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Hundreds of EPA scientists cite political interference
H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press
Washington – Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey released Wednesday by an advocacy group.
The Union of Concerned Scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced political interference in their work.
EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar attributed some of the discontent to the “passion” scientists have toward their work. He said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, as an EPA scientist himself, “weighs heavily the science given to him by the staff in making policy decisions.”
But Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Scientific Integrity Program, said the survey results revealed “an agency in crisis” and “under siege from political pressures.”
(24 April 2008)
See also:
US Environment Scientists Report Political Meddling (Reuters)
Scientists Report Political Interference(Washington Post)
Examples of Regulations Based on Unsound Science (Washington Post)
EPA Scientists Report Political Interference (Daily Green)
What Nuclear Renaissance?
Christian Parenti, The Nation
… In an effort to jump-start a “nuclear renaissance,” the Bush Administration has pushed one package of subsidies after another. For the past two years a program of federal loan guarantees has sat waiting for utilities to build nukes. Last year’s appropriations bill set the total amount on offer at $18.5 billion. And now the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill is gaining momentum and will likely accrue amendments that will offer yet more money.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) expects up to thirty applications to be filed to build atomic plants; five or six of those proposals are moving through the complicated multi-stage process. But no new atomic power stations have been fully licensed or have broken ground. And two newly proposed projects have just been shelved.
The fact is, nuclear power has not recovered from the crisis that hit it three decades ago with the reactor fire at Browns Ferry, Alabama, in 1975 and the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. Then came what seemed to be the coup de grâce: Chernobyl in 1986. The last nuclear power plant ordered by a US utility, the TVA’s Watts Bar 1, began construction in 1973 and took twenty-three years to complete. Nuclear power has been in steady decline worldwide since 1984, with almost as many plants canceled as completed since then.
All of which raises the question: why is the much-storied “nuclear renaissance” so slow to get rolling? Who is holding up the show? In a nutshell, blame Warren Buffett and the banks–they won’t put up the cash.
“Wall street doesn’t like nuclear power,” says Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. The fundamental fact is that nuclear power is too expensive and risky to attract the necessary commercial investors. Even with vast government subsidies, it is difficult or almost impossible to get proper financing and insurance.
[Conclusion]
This much seems clear: a handful of firms might soak up huge federal subsidies and build one or two overpriced plants. While a new administration might tighten regulations, public safety will continue to be menaced by problems at new as well as older plants. But there will be no massive nuclear renaissance. Talk of such a renaissance, however, helps keep people distracted, their minds off the real project of developing wind, solar, geothermal and tidal kinetics to build a green power grid.
(24 April 2008)
Social Security: False Alarm Or False Hope?
Ron Cooke, The Cultural Economist
… The fact that world oil demand will soon exceed production is going to have a dramatic impact on the American economy. Higher rates of inflation and unemployment will decrease the real rate of economic growth. It should not come as a surprise if the average annual increase in GDP, adjusted for inflation, is less than 1% from 2006 through 2030. If this happens, Social Security will be in trouble long before 2041.
Second. Conventional economics ignores people. It assumes human behavior will not change much in the future, or at least not enough to alter the results of an mathematical extrapolation based on dead data.
This assumption is also false. If the average annual Social Security payout is $12,000, then a couple can expect to have $24,000 a year to spend (less Medicare). If the median income for an American couple is $48,500, and they need 70% of that amount to maintain their current lifestyle, then they need an annual income of $34,000 upon retirement. To this amount, one must add annual increases to cover the cost of inflation. That means, on average, American couples must fund $10,000 a year, plus additional sums to cover the cost of inflation, from other sources. Since the basis of projected Social Security benefits is projected to decline, and Medicare premiums are projected to increase, the spread between your Social Security benefits and the cost of living will increase over the years.
(23 April 2008)
