The madness of nuclear power in Saudi Arabia

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry (with sword), alongside Saudi energy ministerOne year has passed since the brutal murder, and macabre dismemberment, of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbal, Turkey, at the hands of a high-level Saudi regime death squad. Official U.S. and United Nations reports implicate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in having ordered the assassination. The genocidal Saudi-led war and siege of Yemen continues, with Houthi rebel attacks igniting Saudi oil fields deep within the country, and causing recent large-scale Saudi coalition casualties at the front lines on its border. Is this a place where nuclear power plants should be built? Bennett Ramberg warned in 1985 that nuclear power plants could serve as pre-deployed weapons for an enemy, if they chose to attack them, veritable dirty bombs of immense size. In fact, Houthi forces previously fired a warning shot across the bow at a pre-operational nuclear plant in United Arab Emirates; the atomic reactor has since fired up, unfortunately. Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, while still serving as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that the reason Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia were pursuing nuclear power, was in order to have a pathway to nuclear weapons, if they chose to use it that way. In fact, MBS has admitted as much on a CBS "60 Minutes" interview. Despite the inherent risk that uranium enrichment and/or plutonium reprocessing can be used for nuclear weapons production, the Trump administration has continuously tried to do end runs around congressional safeguards against nuclear weapons proliferation, in order to transfer U.S. nuclear technology and know how to Saudi Arabia. MORE.

Update on October 5, 2019 by admin

As reported by the Washington Post, just as U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry became embroiled in the Trump-Ukraine impeachment scandal, he announced his resignation by the end of the year.

Perry has been a good friend to the nuclear power industry in the U.S. He has long advocated "low-level" radioactive waste dumping in West Texas -- the owner of Waste Control Specialists (WCS), Dallas billionaire Harold "King of Superfund Sites" Simmons, was Perry's biggest campaign contributor, over multiple campaigns for governor, and even president.

This long support for WCS then morphed into Perry's advocacy for high-level radioactive waste "consolidated interim storage" in West Texas. Last spring, as Energy Secretary, Perry let it be known at a congressional hearing that he is even supportive of "interim" becoming permanent surface storage. As the U.S. Department of Energy itself has acknowledged, in its Yucca Mountain Environmental Impact Statement, this would risk catastrophic releases of hazardous radioactivity into the environment, as containers failed, with a corresponding loss of institutional control (failure to replace degraded containers before they leaked).

Update on October 5, 2019 by admin

As scooped by Axios: "Trump pins Ukraine call on Energy Secretary Rick Perry"

Update on October 7, 2019 by admin

Reuters has reported that Energy Secretary Rick Perry now denies he will resign this month or next month. This begs the question, will he resign in December, then?!

Update on October 7, 2019 by admin

The New York Times has also reported on the U.S. Energy Secretary, in an article entitled "Rick Perry's Focus on Gas Company Entangles Him in Ukraine Case."

Update on October 10, 2019 by admin

"House Democrats subpoena Energy Secretary Rick Perry," as reported by the Washington Post.

Update on October 16, 2019 by admin

As reported by the Washington Post:

12:15 p.m.: Perry declines to say whether he will comply with subpoena

In an appearance on Fox Business Network on Wednesday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry declined to commit about complying with a congressional subpoena.

“Hey, listen,” Perry said. “The House has sent a subpoena over for the records that we have. And our general counsel and the White House counsel are going through the process right now. And I’m going to follow the lead of the, of my counsel on that.”

Friday is the deadline for documents to be released from the White House and Perry. Trump has said Perry asked him to make the July call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but Perry told reporters last week he did it so that the two could talk about energy issues.

Politico: "Democrats Turn Eye to [Energy Secretary] Rick Perry in Ukrainian Probe"

As reported by Politico in an article entitled "Democrats Turn Eye to Rick Perry in Ukrainian Probe":

The former Texas governor has been a regular visitor to Saudi Arabia, where he traveled in 2017 to persuade the Kingdom to partner with the U.S. rather than Russia or China to develop two nuclear reactors. That effort came as the Trump administration continued to seek close ties with the Saudis, despite intelligence linking them to the death of dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last October.

Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians letter to U.S. House, opposing H.R. 2699

Principal Man Ian Zabarte

Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians

P.O. Box 46301, Las Vegas, NV 89114

October 1, 2019

Committee on Energy and Commerce

2125 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

For the Record: HR 2699 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019.

Dear Members of Congress,

The Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians are an intervenor in licensing of the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety Licensing Board Panel Docket 63-001. The Department of Energy has failed to prove ownership of the proposed Yucca Mountain site title to which is vested in the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians. Shoshone title remains unextinguished and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not adjudicate title. We strongly oppose amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that does not conform to the law of the land, the Treaty of Ruby Valley controlling, and will assert ownership of Yucca Mountain if licensing resumes.

We have prepared additional legal contention(s) for the resumption of licensing that include “cultural triage” a systematic process to dismantle the living lifeways of the Shoshone people at Yucca Mountain. The DOE created and employed “cultural triage” in 1990[1] as part of the Yucca Mountain cultural resource studies in a culture of secrecy that demonstrates intent to violate the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987. We seek enforcement through the Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009 and intend to use the licensing proceedings to prosecute our case as an additional contention. We hope you agree that this is the best way to bring American abuse of Native Americans into focus with a broader audience concerned about nuclear waste.

Sincerely,

Principal Man Ian Zabarte

Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation of Indians

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[1] Native American Cultural Resources Studies at Yucca Mountain 1990 prepared for Science Application International Corporation under contract number DE-AC08-87NV10576 (page 167).

[See a PDF of Zabarte's signed letter, here.]