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Diplomacy the Watchword,
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by Leland Lehrman
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Richard Arthure
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NM Senate Joint Memorial
to Begin Process of Prohibiting Production of New Nuclear Weapons in
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The
Two Faces of Richardson
The “Renewable
Energy” and “Diplomacy” Governor Also Has a Cozy Relationship
With the Nuclear Industry
 Part
1 of an ongoing series on nuclear energy and public utilities in New
Mexico
by Leland Lehrman
Bill Richardson has made some excellent
statements recently as part of his race for President, and trumpeted
his achievements as Governor of the “Clean Energy State.”
At a recent gathering of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), he promoted global nuclear disarmament and then went
further: “We need to stop treating diplomatic engagement with others
like a reward for good behavior,” Richardson said. “The Bush
administration’s refusal to engage bad regimes has only encouraged
and strengthened the most paranoid and hard-line tendencies.” Richardson
said other countries will not take the nuclear nonproliferation treaty
seriously until the United States leads a global effort to reduce nuclear
weapons, “including our own.” Finally, on creating peace in
the Middle East: “Prisoner abuse, torture, secret prisons, renditions,
and evasion of the Geneva conventions must have no place in our policy,”
Richardson said. “If we want Muslims to open to us, we should start
by closing Guantanamo.” This is good policy, and thank you Governor.
Richardson’s hosts and former business partners - CSIS luminaries
such as Henry Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn - recently wrote
an editorial for the Wall Street Journal promoting global nuclear disarmament:
“Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and
practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be
perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral
heritage.”
 But
the real agenda may be to control and move nuclear fuel from warheads
to nuclear power plants worldwide, and Governor Richardson has been
a part of this plan since his time as Secretary of Energy, and perhaps
even before. Kissinger and Nunn spell it out in their editorial:
“Steps would include...Getting control of the uranium enrichment
process, combined with the guarantee that uranium for nuclear power
reactors could be obtained at a reasonable price, first from the Nuclear
Suppliers Group and then from the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) or other controlled international reserves.”
Our story begins with the privatisation of the US stockpile of nuclear
fuel rods,
formerly the property of the United States Department of Energy. According
to Bill Althouse in an article for the Sun Monthly, “US Enrichment
Corp (USEC), a company that enriches uranium for nuclear reactor fuel,
was owned by the Department of Energy but was sold off in 1997 in the
largest privatization deal in US history...Jeff Sterba, Vice President
of USEC [and current President of Public Service Company of New Mexico
(PNM)] noted, “USEC has a stockpile of about 24,000 tons of [the
nuclear material] UF6. In return for that material, USEC made a commitment
to ensure that its entry into the market is managed in a prudent manner.”
Once the government turned over ownership of this stockpile, USEC immediately
began dumping the inventory, raising millions while crashing the nuclear
fuel market.
After the market collapsed, USEC was in financial trouble, but Richardson
bailed out USEC by returning $630 million of the original proceeds from
the government’s sale of the firm. The Bush administration’s
General Accounting Office discovered Richardson’s bailout last
year and put the deal on hold, saying Richardson was not operating within
the law when he allocated the funds to USEC.”
The involvement of Bill Richardson and PNM Resources CEO Jeff Sterba
in the privatisation of American nuclear fuel should give Americans
reason enough to question Richardson’s “clean energy”
boasts. And although the recent jump in New Mexico’s renewable
portfolio standard to 15% by 2015, and 20% by 2020, was certainly a
step in the right direction, Richardson continues to support nuclear
energy. On Meet the Press, on May 27 Richardson said “it should
be part of the mix,” and waved the national lab magic wand when
asked about waste disposal: “I believe the answer is technology.
What I would do is get our national laboratories to come up with a technological
solution to dispose of this waste.”
At the 2004 Western Governor’s Association (WGA) North American
Energy Summit in Albuquerque, Bill Richardson, then Chairman of the
WGA was the keynote speaker and Jeff Sterba was the host committee Chairman.
These two characters appear to move in lockstep and so New Mexicans
might be alarmed by the fact that Mr. Sterba has just appointed a career
nuclear energy executive, Jim Ferland to take over its generation division.
Here’s the press release from PNM Resources:
“PNM Resources today announced the appointment of a new executive
to head its expanding jurisdictional generation portfolio. Jim Ferland,
who most recently served as vice president of Global Nuclear Field Services
for Westinghouse Electric Co., will serve as PNM Resources’ senior
vice president of Energy Resources…While at Westinghouse, Ferland
led 1,300 employees in six separate business lines serving nuclear plants.
Prior to Westinghouse, Ferland served as president and chief executive
officer of Louisiana Energy Services and led the successful licensing
of the first major new nuclear project in the United States in 20 years
– the LES Uranium Enrichment Plant that is currently under construction
in southern (Eunice) New Mexico.”
Sterba was very specific about his promotion of the nuclear energy industry
in his 1999 speech while head of USEC: “Our commitment as a company
is to ensure we do the best we can to meet our customers’ needs,
not only for enrichment services but also for whatever else we can provide,
as we work together to improve the prospects for the future of nuclear
power in the United States and the rest of the world.
It seems that the fox is guarding the nuclear henhouse in New Mexico.
Current New Mexico Secretary of the Environment Ron Curry was once the
Strategic Environmental Director for PNM. Perhaps its therefore no surprise
that on his watch the New Mexico Environment Department “missed
a critical filing deadline” and was therefore “denied intervention”
in the Eunice enrichment plant federal regulatory proceedings. The final
settlement requires just the assurance of a “plausible strategy”
for waste disposal. With Jim Ferland, the lead organizer of the Eunice
licensing now officially in the PNM fold, joining former officer Ron
Curry and current CEO Jeff Sterba, the prospects for increased nuclear
energy development in New Mexico and the Four Corners region are high.
Leland Lehrman can be reached at (505) 982-3609 or leland.lehrman(at)gmail.com
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