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Court: NRC In Violation For Not Ruling On Yucca Mountain
schwit1 sends this quote from an AP report: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a never-completed waste storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was 'simply flouting the law' when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository. 'The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections,' Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a majority opinion (PDF), which was joined Judge A. Raymond Randolph. Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland dissented. The appeals court said the case has important implications for the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. 'It is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted in this case by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,' Kavanaugh wrote. 'The commission is simply defying a law enacted by Congress ... without any legal basis.'"
Here's the real story: Nobody wants to have a nuclear waste disposal site in their backyard. And actually, that is the sum total of the story; everything else is just details. In this case, some people at the NRC (and the President) decided that the only way this was ever going to happen is if they take unilateral action, say fuck you to the NIMBYs, and move forward. Obviously, the courts are butthurt by this, because they want the chance to let every significant government action get bogged down in the quagmire that is our endless appeals process.
Ta da. The end. If you ask me... Bravo NRC, bravo Mr. President. Not because I agree with how they're doing it, but because it's probably the only way it'll ever get done... and this does need to get done. We can't wait another 10, 20, or 50 years while the government and the general public pulls its head out of its ass. Our planet is heating up. Fast. Fossil fuels are not sustainable. Period. This is scientific fact. We need nuclear power, and we need it now. Which means, we also need storage facilities. And we actually needed those storage facilities about 15 years ago... because right now, there is a lot of nuclear waste piling up in our major cities because they can't ship them anywhere due to this kind of regulatory bullshit. And guess what: The interim storage containers are starting to fail. Everywhere.
If someone doesn't step in and squash the NIMBYs (and ride rough-shod over the courts and their affinity for endless delays and accomodation for them), we will eventually have a major public health crisis on our hands. So again... I don't agree with how they did it, but the lack of effective alternatives weighed against the consequences makes this a no-brainer for me.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The checks and balances in our government are what stands between a successful government of the people and a dictatorship. What powers you give Obama today, or gave Bush yesterday, may be in the hands of a form of Hitler tomorrow.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
No,
I think it has broader application.
Such as the potential court rulings in the future regarding certain patriotic network connectivity and the collection of data, which were a result from a flouting of the law by various branches of power.
This is an example to use in order to keep the powers that be, to be beholdened to the powers they were granted.
This is an assertion of an important check, to balance the power as it should be.
It does not matter if it is Obama or someone else -- this can set a precedent that the courts will hold those responsible... responsible.\
Captcha: suckling
'The president may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections,' Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a majority opinion (PDF), which was joined Judge A. Raymond Randolph.
That's all this president has been doing since he's been in office. He ignores the parts of the law he doesn't agree with and rigorously enforces the parts he does agree with. That's why nobody will trust him on comprehensive immigration reform -- he'll just waive the parts of the law he doesn't like. You can't deal with a man like that. Imagine that! An un-American, law-breaking, lying president. Ah, ye fools!
One thing that people aren't really thinking about when they read this is the bigger picture of certain things like his failure to uphold DoMA, or failure to properly enforce the federal immigration laws by letting illegal aliens out of the jails and back onto the streets instead of shipping them back to their countries of origin, or the most recent debaucle about Obamacare business mandate being delayed a year but individual not.
Obama and his administration does not have the right or the authority to selectively enforce the law. He is the chief executive officer, the top "lawman" of the country, and he is bound by the law as much as anyone else is, he's not above it.
So that means, Obamacare must be enforced AS IT IS WRITTEN, the government cannot ignore laws that are inconvenient to the agenda. The government has laws and regulations they must follow as they are enacted.
Are we a nation of men or are we a nation of laws?
In the past couple of years we've seen the administration declare loudly that they'll refuse to enforce other laws, including immigration laws and the Obamacare employer mandate. Meanwhile, any court challenge to a law the administration doesn't particularly like is sure to succeed, since the administration will refuse to defend it.
Unless something turns around, the rule of law and the separation of powers are on their way out in this country, to be supplanted by the decisions of a dictator and of unelected officials he appoints.
It always surprises me that people forget - if you allow the president a power grab, you're giving that power to a future President Palin or whoever. Don't want Palin making your healthcare choices, including contraceptives? Keep the federal government out of health care.
Yes, practically the entirety, otherwise the Republic would have fallen long ago. I can not name any other time of SYSTEMIC lawlessness by the executive, not even Watergate. The only thing that come close was Jackson and Indian removal (trail of tears).
Funny, just from my recent memory things like selling drugs to arm terrorists, backing and conducting assassinations, jailing people without charging or trialing them, coups and fabricating evidence to start a war with a neutral nation spring to mind.
Or are you saying those people were trialed and served justice for their crimes against humanity and whatnot as per according to your own constitution, Nuremberg principles, international treaties and basic human decency while I blinked?
To me the fact that these people were not punished is a sign that the whole thing is(and has been) rotten to the core and the insects infesting it are covering for eachother, this is merely just the most recent set of faces.
Let me turn the question around; can you name a century during which no systemic corruption, disregard for human rights and life, or unjust violation of national sovereignty of a foreign nation condoned by US government did not happen?
In theory, Gitmo is for enemy combatants, not terrorists. Or at least that's how it started.
You really don't want to go down the path of civil trials for enemy combatants. Being an enemy soldier and firing at US troops is not illegal, nor is flying a bomber over a US city and dropping bombs on civilians. Doing so without being in uniform violates every treaty governing war for the past 400 year or so, but it's only the "not in uniform" part that's illegal. A downed enemy bomber pilot should be released at the end of the war, not executed for mass murder.
But in 2011 yet another incremental power grab (Obama's in this case, but it's not like the pattern is new) extended "covered persons" (those for which military justice is appropriate) to members of terrorist groups and people giving assistance to them. That crosses the bright line separation between "enemy soldier (in uniform or otherwise)" and "just some guy opposed to the US". For the former to apply to a US citizen, he has to fly to Afghanistan and point a rifle at a US uniform - really hard to abuse to go after local political opponents. The later can be stretched to apply to just about anyone, by submitting "evidence" to the secret courts where there's no defense present.
I have no problem with having P.O.W. camps when we're fighting, whether or not war was officially declared. But to effectively convict someone who clearly isn't an enemy soldier of treason without a trial? That's Star Chamber nonsense right there, the exact sort of thing we had a revolution to get away from.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
...supreme court...can head out to Nevada and run it themselves!
Not their job. The Administration, as the Executive Branch, of the Gov., needs to, you know, do their job of EXECUTING law that the Legislative branch, you know, Congress, the people who MAKE THE LAW, create.
We've never been any further from a representitive government and closer to rule by decree than now.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
and he decided
-he could selectively enforce immigration with no real legal backing
-he could create extensions and exemptions for NCLB requirements when the law has no such provisions
-he could simply not determine if a coup had taken place in Egypt so that he could continue sending your tax dollars to them in the form of tanks and planes they can't even use.
And those are just the big clear ones. This president makes a joke of law on a routine basis.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Many of them at gitmo were captured in the vicinity of someone who was committing a crime, or cooking food for someone committing a crime, or providing shelter for them. That is not the same thing.
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Only countries can wage wars. Since the alleged terrorists are not part of any state military they are not soldiers.
Enemy combatant is a bullshit term invented by the US. Either they are criminals and should be tried in civilian courts, or they are a prisoners of war and should be treated as such (no torture, negotiation with the country whose military they are part of).
Since the latter option is obviously impossible, since they are not part of any military, only the former is available. The US doesn't want to go that route because it would reveal things about the US in court. Officially it is security related stuff that is supposed to be secret, but in reality it is evidence of torture and other human rights violations. The US is now in an almost impossible situation where if it releases anyone they will take legal action against them and publicize the ill treatment and injustice, so the only option is to detain them forever until they die. Or, in Obama's case, until the election when it becomes somebody else's problem.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC