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Former Governor On Holding the Department of Energy Accountable In Idaho (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: "I have been involved in government at the state and federal level for a long time and have had my share of political and legal run-ins with government agencies, but rarely in more than 50 years in politics have I encountered a government agency more committed to secrecy—perhaps even deception—than the US Department of Energy." So writes former governor of Idaho Cecil D. Andrus in this account of the U.S. government's plan to ship commercial spent fuel to the Idaho National Lab for what the feds call "research" but what the Andrus (and his predecessor) feel is an attempt to store high level nuclear waste in Idaho. According to him, despite Freedom of Information Act requests, the federal government is not sharing its plan for the waste once it gets to Idaho. This is a disturbing tale of government secrecy and stonewalling, and the problem with nuclear waste: no one wants it in their backyard.
On the one hand, I hate the government so the DOE is bad! On the other hand, I love nuclear energy so opposing waste disposal is bad! Ow the cognitive dissonance is killing me!
Challenge it. Oddly enough, there are other sources of energy that do not require fossil fuels to be burned.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Democrats just looooooove Obama when he's making up new laws and forcing them down people's throats, but this is the kind of shit that sort of government attitude leads to. "We get to do whatever we want because we're the Government - and you are not." He's created a culture of secrecy and stonewalling unprecedented in American government, he got away with it thanks to Democrats and the compliant media - and now you're surprised the government thinks it can do whatever it can get away with and lie about?
Obama created this bed but we've all got to lie in it.
Historically Idaho IS where the preppers, sagebrush rebels, neonazis, and northwest tea party types form their enclaves.
But if you want anything done, just contact someone connected to the sitting Butch Otter governorship.
'Gladiator School' prisons and defrauding Idaho taxpayers? Done!
Illegal ISP contracts issued to connected overpriced bidders? Done!
Somehow DOE has missed the boat so far. NOT done -- YET.
It would just be one more confrontational issue between tea party and traditional corporate Republicans.
Idaho's last Republican caucus was an abortion, dead on arrival as each contingent took its half of the fetal corpse home rather than reach accord.
It was a less civil precursor of this year's feuds in the U.S. House of Representatives.
As one of the reddest of red states, don't worry that Democrats will be allowed to intercede on behalf of average citizens.
I didn't desert Windows; Windows deserted me: BSOD
Hanford was the site of the first nuclear reactor of its design, used to produce plutonium during WWII. The site was subsequently expanded to produce more plutonium, and some energy, through the Cold War. It is so messed up because of a lot of crap that went on during that time period: not knowing anything about industrial nuclear reactors, not having any kind of waste storage or processing plan, lots of scale-up, Cold War secrecy, etc. So, yeah, Hanford is a mess, but I think it is wrong to inhibit any kind of progress due to problems that were mostly documented more than 40 years ago. No waste was shipped to Hanford. The current DOE is very aware of the problems at Hanford and is actively trying to clean it up, but it takes a lot of time...and you need somewhere to store the waste. Without a waste storage facility, there is no way to clean up Hanford, and the barrels are going to keep leaking because most of them are more than 50 years old (never intended to be long-term waste storage).
that spent nuclear waste ought to be stored in the same state in which it was originally used. If you don't want to deal with the waste, don't burn the fuel in the first place.
linquendum tondere