Currently viewing the tag: “Waste”
Since Japan's earthquake and following nuclear crisis, the CBS Evening News has done two reports on the Obama administration blocking use of the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada to safely dispose of U.S. nuclear waste. Meanwhile, NBC and ABC have ignored the controversy.
The first CBS report on the issue came on March 22, when Evening News anchor Katie Couric declared: "The crisis in Japan has renewed the debate over nuclear power in this country. Today a federal appeals court heard arguments in a lawsuit over what to do with spent fuel rods." Correspondent Jim Axelrod explained: "An estimated 66,000 metric tons of spent fuel are stored at 77 sites around the country. That's more than 145 million pounds….Plans to make Yucca Mountain in Nevada a long-term storage site were scuttled by the Obama administration a year ago, after 20 years of planning costing $ 14 billion."
In a follow-up piece on Thursday's Evening News, correspondent Armen Keteyian went further in laying blame on the Obama administration: "There was one site designed to hold all of our nation's nuclear waste and it's right here in the high desert of Nevada, at a place called Yucca Mountain. Today, the federal government won't let our cameras anywhere near it. It's shut down, locked up, caught up in what critics charge is nothing more than pure politics."
Fill-in anchor Erica Hill teased Keteyian's report at the top of the broadcast: "Why did plans to bury nuclear waste inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain get killed? Was it safety fears or politics?" Keteyian described how the, "Obama administration kept its campaign promise….And shut down Yucca Mountain. Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must decide if it wants to restart what is already a 25-year, $ 14 billion project, in the face of tough opposition, like that from Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader from Nevada."
Keteyian also pointed out the political background of the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Obama: "A former staffer for Senator Reid, Greg Jaczko, now chairs the NRC. Jaczko recently came under fire after shutting down the agency's safety review of Yucca Mountain and after key safety recommendations were redacted, cut out, from a long-awaited NRC report."
In the March 22 report, Axelrod noted: "The head of the NRC may not see a pressing problem, but the states now suing did not want to take that risk before Japan's disaster and certainly don't want to now."
On Thursday, Keteyian challenged Jaczko: "Critics charge that you were simply doing the bidding of your former boss, Senator Harry Reid, a fierce opponent of this project."
Keteyian concluded his piece: "The NRC inspector general and Congress are now investigating the decision to shut down the safety review. Still, nuclear waste is scattered across 35 states, and Yucca Mountain sits silent and empty."
Here is a full transcript of Keteyian's March 31 report:
6:30PM ET TEASE:
ERICA HILL: Why did plans to bury nuclear waste inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain get killed? Was it safety fears or politics?
6:38PM ET TEASE:
HILL: And when we come back, it was supposed to store all of America's nuclear waste, so why then is this desert facility now deserted?
6:40PM ET SEGMENT:
HILL: For more than 50 years a debate has raged over where to store radioactive nuclear waste in this country. And that debate has been reignited by the crisis in Japan. The solution was supposed to be here at a place called Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the multibillion-dollar storage project has been shelved and as chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian explains, a congressional committee wants to find out why.
ARMEN KETEYIAN: Nuclear waste – the radioactive guest on the doorstep of many of America's most populous cities. Nearly 70,000 tons from 104 reactors often piling up within 50 miles from cities like New York, Chicago, and San Diego.
There was one site designed to hold all of our nation's nuclear waste and it's right here in the high desert of Nevada, at a place called Yucca Mountain. Today, the federal government won't let our cameras anywhere near it. It's shut down, locked up, caught up in what critics charge is nothing more than pure politics.
Gary Holis and Darrell Lacey are key officials in Nye County, Nevada. They want the waste at Yucca Mountain for the jobs and money it would bring.
DARRELL LACY [NYE COUNTY NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY PROJECT OFFICE]: The people in this area are all fairly comfortable with Yucca Mountain. Many of them have worked at Yucca Mountain.
KETEYIAN: Four previous presidents funded safety reviews of the project but last year the Obama administration kept its campaign promise.
CAMPAIGN AD: Barack Obama opposes opening Yucca.
KETEYIAN: And shut down Yucca Mountain. Now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must decide if it wants to restart what is already a 25-year, $ 14 billion project, in the face of tough opposition, like that from Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader from Nevada.
JEFFREY LEWIS [PH.D., NUCLEAR SAFETY EXPERT]: If the U.S. government wanted to do Yucca Mountain, it would have had to shove it down Harry Reid's throat.
KETEYIAN: A former staffer for Senator Reid, Greg Jaczko, now chairs the NRC. Jaczko recently came under fire after shutting down the agency's safety review of Yucca Mountain and after key safety recommendations were redacted, cut out, from a long-awaited NRC report. Three NRC staffers formally protested the decision to derail the safety review, charging it caused 'confusion, chaos, and anguish'. Today, Jaczko told us the safety report was preliminary, a draft, and that he had nothing to do with the redactions.
Critics charge that you were simply doing the bidding of your former boss, Senator Harry Reid, a fierce opponent of this project.
GREGORY JACZKO [PH.D., CHAIRMAN, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION: It was a difficult decision and – because it is such a controversial program – but, again, it was one that was made in, I believe, in the best interest of the agency.
KETEYIAN: The NRC inspector general and Congress are now investigating the decision to shut down the safety review. Still, nuclear waste is scattered across 35 states, and Yucca Mountain sits silent and empty. Armen Keteyian, CBS News, Nye County, Nevada.
— Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
The U.S. Dept. of Transportation gave notice this week that it has begun considering whether to grant the Canadian company Bruce Power permission to move 16 radioactively contaminated steam generators through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.
In a notice in the March 30 Federal Register DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration wrote that on Feb. 24 Bruce Power asked for special arrangements so that it could transport the large generators for recycling and volume reduction in Sweden.
The initial leg of transport would be by road and entirely within Canada. The steam generators would then be loaded on a vessel in Owen Sound, Ontario for transport to Sweden via Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario and interconnecting waterways as well as the St. Lawrence River. At various times the vessel would necessarily enter U.S. waters. Therefore, under IAEA special arrangement provisions, the U.S. would need to revalidate the Canadian certificate in order to permit transport.
PHMSA is recognized as the IAEA Competent Authority for the U.S. and is responsible for competent authority approval in these cases.PHMSA intends to conduct a fully independent review of the proposed transport including safety, environmental, and fitness assessments, in consultation with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and U.S. Coast Guard. PHMSA must approve, deny, or institute additional controls regarding
the transport in the request for competent authority approval.
A group of over 70 mayors from U.S. and Canadian towns along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway have warned that this shipment could endanger public water supplies.
The Respect campaign is five years old this season, so how’s that going? Well, it depends on how you judge such things. The view of the players, as voiced by players union head Clarke Carlisle is that behaviour of players has improved and that there…
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The U.S. is reportedly in talks with Mongolia about the country setting up an international repository for nuclear waste, reports National Journal:
U.S. Energy Department officials and their counterparts in Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital, are in the early stages of discussion and there has been no determination yet about whether to proceed with the idea, according to Richard Stratford, who directs the State Department’s Nuclear Energy, Safety and Security Office.
Speaking at the biennial Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, Stratford said a spent-fuel depot in the region could be of particular value to Taiwan and South Korea, which use nuclear power but have few options when it comes to disposing of atomic waste.
"If Mongolia were to do that, I think that would be a very positive step forward in terms of internationalizing spent-fuel storage," he said during a panel discussion on nuclear cooperation agreements. "My Taiwan and South Korean colleagues have a really difficult time with spent fuel. And if there really was an international storage depot, which I have always supported, then that would help to solve their problem."
Stratford is Washington’s lead envoy for nuclear trade pacts, which are sometimes called "123 agreements" after the section of the Atomic Energy Act that governs them.
The United States provides fresh uranium rods to selected trade partners in Asia, including South Korea and Taiwan. For Mongolia to accept and store U.S.-origin spent fuel from these or other nations would require Washington to first negotiate a nuclear trade agreement with Ulaanbaatar.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had advocated for Russia to take on a similar role a few years ago, but the plan never got off the ground. If Mongolia were to embrace YIMBYism, it would certainly be a welcome development for its Asian neighbors, and a nuclear trade agreement with the U.S. could help kick-start the country’s own power industry. Naturally, questions about proliferation risks are going to come up. And in light of the past month’s events, one can’t help but remember that the region is not exactly immune from earthquakes.
Written by I-fan Lin
Nuclear waste is the material that nuclear fuel becomes after it is used in a reactor. It is dangerously radioactive and remains so for thousands of years. Four years after the first nuclear power plant was built in 1970, the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council decided to dump the nuclear waste at Orchid Island (Lanyu), where aboriginal Tao people (Yami) have lived for generations.
There are two nuclear waste storage sites [zh] on Orchid Island. Every week, boats from Taiwan bring the radioactive waste to Orchid Island dumping 45,000 barrels of waste on the beautiful island annually. These nuclear waste storage sites have changed the fate of Tao people forever. In a campaign page [zh] at the public T.V website, Tao people demanded that the government return a peaceful childhood to their children:
民國六十九年核廢料從台灣漂洋過海到蘭嶼，從此以後，伴隨著蘭嶼小朋友長大的，除了飛魚、迷你豬，還有核廢料桶。
Since the nuclear waste was sent to Orchid Island from Taiwan by boats in 1980, the children of Orchid Island grow up with flying fishes, mini pigs, and the barrels of nuclear waste.
According to an in-depth report [zh] Tao people were ignorant of the construction of nuclear waste site:
當年貯存場地施工的時候，鄉民根本不知道是在建核廢料貯存場。當時的鄉長江瓦斯甚至不懂中文！少數鄉民聽施工的人說是正在蓋「罐頭工廠」，今天運送廢料的專用碼頭被說成某種軍事用途的港口……。
While it was under construction [in 1979], none of us knew it is for nuclear waste storage. At that time our village chief could not even understand Chinese. Construction workers told some of the villagers that they were building a “Can Food Factory” while the pier for landing nuclear waste was said to be a military harbor…
When the Tao people finally learned the danger of nuclear waste in 1987, they began to protest against the nuclear waste and the battle has been going for more than 20 years. In 1995, they announced the “Declaration of expelling the nuclear waste demons” [zh]:
雅美族，全球只有三千人，一個吟詩的民族，一個和平的民族，我們不願意再以我們族人的血肉之軀去作為台電核能人體實驗的對象。
Tao people are an ethnic group with only 3000 population in the whole world. We are poets. We believe in peace. We can no longer accept the Taiwan Power Company treating our bodies like guinea pigs.
Below is an excerpt of a documentary The borderland. It shows the life and culture of Tao people on Orchid Island and this video clip from 1:20 to 2:58 shows some precious historical photos about Tao people's protest against the nuclear waste storage sites in 1987.
On December 31 2002, Tao people managed to terminate the contract with the Taiwan Power Company. However, the Taiwanese government has no plan to remove the nuclear waste from the Island. Since the first ‘Demon-expelling’ ceremony held in 1988, more than 20 years have passed. The next round of battle for Tao people since then has been to press the government to solve the waste problem. Below is special coverage of the nuclear waste problem in Orchid Island. The reporter interviewed the environmentalists, government and protesters, but not a single party could provide a viable solution to the problem:
In 2008, 26 years after the first barrel of nuclear waste was stored on Orchid Island, the government finally took action to conduct a thorough security inspection of these nuclear waste barrels. According to a local news report reposted in the Orchid Island e-news website [zh], the result was worrisome. The inspectors assigned by the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council found out that:
首座開蓋檢整的壕溝貯放的四千多桶核廢料全部鏽蝕，部分廢料桶甚至已開膛剖肚。
All 4000+ barrels in the first inspection were eroded by rust. Some of the barrels have been eroded to the extent that there are big cracks cutting across the iron shells.
核廢料桶禁不起蘭嶼高溫潮濕和高鹽分的惡劣環境，八十一年起陸續出現鏽蝕。
Since 1992, these nuclear waste barrels have been eroded by the high temperature, high humidity, and high salinity environment of Orchid Island.
Who should take care of the nuclear waste? Who should be responsible for the nuclear waste? Where should the nuclear waste go? Blogger Annpo pointed out [zh] that the problem of nuclear waste cannot be neglected in the review of energy policy in Taiwan, in addition to the safety of nuclear power plants:
當年，國家發展重工業，需要大量電力，今日國家依然要大力發展，生產更多需要被消化被解決的問題，發展之後留下的都是「債」。債，誰要還？誰來還？要不，根據用電統計，用電量最多的地區，作為核廢料掩埋場，好不？支持興建核電的，一人抱一桶回家，好不？
In the past, our country had high-energy demand for the development of heavy industry. Today our country still wants to continue this developmental path which will generate more problems that need to be solved some day in the future. There is always ‘debt’ left behind after development. Who will pay for the debt? Should we decide according to the energy consumption rate and ask that the area where people consume most electricity become the new nuclear waste storage site? And ask that those who support the nuclear power plants take home one barrel with them?
Written by I-fan Lin
Nuclear waste is the material that nuclear fuel becomes after it is used in a reactor. It is dangerously radioactive and remains so for thousands of years. Four years after the first nuclear power plant was built in 1970, the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council decided to dump the nuclear waste at Orchid Island (Lanyu), where aboriginal Tao people (Yami) have lived for generations.
There are two nuclear waste storage sites [zh] on Orchid Island. Every week, boats from Taiwan bring the radioactive waste to Orchid Island dumping 45,000 barrels of waste on the beautiful island annually. These nuclear waste storage sites have changed the fate of Tao people forever. In a campaign page [zh] at the public T.V website, Tao people demanded that the government return a peaceful childhood to their children:
民國六十九年核廢料從台灣漂洋過海到蘭嶼，從此以後，伴隨著蘭嶼小朋友長大的，除了飛魚、迷你豬，還有核廢料桶。
Since the nuclear waste was sent to Orchid Island from Taiwan by boats in 1980, the children of Orchid Island grow up with flying fishes, mini pigs, and the barrels of nuclear waste.
According to an in-depth report [zh] Tao people were ignorant of the construction of nuclear waste site:
當年貯存場地施工的時候，鄉民根本不知道是在建核廢料貯存場。當時的鄉長江瓦斯甚至不懂中文！少數鄉民聽施工的人說是正在蓋「罐頭工廠」，今天運送廢料的專用碼頭被說成某種軍事用途的港口……。
While it was under construction [in 1979], none of us knew it is for nuclear waste storage. At that time our village chief could not even understand Chinese. Construction workers told some of the villagers that they were building a “Can Food Factory” while the pier for landing nuclear waste was said to be a military harbor…
When the Tao people finally learned the danger of nuclear waste in 1987, they began to protest against the nuclear waste and the battle has been going for more than 20 years. In 1995, they announced the “Declaration of expelling the nuclear waste demons” [zh]:
雅美族，全球只有三千人，一個吟詩的民族，一個和平的民族，我們不願意再以我們族人的血肉之軀去作為台電核能人體實驗的對象。
Tao people are an ethnic group with only 3000 population in the whole world. We are poets. We believe in peace. We can no longer accept the Taiwan Power Company treating our bodies like guinea pigs.
Below is an excerpt of a documentary The borderland. It shows the life and culture of Tao people on Orchid Island and this video clip from 1:20 to 2:58 shows some precious historical photos about Tao people's protest against the nuclear waste storage sites in 1987.
On December 31 2002, Tao people managed to terminate the contract with the Taiwan Power Company. However, the Taiwanese government has no plan to remove the nuclear waste from the Island. Since the first ‘Demon-expelling’ ceremony held in 1988, more than 20 years have passed. The next round of battle for Tao people since then has been to press the government to solve the waste problem. Below is special coverage of the nuclear waste problem in Orchid Island. The reporter interviewed the environmentalists, government and protesters, but not a single party could provide a viable solution to the problem:
In 2008, 26 years after the first barrel of nuclear waste was stored on Orchid Island, the government finally took action to conduct a thorough security inspection of these nuclear waste barrels. According to a local news report reposted in the Orchid Island e-news website [zh], the result was worrisome. The inspectors assigned by the Taiwan Atomic Energy Council found out that:
首座開蓋檢整的壕溝貯放的四千多桶核廢料全部鏽蝕，部分廢料桶甚至已開膛剖肚。
All 4000+ barrels in the first inspection were eroded by rust. Some of the barrels have been eroded to the extent that there are big cracks cutting across the iron shells.
核廢料桶禁不起蘭嶼高溫潮濕和高鹽分的惡劣環境，八十一年起陸續出現鏽蝕。
Since 1992, these nuclear waste barrels have been eroded by the high temperature, high humidity, and high salinity environment of Orchid Island.
Who should take care of the nuclear waste? Who should be responsible for the nuclear waste? Where should the nuclear waste go? Blogger Annpo pointed out [zh] that the problem of nuclear waste cannot be neglected in the review of energy policy in Taiwan, in addition to the safety of nuclear power plants:
當年，國家發展重工業，需要大量電力，今日國家依然要大力發展，生產更多需要被消化被解決的問題，發展之後留下的都是「債」。債，誰要還？誰來還？要不，根據用電統計，用電量最多的地區，作為核廢料掩埋場，好不？支持興建核電的，一人抱一桶回家，好不？
In the past, our country had high-energy demand for the development of heavy industry. Today our country still wants to continue this developmental path which will generate more problems that need to be solved some day in the future. There is always ‘debt’ left behind after development. Who will pay for the debt? Should we decide according to the energy consumption rate and ask that the area where people consume most electricity become the new nuclear waste storage site? And ask that those who support the nuclear power plants take home one barrel with them?
Like Atrios, I think there’s something oddly pointless about the fetishization of long-term deficit projections:
We should spend less money on stupid wars. We should bring down the cost of our health care system, because we spend stupid amounts of money for a mediocre product, and a lot of that (most!) is government spending. But we shouldn’t maintain the fantasy that any of these things will lower the deficit. If, for example, we reduce the rate of growth in health care costs, this means that future lawmakers will spend less money on health care than projected. It does not mean that the deficit will be lowered. It will only lower the deficit if lawmakers don’t cut taxes on rich people or spend more money on future stupid wars.
Right. The problem with spending money in wasteful ways, is that it’s wasteful to do so. The waste is bad and shifting resources to better uses would be a good idea. But the thing about the deficit that people tend to forget is that the last time the budget deficit went away, the conservative movement took the view that debt reduction was a bad thing. It’s not that conservatives argued that cutting taxes was more important than reducing the deficit (though obviously they think that), they actually argued that one reason to cut taxes is that the existence of budget surpluses was a policy problem that had to be addressed. George W Bush gave the populist version of this argument, deeming the existence of a surplus a sign that the government was overcharging residents. And Alan Greenspan gave the highbrow view of this argument, theorizing that debt reduction would lead to government ownership of non-bond financial instruments and thus socialism.
Sadly, Beltway conventional wisdom fails to grasp the basic asymmetry that exists around this. There are many things progressives care about more than deficit reduction. But conservatives don’t care about deficit reduction at all. They believe that absence of a deficit is a policy problem that needs to be remedied by large tax cuts.
The Union of Ontario Indians will battle a plan to ship 1,600 tons of radioactive waste from the Bruce nuclear power complex to Sweden via the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, the group announced this week.
UOI, a political advocacy organization that represents 39 First Nation communities in Ontario, said that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and Bruce Power Corporation failed to properly consult with First Nation communities before approving the plant to ship 16 contaminated steam generators from the Bruce Power complex in Kincardine.
“[M]ost of the Chiefs and Councils who are signatories to treaties all along the Great Lakes were never consulted,“ Southwest Regional Anishinabek Nation Chief Chris Plain said in a statement. “The duty to consult and accommodate must be done with the rights holders and we were never consulted.”
“We will do everything in our power to prevent the Ontario and Federal governments and the nuclear power industry from using our precious waterways as a garbage disposal route,” Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee said. “It is contrary to Supreme Court decisions, our aboriginal and treaty rights, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the laws of Nature.”
Mayors from more than 70 communities along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway have warned that the proposed shipment has not received adequate environmental review and threatens the water supply for millions people.
The ongoing nuclear disaster in Japan shows that accidents can result in radioactive contamination of water supplies.This week officials in Tokyo warned residents not to let infants drink the tap water because it contains elevated levels of radioactive iodine.
U.S. Dept. of Transportation approval is required for the Bruce shipment to pass through U.S. waters.
Which American politician said the following? “The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” Had to be a mean-spirited Tea Party conservative, right? Wrong. President Franklin Roosevelt included these words in his 1935 State of the Union Address.
Twenty-nine years later, the American welfare state was still relatively small, consuming only 1.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). The American family was also still intact, with 93 percent of children born into stable families. But then President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty happened. Forty-five years and $ 16 trillion later, thanks to big government, poverty is winning. Thanks to over $ 900 billion a year (over 5 percent of GDP) of spending on over 70 means-tested welfare programs spread over 13 government agencies, more than 40 million Americans currently receive food stamps, poverty is higher today than it was in the 1970s, and 40 percent of all children are born outside of marriage.
Since he moved into the White House, President Barack Obama has only doubled down on the War on Poverty’s failure. His fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget would have increased spending on programs for the poor 42 percent above FY 2008 levels. Looking past the current recession, President Obama’s budget would spend over $ 10.3 trillion on means-tested welfare programs over the next 10 years.
But didn’t we already “end welfare as we know it” in the ’90s? No. As successful as the 1996 welfare reform law was (and it did decrease welfare roles and child poverty rates), it reformed only one of the more than 70 federal anti-poverty programs. Worse, President Obama’s failed economic stimulus bill completely gutted the 1996 welfare reforms. If conservatives are serious about reducing federal spending in a way that protects families and encourages self-reliance, it is high time they turned their attention back to welfare reform. A common-sense approach to reform would include:
- Account for welfare spending. Congress should require the President’s annual budget to detail current and future aggregate federal means-tested welfare spending. The budget should also provide estimates of state contributions to federal welfare programs.
- Get costs under control. The next step in welfare reform is to control the explosive growth in spending. Once the current recession ends (when unemployment reaches 6.5 percent), aggregate welfare funding should be capped at pre-recession (FY 2007) levels plus inflation. This could save Congress $ 1.4 trillion over the next 10 years.
- Promote work, not government dependence. Building on the successful 1996 model, welfare reform today must continue to promote personal responsibility by encouraging work. For example, food stamps, one of the largest means-tested programs, should be restructured to require recipients to work or prepare for work to be eligible to receive benefits.
Today the chairman of the Republican Study Committee Representative Jim Jordan (R–OH) will introduce a bill that incorporates many of these principles. Among other items, it would require disclosure of total means-tested welfare spending, place an aggregate cap on welfare spending, and extend work requirements to the Food Stamps program. If we want to avoid becoming a European-style welfare state, we must abandon President Obama’s War on Poverty surge and return to the type of common-sense welfare reform that proved so successful in the ’90s.
Quick Hits:
- Almost 30 months after TARP’s birth, more than 550 banks, AIG, GM, Chrysler, and others still owe taxpayers more than $ 160 billion.
- U.S. banking regulators have paid out nearly $ 9 billion to cover losses on loans and other assets at 165 failed institutions that were sold to stronger companies during the financial crisis.
- The House on Wednesday passed legislation that would terminate $ 1 billion in slush funds for local government real estate speculating.
- Union thugs are ripping up recall petitions and threatening arson in Wisconsin.
- The headquarters for the Washington, D.C. Republican National Committee was shot up early Wednesday morning.
The Left, as ever, seems more interested in scoring political points and using a crisis to serve their agenda than actually helping people. The crisis in Japan continues to unfold but already there have been declarations that we are witnessing “the end of the nuclear era” because of problems with Japan’s nuclear plants. And yes, they are already calling it Japan’s Chernobyl, and trying to score political points as the people of Japan suffer.
Looking past the obvious hyperbole, how many coal miners die every year? How many people have died because of natural gas explosions or explosions at oil refineries around the world? Japan just faced its largest earthquake in modern history. How about we help the people of Japan first and quit trying to advance a political agenda? Is there no crisis that you will not exploit?
The federal government made at least $ 125 billion in improper payments last year. It spends $ 25 billion annually maintaining unused or vacant federal properties. Rife with duplication, Washington runs 342 economic development programs, 130 programs serving the disabled, 130 programs serving at-risk youth, and 90 early childhood development programs.
Government waste runs rampant, yet Congress never seems focused on cleaning it up. A new bipartisan proposal sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch (R–UT) and Mark Udall (D–CO) and Representative Jeff Duncan (R–SC) would force Congress to address this problem.
The bill would create a new congressional committee that exists only to cut government waste. Modeled after the successful “Byrd Committee” that cut domestic spending in the 1940s to help finance World War II, this new committee would regularly produce legislation to eliminate government waste. These waste reduction bills would be given “fast track” authority, guaranteeing a congressional vote that cannot be filibustered.
Given that nearly all congressional committees make it a priority to protect their turf from any spending cuts—including even blatant government waste—having a committee focused only on spending reductions would provide an important counterbalance to business-as-usual government spending. Cutting waste alone isn’t going to balance the budget, yet every dollar saved in wasteful spending translates into one fewer dollar that needs to be cut from higher-priority programs. This proposal would help Congress pick that low-hanging fruit.
Susannah Breslin is out of work and frustrated at the process by which one finds same, observing,
I realize every significant professional advancement in my life has been totally random, a result of dumb luck, and had little to do with whether or not I could do actually the job. In fact, at most jobs that I have held, whether or not one can do the job seems to have little bearing on whether or not one has the job. I think maybe this is because the interview process is deeply flawed. That it focuses on abstractions and a piece of paper. That it has nothing to do with who you really are.
There’s a lot of truth here but I think she goes too far.
Given the vagaries of hiring in the academic and creative worlds, I’ve sent out literally hundreds of job applications over the years. There were job descriptions seemingly written for me that I applied for and never heard back on. And I got interviews for jobs where I was stretching credulity even applying.
Of course, I only saw one side of the process and have no idea what the internal thinking was. Sometimes, jobs get advertised and the budget gets cut and the search is canceled-often without a note to the applicants. Quite often, the people doing the hiring have no idea what they’re looking for and so they model the announcement either on the person they’re trying to replace or a dream candidate they have no shot at landing.
Beyond that, in industries where dozens if not hundreds of people apply for a single opening, it’s absurd to expect them to try go get to know who all the applicants “really are.” So, a one-pager summarizing education, training, and experience rather has to do as a culling instrument.
I am, rather, amused at the interview process she describes:
He wants to know if he hires me, will I watch videos of cats skateboarding while I am at work? I tell him, no, I will not watch videos of cats skateboarding while I am at work. I try to recall if I have ever seen a video of a cat skateboarding. I have not.
The company is run like a start-up. It is expected I will work a 50-hour week. The CEO wants to know if I am interested in a “work-life balance.” I think about saying, “Balance? Ha-ha! No.” But I don’t. I get the impression this is what the CEO wants to hear. That I have no interest in life, only in work, that I am allergic to balance, that all I want to do is edit software-related copy for 50 hours a week. I respond in a way that indicates I have no life, that I live to work, that I am work incarnate.
There is talk of ROIs, whiteboards, and the type of software that this company sort-of sells. The CEO asks me if I am interested in learning more about this certain type of software. For a fraction of a second, I hesitate, unsure if I can convincingly convey that I have an abiding desire to learn more about this certain type of software, that this certain type of software is of great interest to me, of far greater interest than, say, cat skateboarding videos or, say, having a life. I say I am very interested.
Quite a few bosses are shockingly bad at interviewing. I’ve been on that side of the process a handful of times and, frankly, I find it awkward and contrived. But I’ve usually eliminated all but the two or three best candidates (on paper) before interviewing, so am mostly just trying to get a sense of personality and fit.
Further, I’d wager very strongly that Breslin was in fact not a good fit for that job. She’s an experienced writer of obvious talent desperate for work to pay the bills. She could likely do whatever it is the hiree is supposed to do vis-a-vis the software the company is selling. But she’d hate it and be constantly looking for a job more suited to her talents and interests. So, the cowboy-booted CEO in question was smart not to hire her.
What is comparative-effectiveness review? There are two answers to this question. The right answer, and Mike Huckabee’s answer.
The right answer is that comparative-effectiveness review is a fancy term for studies that test multiple drugs or treatments against one another to see which one works best — studies, in other words, that compare them for effectiveness. That way, when doctors go to prescribe something for you, they’re prescribing the thing that’ll do the most to help you at the lowest cost. My hunch is that most patients think comparative-effectiveness review is already how medicine works, and would be dismayed to learn how little good evidence there is behind what their doctor is telling them.
Mike Huckabee’s answer is that comparative-effectiveness review is the seed from which “the poisonous tree of death panels will grow,” which is, if not a sensical image, at least a vivid one. CER will become our version of Britain’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which in Huckabee’s telling, “decides who lives and who dies based on age and cost of treatment.”
You’ll notice that nowhere in Huckabee’s description of comparative-effectiveness review is the “comparing for effectiveness” part mentioned. Instead, Huckabee is engaged in an effort to take evidence-based evaluation of different treatments off the table. And Huckabee isn’t alone in this effort. In January of 2009, Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyl, and Pat Roberts cosponsored legislation banning Medicare from using comparative-effectiveness review data to make coverage decisions. If I’m remembering this correctly, the GOP managed to get language along these lines into the stimulus.
So at the moment, the Republican Party’s position is that Medicare and Medicaid cannot use studies measuring the effectiveness of different medical treatments when deciding what to cover or not cover. Another way to say that is they’ve decided against saving money by making better decisions about what to buy. Their remaining options are to save money by paying doctors and hospitals less than things currently cost, or to save money by giving seniors and Medicaid recipients less than they currently need. With smart rationing off the table, dumb rationing is all we have left.
By Tad DeHaven
A recent poll found that 60 percent of those surveyed believe that problems with the federal budget can be solved by simply eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. In fact, 40 percent strongly agreed with this erroneous position.
One reason for this mistaken belief is that the average American’s daily dose of news usually comes with fresh examples of the government blundering or being gamed. It’s not difficult for most folks to distinguish between right and wrong. Thus, in addition to being generally easy to digest, such stories are emotive.
Pinning the blame on rampant government waste is also a convenient scapegoat. Most Americans don’t have a clue as to what constitutes the federal government’s $ 3.8 trillion budget. And they’d rather not hear that the programs they benefit from are culprits. For example, the same poll found that 49 percent disagreed that Social Security and Medicare are a major source of problems for the federal budget.
Fixating on waste, fraud, and abuse is also a convenient scapegoat for politicians from both parties. Politicians who don’t tell their constituents that they’ll work to eliminate government waste are as common as the dodo. Previous House Speaker Nancy Pelosi instructed her committee chairs to uncover waste, fraud, and abuse as part of a fanciful effort to “ensure fiscal discipline for the long term.” The House Republicans’ “Pledge to America” included a vacuous promise to “root out government waste.”
Bloomberg’s Caroline Baum recently pointed out that for all the angst expressed by politicians over government waste, it sure isn’t going away:
Everyone who wants to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in government, raise your hand.
Lots of hands. Good.
Next question: If everyone is in favor of streamlining the federal bureaucracy, why are we still creating committees and ordering up reports instead of talking about the problem in the past tense?
Here’s the quick answer: All those overlapping government programs have oversight committees looking after them and constituencies behind them; constituencies with money and votes.
What few on Capitol Hill want to acknowledge is that waste, fraud, and abuse comes with government the same way a Happy Meal comes with a toy and a drink. Wise liberals understand that repeated government failures can undermine popular support for government programs and interventions. Therefore, politicians who claim to want a smaller, less intrusive government should – at most – use the countless examples of waste, fraud, and abuse to build a case for eliminating programs and agencies.
Unfortunately, instead of capitalizing on these opportunities, alleged devotees of a more limited government often waste their time on quixotic moral crusades to “make government more efficient.” In doing so, they’re really just playing into the hands of those that want big government. They’re also helping lead citizens to believe that our budget problems can be solved with a little house cleaning.
Wasting Time on Government Waste is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog
Recent hearings in both the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation and the Senate Finance Committee took a closer look at fraud within Medicare and Medicaid.
Spending on Medicare and Medicaid is on an unsustainable path due to rising health care costs and an aging population. Meanwhile, fraud within the program contributes to the program’s cost by an estimated $ 60 billion a year. Medicaid, the federal–state partnership to provide health care to the poor and disabled, is a victim of abuse as well.
Reducing health care costs and improving quality are priorities for health care reform. Tackling fraud within Medicare and Medicaid would not solve their long-term insolvencies but is an obvious place to find savings. Unfortunately, Washington has a long way to go to make it happen. A recent report from the Government Office of Accountability (GAO) highlights Medicare as a “high-risk” system because of its complexity, size, and “susceptibility to improper payments.”
The examples of abuse are mind-boggling. Last year, $ 135,000 was given to one discount pharmacy in Hialeah, Florida, for drug prescriptions written by four doctors. Two of them were dead, one was in prison, and the other said he never wrote the prescriptions filed under his name.
Former U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Florida Alexander Acosta shared with the House subcommittee that his district saw $ 2 billion in fraudulent bills sent to Medicare between fiscal years 2006 and 2009. The district alone “prosecuted more than $ 1,900 in Medicare fraud per senior citizen living in South Florida.”
Representative Henry Waxman (D–CA) says that Obamacare’s dozens of antifraud provisions will address waste, fraud, and abuse. But all told, these provisions are projected to save American taxpayers just $ 7 billion over the next decade. With estimates showing fraud in Medicare alone escalating upwards of $ 60 billion in a single year, Obamacare clearly won’t fix the problem.
Medicare has a “pay and chase” system, which pays bills first and then checks whether or not they were appropriate later. Craig Smith, former general counsel of Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, told the House subcommittee that “the best techniques are those that prevent improper payments in the first place. With a greater emphasis on pre-payment fraud and abuse prevention, we can decrease significantly the loss of taxpayer dollars and make healthcare fraud a much less desirable career path.” Smith outlines five tactics to reduce Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse that can be read in further detail here.
With fraud schemes becoming more sophisticated, Inspector General of HHS Daniel Levinson told the Senate Finance Committee that the Office of the Inspector General has taken on new initiatives to achieve the goal of fighting fraud. According to Spiegel, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has stepped up its attempts to stop fraudulent claims. Still, according to the GAO, they have yet to take the appropriate “corrective action processes to address the vulnerabilities that lead to improper payments.”
Addressing waste, fraud, and abuse in government health care programs is one place lawmakers should agree on reform. Fixing the problem would be no silver bullet, but it would be represent a strong step toward restoring the programs’ integrity and longevity for current and future beneficiaries.
This post was co-authored by Amanda Rae Kronquist.
