For all the serious national security threats currently facing our country, it seems like a waste of time and resources to use a nearly 70-year-old defense law to rescue failing, outdated industries. Yet that is precisely what the Trump administration is planning to do. The administration indicated last month that it intends to use the Defense Production Act of 1950, enacted as a drastic national-security measure to be deployed in time of war, to prop up failing coal and nuclear power plants. Invoking this act would be a blatant misuse of the law, which came into effect at the outset of the Korean War and with the intent of ensuring rapid mobilization of U.S. industries within the larger context of the Cold War. And it will be costly for anyone who pays an electric bill. Today, the president wants to rely on the act to intervene in the energy market and bail out unprofitable power plants that can no longer compete against natural gas and renewables. The administration claims these plants are necessary to prevent blackouts on the grid — a claim nearly all experts say is untrue. The administration is instead motivated largely by politics — Trump promised repeatedly on the campaign trail and while in office to bring about a renaissance in an industry that is in irreversible decline.
USA Today 25th July 2018 read more »
Work to demolish a former nuclear weapons production factory in Washington state may resume in September, about six months after it was halted when workers were exposed to radioactive particles, the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday. The agency will implement extra safety measures for workers demolishing the Plutonium Finishing Plant on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which is near Richland. The plant was involved in producing much of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Hanford officials issued a report in late March that said a total of 42 Hanford workers inhaled or ingested radioactive particles when they were exposed during contamination events in June and December of last year. Radioactive contamination was also found outside plant offices and inside two dozen vehicles, the report said.
Daily Mail 27th July 2018 read more »
