Category Archives: Commentary

WIPP One Step Closer to Reopening

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The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico is the nation’s only underground nuclear waste facility. It was shut down in February 2014 when an inappropriately packed container of waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory ruptured and workers were unable to properly use their emergency oxygen supplies. An article by Maddy Hayden says the Department of Energy (DOE) has approved a new Documented Safety Analysis, which took a year and 100,000 man hours to create. Federal officials predict that there is an 80 percent chance approval of that document will allow the facility to reopen in December. Perhaps the prediction should be viewed skeptically. The DOE had predicted the facility would be reopened in March when they “…knew it had only a 1 percent chance of meeting that March 2016 deadline.”

The costs for the reopening the facility are staggering. “The Energy Department initially estimated it would cost $242 million to restore WIPP for limited waste disposal and an additional $77 million to install a new ventilation system critical to providing clean air to workers.” “The delays led to an additional $61.4 million in operating costs at WIPP.”

Judge Approves Rocky Flats Settlement

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U.S. District Judge John L. Kane has given preliminary approval to the $375 million settlement between nearby residents of the Rocky Flats Plant and the plant operators, Rockwell International Corp. and the Dow Chemical Company. “The allocation for the $375 million settlement, according to the Kane’s order, is 81.5 percent for residential properties, 15.3 percent for vacant land and 3.2 percent for commercial properties. Up to 40 percent of the total — or $150 million — could be awarded as fees to the attorneys in the case.”

There are 13,000 to 15,000 households that may be eligible for payments. There is a website where people can check to see whether their property is in the area involved and make them eligible for payments. There is a map showing the area involved. The property has to have been owned by the claimant or their family members on June 7, 1989, the day the FBI raided the plant “…to look for environmental crimes.”

I’m not going to celebrate this, because I believe it to be a miscarriage of justice. A previous ruling by a three judge panel found that no actual damage had occurred. This ruling is apparently based on a “nuisance law.” The total amount of $375million for the plant creating a “nuisance” seems to me to be extremely excessive considering the huge economic boost the plant gave to the area over decades of operation, which of course involves the area of the settlement.

More Problems for College Graduates

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The problem of student loan debt has been extensively reported, but there is an additional problem. There are more graduates in several fields than there are jobs available. I doubt that most young people entering college consider the marketability of the degree they are pursuing, but it would be wise to think about whether there will be a job available when you graduate. You will spend many tens of thousands of dollars to get your education, and one goal should be to be rewarded with a job that pays well.

The Colorado Office of Economic Development reports that there are more than enough graduates in the state to replace everyone currently employed in the fields of advertising, marketing and public relations. There are fifteen times as many students with a degree in physical science than there are open positions and thirteen more in life sciences. There are shortages of graduates to fill logistics and teaching jobs. There are too many graduates with management degrees while there are shortages of people trained in office and administrative support positions that don’t require four years of college. There are also sufficient positions for engineering and health care graduates.

We need to be encouraging high school graduates to think about going to trade schools instead of college. They would miss out on the college parties but would begin life with decent jobs and no college debt.

GMO Labeling

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There is a new bill establishing national requirements for labeling foods with GMO content that is expected to be signed by President Obama. A Denver Post editorial supports the bill, but the anti-GMO advocates aren’t happy. Perhaps all that would have made them happy would have been a complete ban on GMOs. That ban would have taken almost all of the corn, soybean, canola, and sugar beet products off the market. Those ardently opposed to GMOs would probably respond that reducing the amount of available food is preferable to allowing what they call “Franken foods” to be grown and sold. I assure you I would eagerly eat Franken foods if the choice was not eating.

The new law would allow companies to label their GMO products with an actual label or a QR code. The small QR codes that smart phones can read will tell consumers the GMO content of the food. There is a realistic alternative for small companies who can still be able to comply by providing a web address or phone number.

Many food producers and processors continue to resent the fact that labeling is going to be mandated. They point out that the overwhelming scientific consensus is that GMO foods are safe, which means there is no scientific basis for the need of labels. However, they will probably be mollified by the knowledge that a federal law, regardless of whether it provides any actual improvement to food safety, will stop individual states from passing laws such as the one approved by Vermont voters.

Decline or Rise of a New Prosperity?

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Manufacturing is dying in America, and the middle class that was built on post-WWII GI bill education and manufacturing is going with it. Jobs move overseas to cheap labor markets thanks to trade deals that favor a powerful elite. Millions around the world are rising from extreme poverty at the price of the Western World’s middle class – which might look like a good tradeoff to aliens watching from space, but isn’t so good if you happen to be losing. We should all be sad and angry.

I’ve heard that a lot and I guess I believe it. Just look at the tags in my tee shirts – all manufactured overseas.

I also tend to think of the Christian Science Monitor as a reputable news source, so I read their recent article carefully.

The surprising truth about American manufacturing

“United States manufacturing output is at an all-time high, worth $2.2 trillion in 2015, up from $1.7 trillion in 2009. And while total employment has fallen by nearly a third since 1970, the jobs that remain are increasingly skilled.

“Across the country, factory owners are now grappling with a new challenge: Instead of having too many workers, as they did during the Great Recession, they may end up with too few…

“In western Michigan… unemployment here is low (around 3 percent)… For factory owners, it all adds up to stiff competition for workers – and upward pressure on wages.” CSM

The situation isn’t all rosy: “Employment in manufacturing has fallen from 17 million in 1970 to 12 million in 2015. The steepest declines came after 2001, when China gained entry to the World Trade Organization and ramped up exports… In areas exposed to foreign trade [like my tee shirts], every additional $1,000 of imports per worker meant a $550 annual drop in household income per working-age adult.” CSM

Despite job openings, lots of young workers don’t want to work in manufacturing. They watched their parents shoulder large amounts of overtime only to get laid off in the Great Recession, see the overall downward trend, and are being pushed into college instead of trades by parents, schools, and the government.

I checked Wikipedia, which seems like a decent place to get an overview.

“In 1990, services surpassed manufacturing as the largest contributor to overall private industry production, and then the finance, insurance and real estate sector surpassed manufacturing in 1991. Since the beginning of the current economic downturn in 2007, only computer and electronic products, aerospace, and transportation have seen increasing production levels…

“A total of 3.2 million – one in six U.S. factory jobs – have disappeared since the start of 2000. The manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy has experienced substantial job losses over the past several years.” Wikipedia

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Climate Change Profits

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We’ve discussed climate change/global warming quit a bit on this blog and I’m still learning about the topic. I ran into an interesting element on Straight Dope that complicates the issue for many people: who profits? As Cecil says, the distinction between profiting and profiteering is eroding.

In the spirit of Old Testament-style judgment, I thought I’d arrange various ways one might cash in on climate change from least to most evil.

He goes on to list ways to profit, from Renewable Energy, an industry in the right place at the right time, to Arctic Drilling, which gets an evil nod because of the ” circularity at work here: by burning enough fossil fuels to warm the earth sufficiently to melt the polar ice caps, we’ve now gained access to yet more fossil fuels buried under those ice caps.”

You might want to invest in companies that sell storm surge gates to coastal cities or snowmaking machines to Alpine ski resorts.

Cecil doesn’t mention the possibility that evil scientists profit by faking studies to extract more grant money – a terribly serious charge that shouldn’t be thrown around without proof (of which I’ve never seen any.) I can be cynical myself, and that goes too far for me. But I’d like to know how every person who testifies before Congress makes their living.

Whether the topic is health, housing, gun safety, education… or anything – there will always be someone whose job depends on the status quo or on change. There will be winners and losers for every action taken by government, the marketplace, or individuals.

I take my philosophical stand from Star Trek.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few – or the one.
Sometimes the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.

In Star Trek’s universe, you can base a movie on both lines. It depends. No really important choices fit on a bumper sticker. I’m still convinced by the (vast) scientific agreement that human activity is the main force behind our current rise in average global temperature, and that rise will yield more losers than winners. It’s already baked into the cake, if you’ll forgive the heat-related pun. But we can change course, and good people can make good decisions despite the current insanely partisan politics. I’m not ready to believe everyone around me is evil.