DUMMERSTON — In his letter in the June 29 issue of The Reformer, Tom Kauffman of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C. (which is fully funded by Entergy and other nuclear power companies) wrote:
“The NRC commissioners are nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.”
President Obama's election campaign got money from the nuclear power industry. The industry also pays these legal bribes to many senators. (The exact amounts are at www.OpenSecrets.org.)
Kauffman continued, “The nuclear industry is required by federal law to fund 90 percent of the NRC's annual budget... The fees are mandated and administered by Congress. Therefore, the NRC is independent, is not beholden to the industry in any way, and has no reason to kowtow to it.”
There are 65 nuclear power plants in the U.S. Closing all of them, including Vermont Yankee, would result in the layoffs of hundreds of NRC employees. (Germany decided this month to close all its nukes - resulting, of course, in a number of layoffs.)
These layoffs are part of the reason the NRC is doing everything it can to help Entergy in its fight against the people of Vermont, who last year used the democratic process to order the Louisiana-based company to close Vermont Yankee in March 2012.
Mass protests are being planned for next March. Details are at ValleyPost.org.