Environmental coalition defends its legal appeal, seeks to block Fermi 3 proposed new reactor in Michigan

Terry Lodge, legal counsel for the environmental coalition resisting Fermi 3

An environmental coalition, including Beyond Nuclear, is entering its 10th year of resistance (2008-2017) against Detroit Edison's proposed new Fermi Unit 3 reactor in southeast Michigan on the Great Lakes shoreline.

On Dec. 23rd, Toledo-based attorney Terry Lodge filed a Reply Brief, in defense of a legal appeal originally filed in October, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second highest court in the land, just below the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Reply rebuts challenges to the appeal brought by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and Detroit Edison (DTE).

The appeal challenges NRC's exclusion of the transmission line corridor from the Environmental Impact Statement, a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The appeal also challenges DTE's violations of NRC's quality assurance (QA) regulations (Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc. serves as the coalition's QA expert).

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UN General Assembly approves historic resolution seeking to abolish nuclear weapons

The International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons has reported on this story.

Physicians for Social Responsibility has put out a press release lauding the vote.

Putin & Trump call for strenthening and expansion of nuclear weapons arsenals

A quarter-century after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump have, in remarkably similar language, called for the strengthening and expansion of their countries' respective nuclear weapons arsenals.

Politico reprinted Putin's words: "We need to strengthen the military potential of strategic nuclear forces, especially with missile complexes that can reliably penetrate any existing and prospective missile defense systems," he said, according to multiple news reports.

The BBC has reprinted the full text from Trump's Tweet this morning: "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its sense regarding nukes".

For some hopeful and welcome relief from Putin's and Trump's fearful and fearsome proposals, check out this moving Counterpunch article by John LaForge of Nukewatch Wisconsin, "In Sentencing Radical Pacifists, Judge Miles Lord Assailed 'Worship of the Bomb.'"

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Update on December 23, 2016 by admin

Trump doubled down on his Tweet. As reported by Democracy Now!, Trump was quoted on MSNBC's "Morning Joe":

Joe Scarborough: "Mika asked the president-elect, while we had the opportunity, what his position was on—trying to clarify the tweet yesterday regarding the nuclear arsenal. And the president-elect told you what?"

Mika Brzezinski: "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass."

Joe Scarborough: "And outlast them all."

Mika Brzezinski: "And outlast them all."

[Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, in an interview with Greenpeace USA executive director Annie Leonard about Trump's Strangelovian Tweet, pointed out "And, yes, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were sitting in their pajamas in front of a fire as they spoke." CommonDreams coverage added "...and slippers," complete with a photo.]

Coalition defends legal challenge against unprecedented high-risk truck shipments of highly radioactive liquid waste

Attorneys Terry Lodge of Toledo, OH, and Diane Curran of Washington, D.C., legal counsel for an environmental coalition that includes Beyond Nuclear, have filed a Reply Memorandum to the D.C. Circuit Court in defense of a lawsuit against unprecedented truck shipments of highly radioactive liquid waste (also referred to by the U.S. Department of Energy, obscurely, as irradiated target material, or, even more obscurely, as HEUNL, short for highly enriched uranyl nitrate liquid).

The 100 to 150 high-risk truck shipments would travel more than a thousand miles, from Chalk River Nuclear Lab, Ontario, Canada, to Savannah River Site, South Carolina, U.S.A. The shipments would most likely cross the international border at Buffalo or Thousand Islands, NY.

See the PLAINTIFFS' REPLY MEMORANDUM, here.

And see the related PLAINTIFFS' MOTION TO SUPPLEMENT THE RECORD, here.

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Former Texas governor, Rick Perry, could head the "Oops" Department, but it's no laughing matter

Truth in advertizing under a Trump administration?!Former Texas governor, Rick Perry, has been tapped to run the federal agency he swore to abolish, if only he could remember which one it was. Perry's leadership of the Department of Energy could jeopardize the Iran nuclear weapons deal, with national defense (almost entirely nuclear weapons related) constituting around 65% of the DOE's mission and budget, while 21% is allocated to energy-related functions. The Iran deal has already been condemned by president elect Trump and many Republicans. Perry professes skepticism on climate change, yet has overseen a boom in wind power in Texas. He is alleged to have received millions in donations from Harold Simmons, founder of Waste Control Specialists, which is due to take irradiated waste fuel from U.S. reactors to a site in Andrews County, Texas, under the "Consolidated Interim Storage" scheme that Beyond Nuclear strongly opposes. Perry also sits on the boards of Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics, owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline.  Readers should contact their U.S. Senators and urge them to block Perry's appointment. Find your two U.S. Senators here.  Then either write, fax or call your Senators via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121. Read more about Perry here and here.

Update on December 13, 2016 by admin

See U.S. Sen. Ed Markey's (D-MA) statement re: President-elect Trump's nomination of former Texas governor Rick Perry as Energy Secretary.