tagged w/ General Electric
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The 57,000 Page Tax Return
by Alex Tabarrok
The NYTimes reported earlier this year that through an extraordinary use of tax breaks and clever accounting:
[General Electric] reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States. Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
The Times highlighted the skill of GE’s dream team:
G.E.’s giant tax department, led by a bow-tied former Treasury official named John Samuels, is often referred to as the world’s best tax law firm. Indeed, the company’s slogan “Imagination at Work” fits this department well. The team includes former officials not just from the Treasury, but also from the I.R.S. and virtually all the tax-writing committees in Congress.
More recently from The Weekly Standard we find what kind of effort it takes to pay no taxes on $14 billion in profits:
General Electric, one of the largest corporations in America, filed a whopping 57,000-page federal tax return earlier this year but didn’t pay taxes on $14 billion in profits. The return, which was filed electronically, would have been 19 feet high if printed out and stacked.
(FYI, the length of GE’s tax return has doubled since 2006 when it (first?) filed electronically at an equivalent of 24,000 pages.)
GE’s tax bill illustrates both why our corporate tax rate is too high and too low. The nominal rate is too high which encourages a real rate which is too low.
Consider the resources that GE spends to lowers its tax bill, not just the many millions spent on clever accounting and accountants and the many millions spent on lobbying but also the many inefficient ways that GE structures its businesses just to avoid paying taxes and the many millions it invests in socially wasteful projects just in order to produce privately valuable tax credits. Now add to that the allocational inefficiencies of taxing some firms at different rates than others and you have a corporate tax system which wastes a lot of resources and raises relatively little revenue. Indeed, a corporate tax system with a tax rate of zero could well be preferable as it would waste fewer resources and raise not much less revenue.
Hat tip: TaxProf blog.The 57,000 Page Tax Return
by Alex Tabarrok
The NYTimes reported earlier this... more
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There have been volumes written about the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney presidency and its connection with energy company Halliburton.
You may know Halliburton from such events as laying the bad cement which may have caused the BP oil well blowout that sent record amounts of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
It is no secret that former Vice President Dick Chaney was the CEO of Halliburton Co. from 1996 to 1998, and again in 2000. During that time, Halliburton moved from number 73 to 18 on the list of the Pentagon's top contractors.
Nor is it news that people with connections in government peddle influence and make deals.
Quid pro quo is the Washington way.
Never bring a knife to a gunfight when you can bring a subcontractor...
President George W. Bush was in office from January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009. If you had invested in his pet stock over those eight years, you would have a made 785% return on your money.
Now, I'm not here to change the world. As an investor, I really don't care about the long list of graft, corruption, and government waste attributed to Halliburton over the years...
I live in the real world, and I want to make money.
Make Washington pay
Forget about the past. As investors, we want to know the safe, sure, and easy way to make almost eight hundred percent off the graft, corruption, and bribery of the current administration...
Meet Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric Company (GE), the second largest company in the world.
I first really became aware of Mr. Immelt in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election. He was on one of those PBS talk shows like Charlie Rose, singing the praises of the future Obama presidency.
My first thought was, why would a major business player want to go along with the anti-business agenda of Obama?
But then Mr. Immelt said, “I look at things like energy security, renewable energy... Both of them are good for GE."
It was at that point I realized GE capital was in a world of hurt and needed a bailout. Futhermore, GE makes a lot of health care technology...
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that GE and Obama were Siamese twins. GE had its thumbs in wind turbines, medical equipment, nuclear, water, power storage, charging stations for EVs, and a whole host of government subsidized green technologies.
Since 2005, GE has created and run a PR and advertising campaign called "Ecomagination." Immelt recently said of this initiative: "Ecomagination is GE's commitment to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water."
MSNBC propaganda
GE also owns NBC, which in turn owns a ton of cable networks — including MSNBC. That's the one where Chris Matthews was famously quoted as saying “I felt a thrill going up my leg as Obama spoke.”
There is little doubt that MSNBC is a Obama propaganda machine. Just as there is little doubt that Murdoch owned The Wall Street Journal, and that Fox News pulls for the right.
For his help in getting Obama elected, Jeffrey Immelt got a seat at the table.
A seat at the table
Immediately after he came to office, President Obama named Immelt to the Economic Recovery Advisory Board — along with major GE shareholder Warren Buffett. (Buffett owns 7.8 million shares.)
This group set about helping Obama in saving the U.S. economy. And it has worked — for GE's economy, anyway...
Think about what GE makes and who will profit from the recent legislation. In just one easy-to-understand example, Obama has mandated that you can't buy a incandescent light bulb after 2014.
How much money will GE make when everyone has to buy more expensive, higher profit-margin, light bulbs?
Hard to say, but on September 27, 2010, they made their last incandescent light bulb in the United States and fired the last 200 people at the Winchester, Virginia, plant.
The latest in health care reform means everyone will need to join a Health Information Exchange, which will integrate hospital information systems. Again, a GE payoff.
GE also makes a lot of smart grid controls and monitoring systems.
The list goes on and on...
GE said Thursday it will buy 25,000 electric vehicles for its fleet through 2015 in the largest-ever purchase of electric cars.
The car? Government Motors — GM's Chevy Volt, of course.
Ever notice who makes those airport scanners?
Don't get me wrong; I'm here to praise GE, not to bury it. The company has mastered the art of media spin, political control, and hardcore business savvy.
I don't see how they can lose.
General Electric pays a 2.90% dividend, has a forward P/E of 12, a quarterly growth rate of -17%, and the ear of the American President — the same guy who tops Forbes' Most Powerful People list.
GE is the world's second largest business, and tenth by market cap. Their primary businesses are GE Capital, GE Technology Infrastructure, GE Energy, GE Health Care, and NBC Universal.
Obama has at least two more years to be generous to his backers. He might have four.
Buy GE today and sell when it is clear Obama will be out of office.
http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/obamas-halliburton/2838There have been volumes written about the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney presidency and... more
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Earlier this year, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett made headlines by
publicly decrying the stark inequity between his own effective federal tax rate (about
17 percent, by his estimate) and that of his secretary (about 30 percent). The resulting
media firestorm has drawn welcome attention to unfair tax breaks that allow the richest
Americans to avoid paying their fair share of the personal income tax. But these inequities are not limited to the personal tax.
Our corporate tax system is plagued by very similar problems, problems that allow many of America’s most profitable corporations to pay little or nothing in federal income taxes.
This study takes a hard look at the federal income taxes paid or not paid by 280 of
America’s largest and most profitable corporations in 2008, 2009 and 2010. The companies in our report are all from Fortune’s annual list of America’s 500 largest corporations, and all of them were profitable in each of the three years analyzed. Over the three years, the 280 companies in our survey reported total pretax U.S. profits of $1.4 trillion.
You think you are angry now? Wait until you read this.
http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdfEarlier this year, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett made headlines by... more
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"General Electric announced yesterday it is moving its x-ray business headquarters OUT of the US and INTO China. Since three years ago when China instituted a national single-payer healthcare system that covers all billion-plus Chinese citizens, that nation is now home to a rapidly expanding healthcare market – and GE wants to get in the game. I guess in the United States where basic healthcare is becoming less and less available – the x-ray business isn’t very profitable anymore. Unclear how many jobs will be lost as GE ditches its previous x-ray headquarters in Waukesha, Wisconsin for the new Chinese digs. Meanwhile – GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt serves as the head of President Obama’s job creation council. Brilliant, eh?""General Electric announced yesterday it is moving its x-ray business... more
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Some corporate embarrassment for President Obama.
The chairman of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness -- also the CEO of a billion-dollar company -- paid no corporate taxes in 2010.
General Electric, led by Obama appointee Jeffrey R. Immelt, reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion last year -- with $5.1 billion coming from U.S. operations -- but had no American tax bill, and claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion, The New York Times said.
The Times reported that GE "has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the Internal Revenue Service for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies." The story cited "an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore."
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/03/obama-jobs-chief----the-ceo-of-ge----pays-no-corporate-taxes/1 Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co. tapped by President Barack Obama as his next top outside economic adviser, will be asked to guide the White House as it attempts to jump-start lackluster job creation and spur a muddled recovery.
Immelt's firm stands as Exhibit A of a successful and profitable corporate America standing at the forefront of the recovery. It also represents the archetypal company that's hoarding cash, sending jobs overseas, relying on taxpayer bailouts and paying less taxes than envisioned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/obama-picks-jeffrey-immel-ge-jobs-overseas_n_812502.htmlSome corporate embarrassment for President Obama.
The chairman of the... more
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White House defends General Electric despite not paying taxes in 2010 and accepting $3.2B in Corporate Welfare...In January, President Obama named General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, an economic advisory board focused on job creation.
In his State of the Union address that same month, meanwhile, he called for the closure of corporate tax loopholes in conjunction with a lowering of corporate tax rates, which stands at 35 percent.
Seems that President Obama wants everyone to “spread the wealth around” and pay their fair share of taxes. The Critic of Corporate welfare, Obama seems a bit hypocritical embracing GE CEO as part of his Jobs team. To make it all worse, General Electric was the Benefit of what the President and Democrats call “Corporate Welfare” claiming $3.2 Billion in tax benefits. http://politisite.com/2011/03/25/white-house-defends-general-electric-despite-not-paying-taxes-in-2010-and-accepting-3-2b-in-corproate-welfare/White House defends General Electric despite not paying taxes in 2010 and accepting... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Japan says it was unprepared for post-quake nuclear disaster
In its report, Japan says, it needs to revise its nuclear safety preparedness and response in light of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis. It also says the damage and radiation leak were worse than previously thought.
associated press
June 8, 2011
tokyo —
— Japan acknowledged Tuesday that it was unprepared for a severe nuclear accident like the tsunami-generated Fukushima disaster and said damage to the reactors and radiation leakage were worse than it previously thought.
In a report being submitted to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, the government also acknowledged reactor design inadequacies and a need for greater independence for the country's nuclear regulators.
The report says the nuclear fuel in three reactors probably melted through the inner containment vessels, not just the core, after the March 11 earthquake, and the tsunami knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's power and cooling systems. Fuel in the Unit 1 reactor started melting hours earlier than previously estimated.
The 750-page report, compiled by Japan's nuclear emergency task force, factors in a preliminary evaluation by a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency and was to be submitted to the IAEA as requested.
"In light of the lessons learned from the accident, Japan has recognized that a fundamental revision of its nuclear safety preparedness and response is inevitable," the report says. It also recommends a national debate on nuclear power.
The report says the "inadequate" basic reactor design — the Mark-1 model developed by General Electric — included the venting system for the containment vessels and the location of spent fuel cooling pools high in the buildings, which resulted in leaks of radioactive water that hampered repair work.
GE declined to comment on the specific conclusions of the report.
Hundreds of plant workers are scrambling to bring the crippled reactors to a "cold shutdown" by early next year and end the crisis. The accident has forced more than 80,000 residents to evacuate from neighborhoods around the plant.Los Angeles Times...
Japan says it was unprepared for post-quake nuclear disaster... more
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It doesn’t take a Nostradamus to see the host of calamities our primeval mindset is capable of manifesting. What happened to Jackson Browne singing about the healing power of the sun? After Three Mile Island nuclear energy publicly became the unacceptable risk Dr. Helen Caldicott warned us about. We canceled canoe trips to protest at General Electric until comfort became our cause allowing nuclear megawatts a backstage pass into the main stream. Today the land of the rising plume is seeing solar in a different light after a crippling 9.0 magnitude earthquake rocked their tenuous power grid. Instead of the one inch per year average, tectonic plates shifted Japan 13 feet in moments equaling 157 years of time travel.It doesn’t take a Nostradamus to see the host of calamities our primeval mindset... more
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Bigger the Company, less the tax it pays.
They are effectively assisted by Accountants ,who under the guise of tax planning ,cheat the Government of Taxes.
Sting is the Government approves them and enroll them by training them/approving the Institutes that train them in their discipline.
They are called Financial Consultants,Chartered Accountants(chartered to evade tax?)
If the Accountants were to be honest, there would be no tax frauds.
http://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/google-and-general-electric-pay-no-taxes-get-bailouts-refunds/Bigger the Company, less the tax it pays.
They are effectively assisted by... more
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Build Public Pressure to Boot Jeffrey Immelt
General Electric, America's largest corporation, made $14,200,000,000 in profits in 2010 and paid $0 in taxes -- that's right, zero dollars in taxes.
At the same time, C.E.O. Jeffrey Immelt saw his compensation double. Now GE is expected to ask 15,000 of their unionized workers to make major concessions in wages and benefits.
Adding insult to injury, Mr. Immelt is chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. That's wrong. Mr. Immelt should not lead the administration's effort to create jobs.
Join Russ Feingold and sign Progressives United's petition for Mr. Immelt to resign from his position on President Obama's jobs panel today.
I believe General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt must step down from his position on the president's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness -- and if he won't, President Obama must ask for his resignation.
www.ImmeltMustGo.comBuild Public Pressure to Boot Jeffrey Immelt
General Electric, America's... more
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According to the author, GE's stocks have not been impacted by the Fukushima disaster because, Japanese law reportedly limits liability to the operator, not the designer. However, Dr. Chande goes on to say that the assumption that GE will not be liable because of Japanese law is premature because the design of the plant has been criticized by experts. The focus: the containment vessel.
However, as Dr. Chande states, there are still a lot of unknowns, including whether the contract for the construction specified a certain theater of law to prevail should problems arise.
Regarding Dr. Chande's statement, "Three GE scientists resigned 35 years ago in protest of the design of the Mark I containment system...." I wonder if those scientists are still alive today?
I wonder which publication comes out first with the follow-up to this, including, who were these scientists and where are they today?
Does anybody reading this know?
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latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chander-ge-liability-20110401,0,2228225.story
latimes.com
Op-Ed
"WHO'S TO BLAME FOR FUKUSHIMA?"
In a legal sense it is too early to know, but General Electric, the designer of the stricken plant, might not entirely escape liability for the nuclear disaster.
By Anupam Chande ( Professor of Law at UC Davi.)
April 1, 2011
Since the nuclear plant disaster in Fukushima in Japan, the stock of the company that designed the reactors, General Electric, has fluctuated less than $1 a share. Meanwhile, the operator of the facility, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has seen its share price plunge more than 70%. The explanation: Japanese law reportedly limits liability to the operator, not the designer, of a nuclear power plant.
A year ago, we heard similar arguments about the limited exposure of BP in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Reports suggested that BP's liability for damages might be capped at $75 million because of the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, which imposes limited liability in the event of an environmental disaster at an offshore facility — "removal costs plus $75,000,000." In court, Transocean, the company that owned and operated the doomed oil rig, argued that another statute, the Limitation of Liability Act, limited its liability to the value of the sunken vessel — the rig — which it said was worth only $26.7 million. The Justice Department called Transocean's effort to limit its liability "simply unconscionable."
The pronouncements of BP's limited liability proved premature. After discussions with the Obama administration, BP voluntarily agreed to set up a $20-billion fund to help those whose livelihoods were destroyed by the disaster.
GE's initial confidence that it may bear little liability for any design defect because of Japanese law may be premature too. The New York Times recently reported that experts have long criticized GE's design, the Mark I, because it offered a relatively weak containment vessel. The containment vessel functions as the "last line of defense," preventing radiation leaks in case of a cooling system failure in the nuclear reactor. Three GE scientists resigned 35 years ago in protest of the design of the Mark I containment system.
I say this not on the basis of any specialized knowledge of this particular situation, or even on knowledge of nuclear industry contracts or regulation, but only on the basis of legal principles of international business and liability.
First, it is not entirely clear what law applies. Although the accident is occurring on Japanese soil, the contracts for design and construction of the plants could have specified another law to govern disputes between the parties. GE might, for example, have preferred the familiarity of U.S. law. These were, after all, contracts negotiated in the 1960s, when Japan was hardly thought to be a world economic power, and thus may have lacked the leverage to insist on local law.
Second, as in the case of BP, GE could eventually agree to a voluntary arrangement. For its part, BP set up a significant fund to handle losses, but did so under enormous pressure from Washington, the American public and the media. GE's involvement in the nuclear power plant was about four decades ago when it was built, quite different from BP's day-to-day control. But if GE was responsible for a weak design, it would seem to share responsibility for the current disaster.
Third, we do not know how Japanese courts will interpret any local limits on liability. Will those limits apply even if gross negligence or willful misconduct can somehow be shown? What if GE failed to disclose design defects? The principle of operator liability would seem attractive to anyone facing a products liability claim — Toyota, for example, comes to mind. Will courts uphold a principle of exclusive operator liability even when reports suggest that there were GE and U.S. government scientists who questioned the safety of GE's Mark I design for containment?
Modern disasters are, in an important sense, man-made. Because of this fact, the need to assign legal liability will arise. It is too early yet to know who bears the blame, and it is accordingly too early to be assured that GE is well-insulated from liability. The regulators, the operator and perhaps others may well have failed the public. It is the role of the legal process to ensure that the economic burden of the disaster falls on the party or parties responsible for it.
Anupam Chander is a professor of law at UC Davis.
------------------------According to the author, GE's stocks have not been impacted by the Fukushima... more
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General Electric paid no taxes on $5.1 billion profit. Possible political connections.
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Potential consequences: How a full-scale meltdown could affect the U.S. by flying across the Pacific Ocean
Breaking News // Circa 1974 General Electric designed reactors had similar backup failures on US Nuclear Plants. These same US Nuclear Plants are asking for US Operations Renewal from our Government.
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March 14, 2011 |
Last updated at 2:52 PM (UK time) on 14th March 2011
America was on alert today amid fears the nuclear fallout from the Japan earthquake could reach the West Coast of the U.S.
Scientists warned of a 'worst-case scenario' in which a meltdown could blast highly radioactive material into the atmosphere.
This would be then picked up by powerful 30,000ft winds carrying the debris across the Pacific and hitting America within four days. Link also provides a larger map. Daily Mail
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March 14, 2011 |
Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 fuel core meltdown reported underway
7:39AM EST March 14---We have received a report from our Japanese colleagues that Tokyo Power Electric Company is reporting that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 2 has lost all cooling water and the fuel core is completed exposed. The fuel rods are very likely melting. There is no word on efforts to flood Unit 2 to avert an uncontrolled meltdown.
Two hydrogen gas explosions have already rocked Unit 1 and Unit 3. A third explosion is now likely in Unit 2 potentially releasing significant amounts of radiation into the atmosphere if the vessel fails followed by containment failure as the result of a possible full scale meltdown.
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March 14, 2011 |
A great piece by The Guardian's John Vidal. Here's the lead:
The gung-ho nuclear industry is in deep shock. Just as it and its cheerleader, the International Atomic Energy Agency, were preparing to mark next month's 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident with a series of self-congratulatory statements about the dawning of a safe age of clean atomic power, a series of catastrophic but entirely avoidable accidents take place in not one but three reactors in one of the richest countries of the world.
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March 14, 2011 |
"A gigantic science experiment, with the Japanese people as guinea pigs."
Read Michio Kaku on the spiraling nuclear disaster in Japan.
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March 14, 2011
Nuke rods fully exposed again
Posted at noon, March 14: A Japanese utility says fuel rods at a troubled nuclear reactor were once again fully exposed hours after authorities were able to stabilize a similar emergency. Tokyo Electric Power Co. says the exposure happened at Unit 2 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant because a steam vent wouldn't open Monday, causing a sudden drop of water. That reactor and two others at the plant are dangerously overheating and authorities are racing to prevent meltdown. AP
FOR MOR INFORMATION:
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/
FOR LARGER MAPS:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366055/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Navy-crew-months-radiation-1-HOUR.htmlPotential consequences: How a full-scale meltdown could affect the U.S. by flying... more
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/03/14/world/14nuclear4_span/14nuclear4_span-articleLarge.jpg
The New York Times
March 14, 2011 - 1:51AM PT
Radioactive Releases in Japan Could Last Months, Experts Say
PART ONE...
By DAVID E. SANGER and MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON — As the scale of Japan’s nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.
The emergency flooding of two stricken reactors with seawater and the resulting steam releases are a desperate step intended to avoid a much bigger problem: a full meltdown of the nuclear cores in two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. On Monday, an explosion blew the roof off the second reactor, not damaging the core, officials said, but presumably leaking more radiation.
So far, Japanese officials have said the melting of the nuclear cores in the two plants is assumed to be “partial,” and the amount of radioactivity measured outside the plants, though twice the level Japan considers safe, has been relatively modest.
But Pentagon officials reported Sunday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates — still being analyzed, but presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-121 — suggesting widening environmental contamination.
In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate.
Japanese reactor operators now have little choice but to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped. The plant’s operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility said.
That suggests that the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated may not be able to return to their homes for a considerable period, and that shifts in the wind could blow radioactive materials toward Japanese cities rather than out to sea.
Re-establishing normal cooling of the reactors would require restoring electric power — which was cut in the earthquake and tsunami — and now may require plant technicians working in areas that have become highly contaminated with radioactivity.
More steam releases also mean that the plume headed across the Pacific could continue to grow. On Sunday evening, the White House sought to tamp down concerns, saying that modeling done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had concluded that “Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Territories and the U.S. West Coast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity.”
But all weekend, after a series of intense interchanges between Tokyo and Washington and the arrival of the first American nuclear experts in Japan, officials said they were beginning to get a clearer picture of what went wrong over the past three days. And as one senior official put it, “under the best scenarios, this isn’t going to end anytime soon.”
The essential problem is the definition of “off” in a nuclear reactor. When the nuclear chain reaction is stopped and the reactor shuts down, the fuel is still producing about 6 percent as much heat as it did when it was running, caused by continuing radioactivity, the release of subatomic particles and of gamma rays.
Usually when a reactor is first shut down, an electric pump pulls heated water from the vessel to a heat exchanger, and cool water from a river or ocean is brought in to draw off that heat.
But at the Japanese reactors, after losing electric power, that system could not be used. Instead the operators are dumping seawater into the vessel and letting it cool the fuel by boiling. But as it boils, pressure rises too high to pump in more water, so they have to vent the vessel to the atmosphere, and feed in more water, a procedure known as “feed and bleed.”
When the fuel was intact, the steam they were releasing had only modest amounts of radioactive material, in a nontroublesome form. With damaged fuel, that steam is getting dirtier.
CONTINUED...http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/03/14/world/14nuclear4_span/14nuclear4_span-ar... more
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thttp://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/fish-toxins-environment/
Some fish in New York’s Hudson River have become resistant to several of the waterway’s more toxic pollutants. Instead of getting sick from dioxins and related compounds including some polychlorinated biphenyls, Atlantic tomcod harmlessly store these poisons in fat, a new study finds.
But what’s good for this bottom-dwelling species could be bad for those feeding on it, says Isaac Wirgin of the New York University School of Medicine’s Institute of Environmental Medicine in Tuxedo. Each bite of tomcod that a predator takes, he explains, will move a potent dose of toxic chemicals up the food chain — eventually into species that could end up on home dinner tables.
From 1947 to 1976, two General Electric manufacturing plants along the Hudson River produced PCBs for a range of uses, including as insulating fluids in electrical transformers. Over the years, PCB and dioxin levels in the livers of the Hudson’s tomcod rose to become “among the highest known in nature,” Wirgin and his colleagues note online Feb. 17 in Science. Because these fish don’t detoxify PCBs, Wirgin explains, it was a surprise that they could accumulate such hefty contamination without becoming poisoned. His team now reports that the tomcod’s protection traces to a single mutation in one gene. The gene is responsible for producing a protein needed to unleash the pollutants’ toxicity.
All vertebrates contain molecules in their cells that will bind to dioxins and related compounds. Indeed, these proteins — aryl hydrocarbon receptors, or AHRs — are often referred to as dioxin receptors. Once these poisons diffuse into an exposed cell, each molecule can mate with a receptor and together they eventually pick up a third molecule. This trio can then dock with select segments of DNA in the cell’s nucleus to inappropriately turn on genes that can poison the host animal.
The tomcod actually has two types of AHRs, with AHR-2 offering the most effective binding to dioxin-like pollutants. But one naturally occurring AHR-2 variant, the result of a gene mutation, proves a very poor mate, Wirgin’s team has found. It takes five times more of the pollutants to get substantial binding than is needed with the conventional AHR-2.
In local rivers relatively free of dioxins and PCBs, 95 percent of tomcod possess AHR-2 only in the conventional form. But in the PCB-rich Hudson, Wirgin’s group finds, the only kind of AHR-2 protein in 99 percent of tomcod is the poorly binding variant.
The mutant receptor appears to have evolved long ago and to be widely dispersed. But in the Hudson, fish with the gene to make the mutant receptor have thrived, while those without it have died out, Wirgin notes.
Adaptation to resist poisons occurs throughout biology, observes molecular toxicologist John Stegeman of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. This process explains why some pesticides no longer kill their targets and why some microbes become immune to antibiotics.
Stegeman has been chronicling resistance to toxic PCBs and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in another coastal species, a killifish. “But the mechanism in the killifish has not been uncovered, despite a long effort to determine it,” he says.
Knowing the genetic underpinnings for chemical resistance can help predict the likelihood of that resistance developing, he explains, and can point to “how one might exploit resistance — even understand why chemicals are toxic.” Genetic mechanisms for chemical resistance in wild species are known for some invertebrates, such as bugs. Stegeman says, to his knowledge, this tomcod finding is the first in a vertebrate.thttp://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/fish-toxins-environment/
Some fish in... more
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Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who recently took a medical leave of absence from his company, and Google chief executive Eric Schmidt will be among the attendees of President Obama's event with business leaders in San Francisco Thursday evening, a source familiar with the event tells ABC News.
Earlier today, ABC News reported that one attendee would be 26-year-old founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
Jobs has been the subject of tabloid rumors and rampant speculation about his health since announcing last month that was taking a medical leave for undisclosed reasons.
Schmidt on Tuesday told a conference he was "very, very proud" of Google executive Wael Ghonim, who helped organize the Egypt protests that resulted in President Mubarak leaving office.
Schmidt himself will step down in April as Google co-founder Larry Page becomes CEO.
Jobs, Schmidt and Zuckerberg will be among many business leaders in technology and innovation the president will sit down and talk to, as he continues to sell his State of the Union message.
“The president and the business leaders will discuss our shared goal of promoting American innovation, and discuss his commitment to new investments in research and development, education and clean energy,” a White House official said.
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, whom last month President Obama named as chairman of the new White House Council on Jobs and Competititveness, also will be there, a source said.Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who recently took a medical leave of absence from his company,... more
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The U.S. House killed an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as rank-and-file lawmakers, seeking deep cuts in spending, voted down a program backed by House Speaker John Boehner.
Lawmakers voted 233-198 today to remove $450 million for the engine from a Republican bill that already aims to slash $61 billion from this year’s budget. The vote was a victory for President Barack Obama and the Pentagon, which for years has said the program isn’t needed.
“After years of throwing good money after bad to fund the wasteful extra engine, the House has finally voted to end this unnecessary program,” said Florida Republican Tom Rooney, who co-sponsored the amendment. “Today’s vote sends a message to the American people that Congress heard their call to eliminate wasteful spending.”
Republicans split almost evenly on the engine, with 110 voting to end it and 130 voting to keep it. More than half of the freshmen Republicans voted against the engine program. Among Democrats, 123 opposed funding the engine and 68 voted to continue the funding.
Boehner had argued the program would produce savings for the government over time. His Ohio district is near a plant that would be threatened with job losses if the program were defunded. It is being developed by General Electric Co. and Rolls Royce Group Plc.
500 Amendments
The House is considering more than 500 amendments from lawmakers taking advantage of Boehner’s promise to allow a free debate on the budget-cutting proposal introduced last week.
The plan, which would fund the government from March 4 through Sept. 30, would kill more than 100 government programs and slash hundreds more. The Environmental Protection Agency would be cut by nearly one-third, the Peace Corps would face a 20 percent reduction and Pell college tuition grants would drop by 15 percent. Republicans plan a final vote on the measure by the end of this week.
Senate Democrats said the House plan would force as many as 218,000 children to be dropped from the Head Start program and lead to the firing of 65,000 teachers.
“If we follow the House Republicans’ roadmap, it would lead the country over the cliff,” Senator Charles Schumer of New York said in a statement.
Deeper Cuts
Many House Republicans are seeking even deeper cuts to the plan, with Jim Jordan of Ohio proposing to cut an additional $20 billion and Texas Republican Ron Paul proposing to slash aid to Egypt, Israel, Pakistan and Jordan by $6 billion.
Other amendments would bar funds to implement Obama’s health-care law, reduce funds for farm subsidies and prevent government workers from implementing the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, created under the financial overhaul Congress passed last year.
The House budget plan would be unlikely to survive in the Senate, where majority Democrats today endorsed Obama’s call for a five-year freeze of non-security discretionary spending to help reduce the deficit. Such a freeze would save $400 billion over 10 years.
‘We’re Broke’
Asked about concerns the House’s proposed spending cuts would force the government to furlough employees, Boehner said yesterday, “so be it” because “we’re broke.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee today that the backup F-35 engine is “an unnecessary and extravagant expense” that the Pentagon has been trying to kill since former President George W. Bush’s administration.
Representative Kevin McCarthy, the No. 3 Republican, told reporters the alternative engine program would produce savings because having multiple companies participating would generate competition. “You would save money by having the competition,” he said.
Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, scoffed at those arguments, saying the issue was “parochial politics versus fiscal responsibility.” Today’s vote “is an indication of whether we’re serious about saving money,” he said.
Rooney said that, while he asked freshman lawmakers how they could pass up an opportunity to save $450 million, Boehner was urging members to support the engine plan.
Rooney declined to describe Boehner’s pitch, saying, “You’ll have to ask him; I’ve been trying to stay away from him.”The U.S. House killed an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as... more
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Fury is building over rolling nationwide blackouts triggered by the Obama administration's deliberate agenda to block the construction of new coal-fired plants, as local energy companies struggle to meet Americans' power demands amidst some of the coldest weather seen in decades.
- As we reported yesterday, four hospitals in Texas reacted furiously after they were hit with planned outages despite being promised they would be spared even as power to Super Bowl venues remains uninterrupted.
- Thousands in New Mexico have been left without natural gas as Gov. Susana Martinez on Thursday declared a state of emergency. "Due to statewide natural gas shortages, I have ordered all government agencies that do not provide essential services to shut down and all nonessential employees to stay home" on Friday, Martinez said after meeting with public safety personnel in Albuquerque," reports the Associated Press.
- Borderland residents have been asked to limit their use of natural gas as the Texas Gas Service asks that larger commercial facilities voluntarily close their doors to save supplies.
- People in Tucson have been asked to limit their use of hot water and moderate their thermostat levels to save on energy.
- Shortages of natural gas in San Diego County has forced utility companies to "cut or reduce the gas supplied to some of their largest commercial and industrial customers," reports North County Times.
- In El Paso, "Hundreds of thousands of electricity customers continue to face periodic blackouts, and nearly 900 gas customers still have no heat," reports the El Paso Times, with El Paso Electric resorting to using generators in a struggle to meet demand while still having to implement forced outages.Fury is building over rolling nationwide blackouts triggered by the Obama... more
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“Egypt gets the most U.S. foreign aid of any country except for Israel.”
“The other group that benefits from this aid arrangement is U.S. defense contractors. As we reported with Sunlight Foundation, contractors including BAE Systems, General Dynamics, General Electric, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have all done business with the Egyptian government through relationships facilitated by high-powered DC lobbyists.”“Egypt gets the most U.S. foreign aid of any country except for Israel.”... more
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