Tea Party Senate Candidate Mike Lee Tried to Dump 1,600 Tons of European Nuclear Waste on Utah

[ensho]

http://www.alternet.org/story/148280/tea_party_senate_candidate_mike_lee_tried_to_dump_1%2C600_tons_of_european_nuclear_waste_on_utah


With an assist from FreedomWorks, Mike Lee grabbed Utah's Senate nomination from incumbent Bob Bennett. Now he shows he's not a states' rights kind of guy.
***

-snip-

It was FreedomWorks that advanced Lee's successful charge to unseat incumbent Bob Bennett, a three-term Republican senator -- by helping to pack the Utah state GOP convention with Tea Party activists. (In Utah, convention delegates get first shot at determining the Republican candidate; the primary race is run between candidates getting less than 60 percent of the convention vote.)

-snip-

Oil in Their Veins

Energy and oil flow through FreedomWorks' veins. The political organizing group was born from a schism within the group Citizens for a Sound Economy, founded with funding from conservative oil man David Koch (a principal in Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held corporation in the U.S., and who is now the big wallet behind another Tea Party-aligned astroturf group, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation). What's more, FreedomWorks' chairman and spiritual leader, former House Speaker Armey spent three years of his post-Congress career lobbying for Irving Oil, owner of Canada's largest oil refinery.

-snip-

Utah officials -- and 76 percent of the public -- objected to EnergySolutions' plan to dump 1,600 tons of Italian waste in their backyard. The state of Utah argued that the materials exceeded its pre-determined radioactive limit, which only allows low-level "Class A" materials. The Italian materials were of a higher grade, Class B and C. Lee and his peers claimed that EnergySolutions could bring the levels down by mixing the waste with lower, Class A materials, a process whose safety raises serious concerns for nuclear experts.

-snip-

In the world of Mike Lee and FreedomWorks, state-based rights, limited federal government and constitutional integrity are valid only to a point, and cease to matter when money's at stake. If Lee comes out on top, so too do energy companies, leaving the rank-and-file to deal with the ramifications.
-----------------------------

punks