Bernie Sanders' Nuclear Waste Votes Divide Texas Activists

[George II]

Since Sanders came out today against sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, it's appropriate that his nuclear waste history be discussed.

Bernie Sanders' Nuclear Waste Votes Divide Texas Activists

In the late 1990s, when now-U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was a member of the House, he supported a compact between Maine, Vermont and Texas that originally proposed dumping low-level radioactive waste in a small minority community in far-West Texas, putting him at odds with other progressive congressmen.

Though the waste never made it to Sierra Blanca, a low-income, largely Hispanic town in Hudspeth County, Sanders’ efforts have attracted renewed attention online in the lead-up to Tuesday's Texas primary. Critics suggest that the candidate’s role in promoting the compact — which ultimately brought the waste to a different site in West Texas — undermines his otherwise progressive record.

“It reflects very poorly on him,” said longtime environmental justice activist Dr. Robert Bullard, dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University and the author of Dumping in Dixie. “Shoving this down people’s throats is not progressive politics. It was business as usual. It’s a classic case of rich people from a white state shifting something they don’t want to a poor minority community somewhere else.”

(more....)

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/02/28/Sanders-Nuclear-Waste-Votes-Divide-Texas-Activists/

[stonecutter357]

1. K&R

[Blue_true]

2. I hope you're wearing your fireproof britches George. nt

[betsuni]

3. K&R

[LibFarmer]

4. Just trying to enrich those poor people

who didn't even have toxic waste to their name.

Being against toxic waste inequality is something one can champion. Why should only the corporations, millionaires, billionaires, oligarchs and plutocrats have all the toxic waste?

[George II]

6. bwahahahahaha!!!! It wasn't even enriched uranium, great play on words sir (or madam)

[Cha]

5. Sierra Blanca, Bernie Sanders, Paul Wellstone, a Poor Minority Community and a Nuclear Waste Dump

Link to tweet

[George II]

7. +1,000,000

[relayerbob]

8. Send it to Alabama

Preferably the Governor's mansion as well as the GOP leadership. They won't even know the difference. Tell them it's little glowy babies

[George II]

9. Their whole legislature is a big pile of toxic waste.

[lunamagica]

10. Sanders' are still profiting from Sierra Blanca nuclear waste dump, per their 2014 tax return

I couple of months ago I wrote a diary about Sierra Blanca. The entire diary can be found below for perspective. I suggest you read it and then watch Paul Wellstone in action on the Senate floor.

The Sanders’ have partially released their 2014 tax return and on the return, Jane Sanders is still drawing a salary as an alternate commissioner for the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. (TLLRWD Commissioner)

This is the commission that oversaw the Sierra Blanca dump site, that Sanders voted for and also voted to strip out the Wellstone amendment in conference.

The Wellstone amendment would have given legal recourse to this mostly poor Latino community to fight the placement of this waste dump, if they could prove environmental racism. The compact was passed, with vigorous help from Sanders. Later and fortunately the dump was scuttled by the state of Texas.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/4/16/1516075/-Sanders-a

[George II]

11. This is totally contradictory to his attitude on the proposal to ship waste to Yucca Mountain...

...what is "good waste" and what is "bad waste"?

[Gothmog]

12. This will be an issue for sanders on Super Tuesday