All Things Whistleblower: A GAP Blog

Concerns Over New Calls for Nuclear Power

President Obama and his administration are trying to win over Republicans and moderate Democrats on climate and energy legislation by signaling his support for nuclear energy plant production. However, the support for nuclear reactors has angered many liberals and environmentalists, who do not believe nuclear energy, in its current form, is safe. 

One concern this raises at GAP is the potential for a resurrection for the Bush administration's proposal and support of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP. In 2006, the Bush administration Department of Energy put forth a proposal for a GNEP, and international plan that sought to increase and promote the use of nuclear power in both the U.S. and abroad by offering foreign countries to opportunity to import their nuclear waste into the United States, at which point this “spent fuel” would be reprocessed further for American power uses.

With a long history of monitoring nuclear power and waste sites, and knowing the terrible turmoil that undeniably occurs with safety issues and nuclear waste, GAP teamed up with other groups to take a stand against this badly thought-out plan. In conjunction with other groups, GAP released two pivotal reports on the extensive problems with GNEP. Each report, Risky Appropriations: Gambling US Energy Policy on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and Radioactive Wastes and the Global Energy Nuclear Partnership point out the numerous, insurmountable flaws dealing with each program. These included:

• The lack of any economic analysis of the costs and benefits of the GNEP plan.
• None of the proposed GNEP technologies and processes existed in commercially viable applications. Few technologies that GNEP required had ever been shown to be viable in any large engineering-scale demonstration projects.
• The proposed schedule for GNEP was not feasible – the technologies that would be required to implement GNEP successfully would take decades to develop if, in fact, they can be made technically and commercially viable at all.
• GNEP would be an unreasonably expensive and slow option for addressing global climate change.
• GNEP would lock the United States into decisions to deploy certain nuclear technologies and processes much before research and development phases are completed, demonstration projects are tested, and technologies are shown to be feasible.
• GNEP will likely worsen the radioactive waste disposal problem and would make the United States the dumping ground for nuclear waste from the other participating nations.
• In April 2009, the Department of Energy, amidst much resistance from the public-interest and environmental community, announced the cancellation of any domestic part of the GNEP plan.

Chinese Nuke Plants; State Secrets

Two interesting and relevant stories from the New York Times today:

China plans to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the next ten years as the rest of the world combined. While China has not had a serious nuclear accident, the pace of the expansion has raised safety concerns around the world. The United States was the last country to attempt such a rapid nuclear expansion, which ended with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. China is also planning to build many of their plants close to major metropolitan areas, close to tens of millions of people.

In other news, the Obama administration is following a Bush-era precedent in asserting state secrets privilege to try to shut down a federal lawsuit. The Justice Department asked a federal court to throw out the case of five people who claim they were subject to forced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment - otherwise known as rendition. However, the Amerian Civil Liberties Union, which is serving as defense counsel, is claiming that the secrets in question were no longer secret, as the government has declassified information about its interrogation methods and the Obama administration has prohibited abusive methods of interrogation and secret detentions.

Unsafe Nuclear Plants to be Included in Climate Bill?

The Obama administration and leading Democrats are trying to convince other lawmakers (prominent Republicans) to support the wide-ranging climate bill by offering incentives for nuclear power plant construction. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said that America should "not stop at three or four, but should get tens of [new] reactors.”

This frightens environmentalists, and for good reason. In the United States, construction of a nuclear plant has not begun for more than 30 years. Nuclear firms say their technology is better and safer than ever, recent examples worldwide show constant delays and overboard extra costs.

More important, however, is the effect on the environment. The Hanford facility in Washington state, which GAP focuses on for years, was turned into an environmental remediation project in the 1980s, but that area still has untold amounts of problems, including widespread contamination in nearby rivers and the environment. Sickened citizens from nearby have won court cases in recent years from the operators of the plants. Long-term effects from a multitude of other Hanford issues remain unknown.

Also, a plan floated by the Bush administration for several years which involved building new nuclear plants and importing/recycling other countries’ spent fuel – GNEP, or the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership – has been repeatedly dismissed in several reports, including two by GAP (click here and here to read).

Nuclear technology is even close to being, and maybe will never be, completely safe. Congress should turn its attention to clean and safe alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar.

Nuclear Whistleblower Successful

In a rare victory for whistleblower rights, a painter won his whistleblower lawsuit five years after being fired by his contractor bosses for reporting a possible safety concern at a nuclear power plant in Alabama. The Department of Labor Administrative Review Board ordered that the case be returned to the administrative law judge, who will determine how much compensation the whistleblower should receive. GAP Senior Counsel Richard Condit put the decision in perspective:  

“An attorney with the Washington-based Government Accountability Project, which promotes whistleblowing to reveal government and corporate wrongdoing, said it was "somewhat unusual" for the Labor Department board to order compensation after ruling for a whistleblower.

‘With respect to this particular board, we have noticed over the last seven to eight years it has not been kind to employees," said Richard Condit, senior counsel with the organization.’”

The company could appeal the decision to the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., or try to settle with Speegle, Condit said.

Obama and Nukes

President Obama will preside over a meeting of the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council today, where he is expected to call for a vote on a draft resolution that would halt production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium and would strengthen the global Non-Proliferation Treaty. The President has secured support from China and Russia, important allies who had both hesitated to back the resolution.

With the resolution, the President will clearly contrast his policies with those of former President George W. Bush, who generally did not have confidence in arms treaties. However, it became clear during President Obama’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly yesterday that some Bush era policies will remain: particularly those regarding Iran’s nuclear aspirations and the Middle East peace process. Obama called for accountability on the behalf of Iran and North Korea if they continued to pursue nuclear weapons, but did say he would remain committed to pursuing diplomatic solutions first. The President also claimed to have re-engaged the United Nations, after many in the U.N. believed the former administration isolated itself from the rest of the assembly.

Critics of the nuclear resolution believe it will likely not be ratified quickly, nor will it be enforceable. Supporters believe that if the resolution, along with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was defeated in the Senate in 1999, can be ratified now by the United States, other nations will quickly follow suit.

WWYW Episode 12 - The Future of American Energy; Blowing the Whistle on "Club Fed"

This is the page to leave comments about Episode 12 of Whistle Where You Work, GAP’s television program. To view the show online, visit www.whistleblowertv.org. Here’s a description of the program:

First, we lead off with a panel discussion on the future of American energy. President Obama has laid out three priorities for his stimulus plans - health care, education and energy. His focus on alternative energy as a way of combating climate change, ending our reliance on oil, and creating a tremendous amount of renewable energy jobs represents a clear break from the past eight years. But how sharp a break is it really? And what role does the Obama administration see nuclear power and clean coal playing in our energy mix? Guests include Robert Alvarez of the Institute for Policy Studies, and Joseph Romm or the Center for American Progress and ClimateProgress.org.

Then, we sit down with Randy Taylor, who gained prominence as a whistleblower in 1991, when his disclosure sparked the closing of a Bermuda Naval Air Station - a “Club Fed” for naval brass and a few prominent politicians. This segment was filmed during the annual National Whistleblower Assembly, held in Washington D.C. in March 2009.

This episode was filmed in early March 2009

Another Nut Contaminated with Salmonella; Worker Compensation; Stimulus Fraud Hotline

In the latest national food safety concern, a California processor has recalled one million pounds of pistachio nuts over salmonella contamination. Hopefully this won’t turn into a wide-ranging, long-lasting problem like peanuts did, but these things do tend to start small…

Other than that, a few good stories today detailing the state of worker compensation claims (and struggles) in America. First, this NYT piece details problems with the process of that state’s Workers’ Compensation Board. An 18-month examination by the paper found that the system “struggles to treat workers with due speed, protect employers from fraud or mute tensions in the workplace.” The Times found that, “after reviewing cases and interviewing participants, virtually none of whom defended the system as efficient.”

Also, ProPublica details the story of a recently deceased man who fought for years to receive compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation program for his brain cancer (stemming from work at a nuclear site), but failed in his six-year quest before succumbing. Colorado Senator Mark Udall is trying to improve the dysfunctional system.

Lastly, the GAO has created a hotline for citizens to report “waste, fraud and mismanagement of government stimulus funds.” This is very, very good.

-- Dylan Blaylock