Reply #17: Why are the same corporations who produce most of our nuclear energy [View All]

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the same corporations who are benefiting from the 60% of our tax dollars that we spend on 'defense', including the new generation of 'useable' nuclear bunker-buster bombs?

Lockheed leads the defense industry in lobbying expenditures. Lockheed Martin made over $10.6 million in campaign contributions to candidates and party committees from 1990 to 2000, including $3.4 million in donations in the run-up to the year 2000 elections.

The company actively lobbies for the need to retain substantial numbers of existing nuclear weapons while developing new ones. Lockheed Martin receives more than $1 billion per year from the Department of Energy - to operate the Sandia National Laboratories (involved in the design and production of nuclear warheads) and help run the Nevada Test Site for "sub-critical testing" of new nuclear weapons designs.

The ex-Lockheed Martin employees with the most direct connections to nuclear and missile defense policy are:

Former chief operating officer Peter B. Teets, who is now Under Secretary of the Air Force and Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), a post that includes making decisions on the acquisition of everything from reconnaissance satellites to space-based elements of missile defense.

And, Everet Beckner, who served as the chief executive of Lockheed Martin's division that helped run the United Kingdom's Atomic Weapons Establishment.

Bechtel will benefit directly from efforts to expand testing and production of nuclear weapons. Bechtel is part of a partnership with Lockheed Martin that runs the Nevada Test Site for the U.S. 154

Bechtel runs the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge Tennessee, which makes critical components for nuclear warheads; and it is involved in the management of the Pantex nuclear weapons plant in Amarillo, Texas. 155

Bechtel's $1 billion-plus in annual contracts for "atomic energy defense activities" are likely to grow substantially under the Bush nuclear plan. In 2002 Bechtel earned $11.6 billion.

The company has built more than 40% of the United States' nuclear capacity and 50% of nuclear power plants in the developing world. That's 150 nuclear power plants.

Bechtel is also in charge of managing and cleaning up the toxic nuclear waste at the 52 reactors at the Idaho nuclear test site from our '50's nuclear program, as well as two million cubic feet of transuranic waste buried on the site, such as plutonium-covered shoes, gloves and other tools used at the nuclear lab in Rocky Flats.

The Bush administration's nuclear program is a shell game with their ambitions hidden within the Energy and Defense bills, most under the guise of research. Their proposals originated in a position paper which is referenced in the Energy Policy Act of 2003, entitled, "A Roadmap to Deploy New Nuclear Power Plants in the United States by 2010".

The nuclear industry, along with government supporters, developed a roadmap for the realization of these goals. They intend to portray nukes as a safe, clean alternative to CO2 based plants. The bill references the "Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Program."

This is a determined, deliberate hard sell to get the nation back in the nuclear game. The nuclear provisions in the Energy bill, now in congressional conference are a tough read but they are designed to confuse.

The legislation designates INEEL, The Idaho Engineering and Environmental Laboratories, as the lead facility for nuclear R&D. This has been the nation's primary lab for all of the nuclear madness since 1952. INEEL's primary function since the mid 70's was the clean-up of their own toxic waste. This clean-up is still going on. There is money allocated in this bill for that.

At the end of the decade support for nuclear energy was on the decline because of waste and safety issues and disarmament. Right before Bush II got in office, the industry, still fat from clean-up money sought to bolster their flagging industry. (INEEL gets 70% of their funding for waste disposal)

Waste storage had become so controversial that it had soured the public to the idea of more nukes and more nuke plants. (Yucca Mountain, storage sites in New Mexico, transportation, safety issues, etc.).

So, they began promoting the view that the 'spent' nuclear fuel from decommissioned weapons and nuclear power plants could be broken down and reconstituted for weapons (depleted uranium) and a new generation of nuclear plants which would accommodate (recycle) and use the waste instead of immobilizing it in glass and storing it.

The industry makes the dubious claim that the recycled waste keeps it out of the hands of terrorists and makes proliferation more difficult. It will more likely disperse the waste and create more opportunity for abuse or mishap.

There are more than 100 operating nuclear power plants in America and 16 non-operational power plants. The electricity produced by these plants provide the U.S. with only 20% of our electricity needs. That 20% could easily be made up by any combination of alternative sources.

I feel that the nuclear ambitions of the Bush administration are a foot in the door for those who would expand our existing nuclear program and would draw our nation into a new nuclear arm's race; exacerbating the problems of proliferation; threatening the safety and the health of workers, the community and the environment.