U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), long-time champion against the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dumpWhile concerned citizens and environmental groups learn very quickly that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is a rogue agency, nearly completely captured by the very industry it is supposed to regulate, confirmation of this corrupt reality has come from none other than the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV, pictured left). In a Huffington Post interview, Sen. Reid spoke candidly about how a Democratic Obama appointee to the five member NRC Commission, William Magwood IV, lied to both the White House, and to him personally, about being opposed to Reid's arch nemesis, the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump. After Senate confirmation to the NRC, Magwood then set out to advance the Yucca dump -- just as he had actively done while working in the nuclear industry, as well as at the U.S. Dept. of Energy -- including leading a mutiny against former Reid staffer, and anti-Yucca dump NRC Chairman, Greg Jaczko. That NRC Commission mutiny, and intense pressure from pro-Yucca dump House Republicans, led to Jackzo's resignation last month.
But Sen. Reid added this about the NRC Commission as a whole: "That commission was a tool to the nuclear industry...".
Reid contrasted his view of NRC Commissioner Magwood's dishonesty, with his view of Republican NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki's open advocacy for the industry she is supposed to regulate. The article reports:
"Reid can tolerate ideological or political disagreement, he said, as long as his opponent is honest. He cited GOP Commissioner Kristine Svinicki, a former aide for Larry Craig (R-Idaho). 'I have no problem with her, she told us who she is. I mean, you know, [Calif. Sen. Barbara] Boxer is upset at her because Boxer thinks she didn't level with her, but I have no problem with her, cause we knew what she was going in there: she was a tool of the industry. That's most everybody that's gone in there, so she had a qualification that fit into the past recipients of going to that agency.'"
But Senate Majority Leader Reid's acceptance that NRC Commissioners are shills for the nuclear power industry -- because it's always been that way -- is its own cause for major concern. Reid's nonchalance is shared by most Members of Congress, the body that is supposed to oversee NRC and make sure that it is "protecting people and the environment" against the radiological risks of nuclear power, as claimed on the agency's website and letterhead. Specifically, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, as well as other committees, have jurisdiction over NRC matters. However, all too often, many Members of these oversight committees -- who receive large campaign contributions from the nuclear power industry, and whose offices are heavily influenced by industry lobbyists -- strive to promote nuclear power, as by weakening or eliminating regulations, whitewashing risks, and subsidizing the industry at taxpayer expense, rather than making sure nuclear safety regulators do their jobs.
In recent weeks, the Japanese Parliament's unprecedented investigative committee on the Fukushima Daiichi atomic reactor meltdowns concluded that collusion between the nuclear power industry and its supposed government regulators was the key cause of the radiological catastrophe. Obviously, given the open secret identified by Sen. Reid, of collusion between regulators and regulated in the U.S. nuclear power industry, we've been lucky not to have suffered our own domestic meltdown since Three Mile Island in 1979. But we live on borrowed time, with nuclear disasters just waiting to happen. How many radioactive bullets can we dodge by the skin of our teeth?
Beyond Nuclear and its allies in the anti-nuclear movement continue to do NRC's job for it, but without the benefit of an army of well paid staff people (the agency has more than 4,000), nor a billion dollar annual budget (like the NRC has). As but one example, Beyond Nuclear continues to closely watchdog, and challenge, NRC's "Fukushima Lessons UN-Learned" bogus "safety upgrades" -- such as its proposed "new and improved" hardened vents on 23 operating GE BWR Mark I containments in the U.S., despite a catastrophic, 100% failure rate with hardened vents at Fukushima Daiichi's Units 1, 2, and 3.
But it gets worse. While NRC protects the nuclear power industry and its bottom line, at the expense of people and the environment, an element of disdain for the public it is supposed to protect exists at NRC. A reporter informed Beyond Nuclear that an NRC staffer referred to concerned citizens and environmental groups, meeting with NRC Chairman Jaczko on May 25, 2012, about the problem-plagued Palisades atomic reactor in Michigan, as "ankle biters."
Please help us inform not only NRC, but also the U.S. House, Senate, and White House, that anti-nuclear watchdogs can bite more than ankles. Urge the new NRC Chairwoman, Allision Macfarlane, your U.S. Representative, your U.S. Senators, and President Obama, to do their jobs, for which they are paid by us (federal taxpayers, as well as ratepayers, who pay for 90% of NRC's annual budget), and their duty to the American people, to truly protect people and the environment against nuclear power's radiological hazards, rather than "serve" as "lapdogs" to the nuclear power industry.