Slowly,slowly through the NRC labyrinth

NRC chairman Jaczko had requested the NRC commissioners fast track the Fukushima task forces safety recommendation in 90 days. However that isn’t likely as Thursday three of five commissioners announced their votes to go slowly.

It’s official: the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been outvoted on his proposal that the panel decide within 90 days on the recommendations it received from its Fukushima task force.
Rep.Ed Markey said the NRC had in essence directed the NRC staff “ to endlessly study the 90-day staff report before the commissioners consider the recommendations”

And the Nuclear Energy Institute wants to divide and conquer any new regulations

Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, told Wall Street analysts at a briefing Tuesday. In other areas, the recommendations of the task force call for "significant changes in the way NRC regulates," he said. Those issues should be considered separately, he said.

Full steam ahead and No Real Control

NEI does not expect the post-Fukushima recommendations to slow license renewals, power uprates or new plant approvals by NRC, Fertel said. Reactor design approvals, including for Westinghouse's AP1000 - the design being used at the two new US nuclear projects closest to completing NRC license reviews and beginning construction - are continuing to move forward, he said.

Obama,act like a staunch Democrat?

The only thing he hasn't done so far is act like a staunch Democrat, and take cuts to key Democratic programs off the table. That might not work either, but we don't know, because it hasn't been tried.

It could have been Obama's starting point,but as Joan Walsh at Salon.com points out it has proven to be the one thing that was never tried.

The president sincerely believes that the intense polarization of American politics isn't merely a symptom of our problems but a problem in itself – and thus compromise is not just a means to an end but an end in itself, to try to create a safe harbor for people to reach some new common ground. I actually have some sympathy with that point of view. But having now watched two smart Democratic presidents devote themselves to compromise with Republicans, only to be savaged with increasing intensity, I've lost faith that compromise itself holds some healing magic. Maybe it just emboldens bullies.

Rupert Murdoch's hacking spill-over

This feels a little like the cartoon that depicts a long ago diarist writing in 1337 “today the hundred years war began”. However everything has a starting point and speculation has begun and it seems that Rupert Murdoch’s News of The World's hacking scandal is spilling into the US.

There are several items that indicate at least some spill-over underway.
With a $7 billion drop in market value of News Corp shares over four trading days a business observer wonders:

Will the falling domino effect ripple to the U.S., throttling through News Corp.'s powerhouse properties, Fox TV network, and the respected Wall Street Journal?

Also an ongoing institutional shareholders lawsuit against News Corporation was amended to include the recent phone hacking scandal. The new charge claims that News Corp’s board failed to exercise proper oversight and take sufficient action since news of hacking first surfaced at its subsidiary, News International, nearly six years ago.
In addition, yet a little less tangible is that the ethically challenged operating methods now on display in the UK have been imported to Murdoch’s operations here in the US.

"The lack of ethics shown by Murdoch's powerful staffers in England is a transnational virus," said Jeff Cohen, journalism professor on csmonitor.com, "News Corp. has regularly imported these British staffers to his US outlets, from the New York Post to Fox News to the Wall Street Journal."

In addition one media expert says the lawsuit is just the beginning, while noting that: the intangible damage to American journalism should not be overlooked.

"Look no farther than the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal," he says. “On the Monday morning of this enormous scandal,” he notes, the paper had only a small notice about the closing of the News of the World.

And finally US Senator Jay Rockefeller Chairman of the Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee has taken notice and called for investigations saying in a statement:"This raises serious questions about whether the company has broken U.S. law, and I encourage the appropriate agencies to investigate to ensure that Americans have not had their privacy violated," he added. "I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe."

Here are just some of News Corporation US holdings.It is a partial list:
FOX News Channel, FOX Business Network, Fox Television Stations, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures
New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network
SmartMoney.com (with Hearst), HarperCollins Publishers, William Morrow Publishers
hulu.com (32%)

Republicans and shiny things

UPDATE:7/12/11 Upton and Barton's BULB Act fails. The vote on the bill was 233-193 with five Democrats voting for the bill and 10 Republicans against it.One Republican voted present.

Call it the freedom to choose the light bulb you want or even the right to bare bulbs.

This week House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton will introduce legislation watering down a 2007 law aimed at phasing out incandescent light bulbs and establishing efficiency standards for light bulbs. The bill Upton will bring to the floor is built around Texas Oil Rep. Joe Barton’s cleverly named retrograde effort called Barton’s Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act.

BULB Act repeals a provision in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that requires traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient beginning in 2012.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has a fact sheet (PDF) that shows what the present law if un-modified by the BULB Act would save rate payers in individual states. By their estimate Vermont households annually would save $105.00 in electric costs. These savings collectively, nationwide, would eliminate the need for 30 new power plants.

First he was for it, now he’s against it. For Congressman Upton this is an ongoing effort to live down the fit of reason he suffered back in 2007 when he actually co-sponsored this law and supported bills aimed at phasing out incandescent light bulbs and establishing efficiency standards. Upton – a 24 year house veteran and wealthy heir to the Whirlpool manufacturing fortune, and once considered a Republican moderate – is rapidly phasing out that personality feature.

“It was never my goal for Washington to decide what type of light bulbs Americans should use," Upton said in a statement to The Hill. " The public response on this issue is a clear signal that markets – not governments – should be driving technological advancements. I will join my colleagues to vote yes on a bill to protect consumer choice and guard against federal overreach.”

Perhaps Upton is afraid the burned-out incandescent bulb over his head will be replaced by a nice, efficient, lower-heat, more-light, longer-lasting, compact fluorescent. No new ideas.

Adequately under-compensated

“Vermont’s challenge is neither unemployment nor overcompensation; it’s under underemployment and under-compensation”

says Bill Schubart at the close of an opinion piece on VPR Wednesday. However the focus was not specifically on either the under-employed or even the under-compensated, but on departing Fletcher Allen CEO Dr. Estes. Schubart states that her pay package ($826,000 plus a potential performance bonus of $245,000), which he helped negotiate, was “right.”

No reason to doubt that Fletcher Allen CEO Dr. Estes faced challenges and from reports managed to successfully meet them as she was paid to do. With 6,800 employees Schubart tells us the Medical Center is more complex than some of Vermont’s private businesses where some CEOs earn even more.

By way of explaining, Schubart notes that private-sector executive compensation in America is an international embarrassment to democratic principles, and he seems aghast at the large and growing wage disparities nationally. He cites a recent Washington Post examination of these horrors.But apparently he feels Vermont is unique and any similar feeling regarding Vermont CEOs in uncalled for.

“Recent news reports indicate that Vermonters, too, feel their business and nonprofit executives are overcompensated. But are they? We all feel more secure singing in a chorus than singing solo, but let’s look at reality.”

By one measure executive pay, even in Vermont, is out of proportion to workers earnings: although Vermont’s Merchant Bank CEO Michael Tuttle is at the “modest” end of compensation at $396,069, his compensation is still 11 times the median worker’s pay (do the math: half of Merchants Bank employees earn less than $36,000 a year). In 2010 then-CVPS CEO Bob Young made $1,151,178, and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters head Larry Blanford made $2,406,207.

After a lifetime in Vermont’s public and private sectors, Schubart confidently says he has

“seen nonprofit leadership salaries ranging from $36,000 to $1M a year and have yet to see an overcompensated executive in that sector. Mostly, I have seen the opposite.”

Therefore, he feels Vermonters who raised eyebrows at Melinda Estes’ pay package are piling on our homie non-profit CEO.

In some circles $826,000 plus performance benefits may be considered under-compensating, but by the standards of the crowd I run with that’s pretty rich. It is his turf, so Schubart could have a point about the package he helped negotiate being “right.” However for a large number of Vermonters who have had little or no increase in their earnings for years – and in the case of Vermont state employees, who’ve seen decreases in pay – it may be hard to spare much sympathy for wealthy Vermonters who apparently quite rich enough.

Maybe it’s high time to start a concerted effort to hike-up wages at the bottom first. We can do that if we make sure the sacrifice is shared by raising tax rates on those well-compensated folks bringing home over $250k a year, as Senator Bernie Sanders has recommended nationally to President Obama.
Then perhaps we could help under-compensated Vermont private sector and non-profit executives catch-up to their national counterparts. Until then, they may do just fine, as Dr. Estes has.

Well it's the Fourth of July

Well it’s the Fourth of July and here is a link to a story of a Harvard study which analyzes childhood participation in celebratory patriotic event (4th of July) and future political belief patterns. In a nut shell, Republicans just love a parade.

…the results indicate that Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party.

The pair researched previous studies, finding that July Fourth participation divides along political lines with
a) Republicans viewing the historic anniversary as more important than Democrats do,

and b) Republicans attending July Fourth celebrations more consistently than Democrats do.