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Atomic Industrial Forum, authoritarianism, Big Business, Chicago, Chicago boy, Chicago Machine, corporate masters, crony capitalism, democracy, Dictatorship, Exelon, fascism, fascism and big business, Fast-Track, Federal Government, Federal Register, jackboots of fascism, lobbyist, military industrial complex, NEI, NRC, nuclear clean-up, nuclear energy, Nuclear Energy Institute, nuclear industrial complex, nuclear industry, nuclear power, nuclear utilities, Obama, open government, public comment, public participation, public safety, tax strike, Transparency, trappings of democracy, US NRC, US NRC rulemaking
You have until July 20, 2015 to comment to the US NRC about this. It may be one of your last chances to comment about anything nuclear in the US, if the Nuclear industrialists-utilities get their way: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NRC-2015-0071-0002 Will the nuclear industry be allowed to take away the last trappings of democracy without even a whimper or cry of protest?
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), a lobby group of nuclear utilities-industrialists, wants the US NRC to axe CPR Factor B – the part which deals with participation and transparency, as well as some other things. The NRC heeds its Masters voice: “The NRC actively seeks to improve its rulemaking process and reporting, and is currently engaged in a process improvement initiative that would implement most of NEI’s suggestions related to rulemaking reporting… NEI commented on the process the NRC uses to prioritize its rulemaking activities. The NEI suggested that the NRC: (1) Use a risk- informed prioritization methodology; (2) consider eliminating CPR Factor B from its methodology;… “(see full text at bottom or link Fed Reg. Unified Agenda: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NRC-2015-0071-0002). Risk-informed in nuclear lingo means risk to the bank accounts-stock values, of the nuclear industry-utilities. They don’t give a damn about public health and safety.
“Guidance on Common Prioritization of Rulemaking Factor Selection Criteria Factor B”
ML15086A074 “Guidance on Common Prioritization of Rulemaking Factor Selection Criteria Factor B“, p.4
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1508/ML15086A074.pdf (There is a bit more on p. 5).
They don’t say if the “most” includes the part about transparency, openness and participation. But, why not? Why not strip the veneer of democracy to more clearly show the US tax-payer funded corporate dictatorship? (Look at the US DOE-NRC budgets and contractors, if you haven’t, to better understand this point. And, they fleece the ratepayer too.)
They want to tie citizens’ hands to better pick their pockets. But, taxpayer and ratepayer pockets are increasingly empty!
In “Fascism and Big Business“, Daniel Guerin (1939) warned that the corporate elite “throws its traditional democracy overboard and conjures up with its invocations – and its subsidies, that ‘strong state’ which alone can strip the masses of all means of defense, tying their hands behind their backs, the better to empty their pockets” (Guerin, 1939)
President Obama and Congress have axed openness and participation for trade deals, already, with Fast Track approval.
Time for tax strikes. Then, of course, they can throw you in jail and make you work as prison labor for the nuclear industry – either way you pay; they profit. The other way is to earn as little as you can, to minimize taxes paid. Bartering is one direction to go, if you can’t produce everything yourself.
Former General and President Eisenhower warned about this 54 years ago, in 1961: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist… We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” See more here: http://wp.me/p2FMRA-4N3 (Nuclear Industrial Complex: Academic sell-out; Plundering Precious Resources; Insolvent Democracy – General, President Eisenhower warned of it in 1961, 54 years ago.) While he warned about the military industrial complex, the nuclear industrial complex is its offshoot. The US Atomic Energy Act was 61 years ago in 1954.
July 20, 2015 is the deadline to comment about this. It may be one of the last chances, if the Nuclear utilities-industry, who own the NRC, Obama, and many in Congress, get their way: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=NRC-2015-0071-0002 There will be a few more chances to comment on other things, before it is formally axed, but the iron heeled jackboots of dictatorship, in service of the nuclear industry, are being formally unveiled. Nuclear dictatorship is on the march. They cannot compete fairly against renewable energy, so they must impose their will. The small freedoms of a democratic society which set some limits on the “insatiable demands of the money power” will be lost.(See Daniel Guerin, Fascism and Big Business, 1939 [1])
Will the nuclear industry be allowed to take away the last trappings of democracy without even a whimper or cry of protest? Of course, the nuclear industry must impose itself in authoritarian style, because no sane, educated, person would get near nuclear anything. Soon everyone will probably have to work in nuclear cleanup to get social security in their old age. While this sounds improbable and outrageous, as do most things to do with the nuclear industry, they are trapping the welfare to work people, and other unemployed, for nuclear clean-up, in the US, and the elderly homeless in Japan.
The President and CEO of Exelon Corp., Christopher M. Crane, is also Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). Exelon is headquartered in Chicago, was a major Obama donor, and operates the largest number of nuclear power stations in the US – 23 reactors at 14 locations in Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exelon
Obama is Exelon’s boy – Chicago boy and clearly servant “boy”. Obama sold the health and safety of the country out for a really cheap price, to boot. Since Obama is Exelon’s boy, and as Obama himself noted in 2007, the NRC is a moribund agency captive of industry; filled with cronies who have lost their sense of mission, then there should be no surprises that the NRC also heeds its Masters voice, in the form of the NEI (Nuclear Energy Institute). https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/07/14/obamas-forgotten-objection-to-nuclear-power-it-might-blow-up-irradiate-kill-us/ Candidate Obama overrated the NRC though, for they’ve always served their corporate masters to the detriment of the people and the environment. Repeated Congressional hearings over the decades resulted in business as usual.
One of the industry groups which merged to form NEI was pushing for nuclear power in 1952, even before “Atoms for Peace” in 1955, and pushed through the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Industrial_Forum
The document also states that “The NRC has completed 8 rulemaking activities since publication of its last Agenda on December 22, 2014 (79 FR 76855). This issuance of the NRC’s Agenda contains 35 active and 23 long-term rulemaking activities: 2 are Economically Significant; 10 represent Other Significant agency priorities; 53 are Substantive, Nonsignificant rulemaking activities; and 1 is an Administrative rulemaking activity. In addition, 3 rulemaking activities impact small entities. The NRC is requesting comment on its rulemaking activities as identified in this Agenda.
DATES: Submit comments on rulemaking activities as identified in this Agenda by July 20, 2015.”
http://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?documentId=NRC-2015-0071-0002&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf
The NEI has plenty of full-time workers. Who can compete anyway in the so-called marketplace of democracy? Actually citizens could compete, if people would adopt and watchdog their nearest nuclear power station-facility and then network together.
35170 Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 117 / Thursday, June 18, 2015 / Unified Agenda
Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 117 / Thursday, June 18, 2015 / Unified Agenda 35171
35172 Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 117 / Thursday, June 18, 2015 / Unified Agenda
“The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is a nuclear industry lobbying group in the United States.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Energy_Institute
“… NEI is governed by a 47-member board of directors. The board includes representatives from the nation’s 27 nuclear utilities, plant designers, architect/engineering firms and fuel cycle companies. Eighteen members of the board serve on the executive committee, which is responsible for NEI’s business and policy affairs.
History
The Institute was founded in 1994[1] from the merger of several nuclear energy industry organizations, the oldest of which was created in 1953. Specifically, in 1994, NEI was formed from the merger of the Nuclear Utility Management and Resources Council (NUMARC), which addressed generic regulatory and technical issues; the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness (USCEA), which conducted a national communications program; the American Nuclear Energy Council (ANEC), which conducted government affairs; and the nuclear division of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which handled issues involving used nuclear fuel management, nuclear fuel supply, and the economics of nuclear energy. In 1987, NUMARC and USCEA were created through a division of the Atomic Industrial Forum (AIF). USCEA was originally founded in 1979 as the U.S. Committee for Energy Awareness. AIF was created in 1953 to focus on the beneficial uses of nuclear energy. This was two years before the international “Atoms for Peace” conference held in Geneva in 1955, marking the dawn of the nuclear age.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Energy_Institute
[Note 1] See Daniel Guerin, “Fascism and Big Business“, 1939, written ca 1936. For instance, pp. 22-23: “When the economic crisis becomes acute, when the rate of profit sinks toward zero” [Now big business is making plenty of profit, they just want more] the corporate elite “can see only one way to restore its profits: it empties the pockets of the people down to the last cent. It resorts to what Mr. Caillaux, once finance minister of France, expressively calls “the great penance”: brutal slashing of wages and social expenditures, … The state, furthermore, rescues business enterprises on the brink of bankruptcy, forcing the masses to foot the bill.” [This has been the case of the nuclear industry since it started!]. “Such enterprises are kept alive with subisides, tax exemptions, orders for public works and armaments. In short, the state thrusts itself into the breach left by the vanishing private customers./ But, such maneuvers are difficult under a democratic regime. As long as democracy survives, the masses, … have some means of defense against the ‘great penance’: freedom of the press, universal suffrage, the right to organize into unions and to strike, etc. Feeble defenses, ….but still capable of setting some limit to the insatiable demands of the money power…” The corporate elite, under certain conditions and in certain countries, “throws its traditional democracy overboard and conjures up with its invocations – and its subsidies, that ‘strong state’ which alone can strip the masses of all means of defense, tying their hands behind their backs, the better to empty their pockets” (Guerin, 1939, 1973 Pathfinder Press.)
Mining Awareness + 
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