SOLD OUT AGAIN! NAS Rubberstamps Bush Nuke Waste Scheme

SOLD OUT AGAIN!
The National Academy of Sciences Rubberstamps Bush’s Nuclear Waste Transport Scheme

Now when you hear the title “National Academy of Sciences,” (NAS) doesn’t it sound respectable and legit? Well, think again. The NAS has become the Bush administration’s rubber stamp for corporate concessions-posing-as-science. Their latest “contribution” to “science”: a report claiming that the transport of high level nuclear waste is “safe.” This finding not only represents yet another example of NAS Bush-butt-kissing, it constitutes the reckless and wanton endangerment of Americans and the environment. Just ask any legitimate atomic scientist who knows his stuff – like those who read and write for “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” (a publication founded by Albert Einstein).

The NAS is no doubt working hand-in-glove with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Here’s what Daniel Hirsch of the Committee to Bridge the Gap (and a regular Bulletin contributor), a Los Angeles-based nuclear policy organization says about the NRC (http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=jf02hirsch):

“Put bluntly, the NRC is arguably the most captured regulatory agency in the federal government, a creature of the industry it is intended to regulate … The NRC's principal interest is in assisting the industry, keeping regulatory burdens and expenses to a bare minimum, and helping to jumpstart the nuclear enterprise."

But then, the NAS routinely works hand-in-glove with the corporazi and readily caves to pressure by the White House. It find someone to rubberstamp just about anything “in the name of Bush” – from claims that perchlorate, a chemical proven to be toxic, especially to children, isn’t so bad to claims that electronic voting is just dandy and that it should be widely available in coming elections (you will note that this article makes no mention of adding a paper trail!) \
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309100240?OpenDocument
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=1396

The NAS also rubberstamped a Bush climate research plan authored in large part by Philip A. Cooney – the same Philip A. Cooney who was once an aggressive lobbyist for the oil industry, fighting tooth and nail against regulations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. As Common Dreams reported last summer, Cooney has “edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between [greenhouse] emissions and global warming…In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.” Yet the NAS rubberstamped one of the key documents cranked out by Cooney AFTER these changes were made. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0608-05.htm

But that shouldn’t be surprising, the NAS doesn’t show much interest in climate science, aside from trying to please the White House. The editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS), which presides over the formal research reports of the NAS, has NO climate science editors, no oceonography or marine science editors, no atmospheric science editors - not even any meteorologists! Instead, to cover all environmental issues of all kinds, there are four "environmental sciences and ecology" editors and five "sustainability" editors out of nearly 200 editors. The board is overwhelmingly weighted toward biochemistry, immunology, genetics, chemistry and a host of other topics of interest to the pharmaceutical industry. It should be noted that while Bush rants about the lack of people in Math, the PNAS has a total of just THREE math editors.

And by the way, the PNAS board contains NOT ONE nuclear physics editor. Not one environmental toxicologist. Not one high-energy physics editor. In short, NOT ONE EDITOR qualified to vet info on nuclear wastes.

So the next time you hear the NAS coming out with ANY finding on global warming, you should consider the source.

http://www.pnas.org/misc/masthead.shtml

The NAS has frequently been used by Bush to undermine the work of legitimate scientists - even scientific findings that may be the result of sometimes decades of research. Here’s a classic example. When Bureau of Land Management scientist Michael Kelly reported – after exhaustive research – that the water levels in Klamath Lake had to be kept to a minimum to prevent the loss of 33,000 Coho salmon, Bush rejected the finding because it pissed off his conservative constituents in the Klamath Lake area. To undermine Kelley, Bush got the NAS to approve a “new finding” allowing the lake to, in essence, be turned into a mud puddle. This is the NAS that, last time I looked, has just one limnologist (freshwater ecosystems) on its entire board of editors.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=the_bush_administration_s_environmental_record_1201

So now the NAS now says that some 140 MILLION POUNDS of nuclear waste – some of it of the high-level, potentially catastrophic variety, can be trucked safely across 43 states to the central repository beneath Yucca Mountain. Uh, huh. Although this report runs counter to the findings of hundreds of nuclear experts, it is just what Bush ordered.

For an overview of the pathetic state of regulation and safety of the nuclear industry, see

“Playing with Nuclear Fire: The Most Dangerous Coverup in US History”
http://www.unknownnews.net/cs020402.html