermont Yankee this week who successfully shut down the main entrance to that reactor for over one hour. Such antics would NOT LOOK GOOD in a wealthy affluent community like Westchester County, New York now would it? Let's not flood the public meetings with 2,500 ANGRY CITIZENS...we are more civilized than that. Curious here...how many PRO NUCLEAR people belong to IPSEC? How many members of IPSEC have no problems with nuclear, just problems with nuclear in their back yards? Perhaps this explains some of their civilized approach to the issue? Sure, they may think Indian Point should be shut down, point to its age and its deplorable safety record, mix that with its poor choice of location just 24 miles from New York and say SHUT IT DOWN, but they actually EMBRACE NUCLEAR...NIMBY fools if you ask this writer. Perhaps one could even consider the use of the term nuclear elitist?

Now Congressman John Hall has or had some serious ties to Clearwater...he, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and others filled Battery Park with their anti nuke concert. So, where are they now in putting 50,000 people on the road in front of the Entergy reactors known as Indian Point. All they have to do is pick a day, and let EVERYONE KNOW they'll be there and the people would come. They could START A MOVEMENT! Problem is, that's so...so...so GOD DAMN ACTIVIST! What would the neighbors think? I'm sure John Hall could, might even organize a concert, and agree to donate the funds to Clearwater so that they could put another attorney on staff to go after Indian Point...problem is, that will not take this issue into the National Media, will not succeed in closing down the accident on the Hudson, just waiting to happen, that is Indian Point.

Riverkeeper...it's my understanding that one of Patty Hearst's daughters is intimately involved with the organization, and we all know the organization is a favorite play toy of at least one of the Kennedy clan. They have money, and surely can get more...but, whatever they do has to be socially correct...maybe they'll hold a HIGH TEA to discuss the matter of Indian Point, send their attorney to speak with Indian Point's attorney in the hopes of brokering a deal...GIVE US A BREAK, that is NOT GOING TO WORK.

Shutting down Indian Point is going to take protests, even civil disobedience, closing Indian Point is going to take bodies packing the meetings to standing room only. It's going to take awakening the masses and calling them to action. IPSEC, Clearwater and Riverkeeper have the ability to make that happen. These three organizations signing on to Green Nuclear Butterfly's open letter to Greenpeace would be enough to bring this National Organization, and probably several others into town in FULL FORCE. So folks, ask yourself why they are not taking BOLD STEPS, enacting innovative plans aimed at throwing road blocks in the way of Entergy's relicensing.

Win or lose, it appears that these groups want a NICE fight, don't want anything like protests to give their neighborhoods or Westchester County a BLACK EYE in the national press. Well, two black eyes, even a bloody lip are worth it if in the process we succeed in closing down Indian Point. Do your homework...if Indian Point gets relicensed, those aging reactors will be with us not for twenty more years, but forty years. One significant accident at Indian Point will ruin communities like Briarcliff, Pleasantville, Ossining, Croton, Peekskill, Garrison, Tarrytown, Cold Springs and others, all depending on which direction the wind is blowing...we need BOLD LEADERS, we need IPSEC, Clearwater and Riverkeeper to STEP UP LARGE, or step aside. We need Congressmen Hall and Hinchey and Congresswoman Lowey to step up large, need them to rally the forces in Washington DC like they have never been rallied before. Where is HILLARY? The Clintons could bring the NATIONAL SPOT LIGHT DOWN ON ENTERGY like no one's business...but GOD FORBID, that might dent Hilliary's presidential aspirations! WHO THE HELL CARES! She is supposed to be here for US, is supposed to be our Senator, and this is OUR HOUR OF NEED.

The old expression goes, lead, follow or get the hell out of the way...what's it going to be? A fight for all we are worth, or meek acceptance of 40 mores years of living in the shadow of Indian Point? We know who claims to be a player in this fight...IPSEC, Clearwater, Riverkeeper, Hall, Hinchey, Kennedy, Lowey, Spitzer, Hilliary, Spano and a few others...well, if they are serious, let's see them step forward, let's see them call the citizens to action. Anything short of that is nothing more than lip service while they quietly acquiesce to the wishes of big business. With these players doing everything they can, we can mobilize a citizen force against relicensing of over 10 MILLION people...question is, are these people and groups real and sincere LEADERS in the fight to close Indian Point, or Trojan horses ready to lead us to the gallows?

We Can Castrate The Pro Nuclear Tiger!

Folks, the below article was just sent to the Green Nuclear Butterfly, and it could be of great value to our cause...we have a chance to Castrate the Pro Nuclear Tiger by DEFUNDING the entire Nuclear 2010/GNEP program. Edward McGaffigan Jr. of the NRC has stated any applications that come in this year would have to be put on hold, as the Congress has not set forth a budget yet....HELLO! He stated that the Nuclear Renaissance is currently in nuetral, and that all the industry's HARD WORK could be undone!

Right now, various parts of our government are operating on a continuing resolution. If you go look at the bill that stalled, over a QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS was EARMARKED for Pro Nuclear work at the NRC, DOE and specifically through the GNEP iniative. If we can lobby Congress hard enough, if we can bring Greenpeace, NIRS and others into this war, we can literally Castrate the Nuclear Industry's Pro Nuke Tiger, leave them licking their proverbial wounds. Imagine taking that money earmarked for PRO NUKE, and instead putting it into TRUE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY options such as wind and solar.

Nuclear renaissance in neutral, NRC member says
Matthew L. Wald
New York Times News Service
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/16527780.htm

WASHINGTON - The senior member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned Monday that the failure of Congress to pass a detailed budget for the current fiscal year could damage the nuclear renaissance that the government tried so hard to encourage with the energy bill of 2005.

No one has applied for permission to build a power reactor since the 1970s. But with the incentives offered by the federal government in 2005, utilities are considering building about 20 reactors, and several of them are expected to apply for authorization this year. NOT IF WE CONVINCE CONGRESS TO UNFUND THEM.

The commission member, Edward McGaffigan Jr., said that if the commission received applications this year, "we basically are going to have to put them on the shelf, because we're not going to have the folks to work on the applications until well into calendar year 2008."

The Republican-controlled Congress passed only two of the 11 spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2006, those covering the Pentagon and the Homeland Security Department. The rest of the government has been operating under a "continuing resolution," a stopgap measure that finances most agencies at the previous year' levels. Democrats say they plan to extend that resolution through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

According to the nuclear commission, under a continuing resolution its budget would be lower by $95 million, or about 12 percent, compared with the level approved by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees but never by the full Congress. Most of the commission's budget comes from fees paid by companies licensed to use radioactive material. The agency has been arguing on Capitol Hill that giving it the amount already approved by the Appropriations Committees would require only $13 million of general tax revenues. DOE's budget could be negatively impacted by three times this much...there is almost half a billion dollars that could be redirected to BETTER OPTIONS.

McGaffigan said that if the commission could not process applications, some companies wanting to build would decide to wait. But he said that "some, seeing the instability, may disappear" and build coal plants instead.

Earlier this month, McGaffigan told the White House he had metastatic melanoma and that he would serve only until a successor could be confirmed. He spoke Monday at a meeting with reporters organized by Platts, an energy information company.

McGaffigan also said that the Energy Department should begin looking for alternatives to Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, for disposing of nuclear waste from plants around the country, including Diablo Canyon near Avila Beach.

When he came to the commission in 1996, he said, the opening of the repository was said to be 14 years away; now it is probably 20 years away.

"There's just tremendous uncertainty," he said, "and each year that passes, we're not going to get any closer to Yucca under the current circumstances." He said the government should look for a site where there was local cooperation.

Rock The Reactors - Then & Now

Let me introduce myself... Remy Chevalier... most of the Internet know me as RemyC. I help out in the Green Nuclear Butterfly news room. I've been around awhile, online since 1998... But I had a past before that, as a co-founder of the environmental nightclub Wetlands in TriBeca, now turned into a popular documentary on the film festival circuit.

The night club closed in 2001... but we remain. The Wetlands Activism Collective is still going strong, recently successfully pressured the Victoria's Secret catalog in starting their switch over to recycled paper stock. The owner and founder of Wetlands, Larry Bloch, owns and runs a green store in Brattleboro, 4 miles from Vermont Yankee, called Save The Corporations (from themselves) and that's exactly what the bastard child of my Eco-Saloon at Wetlands is doing: www.greenorder.com, with their GE Eco-magination campaign.

And you see, there lies the problem... The greening of the corporations has left nuclear out of the equation, the elephant in the middle of the living room, nobody dare bring up in conversation.

I was around back in 1980... I didn't make it to Battery Park for the No Nukes concert, I didn't actually meet now Congressman Jon Hall until the Clearwater festival this summer. But I was one of the people who helped make it happen. I was working on the Barry Commoner presidential campaign for the Citizens Party... I wasn't an official "founder" of MUSE, Musician United for Safe Energy, who put on the concert, but I'd been at it longer than any of them. In France my quick claim to short lived fame, after I had to leave the country for reasons well spelled out in my book ELLE ON EARTH, had been as a recording artist for WEA, with a single titled: Save The Planet. I put the slogan there on top of the Hard Rock Cafe... then over the years, it waned, and now you only find it printed on the flag tooth pick they stick in the buns... So I wrote to the Seminole Indians, who just bought the Hard Rock chain, who have never signed a peace treaty with the US of A, and asked them, please restore Save The Planet to its former glory!

What happened after No Nukes is very strange... everybody just went home. There was a Mexican Standoff... no new nukes were built, no old ones were shut... and it's been like that for 27 years... other than the few rare exceptions here and there. So it got me thinking... I started out as an environmentalist, yes, but back in my youth, that also meant an anti-nuclear activist... I was right there in the room when President Pompidou signed off on the future of the French people, by allowing the Americans to build 40 nuclear reactors in his small country... France today is most at risk for a major, major disaster, as their problems, are no better off than ours.

Anyone with half an ounce of sense, who is tuned in to his body, who can feel nature and life and love swirl around them, knows that the singular notion of toying with such poison, who as the Native Americans tell us, should have been left in the ground... is the quintessential expression of mankind's break from nature... an abhorrent disruption in the order of things. Our civilization's grand folly, our Tower of Babel.

I'd only actually driven past Indian Point once or twice in my life... always had it in the back of my mind that this ominous thing on the Hudson just didn't belong there... was out of place... a monstrosity... who in their right mind would even so much venture as a few miles from it... guess tourists are just morbid. But I always felt we could do this, we could shut this thing down, there had to be a way, a magical way, an easier way than all the fact and figures that scientists and engineers throw at us all day, to confuse us, to buy more time before the inevitable happens. It wasn't about that anymore. You are either pro or anti-nuclear, no arguments at this point are going to change people's minds. I know which people I like better... who are more fun, more loving, more talented, more creative, more in tune with their bodies and themselves... and these people, they know Indian Point is a curse on the land.

I come from a world of fashion, my dad co-founded ELLE magazine... He found Brigitte Bardot at the Louveciennes train station in the Paris suburbs and asked her to grace the cover... the rest is history... Hef did the same thing with Marilyn... the immense power of an amazing, amazing face... So I went looking for mine... I don't claim to be the best photographer in the world, but I am the best networker in the world... I started looking online... and then one day, on Friendster, I saw this face, this amazing, amazing face, with such sadness in her eyes, she reminded me of that Indian crying over a sea of garbage... Little did I know at the time, her mom was Cherokee.

So her and I got to messaging, I shared with her my ideas, and we soon realized we shared the same aspirations, ambitions, we were both green to the core... She accepted my offer to pose for pictures in front of Indian Point, to start something, to be the face who would shut down the plant. The web page I posted was an instant success, thousands, then ten of thousands of hits... we learned through a list serv that workers on the inside had made her their own pin-up girl, downloading her pictures and putting them up on the mess hall. Our Trojan Horse worked to perfection...

I took the campaign national, going all over the country, up and down Route 66, where strangely enough, many of the folks owning the road side attractions, are all retired nuke workers who would love nothing more than for the entire industry to shut down, because they've seen it first hand, what the NRC doesn't want you to see... why they won't allow Independent Safety Assessment teams, why the fix is in, why we need for Congressman John Hall, who the people of Rockland County elected in good faith to shut down Indian Point, to introduce a Federal Bill to force the NRC to come clean, before the plant kills every single living thing that's precious to us all.

These last ten years or so, I worked very hard growing the green consumer movement, working with architects, designers, automobile makers, scientists... you name it, there's my green paw print in there somewhere... it's what i do, it's what my dad taught me, i'm a problem solver... but before you can solve a problem, all the problems need to surface, for without all the cards on the table, you cannot find a solution. So now I am calling on all my friends, colleagues and associates, who I have nurtured and helped grow their businesses all these years, to consider my sudden return to radicalism... Please, please, please... don't let this opportunity pass us by. We can close down Indian Point, put in question the entire direction of our National Energy Policy... have a defining moment, for the Hudson, for the country!

I have given think tanks at the GE EdgeLab at UCONN in Stamford. I have a standing invitation from the director of the lab, shared by the CT Technology Council, to bring to the table both anti-nuclear scientists and GE clean nuke engineers for a heart to heart talk. So far, the engineers at GE have not replied back... which is why we need, not just Greenpeace, but Green Order to step in and help us out, because the future of this planet depends on it... so we can work our problems out.

We will close down Indian Point, because the campaign has gone national in what appears to have been an instant. But it's because I have been quietly working for months, reaching out to people, organizations, via MySpace, via Model Mayhem, driving my little Scion xB all over the place... bringing them to the website, educating them about the issues... and suddenly, thanks to Royce's amazing stinging pen, it feels like someone turned the power on to all my Christmas tree lights.

Don't you find it interesting, that the entire country is jumping on the bandwagon, and yet, Riverkeeper, Clearwater and IPSEC are still playing hard to get? Come on guys, cut me some slack, I'm an old hand at this, I deserve a little peace... I promised it to Abbie Hoffman. I told him a few hours before his coming back out party, just a few months before he committed suicide (or so they claim) that I would close down Indian Point... That was my promise to Abbie I made to him in the offices of WBAI... forever imprinted in my brain... in my circuits, hardwired... I so loved this man, my childhood hero, my mentor... gone too soon to be my friend.

So there you go, that's the story... That's why I'm here, that's what motivates me... a life time of environmental activism, a decrepit old nuke 24 miles North the capital of the world, New York, a City now greening itself the best it can... while this time bomb keeps ticking... and a girl... who by now thinks I've gone completely mad, and who could blame her for that. Look at what we are trying to do here, the impossible! Every old plant that has come up for re-licensing? Has been rubber stamped by the NRC, without so much as a civilian peak inside... it's no better than Saddam not letting the UN inspectors in... maybe that's what we need, for the UN to step in!!!

We don't have much time, the odds are stacked against us... all I hear all day from fellow activists, is that it's going to take another disaster for people to wake up again... well I say the hell with that, I'm not going to wait... I'm my own disaster... Master of disaster they call me... there's a force of nature out there, none of us contended with... and she doesn't have to do very much, all she has to do is BE... all resistance caves in around her.

The sorcerer's apprentice is sharpening his sword, for the dragon on the Hudson is about to meet his doom. Dragons are beautiful, they breathe fire, they are noble and grand creatures... but they swallow maidens and little children... and cannot be allowed to roam the earth no more... the sun and the wind call us to attention... Solartopia... our new vision for America.

RemyC.
www.rockthereactors.com

The Importance OF Building a New Coalition Of Grassroots Anti Nuclear Groups

Nuclear Energy and Failing Reactors...A Holocaust In Waiting

Everyone within the Environmental Movement knows the sad story of betrayal of Patrick Moore, the former co-founder of Greenpeace who sold out to Corporate America, the man who seemingly rents out his face and former stature as a Green friendly soul to the highest bidders.

Last year, this man teamed up with former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman to form CASEnergy with the express intention of stealing the Green Mantle, and wrapping it around the Nuclear Industry and their fleet of aging reactors. BOLD WORDS, and true words.

CASEnergy has just delivered it's first major missive to their membership, and in it you can see their plans for 2007, and the steps they will take to make Nuclear Energy Green. They are now even going so far as co-mingling Nuclear with hydroelectric power, wind and solar power as safe, clean, renewable forms of energy. Their letter to their membership points out that the 110th Congress is the perfect chance to ADVANCE THE NUCLEAR AGENDA.

Green Nuclear Butterfly has called on Greenpeace to step forward and lead the march to take the Anti Nuclear movement National, called on them to unite us all in a new coalitionof solidarity as we stop the wrong relicensing of aging reactors, and hold the nuclear industry accountable for thier raping of the environment, hold them accountable for their threatening our health, and putting our communities in grave danger. Christine Todd Whitman knows how to run a political campaign, to lobby Congress...Patrick Moore knows how to build a grassroots movement...together, they intend to steal GREEN as their own, and hand it to the nuclear industry on a silver platter.

Read CASEnergy's letter to their membership...it's a disturbing letter, and a very disturbing agenda.

Dear CASEnergy Members,

Happy New Year from the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition!

The start of the New Year means big plans for the CASEnergy Coalition as we strive to continue the success achieved in 2006. We want to share with you a little of what we’ve got planned for 2007 as well as some recent coalition news and successes. (Notice their use of the word COALITION)

The first calendar year of the coalition brought with it a range of high points, beginning with our national launch in Washington, DC at the National Press Club on April 24, 2006. (Paid for by WHO?) Launched by our Co-Chairs Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Dr. Patrick Moore, with remarks from some of our charter members such as the US Chamber of Commerce, International Brotherhood of Teamsters and 60 Plus, our launch attracted top-tier media coverage from CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and others. (You can see more coverage on our site – www.CleanSafeEnergy.org) (Notice their web address...seem FAMILIAR?)

After the launch, Gov. Whitman and Dr. Moore hit the road, speaking across the country to organizations and individuals on the benefits of nuclear energy and its role as a critical part of our energy portfolio. In particular, two public CASEnergy events in Iowa and Michigan attracted both press attention and new members. We are planning even more events for 2007!

The coalition has experienced substantial growth in the past 9 months. We have grown from 50 members at the national launch to over 730 organizations and individuals today, thanks to support from members like you. (They are still SMALL ENOUGH to stop, but we need Greenpeace, NIRS, Riverkeeper, Sierra Club and others to hear our voices, to join our cause. Where are these organizations now, in our hour of need?)

In 2007, the CASEnergy Coalition will continue to be an important voice in the public dialogue over current and future electricity needs, particularly in addressing how nuclear power can contribute to America’s energy security and economic growth. It will work to unite consumers, conservationists, academics, health care advocates, labor organizations, business groups, professional organizations, family advocates, environmentalists and community leaders who support nuclear energy’s ability to enhance America's energy security, attain cleaner air and improve the quality of life, health and economic well-being for all Americans.

In support of this, our activities in 2007 will focus on growing our membership with national and local recruitment growth as well as efforts to engage and educate policymakers at a local and national level. With the 110th Congress focusing on climate change, there is a significant opportunity to elevate discussion on the role of nuclear energy and inform the public that nuclear energy is a clean, safe and affordable electricity solution.

Gov. Whitman and Dr. Moore will continue to travel across the country, engaging local audiences with CASEnergy's public education campaign on nuclear energy. (Think they mean INDOCTRINATION) They will also be meeting with local organizations and elected officials to ensure that they are aware of the benefits of nuclear on a local level.

Most importantly, we hope to have continued participation from members like you in your local communities. Examples of ways you can be involved include:

Recruiting other members – organizations and individuals - to join the CASEnergy Coalition

Contacting your state and federal elected officials with your views on energy

Contacting local media outlets with letters-to-the-editor and opinion editorials

By staying involved you will help ensure that the CASEnergy Coalition continues to be an active and respected voice in the energy debate and that the public education campaign we began last year goes from strength to strength in 2007. If we can help you recruit or reach out to people, please just let us know.

If you listened in to President Bush’s State of the Union Address last night, he continued to stress that this country needs new electricity solutions and nuclear energy is a “clean, safe” solution. Please keep your eyes out for our co-chairs in the media today and over the next few days continuing to reiterate that message. Additionally, visit the Dallas Morning News for a recent interview with Dr. Patrick Moore.

As always, please contact the coalition at 202-338-CASE (2273) or director@casenergy.org if we can be of assistance and visit our Web site www.CleanSafeEnergy.org regularly for updates and materials exclusive to coalition members.

Best,

Duncan Burns

Clean and Safe Energy Coalition

*** Read the below statement with SADNESS...they want to STEAL our movement, a movement built over 30 years.

Did You Know? Approximately 30 percent of America’s electricity comes from sources that produce no air emissions or greenhouse gases: nuclear energy, hydroelectric power, wind and solar power. Nuclear energy represents 73 percent of this non-emitting electricity supply.

EDTA's Response To State Of Union Address Raises Disturbing Questions About EDTA

Green Nuclear Butterfly's readers for the most part are Anti Nuke folks, as well as a handful of Industry folks that have put us in their favorites list...not because they love us, but to keep tabs on what we are up to. So, for those that maybe do not know who EDTA is, let me explain. The organization is the Electric Drive Transportation Association. Anyone in EV (Electric Vehicle) communities knows them...some love them, some hate them, but they all know who EDTA is. I for the most part was on the fence, holding no opinion of them one way or the other.

Today, I am pretty sure where I stand on EDTA...you see, I received a copy of their press release on President Bush's State of The Union Address. As you might guess, said press release only addressed the Energy Portion of the address, as that is where their own interest as an organization resides. After reading the press release which can be found below, I had some reservations about EDTA, so I called them up on the phone and spoke with Jennifer Watts. She was informed that I had read their press release, and found it odd that there was no position taken on Nuclear Energy by EDTA.

She said nuclear did not concern EDTA, so I took the time to point out to Jennifer Watts how ODD that was. I explained the problems with Nuclear Energy, its waste streams they cannot dispose of, and their fleet of aging, decaying reactors that are being wrongfully relicensed here in America. I explained to her, that Greenpeace did not feel Nuclear Energy was either safe or green, and that nuclear had no place in a long range plan to address Global Warming.

Done with this end of the conversation, I explained to her briefly the Nuclear Power 2010/GNEP initiative, and the Nuclear Industry's plan to steal the green mantle from the environmental movement by selling itself as the birth mother of the Hydrogen Economy, and asked her again, "What is EDTA's position on Nuclear Energy?" She refused to answer this question, said EDTA was not willing to make public their position on Nuclear Energy.

Call me naive here, but seems to me that EDTA cannot represent the Electric Vehicle movement if they themselves are not willing to EMBRACE a GREEN, SAFE energy policy that protects human health and the environment. So, again we here at the Green Nuclear Butterfly ask EDTA the question. "Do you support the Nuclear Industry's aging fleet of nuclear reactors that are polluting our communities, and degradation of our rivers and lakes, or do you embrace true renewable energies that are EARTH FRIENDLY?" Nuclear is NOT Green energy, and it is not safe, nor is it pollution free...EDTA cannot sit on the fence on this issue, nor should they secretly be in support of Nuclear as the way to the future.

NEWS
For Immediate Release
January 23, 2007

EDTA's Response to the State of the Union Address

January 23, 2007--Washington, DC— The Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA) applauds the President's commitment to aggressive reduction of U.S. oil consumption. "Greater energy independence is the critical path to energy and environmental security. To realize that security, the United States will need to accelerate the adoption of electric drive technologies and alternative fuels throughout the transportation sector," said EDTA President Brian Wynne

In his State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush outlined an energy strategy to reduce U.S. oil consumption by 20% by 2017. His plans highlight the importance of research into plug-in hybrid and advanced electric drive vehicles, increased vehicle efficiency, and diversifying our fuel supply to include more alternative fuels, such as hydrogen.

"We are pleased that the President recognizes the challenges created by dependence on oil," said EDTA President Brian Wynne. "We look forward to working with the Administration and Congress to ensure that the benefits of electric drive in efficiency and fuel diversity are maximized in any effort to break America' s oil addiction. The Department of Energy's announcement of new funds for plug-in hybrid battery development is a promising step in the right direction."

Electric drive, which includes battery, hybrid, plug-in and fuel cell solutions, can be used in conjunction with any fuel source, including hydrogen, ethanol, bio-diesel and other alternative fuels.

EDTA is the industry trade association for battery, hybrid, plug-in, and fuel cell electric drive technologies. Its members include vehicle manufacturers, energy providers, battery, technology developers, and end users.

About EDTA: Organization Propaganda deleted.

Harvey Wasserman Co-Signs Open Letter To Greenpeace

Green Nuclear Butterfly is pleased to announce that a hero in our movement, Harvey Wasserman, has signed on to our open letter to the Executive Director of Greenpeace, wherein we call for a Federal law that mandates (amoung other things) an Independent Safety and Security Assessment of every single nuclear facility in America. Hero is not a word we use lightly, and with Harvey, it's a word richly deserved, as he has been active in this movement for many, many years, has had his finger on the pulse of Nuclear truth when others did not yet grasp the reality. (Sure he could tell some tales surrounding the end of the Midwest Compact) Though I've not read it yet, am anxious here to have a look at his new writing project titled, "Solartopia." For now, thought I would share with our readers an article from back in the year 2000...always ahead of the curve, Harvey Wasserman then was already warning us of McNuke's, and Entergy's dismal inability to keep our communities safe.

The Free Press Journal
Summer 2000
Hideoue McNukes: FirstEnergy, AmerGen, Entergy and the Mistakes by the Lake
by Harvey Wasserman
July 29, 2000

“Anytime you have nine power plants fail in whole or in part in a 24-hour period,” says Gary Groesch, “that’s not bad luck. That’s not even bad maintenance. That’s a maintenance meltdown.” A veteran New Orleans-based consumer activist, Groesch is talking about Entergy, the huge regional utility based there and in Mississippi. The July 23, 1999 multiple fossil burner failure Groesch describes left half a million people without power, and was sandwiched between unexpected shutdowns at two Entergy-owned commercial reactors, River Bend and Waterford 3. Grand Gulf, another radioactive Entergy property, earned the nickname “Grand Goof” from its massive cost overruns.

Nonetheless, Entergy and AmerGen, a Philadelphia-based multi-national partnership, want to buy as many as they can of the 103 U.S. reactors currently to licensed to operate. They want to string them together in “McNuke” reactor chains and operate them in cut-rate style, with national pools of technical trouble-shooters.

In a deregulated electric market, the buyout strategies they’ve put in motion amount to a massive transformation of the way nuclear reactors are owned and operated in this country. This shift in reactor ownership from local-based utilities to national and multi-national chains has enormous health, safety and economic implications for all of us. And based not least on AmerGen and Entergy’s demonstrated incompetence, the overall prospects, says one critic, “border on the terrifying.”

Entergy’s guiding star in the reactor business is lead attorney J. Bennett Johnston. Long known as “the Senator from oil, gas and nukes,” Johnston reigned supreme on Congressional energy issues from his throne atop the Senate Committee on Energy and the Environment. In 1996 he came home to cash out at Entergy, guiding it deep into the turbulent waters of electric deregulation, just then hitting its stride in California.

Entergy itself arose in 1992 from the muck of Middle South Utilities, which Groesch says “had a name and reputation damaged beyond repair due to the massive economic failure” of its nuclear power program, especially at Grand Gulf. But the name change didn’t prevent Entergy from slashing its legally mandated energy efficient programs. Or from being cited for bad work practices by the Department of Public Utilities in Texas, where it has a substantial customer base. Nor has it stopped Entergy from negotiating a purchase deal with the owners of the Pilgrim reactor, south of Boston, that will allow it to fire half the workforce there, regardless of the safety implications. “The idea of Entergy owning a fleet of reactors does not contribute to a good night’s sleep,” warns Groesch. “This is a development that needs to be watched very closely.”

Entergy is currently negotiating to buy a handful of reactors around the US. But its rival AmerGen is much farther along.

AmerGen is a 50/50 partnership between British Energy and Philadelphia Electric, which hosts its headquarters. British Energy is described by Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service as “Margaret Thatcher’s revenge on the world.” When Thatcher privatized England’s utility system, she could find no one willing to buy its fifteen reactors. So British Energy was established, and immediately began slashing away reactor safety standards and the workforce meant to implement them.

Similar bad things could soon happen here in Ohio. FirstEnergy of Akron is about to get a gigantic $9 billion from the ratepayers, courtesy of the Ohio Public Utilities Commission and the Ohio Consumer Counsel. Northern Ohio’s leading electric buccaneers, FirstEnergy demands the ransom in the name of “competition,” saying it can’t compete in a deregulated environment unless it’s first compensated for its bad investments at the Perry and Davis-Besse nukes.

Of course, the fact that the public wasn’t allowed to vote on either project doesn’t seem to phase FirstEnergy or its minions at the PUCO or OCC. Nor does the fact that gigantic cost overruns are built into the price they’re demanding. Or the idea there will be no real competition in electricity if these surcharges are forced onto the ratepayers.

Indeed, the experience in California, where similar bailouts were granted to nuke-laden utilities, solar energy had just about been killed dead. “With these huge stranded cost surcharges,” says one energy expert, “there’s simply no margin for renewables to compete, even though they are much cheaper in the long run.”

Technically these stranded cost surcharges are the decision of the PUCO. But they can basically pass of the responsibility on the Ohio Consumer Counsel, which is allegedly mandated to stand up for the ratepayers.

In this case, the OCC has totally caved to FirstEnergy, and says the $9 billion rip-off is just fine with them. By doing so, the OCC has also deprived the public of access to taxpayer-funded studies showing how bad this theft really is.

If the PUCO does grant this huge bailout — a formal decision is expected this fall, though it’s all but a give thanks to the OCC’s collapse — we can expect First Energy’s nuke to be bought out. AmerGen or Entergy or another McNuke player will almost certainly roll in to pick up these Chernobyls-waiting-to-happen and run them into the ground — or lake —then walk away when they melt, or leave us all with yet another massive pile of radioactive poisons, killing into the millennia.

Harvey Wasserman’s THE LAST ENERGY WAR: THE BATTLE OVER UTILITY DEREGULATION is published by Seven Stories Press available at Amazon.

Joining Green Peace...How About Them Joining Us As Well?

Green Nuclear Butterfly Says It is Time For Greenpeace To Rejoin Us Here In The Grassroots, Help US In Our Time Of Need As We Try To Stop The Wrongful Relicensing Of Aging Reactors Across America.

We here at the Green Nuclear Butterfly are collecting Co-Signers on an open letter to the Executive Director of Greenpeace, asking them WHERE IS GREENPEACE. So far, in the fight to stop relicensing of aging reactors, the grassroots environmental movement is losing the war 48-0. What we are asking for from Greenpeace (an other national groups as well, such as Sierra Club, National Wildlife, even Riverkeeper) is simple and straight forward. We want a Federal Law passed that would accomplish three things.

1. Mandate an Independent (not NRC involvement) Safety and Security Assessment of every nuclear facility in America...if a facility is a part of the fuel cycle, they would be a part of this mandate.

2. Mandate a moratorium on all relicensing and/or licensing actions until such time as the NRC, DOE and the nuclear industry come up with proven, workable long term storage of their waste streams.

3. Form a Blue Ribbon Nuclear Industry Commission to study nuclear, and recommend to Congress the terms and conditions of nuclear continuing as a part of America's energy portfolio. Said Commission must include a member of a grassroots organization (with no ties to industry or government) from each nuclear facility in America.

This issue needs to be taken National. We are asking for Greenpeace's help in doing this. Perhaps our first chance to have dialogue with Greenpeace will occur tomorrow, January 25th. John Coequyt (Energy Campaigner) and Jim Riccio (Nuclear Point Person) for Greenpeace will be conducting a live chat beginning at 12:30. We need to have our people at this important chat, need to let them know that it is there time to STAND WITH US, let them know that the same old rhetoric will not work. Stopping the wrongful relicensing of 103 aging reactors will take more than a letter, phone and fax campaign. It will take Greenpeace putting as much energy into the NUCLEAR ISSUE as they are now putting into their Save The Oceans campaign. It is the world's future at stake here, and we are hoping to have a sit down meeting with the Executive Director of Greenpeace in the very near future to make out a plan.

The Email From Greenpeace About the Online Meeting:

President Bush has let the issue of global warming simmer on the back burner of his presidency for 6 years. The scientific community and the rest of the world has heard the oven timer go off, but last night, President Bush continued to ignore the alarm as he served up a plateful of tepid solutions to a worldwide audience.

While the chef may finally have acknowledged the brewing problem, he failed to rescue the planet from the oven. His so-called solutions of "clean" coal and nuclear energy are a recipe for disaster. Well, we're serving up a fresh new alternative to global warming with real solutions that don't rely on nuclear energy or coal. Our plan would cut global CO2 emissions in the U.S. by almost 75% within the next 43 years. In fact, renewable energy and greater energy efficiency can deliver half of the world's energy needs by 2050.

The President has failed to lead this country, or the world, on the issue of global warming. It's up to Congress to pull us out of the global warming fire, and time is running out. TAKE ACTION Tell Congress to turn the oven off NOW.

It's time to start an energy revolution, NOW. We've come up with effective solutions, but we need YOUR help to get them implemented.

Sincerely,

John Coequyt
Energy Campaigner

p.s. If you want to learn more about our blueprint for solving global warming, join me and Nuclear Campaigner Jim Riccio for a live chat tomorrow afternoon at 12:30 pm EST and PST.

Relicensing Really A Two For One NRC Scam On Host Communities

The Nuclear Industry Wants to Steal The GREEN MANTLE, and Are Willing To Corrupt The Constitution TO DO IT, and The NRC and DOE Are GLADLY ON BOARD For The Ride.

If you begin researching the DOE, NRC, Idaho National Labs, nuclear industry plan for their perverted vision of a United States Nuclear Renaissance as found in the Nuclear 2010/GNEP road map, there are three MAJOR Mile markers. 2010 is the year that the DOE will push forward a singular Reactor Plan to the NRC that can be MASS PRODUCED. The second major point on the road is 2030...it is here, that the NRC expects to see the first in this new fleet of reactors finally increasing their current market share in the United States Energy Market. There is a catch...to reach this mile stone, it is imperative that all 103 currently operating commercial remain open and fully operational at PEAK CAPACITY.

To reach this 2030 goal, there is only one road that could and can be traveled. Streamline and corrupt the re licensing application process in such a fashion as to allow the NRC to get away with Rubber Stamping the applications, thus FORCING host communities to continue playing hosts to a brittling, aging, decaying group of 103 reactors...all in the name of keeping the Nuclear Industry alive. Problem is, the reactors are held together with 1,000's of welds and patches and reactor core crack, steam pipes burst, and domes begin to crack in preparation for potential cave ins. Environmental issues like proven degradation of our water ways are dismissed as minimal when compared to the benefits being received by the greater society (Corporate Executives and shareholders). Leaking spent fuel rod pools, a sure sign of structural instability are removed from the process under the guise they are NOT THE REACTORS...uhhh...are they NOT COVERED UNDER THE SAME LICENSE?

This national rape of local communities, the abomination of their environment, the game of Russian Roulette with their health is bad enough, but sadly, that is not enough for the DOE, NRC, the nuclear industry, and George W. Bush to accomplish their horrid crimes against humanity in trying to paint Nuclear as GREEN, clean, safe and secure. No, they need another 20 years, need to keep America's fleet of antiquated reactors running THROUGH 2050 when they are hoping they can have enough new reactors coming online to hold the line, and the profits of the industry. The third LEG of this axis of evil known as GNEP. As NRC rubber stamps the entire round of current applications, they have already started paving the wave for every single reactor to re license itself A SECOND TIME, have already started seeding the public with their demon spawn lies that these Nuclear Holocaust in waiting reactors are perfectly capable of remaining in service for not 40, not 60 BUT EIGHTY YEARS!

Every citizen in America who lives within the shadows of these death towers needs to read Kathryn Casa's article, "Industry: Reactors Should Run for 80 Years". It seems, that the NRC plans to have their licensees enter a proverbial REVOLVING DOOR...as soon as all of them have received their first renewal, while the host communities are still devastated and shell shocked at the wrongful first re licensing, the NRC is going to kick these communities while they are down by starting an immediate SECOND ROUND OF RE LICENSING that will allow they facilities to operate for a total of 40 years BEYOND THEIR ORIGINAL LICENSES.

This is just one more in a long list of reasons why the Green Nuclear Butterfly is calling for a nationwide FEDERAL LAW to conduct a safety and security assessment of EVERY NUCLEAR FACILITY in America (including fuel processing/reprocessing plants), a law that would declare a moratorium on all re licensing activities, and preclude the granting of any new reactor licenses until the industry begins to put a serious dent in their every growing pile of NUCLEAR WASTES.

Seven Women Shut Down Vermont Yankee

For immediate release

Contact Deb Katz at 413 339 5781 or Marcia Gagliardi at 978 249 9400

With attached photo by Mary-Ann DeVita Palmieri

Photo caption: Marcia Gagliardi of Athol, Massachusetts; Julia Bonafine ofCuttingsville, Vermont; Dorthee (her full name) of Wendell, Massachusetts;Claire Chang of Gill, Massachusetts; Frances Crowe of Northampton,Massachusetts and Hattie Nestel of Athol, Massachusetts, from left, during aShut-It-Down affinity group demonstration Tuesday morning (January 23, 2007)at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor in Vernon, Vermont. With Paki Wielandof Northampton, who also chained herself to the group in the driveway, theywere arrested by Brattleboro Police and charged with trespass and disorderlyconduct.

VERNON, Vermont :: Chaining themselves across the Entergy Vermont Yankee entryway Tuesday morning (January 23, 2007), seven women shut down Vermont Yankee for nearly an hour until Vernon, Brattleboro, and Vermont state police cut them free with a bolt cutter. State and local police thenarrested the seven, who were charged by Brattleboro police with trespass and disorderly conduct.

The Shut-It-Down affinity group, including one from Vermont and six from Massachusetts, entered the Vermont Yankee driveway at about 10:15 andchained themselves to a longer chain stretched across the entrance. They held signs reading Shut Down Vermont Yankee with the international symbol warning of radioactivity. Tuesday's arrests constitute the first time Shut-It-Down has been detained at the Vernon reactor itself.

Previous arrests occurred atEntergy's headquarters in Brattleboro, although Shut-It-Down spray-paintedthe reactor driveway in July, 2006, when they posted a sign reading Vermont Yankee, Weapon of Mass Destruction.

Until Tuesday's arrests, no one has been arrested on the premises of a United States nuclear power plant since September 11, 2001. Julia Bonafine, 38, of Shrewsbury and, all from Massachusetts, Claire Chang, 50, of Gill; Marcia Gagliardi, 59, and Hattie Nestel, 68, both of Athol; Paki Wieland, 63, of Northampton; Dorthee (her full name), 78, of Wendell and Frances Crowe, 87, of Northampton told Entergy officials the dangerous, aging power plant must shut down to give way to sustainable,n atural power sources like wind, solar, biomass, conservation, or energy efficiency, fuels of the future.

They carried a bill of particulars (reprinted in full below) indicting the Vermont Yankee reactor as "a danger to all life." The document, signed by the seven, acknowledges that there is "no safe level of exposure toradiation." From the Leverett, Massachusetts, Peace Pagoda, Brother Toby Keyesoffered a Buddhist prayer during Tuesday's demonstration. About a half hour after chaining themselves together, the women sang Happy Birthday to Nestelin honor of the occasion later this week.

Affinity groups supported by Citizens Awareness Network haveparticipated for more than a year in a civil resistance campaign aimed atclosing Vermont Yankee. Tuesday's demonstration was Shut-It-Down's fourthdirect action at Vermont Yankee or Entergy's Brattleboro headquarters. Charges have been dropped in each of the previous arrests. Those charged Tuesday are scheduled to appear for arraignment in Windham County DistrictCourt March 20.

More information about Vermont Yankee is available at www.nukebusters.org or by calling 413 339 5781, CAN, provides educationabout the dangers of nuclear reactors and organizes lobbying activity.

The statement carried Tuesday by Shut-It-Down is reprinted below in its entirety.

We women who have signed the bottom of this document assert that we havecome to SHUT DOWN VERMONT YANKEE! We know that Vermont Yankee is radioactive, old and corroding‹a danger to all life.

We know that as the Vermont Yankee facility ages it becomes ever more dangerous.

We know that the recently granted approval to operate at 20 percent abovethe original licensing permit increases radioactive emissions possibility of a cataclysmic accident at Vermont Yankee.

We DO NOT WANT OUR ENERGY PRODUCED IN A WAY THAT CREATES RADIATION.

We are aware that there is NO SAFE LEVEL OF EXPOSURE TO RADIATION.

We know that Vermont Yankee exceeds even the Vermont State emissions standards and that the State of Vermont has no enforceable laws to hold Entergy accountable for this violation.

We also know that Entergy violated FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, DOT, laws on August 31, 2006, by exceeding DOT legal radiation levels with a shipment that endangered the populations of Massachusetts, Connecticut, NewJersey, and Pennsylvania. Illegal radiation levels of the shipment were four times mandated levels.

We know that the NRC has consistently stated that it does not believe it's appropriate for issues like spent fuel storage, emergency planning, and security to be dealt with for license renewal application review.

We know that the ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD turned down the Massachusetts Attorney General¹s contention regarding the dangers ofdensely-packed, spent fuel storage on-site at the Vermont Yankee facility.

We know that the NRC has refused to consider contentions raised by the State of Vermont stating that Entergy has not provided an adequate storage plan tostore spent fuel on-site and has not addressed the potential environmentalimpacts of such long-term storage.

We know that the NRC also refused to hear New England Coalition's contentions about Entergy's management plan for the reactor's primary containment vessel or its steam condenser.

We know that the elevated water temperature discharged by Vermont Yankee has a long-term adverse impact on various aquatic species in the Connecticut River.

Therefore, we women have taken the responsibility upon ourselves to SHUTDOWN VERMONT YANKEE! January 23, 2007

SIGNED:
Marcia Gagliardi
Hattie Nestel
Dorthee
Claire Chang
Paki Patricia Wieland
Frances Crowe

Julia Bonafine
Cuttingsville, Vermont--Marcia Gagliardi Haley's, a mile west of Athol center on Route 2A488 South Main Street
P O Box 248
Athol, MA 01331
800.215.8805
www.haleysantiques.com
www.mattawasongcycle.com

Energy Issues-Bush Claim That Nuclear is Safe and Clean

Imagine An NRC That CLOSED Unsafe, Aging Nuclear Reactors, Instead of Rubber Stamping Their Relicensing

The wrap up and dissection of George Bush's State of The Union Speech will now go on for hours as every little nuance is put under the microscope. Green Nuclear Butterfly is specifically concerned with Nuclear Industry, and energy issues here in America, and around the world. In his speech tonight, Bush spoke rather briefly on Energy, much of his words nothing more than reruns as he again called on conservation, drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, and his seeming favorite, split grass.

First thing that concerned me, was the tactical way he attempted to bring America with him in embracing the 2010 challenge...in short, cut our fossil fuel use 20 percent in the next ten years. It was sly...by embracing this slogan, he gets us by proxy to embrace the Nuclear Power 2010 initiative. Some might doubt this, but it is true, a trick advertisers have used time and again in selling us on a new concept or product. In short, he and his administration are doing some BRANDING WORK. You brand 2010 as good, and by default he moves the GREEN NUCLEAR ball down the field.

He basically ended his energy section of the speech with the claim that Nuclear is clean and safe...it is NEITHER. First, the time has come for Congress to pass a law that requires a safety and security assessments of every nuclear facility in the United States of America...this is a rallying cry, and one of the primary goals of the Green Nuclear Butterfly. Secondly, America needs a COMPLETE moratorium on all nuclear advancements, on any future reactors until such time as our government and the Nuclear Industry can prove conclusively that they can deal with, and safely store radioactive waste streams for a period of no less than 100,000 years. Until those involved with nuclear can deal with their waste streams in a honest, proven, safe, and secure fashion, the industry should be dead in its tracks, and Congress owes it to every American community now hosting a nuclear facility, and to those communities who could be forced to host a future nuclear facility to declare a moratorium until these waste streams are dealt with, and removed from REACTOR SITES in totality.

Royce's Penstinger's Running Commentary on State of The Union

It's 8:40 PM, January 23rd 2007 and we are just 20 minutes from the President's State of the Union Address. From what has already been leaked to the press, I already have serious problems and reservations in the direction he will want to lay out for the American people, and our nation. His health care plan...it would hit my wife and I quite hard. Figuring out how to deal with all those without coverage needs to be addressed, but it cannot be done in a fashion that weakens the coverage we have. Energy...alarm bells went off as soon as I heard the term 2010 mentioned with it. I look for him to further try to sell the American people on nuclear as both an alternative and renewable energy, when it fact it is neither.

As the speech unfolds, I am going to be concerned with keywords, phrases and themes. One word I suspect we will not hear a lot, but underlies much of what he will say, is sacrifice, and specifically sacrifice within the middle class.

Interesting notes....8:47 and Pelosi was just on camera chatting with Vice President Dick Cheney. She's wearing a rather boring and almost matronly lime toned suit with white blouse. Member of President's cabinet not in attendance for this speech is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales...there is a scary thought.

Nine minutes to show time...need to refill my coffee. Also, dying for a cigarette here, as this is one of those times when I would be absorbed with smoking...no can do, am three hours short of being smoke free for three days. Not that big of and accomplishment, but one day at a time as they say...it's a start. Everyone is starting to find their seats, so this thing is about to launch.

Laura Bush has arrived in her worn out choice of a red dress. Supreme Court now entering. (Only 4 out of the 9)Now the President's cabinet, led by Condi Rice.

Pelosi's Marble Ceiling line just got trotted out again...give it a break, was not that good of a line the first time it was used.

The State Of The Union (starting NINE MINUTES later than promised).

First note of interest...his choice of tie. Not a power color, but instead a more subdued pastel color.

Bush pays honor to Pelosi...notes he is first president to thank Madam Speaker.

Defining Hour...(sacrifice from the start in statement of much is asked). First thing he does is call for bipartisanship...Republicans did not do it.

Economy growing...that id debatable for the middle class, and how many of those jobs he claims went to A) illegal aliens, and B) pay low wages? Three Economic Concerns.

1. Balanced Budget-where was the concern his first six years. Claims it can be done without raising taxes. Calls for spending discipline. Promises no federal deficit within 5 years...does that include COSTS OF THE WAR?
2. Earmarks...he cannot be granted line item veto. Wants earmarks cut in half. (McCain likes that one.)
3. Entitlements...basically Social Security. Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security can be saved...How? No child left behind brought up...educating non English speaking children of illegal aliens is a major stumbling block, but he will not admit that. Short on this...he wants No Child Left Behind reauthorized.

Now on to health care...Private Health care...

1. Tax deduction for health insurance. Up to $15,000 of your income is not to be taxed. This means middle class pays for the insurance for the poor. Good for those who pay for their own insurance, good for poor, but if your company pays for your health care, you get seriously SCREWED.

2. Help states that are making insurance available for all...in short, we would be asked to pay for grants to those states. He also is back to HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS, which are a laugh. He again wants medical liability reform, which would in my opinion protect doctors GUILTY of malpractice.

Immigration Reform...secure borders...that is a joke.

1. Double border patrol, but NO FENCE.

2. Wants temporary worker program...this is hidden citizenship, and will continue to depress middle class American wages.

3. Same old rhetoric on employers.

4. Amnesty under the guise of EARNED CITIZENSHIP, which is AMNESTY.

He calls for a serious debate, but trotted out the same dead AMNESTY HORSE.

Energy! Clean! Break Foreign Oil Dependence. Diversify our energy supply.

1. Electric! BINGO...clean, safe NUCLEAR POWER...KNEW IT WAS COMING. The FIX IS IN for GNEP, and GNEP is not clean, nor safe.

In short, this area of his speech is a RERUN. Calls for reduction of gas usage in American by 20 percent in ten years to stick with the NUCLEAR 2010 THEME. Attaining this goal would reduce imports from Middle East by 75 percent...question is, how to REALISTICALLY get there.

He is calling to drill in environmentally sensitive areas, and to double strategic oil reserves...this after the one billion barrel increase in 2005...so much for smacking BIG OIL.

Fair System of Justice...get serious...two border patrol officers are in prison while illegal aliens and a drug dealer walk free, and break our laws at will. He wants up or down vote on is nominees...fine, we vote NO.

DANGER...Terrorists Threats

Stop the Terrorists...this is where he will defend Iraq. YEPPERS, calling to take the fight to the enemy. Success measured by things that did not happen. There is a win/win for his argument in that we cannot prove or disprove that which never occurred.

America is still a nation at WAR. Sunni Extremists. Shiite Extremists. Iran gets it's first mention along with Hezbollah. In one sentence, he just tried to defend every mistake, and every corruption of our constitution he and his cabinet have done.

Remove conditions of blind hatred...his way...WAR. He is still calling on us to BUILD FREE SOCIETIES in the middle east, and if necessary at the business end of and M16.

His whole section on Iraq is a reran montage of everything he has been saying for the past two years as his ratings in the polls have slid into the toilet. Since when are the people of Iraq OUR FRIENDS? He is calling on us to find our resolve, and our resolve it TOO BRING OUR TROOPS HOME, rather than leave them in the middle of a Civil War. We as a nation DO NOT SUPPORT THE SURGE, the president should honor our will. How many American deaths will occur in trying to SECURE the city of Baghdad? He tries to hold the label of failure over our heads to force his will onto the American people...we are tired of that threat, tired of the threats of this administration.

Where MATTERS STAND...he is trying to tell both house and Senate that they did not vote for failure, and that requires them to give the SURGE a chance for success. I disagree. We have tried the surge before, always with poor results.

He wants to create a new Commission on Terrorism within Congress. Calling on Congress to increase the size of military. Increase in military of 95,000 troops in a period of five years. Volunteer Citizen Reserve Corp. So, he now wants regular citizens to risk being called up to DIE. Iran brought up again...no NUKES. Calls for Israel Palestinian Peace. Nothing new, nothing worth really pursuing. At least he claims he will make and effort in Darfur...we shall see on that one.

Aids in Africa gets a mention. Call for $1.2 Billion to fight malaria. Debt relief to eliminate poverty, but not for AMERICAN CITIZENS...that's a sad reality if you think on it.

Speech is wrapping up...same old same old.

Hearing Voices...Sending Out a Heads Up On Presidents State Of The Union Energy Pitch

Greetings READERS...

I pay attention to BUZZ words, and on both Fox and CNN today, I've heard that BLACK MAGIC BUZZ WORD 2010, which is now synonymous with Nuclear Power 2010/GNEP, Bush and the Nuclear Industry's plan to see a Nuclear Renaissance by giving birth to a radioactive Rosemary's Baby. Be suspicious when the advance press notices conveniently start attaching the Nuclear Buzz slogan to everything under the Energy Sun.

With this in mind, this post is being put up to TRACK the President's speech, to pinpoint problems we see with it, specifically on the Energy section of the State of the Union, but on other areas as well. (For instance, personally very worried that Bush's health care plan will PENALIZE middle class families that are fortunate enough to have medical coverage.) If you are a regular read, it's very EASY to participate in this LIVE online BLOG EVENT as we TRACK GEORGE BUSH.

At the bottom of this post, if you click on the word Comment, you will have and opportunity to submit a comment to this SPECIFIC post. Leave one comment, or ten as the speech unfolds. I will moderate and clear through as many comments as we get during, and after the State of The Union Address. This stream of conscious exercise be give all of us important feedback as we share our off the cuff GUT REACTIONS to President Bush's words, as well as the Democrat response immediately following it.

Looking Into The Near Future-Safety and Security Assessments

Do These Stacks LOOK Environmentally Green?

Thought before I head out today for a bit, that I would lay out some strategy to think about as we get ready to move into the future. As the time gets closer here, there is a large contingent of people that want Indian Point Reactors 2 and 3. Yesterday, the members of the Board of Legislators' Environment and Energy Committee voted5-0 to send the legislation to the floor asking for a safety and security assessment. That legistlation will be on the agenda for the Feb. 12 meeting of the17-member county lawmaking body. With other surrounding counties already on board with resolutions of their own, look for Congressman Maurice Hinchey to introduce a federal bill sometime shortly after that. Hilliary Clinton has already promised to work on a similiar bill in the Senate...she will need to be pushed, as the last bill she submitted on this, managed to get ZERO co-signers...in short, she did not work that HARD on it.

Hinchey's bill will get three instant co-signers, John Hall among them, and probably Nita Lowey.

If there ever was a bill RIPE for the picking to run this issue up the national ladder, this is the one to use. Further reason for this, is Governor Eliot Spitzer is on record as saying he wants to CLOSE Indian Point. With Hillary Clinton having announced her intention to run for President, she has to introduce her bill...we can force her hand. We are 103 communities strong, and I am sure in those 103 Communities, several Senators have publicly stated their opposition to the reactors in their voting districts...we need to find those Senators, make contact with their communities, and get them to hold their Senators feet to the fire and sign on.

Now, every bill is open to Amendments...here is where our potential power in numbers can begin paying huge dividends if we can bring enough communities into the fight. Looking at some of the relicensing fights already gone, and some of the decisions made, think there should be three main issues we want addressed in a National Bill.

1. Safety and Security Assessments for every nuclear facility in America. (Notice the use of nuclear facility instead of Reactor.) Through slight of hand, as just one example the NRC has wrongfully removed spent fuel pools from the relicensing procedure, relying on a fatally flawed GEIS...more on that later. We want the whole industry stem to stern checked out, including experimental reactors, DOE, uranium processing facilities, Barnwell, the works.

2. We want all relicenses already approved set aside, and a moratorium placed on the entire relicensing process until A) the assessments have been fully completed and documented for review by B) a Blue Ribbon nuclear industry Commission that will include at least one member of the stakeholder community with no ties to the nuclear industry and/or government, and one member from each community's grassroots anti-nuclear community. We need to end the process that unfairly stacks the deck in favor the nuclear industry, and a Nuclear Renaissance.

3. A ban on any/all new reactors (including the license of same) until such time as the DOE and all all parties to the nuclear waste stream can prove through working, fully functioning technology that they can deal with and safely dispose of both current and future waste streams that are being, and would be created by the Nuclear Industry. DOE/DOD past track record with the mixing of waster streams and suspension has been dismal...Hanford is just one perfect example of this. $5.7 Billion dollars later, and that site is not even close to being SAFE and FULLY remediated, and may never be so.

A bold agenda, but think about this...we know who is going to introduce this legislation, so we have our target...just like the Pro Nuclear Lobby ALWAYS DOES. Each of our communities know their own federally elected officials, know how to put heat on them. With the 2008 Presidential Election looming fast upon the horizon, they cannot afford to be caught talking out of both sides of their mouth...if they have stated their support for closing your community's reactor in the past, and now try to change horses midstream, they can be voted out of office. Both parties are going to be looking for a way to either stay in the majority, or win back the majority. In short, no one can afford to be alienating a large group of us tree huggers, as we can bring enough resources into local campaigns to change some faces in Washington, DC.

The KEY...networking. We need more cosigners on our letter to Greenpeace, need more local organizations getting on board. There is POWER in numbers. The numbers are there. We can all close ranks and stand united on this important issue. Some will say show me the proof. Well, the proof is there. Regardless of which side of the fence you stand on regardling illegal aliens, one thing is certain...their grassroots efforts, their closing of ranks and marching together on their singular issue has gained the National Spotlight, and STAYED THERE. Our grassroots groups, our formally recognized organizations are there, now we have to bring all the players together in one big national campaign, starting WORKING TOGETHER as one voice, with one message.

By Greg Clary
The Journal News
(Original Publication: January 23, 2007)

WHITE PLAINS - As the debate over safety at Indian Point escalates, a Westchester County committee yesterday approved a resolution asking Congress to require an in-depth review of the nuclear plants.

Members of the Board of Legislators' Environment and Energy Committee voted 5-0 to send the legislation to the floor for the Feb. 12 meeting of the 17-member county lawmaking body.

"We want some independent analysis done," said Legislator Thomas Abinanti, D-Greenburgh, the environmental committee chairman. "As the home county, we want to add our name to the list."

Westchester joins Rockland County, which approved a similar measure less than a month ago, and other area counties supporting the area's congressional representatives as they ask their federal colleagues to vote to require an "Independent Safety Assessment" at Indian Point.

The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is currently conducting a less-detailed inspection at the Buchanan site as part of its regular oversight process, has said an ISA is not needed.

Opponents of the plant have pointed to continuing leaks of tritium and strontium 90 at Indian Point, unplanned reactor shutdowns and some workers' saying they can't speak up without fear of retribution as some of the reasons a deeper look is needed.

NRC officials have said the radiation leaks are being investigated on their own and because of that, the plant is already getting a higher-than-normal level of oversight.

A bipartisan resolution introduced last year to require the NRC to conduct the safety review never made it out of committee in either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

The federal lawmakers behind that effort - including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - have vowed to push the legislation in the new, Democrat-controlled Congress.

Local resolutions like the one that the Westchester Board of Legislators will consider are not binding and are often undertaken to officially support a federal action.

Indian Point officials say the plant is safe and opponents' efforts to force the assessment are thinly veiled attempts to close a plant that generates enough electricity to power 2 million homes.

"We don't believe an ISA is warranted, but we'll abide by whatever decision is made by the NRC or Congress," Indian Point spokesman Jim Steets said in a telephone interview after yesterday's vote.

"I would hope that if such an inspection proves the plant is operating safely, as the NRC has long said, that those calling for the inspection would then support the energy plant, but I doubt it."

Legislator Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers, a member of the environment committee, said the entire federal legislation under which the NRC regulates the nuclear industry is out-of-date.

He said that one of the next big battles in that arena is to get Congress to revamp the legislation, called the Atomic Energy Act. The act took effect in 1954.