http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/06/1013970/-Perry-accepts-1-mill-bribe-to-turn-TX-into-a-nuke-waste-dump#
Here's the short version: Over at her blog, Malia Litman lays out the details of:
--
how Rick Perry allowed a nuclear waste dump to be set up in West Texas near the New Mexico border; and,
-- how the guy whose company will operate the dump donated around $1,000,000 to Perry's campaigns; and,
-- how the corporation running the waste dump has NO LIABILITY if anything goes wrong; and,
-- how things already are going wrong.Read the full story here, highlights below the fold.
This needs to go viral.
Here are quotes -- lots of quotes -- from Malia Litman's blog piece on Perry's nuke waste dump.
Since Rick Perry announced his decision to run for President, the internet has been filled with multiple examples of corruption and unethical behavior of Mr. Perry. One of the more memorable examples of corruption in the Rick Perry administration is the nuclear waste dump which has been approved by appointees of Perry to the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission. Here are the undisputed facts:
1. The Commission has approved a landfill south of Austin, and right at the border between Texas and New Mexico, which will receive nuclear waste from 36 states.
2. Waste Control Specialists LLC is the company who is building the landfill and will receive millions of dollars in revenue from accepting the nuclear waste.
3. Harold Simmons is a billionaire, and the owner of Waste Control Specialists, LLC.
4. An LLC is a limited liability company, which means in the absence of fraud a court will not find the owners of the company liable. Thus, even if the owners and operators of a LLC are negligent, there may be no legal way to hold them accountable for the damage or harm they cause.
5. Harold Simmons has donated over $1,000,000 to Rick Perry’s campaigns.
I skipped over all the good stuff about how Perry packed the Texas state commission that gave the okay to the nuke waste dump -- go to Litman's blog for the whole story.
And now, for the best part:
8. The implications for Texas get even worse. The nuclear disposal site has earned six violations since 2004. Just last year the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issued a Notice of Violation to Waste Control Specialists for storage of a concrete canister filled with the hottest low-level radioactivity material beyond the 365 days allowed under a waste processing license. Two years ago environmental commissioners signed off on an agreement for two violations and fined the company about $151,000. The site mismanaged hazardous waste near a rail-car unloading area and personnel failed to get authorization before letting radioactive material – including Plutonium 239 and Radium 226 – be released into the septic system inside a laboratory.
In a routine check at the site near Andrews, close to the New Mexico border, state inspectors also found cracks up to an inch wide on a 10-acre asphalt pad near where the canisters of radioactive material sit.
It seems the only thing the Waste Control Specialists LLC specializes in is increasing its wealth, ensuring the election of Rick Perry, and endangering the people of Texas and New Mexico.
And the Texas miracle continues.
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