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On behalf of the Fund for a Nuclear-Free World--a campaign of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and World Information Service on Energy

I come to you tonight as a tired and angry man. Tired only because I had to take a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to be here with you today, and I have to take another one in a few hours to be back in LA tomorrow. But that’s an indication of my commitment to NIRS and to the issue that drives NIRS and its counterpart WISE, and I’m very pleased to be here to kick off the Fund for A Nuclear-Free World—a campaign to bring NIRS and WISE and the issue of nuclear power to the national spotlight and to obtain the resources to make that possible.

I’m angry that we have to do that at all.

25 years ago tonight, the nation and the world were still reeling from the aftereffects of the meltdown at Three Mile Island. We didn’t know—then—that there actually had been a meltdown, we didn’t learn that until later. But we did know that more than 140,000 people had fled their homes, and that deadly radiation that was never supposed to see the light of day had been dispersed into the Pennsylvania countryside.

We should have learned then. We should have understood that a technology that can turn a billion-dollar investment into a billion-dollar loss for ratepayers in just a few hours is a bankrupt technology. We should have learned that a technology that forces people to flee their homes, and whose byproducts kill some of them, is certainly not a safe technology.

And if we didn’t learn then, we should have learned seven years later when Chernobyl exploded and spewed radiation across the globe, killing untold thousands of people and creating permanent dead zones across Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

But instead of closing unsafe atomic reactors, and launching new initiatives to take advantage of the then-emerging promises of solar and wind power, and increasing energy efficiency, the government did everything it could to keep the reactors open and to complete the construction of those reactors that had not yet been built.

The one solace was that there were no new reactor orders. And by the year 2000, there was no new reactor construction anywhere in the western world—it appeared that the countries that had invented nuclear power had finally turned their backs on the technology.

But guess what? They’re back. And I’m angry about that.

I’m angry that three nuclear conglomerates have applied for new site permits that would pave the way for new atomic reactor construction in rural Mississippi, Illinois and Virginia. And I’m even angrier that the Department of Energy is using millions of our tax dollars to pay the utilities for those applications, while NIRS has to ask people to donate thousands of dollars to pay for lawyers and expert witnesses just to participate in this licensing process.

I’m angry that two consortiums of nuclear power corporations earlier this month announced plans to apply for licenses to actually build new reactors—again, using our money from the DOE—and they won’t even say where they want to build them.

I’m angry that a European firm called Urenco wants to build a new uranium enrichment plant in rural and poor eastern New Mexico, especially after local grassroots groups, working with NIRS, already kicked this same company out of Louisiana and Tennessee over environmental racism and lying about their ability to dispose of their nuclear waste. And once again, thousands of dollars are needed for NIRS to participate in this supposedly democratic process.

You may not know that back in 1990, when the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission first tried to change its licensing process to more directly benefit the utilities, NIRS was the group that stood in their way. NIRS took the NRC to federal court, and won. But the nuclear industry got to the judges, and when the NRC appealed the case, the decision was reversed—with one of the judges who voted with NIRS the first time actually writing the decision against NIRS the second time! Afraid of NIRS’ planned Supreme Court challenge, the nuclear industry convinced Congress to change the licensing process itself, and they did.

And this is what we’re left with. Actually, it’s even worse, because the NRC has changed its rules yet again to benefit the utilities. And once again NIRS, this time with its friends at Public Citizen, is back in federal court challenging the new rules.

You wouldn’t think that multi-billion dollar nuclear conglomerates would be so afraid of a small group like NIRS and all the grassroots citizens groups NIRS works with. But they are. And that’s one reason I’m so proud to be here tonight with these dedicated people.

I’m proud, but I’m angry too….

I’m angry that instead of building a sustainable energy future, with clean, affordable energy for all, the government is encouraging the relicensing of dangerous, aging nuclear reactors. Think of that hole in the Davis-Besse reactor pressure vessel and the thin steel lining that was all that was left to hold back nuclear disaster. It was NIRS that found the document that showed that even under normal operating pressure, that lining could have ruptured. Friends, we came this close to losing Ohio.

And I’m angry that the government and the nuclear industry have no idea of what to do with their radioactive waste, so they want to ship it all across the country—through 100 or more cities and across our central farmland, and then dump it on our Native American friends at Yucca Mountain, Nevada and Skull Valley, Utah. Friends, I have a better idea: let’s first quit making the waste! And then let’s put scientists to work solving the existing waste problem, not politicians.

And if you’re not angry yet, think about this: Vice-President Cheney’s Energy Task Force, which met numerous times with nuclear industry officials, and never once with NIRS or any other anti-nuclear group. Why? Because their plan was to figure out a way to revive the nuclear industry and what they came up with—and being fought for in the Congress by Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici—is taxpayer funding of new nuclear reactors! They think: if the market won’t pay for new reactors, they’ll take the money from you and me.

One idea the task force and Domenici had is hydrogen-powered vehicles. Sounds like a good idea, right? Non-polluting hydrogen instead of gasoline. But with this administration, you have to know there is a catch, and here it is: the Bush administration wants to produce hydrogen from new nuclear reactors. And if you look at their plans, more than ½ the money for their supposed hydrogen program goes not for hydrogen research, but construction of a new nuclear reactor in Idaho. But not if NIRS has anything to say about it, and they have been speaking loudly and often, and will continue to do so.

And don’t get me started on the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Remember that company I told you about earlier, that wants to build the uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico? Urenco. It’s Urenco technology that is powering the nuclear programs of Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea, and was in Libya as well. Why? Because Urenco can’t seem to keep its biggest secrets secret. And that leads to instability and war. Urenco blueprints were found in Iraq 12 years ago, and we know what happened there. And the Bush administration wants to reward this company by letting it build yet another uranium enrichment plant in the U.S.? Not if NIRS has anything to say about it, and NIRS and Public Citizen just last week filed their legal challenges to Urenco’s application.

The commercial nuclear industry likes to say there is no connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Then let them explain this: why is the government paying the Tennessee Valley Authority to have its Watts Bar reactor produce tritium to be put directly into nuclear warheads?

And why is the government not treating plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons as the dangerous radioactive waste it is? Instead, it wants to use it as fuel for commercial nuclear reactors across the southeast US and in Russia, a step that would double the consequences of a nuclear accident. It’s a program NIRS has been organizing and educating and mobilizing people about for years.

Here’s another thing that gets me angry: The deregulation of radioactive waste. That’s right, the deregulation of nuclear waste. The government and nuclear industry want to deregulate some of their so-called “low-level” nuclear waste, and just pretend that it’s not radioactive, and let it go to municipal landfills and be recycled into bedframes and bicycles and belt buckles—all for the economic benefit of the nuclear power industry. There is one group that has stood in the way of this plan for 18 years now. NIRS. When this plan was first announced back in 1986, it was NIRS that organized a national campaign against it, against the policy called “below regulatory concern” and organized grassroots citizens and local and state officials to pass 15 state laws barring the practice, and hundreds of resolutions from city and county governments and, in 1992, got a federal law overturning the policy. But now, under the Bush administration, the government is trying once again to implement this policy, and again, NIRS is the lead group organizing and educating and mobilizing to defeat it. And, oh yeah, they’re in federal court now on this one too—they filed their case just two weeks ago.

As you can tell, there is a lot on NIRS’ plate right now—a lot of challenges for a small group, a lot of legal work and organizing and teaching and mobilizing and working with grassroots groups across the US, and internationally too. It’s not enough that NIRS is working on all these issues I’ve raised tonight—they’re also working to stop new reactors in Ukraine and Bulgaria and Asia and with their colleagues at WISE working non-stop to create the largest, most active international anti-nuclear network possible. I know there are those of you from other groups here tonight who work with NIRS and help them, as they help you, and I’m not trying to say NIRS is shouldering the burdens of the world alone. Of course not.

But I am saying that the need for NIRS and WISE are greater than ever, and the need for resources to fight the nuclear industry and this government are greater than ever. And that’s why we’ve created the Fund for A Nuclear-Free World, and I’m proud to be the honorary chairman of this Fund and to speak at this kick-off event for the Fund. This Fund has the goal of raising $1.5 million dollars in the next year for NIRS. That sounds like a lot of money, until you realize that the nuclear power industry will spend that much by the end of this month promoting its agenda.

I’m angry about that too…

So I hope you’ll join me in helping to publicize this campaign, in helping to publicize the issues NIRS is working on, in contributing yourself to this campaign, and in asking your friends and colleagues to help too. I know this is an election year, and a lot of people are giving to the candidates of their choice, and that’s important, but this is a crucial year for the future of nuclear power too. Court cases and interventions don’t wait for election cycles, NIRS’ participation is required now. The nuclear power industry isn’t going to wait to see who wins Congress next time, they’re moving ahead now. And we, as concerned citizens of this planet, and NIRS, have to be here to stop them and to lead the way to a clean, secure, sustainable energy future.

Again, I’m proud to be the honorary chairman of this campaign, and proud to be a member of NIRS Core Group along with distinguished people from all across the country, along with many of you here tonight. I hope you’re proud too, and I hope you’ll all do everything you can to help with this campaign. Let’s all get to work, let’s get NIRS and WISE the resources they need. Let’s work for a nuclear-free world.

Thank you. Enjoy your dinner, and we’ll be talking more a little bit later.

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