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abolition-usa-digest    Thursday, October 15 1998    Volume 01 : Number 030




----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 16:35:52 -0400
From: Peace through Reason <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews:  Shattuck Radioactive Cleanup - golf course-inspired?

Good that somebody's paying attention in Denver.  Note the interests behind
this concern: it's getting publicity now, due to what?  Property values,
golf course?  Bearing in mind that what motivates people is devluation in
their own back yard, we should ponder how we can get through to the
comfortable people.  Check out HR-827, the "Nuclear Disarmament AND
ECONOMIC CONVERSION Act" (environmental restoration, anyone?).
http://prop1.org/prop1/hr827ab.htm

Ellen Thomas - [e-mail]

- ----------------
http://www.denverpost.com/news/shat1010.htm

Suit claims Shattuck costing Denver

By Mark Eddy
Denver Post Environment Writer

Oct. 10 - Denver has lost property tax revenue as a result
of the Shattuck radioactive waste dump, a lawsuit filed
Friday alleges.

"What I've alleged in the complaint is that Denver is in
fact damaged by the existence of that waste,'' said David
Rees, a lawyer who filed the lawsuit in Denver District
Court on behalf of city taxpayers.

The 50,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste at 1805 S.
Bannock St., site of the former Shattuck Chemical Co.
processing plant, has held down value of surrounding
property, including that of the Overland Golf Course.

"The property values in the Overland area are not rising
at the same rate as in other parts of the city, where
property values are skyrocketing, and that's because
people can't sell houses near a dump site,'' Rees said.

In his complaint, Rees claims that Shattuck - owned by
Salomon Inc., which is in turned owned by Citigroup Inc.
- - violated terms of the Rocky Mountain Low-Level
Radioactive Waste Compact.

That law was passed to ensure that no state is unfairly
saddled with radioactive waste. Members of the compact
board met several weeks ago to decide if the Shattuck site
was subject to its jurisdiction, but no decision has been
made. Rees, who as an assistant attorney general for
Colorado helped draft the compact, contends that the
board has jurisdiction and that its rules were violated.

But an attorney for Shattuck, John Fraught, disagreed.
Fraught said the compact's authority was usurped by the
federal Environmental Protection Agency, which ordered
the radioactive soil entombed on the site.

"Congress has made it very clear that if EPA makes a
decision under (federal law), that, in fact, preempts any
decision of the compact,'' Fraught said.

The lawsuit asks the court to order the dirt - contaminated
with radium, uranium and heavy metals - moved to a
licensed facility.

"We are sick and tired of hearing the experts, bureaucrats
and politicians debate about whether having a radioactive
waste disposal site in Overland Park is a threat to public
health,'' Rees said.

"This case isn't about health; this case, like so many
environmental cases, is about money, power and political
influence.''

Gov. Roy Romer could order the waste removed with one
phone call, Rees said, because the compact is designed to
honor the wishes of the state where a problem exists.

Romer, who hadn't seen the lawsuit, couldn't comment on
the case, his staff said. The EPA and Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment made the
decision in 1992 to mix the radioactive dirt with cement
and fly ash and create a monolith on the site. The city of
Denver, as well as residents of the neighborhood, have
fought that decision.

EPA last week ordered an independent panel, which is in
the process of being formed, to investigate the cleanup.

PROPOSITION ONE COMMITTEE
P.O. Box 27217, Washington, DC 20038 USA
202-462-0757 (phone) | 202-265-5389 (fax)
http://prop1.org | [e-mail]

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 16:34:50 -0400
From: Peace through Reason <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews: George Bush and nuclear weapons, Oct. 11, 1998 Washington Post Outlook

So, now Walter Pincus is making an nuclear arms reduction plea, using
George Bush as the standard.  I wonder whose idea that was?  Again it's
talk about reduction, rather than abolition.  Anyone want to reply?
Washington Post reply page:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm

- --------------------------------------

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-10/11/131l-101198-idx.html

Re-Read His Lips: Reduce Arms Now

By Walter Pincus

Sunday, October 11, 1998; Page C01 Washington Post

Seven years ago, President George Bush announced what
many experts consider the single most profound
reduction of nuclear weapons in arms control history and
one that some believe has yet to earn him the credit he
deserves.

With the Soviet Union collapsing, the Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty (START I) then bogged down in the
Soviet parliament and President Mikhail Gorbachev
struggling to hold on to power, Bush ordered elimination
of thousands of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons,
deactivation of 450 land-based ICBMs and a halt to
Pentagon development of mobile single and
multiwarhead strategic missiles as well as an
air-launched, short-range ballistic missile. In Sept. 27,
1991, Bush made his move without prior notification to
Congress and with only a last-minute request to
Gorbachev to match it. In Cold-War vernacular, he
undertook unilateral arms reductions.

Comparable arms reduction pledges from Gorbachev
followed nine days later, in what some described as an
"arms race in reverse" that unquestionably reduced the
potential for accidental nuclear confrontation and helped
Gorbachev withdraw tactical nuclear weapons from
parts of the Soviet Union, which was beginning to break
apart. His action also laid the groundwork for the next
arms treaty, START II.

The situation today cries out for a Bush-like action.
Russia is in turmoil. Boris Yeltsin's hold on the
government is unsteady. Moscow's control over what
remains of that country's nuclear weapons and stockpile
of fissionable material has to be bolstered by, of all
people, the United States, but its overall security remains
questionable.

While START I is in force, START II is stalled in the
Duma even as the Russian strategic air and naval forces
scrounge for funds to maintain their land-based silo and
mobile ICBMs or their strategic nuclear submarines.

At a time when the Clinton administration is trying to
convince the Indian and Pakistani governments--as well
as other countries--that they should not build nuclear
weapons, the United States still maintains thousands of
warheads and strategic delivery systems, many of which
remain at a 15-minute-or-less alert with almost no
targets for them to aim at.

Like Bush, Clinton as commander-in-chief could order
deactivation of the 50 MX ICBMs now on alert, each
with 10 warheads; begin retiring half the 18 Trident
ballistic missile submarines that each have 28
sea-launched ICBMs; and open the safety switches of the
500 Minuteman III missiles, with three warheads each,
so that they would be temporarily immobilized.

It would be a stunning move that would greatly
strengthen our arguments against nuclear proliferation
and encourage the signing of the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty by nuclear nations, such as India
and Pakistan, which last month expressed receptiveness
toward the agreement.

What's to stop President Clinton from doing what Bush
did? Political realists would argue the obvious: that with
impeachment hanging in the air, the president was taking
a dramatic step to divert attention. But Clinton's
opponents and many in the media will say that about
everything the president does, whether it's air strikes in
Kosovo, a new step toward Middle East peace, even
taking a long-planned overseas trip.

Then there are the Republicans who not only dislike
Clinton but also firmly oppose taking any further arms
control steps with the Russians until they ratify START
II. They have pushed Congress to put language in the past
few Pentagon authorization bills, and the fiscal 1999
measure that would prohibit the spending of any funds to
dismantle U.S. strategic weapons under the treaty until
the Duma acts on it. In the new bill, those Republicans
also want a report on whether Gorbachev's promises to
Bush have in fact been carried out.

Several experts, including former senator Sam Nunn and
Brookings Institution arms control specialist Bruce G.
Blair, have suggested publicly that Clinton unilaterally
reduce the number of U.S. strategic land- and sea-based
ICBMs and remove hair-trigger alerts from the
remaining U.S. strategic missiles.

There is other support for unilateral action. Former
Defense secretary Robert S. McNamara, just back from a
non-governmental conference on disarmament in Russia
with that country's nuclear scientists, said a unilateral
U.S. reduction of strategic weapons is "exactly what I
think should be done." He said the Russians have turned
to a first-use of nuclear weapons strategy because their
armed forces have collapsed and they fear a U.S. first
strike. "They would respond," McNamara said of the
Russians, "because they know nuclear weapons are not
the answer to their problems."

McNamara said that he and others could put together a
package that would be acceptable to the Pentagon and to
Congress and which would elicit a favorable response
from the Russians.

Today, because of their financial troubles, the Russians
cannot sustain the 9,000 warheads on their strategic
silo-based and mobile ICBMs, nor the 2,000 more in
missiles on submarines. Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, chief
of the Russian strategic rocket forces, said recently that
62 percent of Russia's ICBMs are beyond guaranteed
service life. Only two of their new mobile ICBMs have
been deployed and those were three years behind
schedule. Only 25 of 100 planned Blackjack strategic
bombers have been completed in the past nine years and
the largest number of them are rusting away in Ukraine.
When that country offered them for sale to Russia
recently, the Russians turned them down because they
did not have the funds required.

According to Blair, only two of Russia's 26 ballistic
missile submarines are on patrol and only one of three
planned new subs is actually under construction. Of six
Typhoon ICBM-equipped subs built in the last decade,
only three are still operational. Blair estimates that
usable Russian nuclear warheads could drop below
1,000 in less than 10 years.

Congress has recognized Russia's severe nuclear
weapons problems. In the new Pentagon authorization
bill, the legislators have provided funds to assist the
Russians in the dismantling of their missiles and
bombers as contemplated by the treaty, but not ours.

Bush's action came from a position of strength. It grew
out of his determination to do something bold as a
followup to the victory in Desert Storm and to keep his
momentum heading into the 1992 presidential election.
While vacationing at Walker Point, the president's
vacation home in Maine, Bush and his national security
advisor, Brent Scowcroft, talked about taking "sweeping
initiatives" in disarmament in the face of the breakup of
the Soviet Union, according to their newly published
book, "A World Transformed."

In language that President Clinton could employ, Bush
announced the reductions by declaring that "If we and the
Soviet leaders take the right steps--some on our own,
some together--we can dramatically shrink the arsenal of
the world's nuclear weapons . . . . America must lead
again, as it always has."

Senior Clinton national security and foreign policy
officials are looking for initiatives that could bring the
president to center stage here and abroad on substantive
issues. It could be a fitting challenge to Clinton's
persuasive powers, first within his administration and
then with the Congress.

A major, unilateral reduction of strategic warheads by
the world's strongest nuclear power, while a big gamble
for the president, would set an example worldwide.

Walter Pincus is a reporter on The Post's National staff.

REFRESHER COURSE

INTERMEDIATE-RANGE NUCLEAR FORCE
TREATY

Eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons with a
range of between 300 and 3,400 miles. Entered into
force in June 1988.

STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTION TREATY (START
I)

Cut of 30 to 40 percent in overall strategic nuclear
forces, including ICBMs, sea-launched ballistic missiles
and deployed heavy bombers. Entered into force in
December 1994.

STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTION TREATY (START
II)

Further reductions in the most threatening weapons,
including multiple independently targetable nuclear
warheads. Would cut nuclear arsenals of United States
and Russia by two-thirds. Signed by both countries in
1993. Ratified by the U.S. Senate in January 1996. Not
yet ratified by Russian Duma.

COMPRENHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY

Prohibits nuclear explosions, above ground or
underground. Negotiated in 1996. Signed by 150 nations,
including the United States, but so far ratified by 21, the
United States not among them.



_______________________________________________________________________

* Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! *
_______________________________________________________________________

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 16:45:06 -0400
From: Peace through Reason <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews:  Carlsbad NM INVITED WIPP (Forbes, Oct. 19, 1998)

Would you like a nuclear waste dump in your backyard?
Carlsbad, N.M. lobbied like hell to get one.

How Carlsbad got WIPPed

By William P. Barrett, Forbes Magazine, Oct. 19, 1998

FOR DECADES isolated Carlsbad, N.M. has basked in the fame of nearby
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, with its awesome underground stalactites
and stalagmites. Now it's getting another underground claim to fame: a huge
nuclear-waste disposal site.

Carlsbad's mayor and local businesspeople actually invited the federal
government to consider bringing the waste here. Why? They figured they
needed it for their economic growth.

Located 26 miles east of Carlsbad, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or
WIPP, is a world first: a series of man-made tunnels 2,150 feet
underground, designed to accommodate radioactive waste.

Delighted to find a place that would accept nuclear waste, the U.S.
Department of Energy has poured $2 billion into this hole in the ground.
Much of the money has circulated through this town of 25,000. "No one had
any earthly idea how big this rascal could be," Don Kidd, Carlsbad state
senator and bank president, says approvingly.

Today, according to economic models, WIPP generates more than $150 million
annually for the Carlsbad economy, or about $6,000 per resident. A small
army of miners, contractors, technicians, federal bureaucrats, supervisors,
executives and vendors either live in or frequently visit the area. WIPP's
20-person communications team, for  example, tops the staff of 11
journalists on the local daily newspaper. Unemployment, a high 8.1%, would
be a lot higher without WIPP. New homes costing upwards of $200,000 are
going up in a town where older houses can be found for under $30,000.

So far WIPP is empty, though it was ready for business by 1988. Lawsuits
backed by out-of-town environmentalists have delayed its use. WIPP is now
supposed to receive its first waste next year. In the mine, dug through
ancient salt deposits, WIPP will ultimately hold a total of 850,000 barrels
of lightly contaminated items like tools and clothing-trucked in from ten
nuclear weapons facilities around the country.

In this rough region, where people have long worked the land, lived by
their wits, taken risks, hoped for luck and respected authority, most local
people welcome WIPP. It's a poor area where per capita income runs 28%
below the national average. Atomic bombs were perfected and first tested in
New Mexico, so the word nuclear probably didn't generate the same hysteria
here it did elsewhere.  Carlsbad has been hooked on Washington handouts for
a long time.  In the later 1800s U.S. Army troops cleared out Indians for
cattle-raising settlers who later founded the town of Eddy. In 1899 Eddy
renamed itself after the famous European springs at Karlsbad, hoping to
attract more settlers, but the area continued to get federal largesse.
Washington-financed projects rebuilt damaged irrigation systems and  tamed
the Pecos River. Congressional appropriations developed Carlsbad Caverns.
Natural resources outfits got cut-rate leases on federal lands.

It was Carlsbad that wanted WIPP. In 1972 the old Atomic Energy Commission
abandoned plans to build a nuclear dump near Lyons, Kans., amid botched
underground surveys and withering media coverage. On an out-of-town trip
Carlsbad state senator Joseph Gant Jr. read a wire-service story-by
chance-about the Lyons fiasco and got on the telephone to other Carlsbad
influentials. Mines harvesting potash, a key ingredient for fertilizer,
were closing, and Carlsbad seemed on the road to becoming another
Chihuahuan desert ghost town.

Within weeks these local movers and shakers were actively lobbying
astonished but wary federal officials, and they have never stopped. When,
in 1980, Jimmy Carter vowed to scrap the project, city fathers descended
upon Washington to lobby Congress and various federal agencies. Ronald
Reagan later acceded to their wishes and reversed Carter's decision.

Along the way the city fathers made sure Carlsbad would be well rewarded.
The feds agreed to move high-paying federal jobs to Carlsbad and to buy
lots of supplies locally-sometimes from city officials running side
businesses. They won funding to improve the 200-mile-long highway to a New
Mexico interstate from two lanes to four. The locals even got $33 million
in taxpayer money to build and support an environmental monitoring center
where residents can get free body scans for radioactivity. City schools get
used computers from Westinghouse, which runs WIPP for the feds.

The nuclear wastes have an estimated dangerous radioactive life of up to
240,000 years. If anything goes really wrong, Carlsbad could end up
abandoned, but these folks are used to taking chances.

_______________________________________________________________________

* Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! *
_______________________________________________________________________

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 18:01:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jackie Cabasso <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) RE CHICAGO: HAS ANYONE SEEN MY NOTEBOOK??

Greetings, friends.  I seem to have left my notebook at the Saturday session
of the Chicago abolition conference.  It is a standard letter-size
spiral-bound notebook with a purple cover.  On the first page there's a long
list of things to do!  There was a also shiny purple University of Chicago
pen clipped to the cover. If you accidentally ended up in possession of my
"portable brain," please let me know!!  Many thanks. -- Jackie
   ********************************************
       WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION
           1440 Broadway, Suite 500
             Oakland, CA USA 94612
              Tel: [phone]
              Fax: [phone]
               [e-mail]
   ********** Part of ABOLITION 2000 **********
   Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons


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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 20:59:42 -0700 (PDT)
From: Nevada Desert Experience <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re:  (abolition-usa) Re military spending

Dear David,                    October 12, 1998
Greetings from Las Vegas.  I just returned from the board meeting of the
Nevada Desert Experience  in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Chris Montesano
is on our board.  Both Chris and I want to invite you to consider coming
to our turn of the millennium event at the Nevada Test Site.  From December
29, 1999 to Jan. 2, 2000 we plan to host 500-1000 folks for Millennium 2000:
Walking the Ways of Peace.  Already we have Bishop Gumbleton, Dr. Rosalie
Bertell and Dan Berrigan planning on attending.  More literature will be coming
out in the next months and you will probably be hearing soon from Chris, of
the Sheepranch Catholic Worker Farm and our Board.  Please seriously consider
being a part of our event.  In the meantime...keep on keepin on for peace in
New York, the Pentagon, etc.
        Sincerely,         David Buer, ofm
                    NDE Interim Director

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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 07:23:34 -0400
From: Peace through Reason <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) EnviroNews:  Poplars clean pollution

10/12/98 - USA Today - Science

             Phytoremediation: Poplars vs. pollution

             Cleaning up polluted industrial sites may not require
             billion-dollar government programs. Instead,
             scientists suggest, plant a poplar tree.
             Laboratory-designed hybrids of the fast-growing tree
             have been found to act like 100-foot straws that suck
             contamination from soil and ground water. This
             natural cleanup is inexpensive but takes several years
             to complete. Still unknown, however, is whether the
             chemical byproducts generated by the poplars really
             are less harmful, or if diluting them in the atmosphere
             only creates another hazard.
_______________________________________________________________________

* Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! *
_______________________________________________________________________

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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 06:09:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Gerson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) RE CHICAGO: HAS ANYONE SEEN MY NOTEBOOK??

10/13
Jackie,

        Sorry to read that you lost your notebook. I hope it turns up. That
would drive me nuts!
        Probably like you, I'm crushed with work, but if time allows (on
either of our ends) I'd probably benefit from a phone conversation with you
dissecting the politics of what happened in Chicago. (My assumption is that
our AFSC phones are not bugged, but we shouldn't do it by phone if there's a
chance that yours are: legacy of organizing against the war in Vietnam in
Arizona.)

        Good luck,
        J. Gerson



At 06:01 PM 10/12/98 -0700, Jackie Cabasso wrote:
>Greetings, friends.  I seem to have left my notebook at the Saturday session
>of the Chicago abolition conference.  It is a standard letter-size
>spiral-bound notebook with a purple cover.  On the first page there's a long
>list of things to do!  There was a also shiny purple University of Chicago
>pen clipped to the cover. If you accidentally ended up in possession of my
>"portable brain," please let me know!!  Many thanks. -- Jackie
>   ********************************************
>       WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION
>           1440 Broadway, Suite 500
>             Oakland, CA USA 94612
>              Tel: [phone]
>              Fax: [phone]
>               [e-mail]
>   ********** Part of ABOLITION 2000 **********
>   Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons
>
>
>-
> To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "[e-mail]"
> with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
> For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
> "help" to the same address.  Do not use quotes in your message.
>
>


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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:09:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Gerson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) REGIONAL REPORTS FOR CHICAGO MEETING

10/13
Hello Rosalie,

        The Chicago meeting was interesting. Hopefully I'll be able to get a
summary report out to our network in the next few days. In sum, it allowed
for quite a lot of communication and some debate about what is needed to
move ahead with a national campaign. An interim coordinating committe was
established for a six month period, with a mandate to call another more
representative and diverse group, and with more comprehensive campaign
proposals, so that the national campaign can be launched.

        I was surprised that word of the Maine town meeting campaign had not
reached Gordon Clark, the staff director (not sure of his formal title) at
Peace Action in Washington, D.C. I pressed for parent groups of all the
organizations working on the Vermont and Maine town meetings to amplify the
message that comes out of town meetings.

        More anon...

        With best wishes,

        Joseph Gerson



At 08:39 AM 10/5/98 -0400, Rosalie Tyler Paul wrote:
>Jackie - Sue Broidy will have the information of Maine's Abolition 2000
>work. Rosalie Paul, Peace Action Maine
>
>
>
>-
> To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "[e-mail]"
> with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
> For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
> "help" to the same address.  Do not use quotes in your message.
>
>


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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 14:28:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Sue Broidy <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) Fwd: Update on information please

>Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 09:16:12 -0400
>From: Lorna Howarth <[e-mail]>
>Subject: Update on information please
>Sender: Lorna Howarth <[e-mail]>
>To: "Press/Media Dept." <[e-mail]>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>Dear Friends
>
>I am going to put a small piece in the next issue of Positive News about
>the work of Abolition 2000 and the Middle Power Initiative.  I need a
>little more information:
>
>Why is there no MPI network in the UK (UK was not listed as a coalition
>country)?
>Is there a UK Abolition 2000 working group, and if so, what are the contact
>details.
>
>Very much looking forward to hearing from you.
>
>Yours sincerely
>
>
>Lorna Howarth, Editor, Positive News
>



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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 00:38:38 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: (abolition-usa) DWOP News coverage in Colorado Springs

 Date:    10/13/98 3:10:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time
 From:    [e-mail] (Erica Kay)
 Sender:    [e-mail]
 Reply-to:    [e-mail]

          Thanks to those in Colorado Springs for making this stop fun and
     newsworthy and thank to Bill Sulzman for forwarding this report.

     And thank yous to you at other stops for your hospitality and helping
     create the tour's success.

     Erica
     in Seattle

          Here is a summary of the news coverage in the Colorado
         Springs Gazette, October 13.  The caption under a picture of a street
         theater scene reads: "Members of the Nonviolent Action Community of
         Cascadia-Seattle,Wash., perform street theater on the Colorado
College
         campus, Monday."

           The text of the article reads:"Carrying signs and a 15-foot silver
         model of a rocket, protestors opposed to military spending marched in
         Colorado Springs on Monday.
              About 20 people, some dressed in costumes, marched through
Colorado
         College and Acacia Park. They sang songs and performed skits urging
         disarmament of missiles.
              The march was inspired by six people from Seattle who stopped
here
         on their way to a protest in Washington, D.C., next Monday called 'A
Day
         without the Pentagon'.  More than 100 organizations are expected at
that
         rally.
             John Reese,a member  of the Seattle group, said the United States
         should stop making bombs and instead invest in education, health care
and
         housing.  The country should also stop selling weapons, Reese said.
              'We sell to country A, then country A goes to war with country
B.
         Now country A is our enemy, and we have to arm country B,' he said.
              The group plans to make 14 stops on its way to the Washington
         rally."


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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 00:53:02 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: (abolition-usa) BUS REPORT

 Subj:=09 BUS REPORT
 Date:=0910/13/98 8:27:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time
 From:=[e-mail] (John Reese)
 Sender:=[e-mail]
 To:=[e-mail]

 Report From the bus

 Tuesday, October 13, 1998

 We started the day in Kansas City, Kansas, with an early morning crowd of
about 20.  We
 held banners at a busy intersection and then gave a tour of the bus.  We =
had
channel 4,
 the local FOX affiliate, filming us but no interview.  We were interviewe=
d by
the local
 Pacifica station and a weekly newspaper.  The Kansas City folk were very
supportive and
 it was great doing a demo with them.

 In St Louis we drove through McDonnell Douglas.  Got a lot of looks and t=
hat
is about
 it.  We needed a break so we are at Mira=92s with AFSC to shower, eat and=
 then
move on to
 Chicago.

 For those in Chicago, South Bend and Kent it would be great if you could =
give
your local
 media a call.  We will be in Chicago at the Federal Building at noon on
Wednesday and
 then South Bend at 5 PM at Main and Colfax (not main and Washington).  Th=
en
on Thursday
 we will be in Kent, Ohio - noon at Kent State University Student Center
Plaza, 2 PM at
 the May 4th memorial, and 4 PM in downtown Kent at Main and Water St.

 We should arrive in Annapolis at 3 PM on Friday for the conference.  And =
of
course we
 will all be at the Pentagon on the 19th.

 We=92ll try to send a message from South Bend but may not be able to unti=
l we
get to Kent
 on Thursday.


 For Peace and Justice,

 the bus crew




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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 10:04:00 -0400
From: Peace through Reason <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews: DOE Cleanup Program Criticized (NY Times 10/14/98)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Energy-Cleanup.html

October 14, 1998 NY Times - AP Online

        Energy Dept. Program Criticized

        By The Associated Press

        WASHINGTON (AP) -- When officials at the
        Hanford nuclear site in Washington state sought a
        quicker way to test for soil contamination they turned
        to an Energy Department program that has spent
        hundreds of millions developing new technologies to
        be used at cleanup sites.

        Two experimental technologies developed by the
        department's Office of Science and Technology caught
        the officials' eyes. But they were quickly
        disappointed. That's because the methods had not been
        developed to work effectively in Hanford's arid soil.

        The wasted opportunity is symptomatic of the
        department's OST program, which has cost $2.5
        billion over the last decade but managed to find uses
        for fewer than one in five technologies it has paid to
        develop, according to a new congressional audit.

        The audit, made public Tuesday, criticized the
        program for underwriting possible cleanup
        technologies without consulting with the nuclear
        weapons sites that might benefit. It said many
        department weapons site project managers shun the
        OST program because they ``lack confidence in OST's
        ability to provide technical advice and assistance.''

        The General Accounting Office, the auditing arm of
        Congress, also criticized the program for failing to
        follow its own rules for deciding when to continue
        funding for experimental technologies.

        OST's adherence to its own procedures ``has been
        spotty in part because a rigorous application of its
        requirements might indicate that some projects should
        be terminated for reasons such as the lack of an
        identified customer'' within the department, GAO
        reported.

        Nearly 73 percent of OST's money for developing
        new cleanup technologies this year went to private
        industry or the department's private contractors, 20
        percent to the department's own labs and 8 percent to
        universities, officials estimate.

        The department wrote the GAO that it agrees with the
        audit findings. An official who oversees the program
        said Tuesday he believes it is moving toward making
        the technology development more efficient and
        tailored to the cleanup sites' needs.

        ``We're going to see more deployment of these
        technologies in the future. Some 200 of these projects
        that GAO studied are still under development,'' said
        Gerald G. Boyd, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary
        for science and technology.

        But House Commerce Chairman Thomas Bliley,
        R-Va., whose committee investigated the program,
        said the audit reveals major faults in a well
        intentioned initiative that suffers from ``an unfocused
        and poorly planned effort.''

        ``DOE could save billions with innovative
        technologies if it could just clean up its act,'' Bliley
        said.

        The OST program has been under scrutiny for more
        than a year.

        The Associated Press reported in May 1997 that a
        Massachusetts company with ties to Vice President Al
        Gore got $33 million in development funds -- nearly
        all without bidding -- for its experimental technology.
        The department often approved new funds around the
        time the company, Molten Metal Technology, made
        donations to the Democratic Party, records showed.

        The AP reported that the company's lobbyist, former
        Clinton campaign manager and fund-raiser Peter
        Knight, arranged for company executives to meet
        privately with the assistant secretary overseeing the
        program. Knight also provided that official with
        complimentary tickets to a black-tie Democratic
        event.

        Knight, the company and Energy officials denied
        wrongdoing. The assistant secretary was investigated
        by Energy's inspector general and left the department.
        The department never hired Molten Metal Technology
        after its technology was developed, and it later filed
        for bankruptcy protection, officials said.

        The OST program was created in 1989 to underwrite
        development of new technologies to clean up the
        various sites used to create the massive U.S. nuclear
        weapon arsenal during the Cold War.

        The Energy Department program has underwritten 713
        potential cleanup technologies. The department says
        152 of them, or 21 percent, have been used at a
        department site at least once.

        The GAO, saying that figure is inflated, estimated the
        department deployed 88 to 130 technologies it had
        funded, a success rate of 13 percent to 18 percent.

        The rate for experimental technologies the department
        funded into later stages of development was higher,
        ranging from 28 percent to 45 percent. But GAO noted
        that still lagged behind the Environmental Protection
        Agency's 59 percent rate for a similar program. A
        Defense Department initiative averaged 38 percent.

_______________________________________________________________________

* Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! *
_______________________________________________________________________

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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 10:20:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Gerson <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) "Faustian Bargain"

10/15
Dear Jackie,

        I picked up a copy of "A Faustian Bargain" at the Chicago meeting
and read it on the plane coming back. A fine piece of work, and very helpful.

        Could you please send me 15 copies, with a bill? If at all possible,
I'd like to have them by the 22nd so that I can take them down to New York
for a talk and a meeting I have there on the 23rd.

        My mailing address is 2161 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, Mass. 02140.

        Thanks,

        Joseph Gerson


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------------------------------

End of abolition-usa-digest V1 #30
**********************************

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