Soon after media reports last summer hinted that former DOE Office of Nuclear Energy director William Magwood IV was under consideration by President Obama for a seat on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), on August 3, 2009 a coalition of nearly 100 environmental groups (8 national organizations and 89 grassroots groups representing 32 states) signed a letter spearheaded by Beyond Nuclear that was sent to President Obama. The coalition urged President Obama to nominate strong health, security, safety, and environmental regulators to the NRC, not industry promoters. Unfortunately, on Oct. 9, 2009 President Obama went ahead with his nomination of Mr. Magwood, who had only continued his nuclear power promotional activities after retiring from DOE in 2005, as pointed out in an Oct. 14, 2009 letter from Project on Government Oversight to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. In addition to his leadership of efforts to expand atomic energy both here and around the world, Mr. Magwood supports the Yucca Mountain dumpsite, in direct contradiction to President Obama's wise policy to cancel it. Mr. Magwood also promotes commercial radioactive waste reprocessing, a radical and entirely inappropriate position for an NRC Commissioner. As with reactors, Magwood as an NRC commissioner could well be involved in formulating safety, security, health, and environmental regulations for reprocessing, and perhaps someday could decide upon a reprocessing facility license. The U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Mr. Magwood's NRC nomination on Tuesday, Feb. 9th. Check the U.S. Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee membership, and if your Senator serves on it, contact them via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard (202-224-3121) on Monday to urge that they ask him tough questions concerning his lack of independence from the industry he is seeking to regulate, and to oppose his confirmation as an NRC Commissioner based on his long record of nuclear power's promotion.

Fulfilling a campaign pledge, President Barack Obama has zeroed out the Yucca Mountain Project's funding in Fiscal Year 2011. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has moved to end the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction and operating license application proceeding within the next month. Many observers regard these actions as a clear signal that the Yucca Mountain dumpsite proposal, after over 20 years, has now been cancelled. Extensive media coverage can be found at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's "What News" page. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as a rookie Democrat from Nevada, suffered the humiliation of the "Screw Nevada Bill" in 1987 that singled out Yucca Mountain for the country's high-level radioactive waste dump based on raw political expedience, not sound science. Ever since, he has devoted his career to stopping the dump. He seems to have succeeded. Reid has called for the Yucca site to be considered for other uses. But the Western Shoshone Indian Nation, to whom Yucca belongs according to the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley signed by the U.S. government, must be consulted and agree with any such decisions, an environmental justice never granted them in regards to Yucca Mountain dumpsite decision making (the frame for a Western Shoshone sweat lodge at the foot of the western face of Yucca Mountain, photographed by Gabriela Bulisova in Jan. 2004, shows that the site has still recently been used for sacred ceremonies). Beyond Nuclear would like to take this opportunity to thank the over 1,000 grassroots and national environmental groups whose work over the past 20+ years has made this environmental and environmental justice victory possible. Special thanks and congratulations go to the grassroots Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, as well as such Western Shoshone Indian bodies as the National Council, Defense Project, Shundahai Network, and bands such as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe in Death Valley, without whose tireless, and often thankless, efforts for over two decades, this fight would have been lost long ago. Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, issued a press statement.

Henry Sokolski, Executive Director of NPEC, has warned that U.S. Department of Energy taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for new atomic reactors in the U.S. will set a bad international example that could be followed by foreign governments seeking to conceal nuclear weapon programs behind a nuclear power facade. He points out that a large-scale atomic reactor can generate enough plutonium each year for "scores" of nuclear weapons, if it is chemically separated from radioactive waste. In addition, the enrichment of uranium for nuclear fuel fabrication can be readily diverted for the manufacture of bomb-grade high enriched uranium (HEU).

On Jan. 27th, Beyond Nuclear's Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Kevin Kamps, testified before a joint hearing of the State of Vermont House and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committees regarding radioactivity leaks from underground pipes at Entergy Nuclear's Vermont Yankee atomic reactor. The notes accompanying Kevin's Power Point Presentation can be obtained upon request. Beyond Nuclear's Reactor Oversight Project Director, Paul Gunter, also prepared a backgrounder on buried pipes and tritium leaks that was distributed to Vermont legislative committee members. Later that same day, nuclear expert witness Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, Inc., presented a Power Point Presentation documenting Entergy Nuclear's repeated "misstatements" regarding the presence of buried piping that carries radioactive materials at the Vermont Yankee atomic reactor.

Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear's watchdog on radioactive waste and nuclear power subsidies, issued a press statement in response to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's proposal to more than double the federal nuclear loan guarantee program from $20.5 billion to $54.5 billion, as well as his announcement on the membership of his long-awaited "blue ribbon commission" on high-level radioactive waste management. Barack Obama's Presidential Memorandum about the radioactive waste panel has a very telling title: "Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future". As reflected in the introductory language, it seems the Obama administration sees the unsolved, nearly 70-year-old (1942-2010) radioactive waste dilemma not as a mounting threat to public safety, health, and the environment, but more as a pesky public relations impediment impediment to the industry's coveted, will-o-the-wisp "nuclear renaissance." President Obama writes: "Expanding our Nation's capacity to generate clean nuclear energy is crucial to our ability to combat climate change, enhance energy security, and increase economic prosperity. My Administration is undertaking substantial steps to expand the safe, secure, and responsible use of nuclear energy. These efforts are critical to accomplishing many of my Administration's most significant goals." In terms of dirty, dangerous, and expensive nuclear power and radioactive waste, this is not change we can believe in. Regarding expanding nuclear loan guarantees, the National Taxpayers Union has blogged that this could easily turn into a ten billion dollar boondoggle. Consumer advocate and Green Party/independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, along with a coalition of national environmental groups including Beyond Nuclear, have written Energy Secretary Chu requesting a meeting to discuss energy policy in response to these developments of the past few days.