July 24, 2000
Wall Street Journal
Review & Outlook
The Energizer Candidate
Maybe once the Democrats settle on a running mate for Al Gore,
and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson realizes it's not him, the
Secretary will stop using the Department of Energy for political
ends. Until then, it's worth asking Mr. Richardson to justify
actions that are hard to see as anything but an attempt to help
get Al Gore elected, no matter what the costs.
Mr. Richardson has just announced the suspension of a decades-old
activity now facilitated by an Energy Department program that
cleans up metals and other waste from the nation's nuclear
facilities and sends it all off to scrap dealers for recycling.
Mr. Richardson cites safety as his reason. "I am making this
decision," he declared, to assure American consumers "that scrap
metal released from Energy Department facilities for recycling
contains no detectable contamination from departmental
activities."
Yet even his own department admits that the program's "existing
standards result in radiation exposure that is already far below
what is allowed by federal policy." It's also below the
radiation-exposure level of the average salt-substitute found in
your local grocery store. Even more curious, if Mr. Richardson
thinks these metals such a threat, why is he not suspending the
import of recycled metals coming from similar programs abroad? In
some of these places, such as Europe, the standard for clean-up
is about 10 times more lenient than the U.S. standard.
In scientific terms Mr. Richardson's decision may not add up. But
when weighed on a political scale it has an impeccable logic:
Labor unions -- especially the AFL-CIO-affiliated Paper
Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Union -- have long pushed
for suspension. The reason? The Energy Department's recycling
program puts cheap metal on the market, which competes with metal
produced by, among others, the domestic car and steel industries.
Mr. Gore is already in Dutch with organized labor, a key
constituency, over his support of Nafta. But a suspension of the
recycling program might help put him back in their good graces,
not to mention giving him a boost in Big Labor states like
Pennsylvania and Michigan. (Which is why Democratic Reps. John
Dingell of Michigan and Ron Klink of Pennsylvania also support
suspension.)
Unfortunately for residents of the Vice President's home state of
Tennessee, all this comes at their expense. Suspending the
program will cost Tennessee, where most of this recycling takes
place, nearly a thousand jobs; about 300 workers at an Oak Ridge
clean-up site were already sent home last week. It will also cost
taxpayers $40 million to $60 million. Under the recycling
program, the contractor, British Nuclear Fuels, was able to
partially offset recycling costs by selling scrap metal on the
market. Mr. Richardson says it can no longer do that. Someone has
to compensate the contractor.
Mr. Richardson says the suspension will remain in effect until
his department establishes a "new more rigorous standard." Don't
expect an announcement before Nov. 7.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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