Kerry lies desperately about Dean's environmental record

Proof of Kerry's lies:

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time."
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/6909044.htm

The compact with Maine and Texas was only about sending waste to Texas, not specifically to Sierra Blanca:
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/fullchapter.cfm?Title=10&Chapter=162

Ann Richards (D) was the governor of Texas at the time.

Well, it's understandable that Kerry is getting that desperate...

"Kerry, who cast himself as the early front-runner, has been frustrated by Dean's fund-raising success and retired Army general Wesley Clark's momentum. Polls show him trailing Dean in New Hampshire, a state Kerry must win."

...but it's still unusually brazen lying about factual stuff.

Note to the moderators who'll probably consider locking this as a dupe: shall we start a competition of who gets to first "reserve" which article and post it here with a lie-filled subject line and selected quotes that favor his candidate and after that anyone wishing to protest can only kick the lie-filled subject line?
:think:

Kinda like how Gep lied desperately about Dean's Medicare position, huh? And how the good guv "thoroughly refuted the lies".

Uh huh.

Are you saying that Bush was the governor of Texas at the time, as Kerry is saying? Are you? :-)

in 1998.

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time"
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/clips/news_2003_1002.html

...but by all means, keep spinning your wheels. The deeper you dig them, the funnier it looks. :-)

Deans arguments are AFTER THE FACT attempt to try to EXPLAIN away his support for a laege number of extremely conservative and extrememly harmful actions

He has to deal with each in a piecemeal fashion, becasue if you put them all togetther, they form a picture of a person who tried to stop cost of living increases for benefits to the blind, disabled and elderly:


Throughout, he held a tight rein on state spending, repeatedly clashing with the Democrats who controlled the Legislature for most of his years as governor.

Dean trimmed spending or held down increases in areas held dear by the liberals. More than once, Dean went to battle over whether individual welfare benefits should rise under automatic cost of living adjustments. Liberals were particularly incensed when he tried that tactic on a program serving the blind, disabled and elderly, which he did several times.

Dean turned often to the bully pulpit to belittle and berate them.

http://premium1.fosters.com/2003/news/may%5F03/may%5F19/news/reg%5Fvt0519a.asp

Who sent a budget to his legislature that would have cut tens of thousands of people out of various health programs:

Medicaid cuts will affect thousands of Vermonters
January 23, 2002

By DAVID MACE

Vermont Press Bureau

MONTPELIER — Tens of thousands of Vermonters would see their state health care benefits rolled back or cut off completely under Gov. Howard Dean’s proposed budget, which seeks to wring $16.5 million in savings from Medicaid.

http://timesargus.com/Legislature/Story/41169.html

Who cut the budget to public defenders offices and doubled the number of people in prison in Vermont. primarily by denying them access to public defenders:

For the Defense

Dean chose not to reappoint Appel for a third four-year term as defender general, the state official who heads the state’s public defender program. In appointing Valerio, of Proctor, the new defender general, Dean had kind words for Appel. But Appel had clashed with Dean on numerous occasions in his efforts to secure for his office the resources necessary to fulfill his duties conscientiously.

Just two years ago Dean tried to prevent Appel from accepting a $150,000 federal grant aimed at assisting defendants with mental disabilities. For Dean to block a government agency from receiving federal money was unusual in itself. But Dean’s openly expressed bias against criminal defendants provided a partial explanation.

Dean has made no secret of his belief that the justice system gives all the breaks to defendants. Consequently, during the 1990s, state’s attorneys, police, and corrections all received budget increases vastly exceeding increases enjoyed by the defender general’s office. That meant the state’s attorneys were able to round up ever increasing numbers of criminal defendants, but the public defenders were not given comparable resources to respond.

The problem with giving a disproportionate share of state resources to prosecution and enforcement is that it throws the justice system out of kilter. A just result occurs in court only when the prosecution and defense both are ably represented. Thus, Appel felt compelled two years ago to notify the court that the Rutland public defender’s office would take no new cases unless the defendant was in jail. The Rutland office was so short of staff that case backlogs threatened to overwhelm the public defenders.

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:O1NRLqIjzmsJ:www.talkleft.com/archives/003681.html+%22Howard+Dean%22+%22Criminal+Defendants%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

The article from the Spangenberg Group, an advocacy orgainzation for legal defense of the indigent and mentally ill has the full story of Deans opposition to the grant at:

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:z3DJ596-pFoJ:www.spangenberggroup.com/newsletter/TSG_vol5_issue2.pdf+%22Howard+Dean%22+%22Public+DEfenders%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

or as a PDF at:


http://www.spangenberggroup.com/newsletter/TSG_vol5_issue2.pdf

His comments on civil liberties were found to be frightening by legal experts in Vermont:

Dean's comments on civil liberties cause alarm
September 14, 2001

By DAVID GRAM The Associated Press

MONTPELIER — Gov. Howard Dean's call for a “re-evaluation” of some of America's civil liberties following this week's terrorist attacks was criticised Thursday by a Vermont Law School professor

http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/Story/33681.html

His hotility and opposition to medical marijuana was well known, and he prevented the law from being passed after it was passed by both the democratic senate and republican house and in opposition to the fact that it was greatly favored by the population of Vermont:

Medical marijuana clears Senate hurdle, but time is running out
May 2, 2002

By DAVID MACE Vermont Press Bureau

MONTPELIER — The Senate Health and Welfare Committee Thursday unanimously endorsed a bill that would decriminalize marijuana possession and use for patients suffering from a variety of illnesses, but prospects for further action on the bill appeared dim.

http://timesargus.nybor.com/Legislature/Story/46177.html

Poll Shows Vermonters Support Medical Marijuana
65% Say Gov. Dean Should Sign Medical Marijuana Legislation
MONTPELIER, VERMONT -- An overwhelming majority of Vermonters support legislation to protect patients who use medical marijuana, according to a statewide poll conducted by the Lucas Organization on February 9-10.

The poll, commissioned by the Marijuana Policy Project, showed that 75.7 percent of Vermonters "support changing the law to allow people with cancer, AIDS, and other serious illnesses to use and grow their own marijuana for medical purposes, if they have the approval of their physicians."<1>

http://www.mpp.org/releases/nr021402.html

He not only vehemently fought Veermont joining 44 other states that allowed methadone maintenance clinics, but even after he grudgingly allowed it in the state (people could not take the drug home for the weekends, so a clinic had to open seven days a week), becasue of his concerns about what happened to neighborhoods in which clinics were placed, but he forced prisons to shit down methadone treatment in prisons for people who were on the programs on the outside, and got arrested. He was letting the legilsture know that they forced him to concede in the legislature, they couldnt control what he ddi in the prisons:

Governor Nixes Methadone Plan for Vermont Prisons
Thursday, December 20, 2001

Vermont Governor Howard Dean has again proven himself to be a formidable obstacle to methadone maintenance therapy in Vermont. In May 2000, the state of Vermont finally joined 44 other states and passed a law allowing for methadone maintenance, despite the opposition from the Governor. Gov. Dean eventually reached a compromise with the Legislature by stipulating that methadone be distributed in a controlled environment and not for take-home use. Although a methadone clinic has yet to open in Vermont -- the first is scheduled to open in January 2002 in Burlington - the Vermont Department of Corrections recently announced plans to allow certain inmates to receive methadone in jail. This summer the Department of Corrections argued against methadone in court, but later agreed to allow methadone distribution in jails. Since the Department of Corrections’ approval of prison-based methadone maintenance therapy, Gov. Dean intervened and put a stop to the program, which would have been limited to inmates already on methadone.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/12_20_01vermont2.cfm


Add this to his willingness to and refusal to take Vermont out of the Texas Vermont Maine compact and it siting at Sierra Blanca (Sierra Blanca was selected as the site in 1991, bnefore the compact was entered into). And refusing to listen to the pleas of the Texans who had to live in the area to not send the waste:

Dean: No radioactive waste site in Vermont
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Efforts will continue to find a site in Texas to ship Vermont's low-level radioactive waste, despite the rejection of one location by a state panel there, Gov. Howard Dean says.
Dean rejected calls by some anti-nuclear activists that Vermont should take care of its own waste, storing it above-ground at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernont.

"We have much too much moisture in the ground and too much rain," Dean said. "This is not a big issue. Texas has the responsibility to site this (nuclear waste dump) and they will."

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4745/LLRW/Texas/vermont.html

Texans Make Plea: Don't Send Waste
By TRACY SCHMALER
Rutland Herald, August 20, 1998


BRATTLEBORO _ Vermonters and Texans made an impassioned plea to state officials Wednesday to take responsibility for the radioactive waste generated by the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp.

Residents from both states called on the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel to reject a three-state compact which would allow Vermont and Maine to ship its low-level nuclear waste to a site in western Texas.

“Not only do we not make it, not only do we not use it, we were not given the opportunity to say no," said Susan Carry of Alpine, Texas. Curry lives 100 miles downstream on the Rio Grande from Sierra Blanca, a small community in Texas chosen as the disposal site for Vermont Yankee's low-level waste.

With so many events taking place in the state involving the nuclear power industry, the VSNAP meeting drew quite a crowd of anti-nuclear power activists with specific concerns – the fate of radioactive waste both high and low-level, generated by the Vernon reactor.

http://www.angelfire.com/vt/vermontwalk/texans.html

When you put it all togetther, you do not get anything that looks presidential

You get the picture of an ugly, petty mean spirited little egotistical man. Howard Dean in a nutshell

Or as a longtime Vermont Progressive politician put it:

*Howard Dean:

Howard Dean is clearly the runt of this litter. Dean is shallow, glib, mean spirited and overly ambitious yet Vermonters continue to reward him with term after term. On issues that matter, Dean is regressive and responsive only to the needs of elite vested interests. Taking his lead from the new generation of grossly hypocritical, Bill Clinton type Democrats, Dean mouths the ancient words of Democratic Party idealism but then repudiates labor and the poor confidant that they have no where else to go. Big money motivates Howard Dean, a spoiled brat rich kid from Long Island who always gets his own way.

Dean has never had serious opposition in any election campaign. He slid into the Lieutenant Governor's office and took over the top job when Snelling died. He has won easily since because Republicans like to vote for him while their own Party candidates have been either little known or hopelessly right wing.

http://www.sover.net/~auc/6govs.htm


And as few other Vermont Democrats put it:

I know that a lot of you are going to vote for Dean -- he talks a good game; he can be charismatic and charming. But I'm warning you. This man will tell you what you want to hear, or at least tell you something that has some little kernel of something that you can interpret as support for the things that are important to you. But when the time comes to stand up and lead on the issue, to take on the money interests and backsliders in his own party, that stiff little spine will turn into a slinky.

If you vote for him, it's your job to stand behind him with a poker and keep him headed in the right direction. Don't give him any honeymoon period, either--keep the pressure on from the second you drop that ballot in the box. The minute you relax, he's going to turn right back into what he really is...a privileged, arrogant, middle of the road republican. Put your political energy into getting some truly progressive folks into the House and Senate, and into State legislatures around the country so that there will be more pressure from more directions. We need to get together our sophisticated progressive thinkers to develop policy ideas in every area, so that we're ready with real, well-thought out counter-proposals for the incremental changes a Dean administration might put forth. If you feel you must, support Dean, do--but then go do the work necessary to make real change.

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs08292003.html

...of Kerry's lying, the longer your irrelevant cut-and-pastes get. That is pretty funny. :-)

<...>

States with the highest environmental standards also boast the best economic performance, finds Gold & Green 2000, a new report from the Institute for Southern Studies.

The study ranks states on 20 “gold” economic and 20 “green” environmental indicators to provide a telling snapshot that diffuses the “jobs versus the environment” myth:

Seven states rank in the top 15 for both economic and environmental health. Vermont, Rhode Island and Minnesota rank in the top six on both lists. Other “top performers” on both scales are Colorado, Maryland, Maine, and Wisconsin. Conversely, 10 states — mostly in the South — are among the worst 15 on both lists. For example, Louisiana ranks 48th on economic performance and 50th on the environment. Others in the cellar are: Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, and South Carolina.

The report released today is an updated version of a similar study authored by the Institute in 1994. The original “Gold and Green” had similar findings, and comparisons of the 1994 and 2000 studies offer a useful yardstick for gauging which states are improving — or falling behind — on their environmental and economic records. For example: While there was some jockeying among “bottom performers” — those ranking neat the bottom on both environmental and economic scales — since the 1994 edition of the study, only two states managed to escape from the bottom of the barrel in 2000: Ohio and Oklahoma. Since 1994, the list of environmental and economic “top performers” has ,seen more turn–over, with Rhode Island and Maine adding themselves to the honor role. While New Hampshire and Massachusetts continue to post strong economic numbers, greater environmental threats removed them from the top of the list. Similarly, the strong environmental records of Hawaii and Oregon could not offset these states’ sub–par economic performance.

Top Performers Vermont (gold rank 3, green rank 1) Minnesota (gold 2, green 6) Rhode Island (gold 15, green 4) Colorado (gold 5, green 14) Maine (gold 13, green 6) Maryland (gold 6, green 15) Wisconsin (gold 11, green 12)

Bottom Performers South Carolina (gold rank 38, green rank 45) Kentucky (gold 44, green 41) West Virginia (gold 46, green 39) Arkansas (gold 49, green 37) Indiana (gold 40, green 48) Mississippi (gold 50, green 38) Tennessee (gold 45, green 44) Texas (gold 43, green 46) Alabama (gold 47, green 49) Louisiana (gold 48, green 50)

http://missouri.sierraclub.org/SierranOnline/JanFeb2001/jobsvs.htm

Dean repeatedly turned a blind eye to polluters. Shall I bring up what the Sierra Club has to say about Kerry? Specifically Kerry?

Dean's Vermont "has one of the most progressive environmental programmes in America" according to the London Times. As former Vermont radio and television talk show host Jeff Kaufman points out, "During his decade in office, Governor Dean helped protect more land from development than all previous governors combined; ... he administered a 'best practices' agriculture plan that preserves land and water quality; he helped form the nation's first statewide energy efficiency utility (preventing more than one million tons of greenhouse gas emissions since 2000); and he championed a commuter rail system to lower traffic congestion and pollution while diminishing urban sprawl (in its last report on sprawl, the Sierra Club ranked Vermont as the second best state in America for land use planning)." Vermont also followed California's lead in establishing regulations on greenhouse gas emissions that go beyond standards set in the Kyoto Protocol. According to the New York Times, Dean "is calling for the auto industry to build cars that get 40 miles per gallon by 2015 and for 20 percent of the nation's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020. ... s president he would close the loophole that exempts sport utility vehicles from gas-mileage standards, ... make the Environmental Protection Agency cabinet level and work to re-establish the Clinton administration rules limiting roads in national forests." Even when Dean was judged less favorably on environmental issues, the executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council Elizabeth Courtney recognizes that pressing economic circumstances impacted his decisions ("in the early 90s the rest of the country seemed to be pulling out of the recession and Vermont seemed to be languishing in it") and acknowledges Dean's general qualities as governor: "fresh candor and intelligence. You always know where Howard Dean stands. He is candid and honest in his communications with Vermonters, and he is appreciated for that. He's also very bright, and he has a clear sense of his direction." The San Francisco Chronicle reported that " Pope said that although the Sierra Club had some disagreements with Dean's land-use policies, Dean did 'fabulous things in Vermont.'"

The Progressive Case for Dean, by Nico Pitney

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16592

Because the compact doesn't mention Sierra Blanca doesn't mean that civil rights groups didn't protest it. If anything, it suggests that it was probably clear to the dealmakers that there were problems with the deal.

That didn't seem to prompt any change of heart from eco-warrior Dean.

As for Bush, if he weren't the Governor at the signing, he certainly oversaw the implementation over the protests. Again, no change of heart.

Did I mention that this is still bald-faced NIMBY, and points to Dean's willful ignorance regarding the public safety and security issues behind a program to move nuclear materials over thousands of miles of rail. Very Presidential. Vote for Dean - he won't pass the buck.

Finally, regarding desperation, this is only a signal of desperate Dean supporters looking for a distraction from policy discussions.

The article you quote regarded a recent poll that Kerry had cut the lead in NH from 21 points to 9 points. Gee, I'd be really desperate at that trend, wouldn't you?

PS - Kerry voted against the Yucca plan.

and that is wrong. Bush became gov. in 1995 and the compact between Maine and TX was signed in 1998 according to today's NY Times:

KERRY ATTACKS DEAN FOR BUSH PACT Senator John Kerry attacked the record of Howard Dean, a former governor of Vermont and fellow candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying he had struck a deal with George W. Bush in 1998, when Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, to ship Vermont's nuclear waste to a poor, mostly Hispanic community. In a campaign swing through Texas, Mr. Kerry criticized the 1998 compact, in which Vermont and Maine agreed to pay $25 million each to ship low-level nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, Tex. Dr. Dean's campaign countered that the arrangement had been negotiated in the open and later approved by President Bill Clinton. Ultimately the plan was not carried through because Texas environmental officials said it was unsafe. David M. Halbfinger (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/02/national/02BRFS8.html
So, you are completely wrong on every count. Kerry didn't lie, the AP made a mistake and the NY Times has it right. I'll post this correction in another thread. I guess you Deaniacs are getting desperate.

:-)

The AP made a mistake. The New York Times reports the correct dates (just from curiosity, did you actually READ DJCairo's post?).

I'll say again, if you have a legitimate policy difference with Kerry, feel free to point it out. But could we possibly stop throwing around COMPLETELY BASELESS accusations of lying?

You can now flip-flop between Kerry's two different lies: that Bush was governor of Texas at that time or that the compact was signed in 1998

...but they are BOTH still simply LIES.

The first one was signed in 1994. See post below. #16 I believe.

That compact was defeated, according to the post here. Another bill was signed in 1998, when Bush was Governor.

Kerry did not say Bush was Governor in 1993, the news article said that. And regardless, Dean was Governor in both 1993 and 1998 and knew exactly where that nuclear waste was going to be dumped. Read both posts and there's no denying that. And that is what Kerry stated.

http://www.txpeer.org/Bush/Sierra_Blanca_Dump.html

The first one was signed in 1994.

A simple quote from an official document, not an obscure opinion piece:

"The state shall be a member of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact. (Added 1993, No. 137 (Adj. Sess.), § 2.)"
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/fullchapter.cfm?Title=10&Chapter=162

Your "proof" for that 1998 stuff doesn't containg string "Dean":

http://www.txpeer.org/Bush/Sierra_Blanca_Dump.html

:crazy:

failed to pass the Texas legialture

Bush revived it in 1995 and tried had his lobbyists and other groupps ram it though and it was passed, onve it had passed in all of the involved states (it involved MORE than one state, ised interstate roads to make the moves, and so required a final federal approval)

It took five years to ram through, Dean approves of it all of the way, when the area in the Texas plus Texas environmental boards actually outperformed Deans Department of Environmental Protection:

Associated Press, 10/25/98 13:32


Dean: No radioactive waste site in Vermont
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Efforts will continue to find a site in Texas to ship Vermont's low-level radioactive waste, despite the rejection of one location by a state panel there, Gov. Howard Dean says.
Dean rejected calls by some anti-nuclear activists that Vermont should take care of its own waste, storing it above-ground at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernont.

We have much too much moisture in the ground and too much rain," Dean said. "This is not a big issue. Texas has the responsibility to site this (nuclear waste dump) and they will."

Thursday, members of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission rejected a plan to build the dump near Sierra Blanca, a poor, largely Hispanic town about 16 miles from the Mexican border. Activists in Texas and in Maine and Vermont said the town had been chosen because it lacked political clout.

The Texas commission said a geologic fault under the proposed dump made it unsafe, and social and economic concerns had not been adequately addressed. Maine and Vermont both planned to ship their waste to the dump under an agreement signed in 1993 and approved by Congress earlier this fall.

More than 90 percent of Vermont's waste comes from Vermont Yankee. The nuclear plant creates about 150 cubic yards of radioactive waste each year and budgets about $1.5 million to store it or ship it to a site near Barnwell, S.C., said Rob Williams, a spokesman for the plant.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4745/LLRW/Texas/vermont.html

This week PEER examines how aggressive efforts by lobbyists representing Governor Bush worked with the utility industry to successfully push through federal legislation that could make Texas the largest low-level radioactive waste dumpsite in the country.
When George W. Bush was inaugurated as Texas Governor in 1995, one of the first federal initiatives he undertook on behalf of Texas industry was attempting to pass federal legislation creating the Texas-Maine-Vermont radioactive waste compact to fund construction of a radioactive waste dump in the small Texas border town Sierra Blanca.



In September 1998 President Clinton signed the Texas-Vermont-Maine compact into law. On October 12, 1998 -- 8 federal Mexican officials begin a hunger strike in front of Governor's mansion in Austin . They were joined by many other Mexican officials , community leaders, and indigenous religious dancers.

http://www.txpeer.org/Bush/Sierra_Blanca_Dump.html



IN September, 1998 Clinton signed the bill passed by Congress (remember comgress, in 1998 both houses firmly in REPUBLICAN control),

Finally ending 5 years of contention and argument and protest against dumping radioactive waste on a poor town with NO political coult.

Dena was aware of every aspect of the situation over the entire five year period, and you see his response above. Its Texas' problem.

Not In My Back Yard.

Kerry lied that Dean made a deal with Bush to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca. If you try to claim that it wasn't a lie, please show the text of that deal.

Here's a document on an actual existing, not imagined and claimed, deal:
http://www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/fullchapter.cfm?Title=10&Chapter=162

Kerry criticized the environmental record of Dean. Kerry criticized the environmental record of Bush. Each of them supported dumping waste in Sierra Blanca. I found no quote where Kerry said Bush and Dean made a deal. The article reported that, the reporter said that. Besides, the point here is Dean's record. He didn't care about shipping nuclear waste off to other states or the harm it would cause, either at Yucca Mtn or Sierra Blanca. His concern was just getting it out of Vermont.

.

Deaniac tactics. The issue is Dean's environmental record and his support of sending nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca. By 1998, he most certainly knew that's what would happen and he didn't care.

unfortunately acerbic, nicholas_j is correct. It would be legally and ethically Dean's responsibility to pull out of any contract in which he had become aware that other individuals and communities could be subject to injury due to dangerous pollution.

It is simply a premise of law that once you become aware of the consequences of ANY arrangement you have engaged in , it is your responsibility to do something about it, or cancel the arrangement.

As an example, if I contract with a company to haul trash from my property , and I an aware that they are dumping it onto someone's private property, it is my responsibility to stop their actions. I believe this applies at every level of law. International as well.

The fact that Mexico was complaining that this dumping would effect their people too was also call for Dean to take some reasonable and ethical stand. In the end, Dean knew what Bush II was doing and did not take appropriate steps.

...but the truth is simple: Kerry lied, stupidly.

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time"
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/clips/news_2003_1002.html

The final agreement was not signed until it PASSED in all three state legislature, which did not occur until after 1995, prior to this it was a TENTATIVE agreement. THe final document was signed with Bush.

THe final document was signed with Bush.

Which document exactly are you claiming that Dean signed with Bush?

After it was made he was totally aware of WHERE it was being stored adn had every bit of authority to suggest alternative places in orcer to avoid harming a community.

Three party deal. Dean could have done what was MORAL AND ETHICAL.

He chose not to. Thats that.

I never stated the original deal was made with Bush. Dean dealt with bush for 80 percent of the period between 1993 and 1998, and was still seeking other places in Texas for it to be sent. Dena KNEW it was Sierra Blanca selected, he KNEW about all of the environmental political and even UNITED NATIONS opposition to the placement at that site and did not speak up.


By the way. ABOVE GROUNBD starage is possible and internationally the most approved storage method for nuclear waste:

One of the foreseeable mechanisms for the mobilisation of radioactivity in waste is the ingress and action of water in a store. Potential sources of water ingress are groundwater, rainwater, flooding and condensation. The possibility of stagnant water being in contact with the containers, coupled with the air in the store possibly being salt laden, as many stores are likely to be near the sea, could lead to corrosion resulting in failure of the lifting integrity of even stainless steel containers. An effective means of reducing potential water ingress is to site the storage building above ground level. If a building is below ground level then it is best positioned above the local water table. In general, NII expects that the design of a storage building will include facilities to monitor for water ingress and the means to remove the water.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2001/hutchinson.htm


read it again:

. An effective means of reducing potential water ingress is to site the storage building above ground level.

This is as possible in Vermont as it is ANYWHERE.

Dean rejected the calls to do so in Vermont.

After years of debate, the fate of Sierra Blanca now rests with the TNRCC, having recently cleared a number of hurdles at the federal level. In late July, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a Radioactive Waste Compact permitting the exportation of radioactive waste to Texas from the States of Vermont and Maine, stripping the bill in the process of amendments designed to limit waste received by Texas to just those two New England States. The axed amendment would also have provided a means for residents of Sierra Blanca to register official opposition to the dump on grounds of environmental justice. Saddled with a high poverty rate, the largely Latino town of Sierra Blanca already receives 250 tons of New York City sludge each week at a disposal facility constructed there in 1992. In 1994, President Bill Clinton issue an Executive Order on Environmental Justice that was supposed to, argue activists, protect less politically powerful communities of color like Sierra Blanca from being sited with dumps unwanted elsewhere. The Senate followed up with a vote in favor the compact on September 2nd, and sent the bill to President Clinton. Clinton signed the bill into law soon after...

If the Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission gives a green light to Sierra Blanca on October 22, activists are prepared to explore various strategies to keep the dump from opening. They include pursuing the NAFTA complaint with the CEC, going to the United Nations and World Court, and lobbying Texas state legislators to deny funding for the waste dump.



http://www.americaspolicy.org/updater/1998/oct20sierra_body.html

Again...either Dean was complicit and approved of the action and the site in light of WORLD disapproval of it, or he has his head up his ass.

Maybe that explains it.

Are you saying that Dean didn't know that Sierra Blanca had been chosen as the nuclear waste site back in '94? And he hadn't figured it out by 1998, when Congress finally passed it? Why? Did he intentionally not pay attention or did he just not care?

The compact was SIGNED by the governors, but required ratification by EACH states legialtures, and then FEDERAL approval in order to move materials "INTERSTATE".

Each State can handle its own radioactive waste in its own way as long as federal safety standards are met, but for one atom of an isotope to cross the border in a truck, train or an airplane or on the back of a mule, federal approval is required.

Until all parties agreed, nothing was settled, and NOTHING was settled while Richards was in office.

Dean fought FOR that compact to be passed by the legislatures, and for FEDERAL passge.


Wrong again.

That did not happen until September, 1998.

Dean did not shed one crocodile tear or back away from the plan even after he KNEW who was going to be effected by his particiption in what Paul Wellstone called "Blatant Environmental Racism"


Dean advocated sending nuclear waste from his state to the poor, mostly Hispanic town of Sierra Blanca, Texas. Wellstone called the proposal "blatant environmental injustice" and fought to delay the measure in the Senate. It ultimately passed but was later determined unsafe.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20030526&s=farrell

Could not AUTHORIZE, the dumping in that one spot.

It was an agreeemnt beterrn governors that required legislative ratification before it could go into effect.

Then it needed FEDERAL approval before it could be allowed.

It was a five year process, and Dean was aware of what was happening at EVERY step of the way, becausse Vermont could not send one iota of Waste to Texas before the Texas and Maine Legislatures passed the appropriate legislation and then the Federal Government approved the moving of radioactive material over interstate highways (there are Lots of states between Vermont and Texas, so it becomes a n interstate issue)

Dean had to sign the compact and support the stance of moving the materail so another state in opposition of protests WITHIN HIS OWN STATE to not do so.

He knew, he knew who was being screwed, he didnt care becasue thety were poor and not influential.


Read it again:


Dean: No radioactive waste site in Vermont
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Efforts will continue to find a site in Texas to ship Vermont's low-level radioactive waste, despite the rejection of one location by a state panel there, Gov. Howard Dean says.
Dean rejected calls by some anti-nuclear activists that Vermont should take care of its own waste, storing it above-ground at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernont.

"We have much too much moisture in the ground and too much rain," Dean said. "This is not a big issue. Texas has the responsibility to site this (nuclear waste dump) and they will."

Thursday, members of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission rejected a plan to build the dump near Sierra Blanca, a poor, largely Hispanic town about 16 miles from the Mexican border. Activists in Texas and in Maine and Vermont said the town had been chosen because it lacked political clout.

The Texas commission said a geologic fault under the proposed dump made it unsafe, and social and economic concerns had not been adequately addressed. Maine and Vermont both planned to ship their waste to the dump under an agreement signed in 1993 and approved by Congress earlier this fall.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4745/LLRW/Texas/vermont.html

Bottom line Dean suported the compact, and kept supporting it LONG after he knew the site and the poor people who would be effected by his decision.

Vermont is TOTALLY capable of storing its own waste in SAFER aabove ground facilities that do not comtaminate the water table and eventually the air in the area surrounding the storage facility.

It is just more expensive to do it that way. But fiscally conservative Howie will screw anyone to save a busk.

It was Bush, and Dean trying to get the Texas/Vermont/Maine pact passed. Dean never backed away from it.

Supporting it from 1993(the act was not passed in Vemront until late 1994, after Bush won the eelction and Richards was a lame duck)

Dean fought along side with Bush to get that facility built fo 5 years until 1998, when the plan was defeated in Texas.

...on the legislation in question and whose posts come with just claims or links to opinion pieces. :eyes:

...Kerry's documented and clear lies that they were first proudly spamming around. :-)

"Yet Kerry is trying to demagogue the issue, with claims that fair trade would "send our economy into a tailspin." How absurd! The U.S. manufacturing economy is already in a tailspin, thanks in no small measure to the free trade policies of the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations."

John Nichols~ "The Nation"
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0930-09.htm

All he's been doing for months is lie and make excuses. It's what I've come to expect from him.

"In April of 1994, the Vermont legislature passed a bill establishing an unprecedented compact with the states of Maine and Texas to dispose of nuclear waste. Now that this nuclear deal has passed the U.S. Congress and been signed into law by President Clinton, "low level" nuclear waste from the three states — actually all of the nuclear waste except for spent nuclear reactor fuel rods — can be shipped across the nation's highways to the town of Sierra Blanca, Texas. Sierra Blanca is an impoverished, predominantly Mexican-American community less than 16 miles from the Mexican border."

http://www.social-ecology.org/learn/library/tokar/nuclear.html

And I don't care that Clinton signed this, wrong is still wrong. And Howard Dean knew exactly what he was doing when he got into this.

It WAS Dean dealing with Bush:

Dean: No radioactive waste site in Vermont
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Efforts will continue to find a site in Texas to ship Vermont's low-level radioactive waste, despite the rejection of one location by a state panel there, Gov. Howard Dean says.
Dean rejected calls by some anti-nuclear activists that Vermont should take care of its own waste, storing it above-ground at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernont.

"We have much too much moisture in the ground and too much rain," Dean said. "This is not a big issue. Texas has the responsibility to site this (nuclear waste dump) and they will."

Vermont's low-level radioactive waste comes mainly from Vermont Yankee, and consists of materials other than the more highly radioactive spent fuel rods the plant generates. A small part of the state's waste comes from medical facilities.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4745/LLRW/Texas/vermont.html

Dean's in-your-face campaigning, replete with attacks against President Bush, is resonating with many activists, as can be seen by the large crowds he is drawing at rallies. Still, Dean has been fuzzy and incoherent on some issues -- as was the case several months ago in his widely panned interview on "Meet the Press." And on an issue important to Nevadans -- the federal government's plan to store high-level nuclear waste in our state -- his past views are troubling. Dean, as governor of Vermont, a state that has a nuclear power plant, urged the federal government to move quickly on selecting Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the sole burial ground for 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste.

In a recent interview with Grist, an online magazine that advocates environmental protection, Dean said as governor he thought it was a "grand idea" to get rid of his state's nuclear waste, but now that's he running for president he would reassess his position on Yucca Mountain and "see what the science looks like." (In contrast, among the major Democrats vying for the nomination, Lieberman of Connecticut, Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts voted against sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Bob Graham of Florida voted in favor of moving forward with plans for Yucca Mountain.)

Dean's controversial record on disposing of radioactive waste won't end at Yucca Mountain. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that other Democratic presidential candidates plan on attacking Dean's environmental record, possibly on Thursday in Albuquerque, N.M., during the first official Democratic debate. The Wall Street Journal mentioned that under review was Dean's support of a proposal that would have sent low-level radioactive waste to Sierra Blanca, an impoverished Texas town on the Mexican border. Ultimately the plan Vermont worked out with then-Texas Gov. George Bush never panned out, but Dean can expect to be interrogated by fellow Democrats about that proposal.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/editorials/2003/sep/03/515560557.html

Dean and his soul mate Bush, working to screw the impovershed...

Lets look at some more Dean environmentalism:


Bush Romances the Atom in Texas
This week PEER examines how aggressive efforts by lobbyists representing Governor Bush worked with the utility industry to successfully push through federal legislation that could make Texas the largest low-level radioactive waste dumpsite in the country.
When George W. Bush was inaugurated as Texas Governor in 1995, one of the first federal initiatives he undertook on behalf of Texas industry was attempting to pass federal legislation creating the Texas-Maine-Vermont radioactive waste compact to fund construction of a radioactive waste dump in the small Texas border town Sierra Blanca.

http://www.txpeer.org/Bush/Sierra_Blanca_Dump.html

Dean fought for all of the years between 1993 and 1998, to get that compact in Texas passed, to get the site built, and to dump waste on pool Hispanics.

The latest spin is that Kerry was only lying about something that happened in 1998 and that 1993 claim was just a reporter's error. Well, check it out from this source:

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time"
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/clips/news_2003_1002.html
Are you saying that this source can be expected to be unreliable? :bounce:

Norman Solomon observed Dean in not all that progressive, including when it comes to environmental concerns:

Progressives and the Dean Campaign

by Norman Solomon

Let's take Howard Dean at his word: "I was a triangulator before Clinton was a triangulator. In my soul, I'm a moderate."

Plenty of evidence backs up that comment by the former Vermont governor to the New York Times Magazine a few months ago. The self-comparison with Clinton is apt. "During his five two-year terms as governor," the magazine noted, "Dean was proud to be known as a pragmatic New Democrat, in the Clinton mold, boasting that neither the far right nor the far left had much use for him."

EXCERPT...

Gov. Dean did not mind polarizing with poor people, but he got along better with the corporate sector. "Conservative Vermont business leaderspraise Dean's record and his unceasing efforts to balance the budget, even though Vermont is the only state where a balanced budget is not constitutionally required," Business Week reported in its August 11 (2003) edition. "Moreover, they argue that the two most liberal policies adopted during Dean's tenure -- the 'civil unions' law and a radical revamping of public school financing -- were instigated by Vermont's ultraliberal Supreme Court rather than Dean." The magazine added: "Business leaders were especially impressed with the way Dean went to bat for them if they got snarled in the state's stringent environmental regulations."

According to Business Week, "those who know him best believe Dean is moving to the left to boost his chances of winning the nomination." A longtime Dean backer named Bill Stenger, a Vermont Republican who's president of Jay Peak Resort, predicted: "If he gets the nomination, he'll run back to the center and be more mainstream."

CONTINUED...

http://www.progress.org/2003/sol125.htm

...documented at johnkerry.com. :-)

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time"
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/clips/news_2003_1002.html

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time.

'He clearly reflected an insensitivity to that community,' Kerry said during a campaign stop at a Dallas housing project."

The first paragraph is the reporters words. The second is a direct quote. It is impossible to know from the first paragraph whether Kerry said Bush was governor at the time or whether the reporter got the facts wrong.

...but publishes whatever some reporter says he said without checking that it's correct? Really? :eyes:

It is impossible to know from the first paragraph whether Kerry said Bush was governor at the time or whether the reporter got the facts wrong.

:shrug:

I was going to ignore, but this thread has strayed so far from the point, I have to come back in and respond.

Dean didn't give a shit about Nevadans when he supported Yucca Mtn. He flat said he was just glad to get the waste out of Vermont. He didn't care about the pollution of the Rio Grande or the poor in Sierra Blanca. While Paul Wellstone was fighting against this, Howard Dean ignored the consequences altogether and was more than willing to go forward. He had at least 5 years to change his mind, he didn't. THAT is the issue and that is the ONLY issue.

and over at least get it right. "BUSH WAS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS AT THE TIME" was said by AP not by JOHN KERRY. All Kerry said was that Dean made a deal with TEXAS. Christ. :eyes:

...and denying it from the other only when exposed. :eyes:

"BUSH WAS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS AT THE TIME" was said by AP not by JOHN KERRY.

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time"
http://www.blog.johnkerry.com/blog/

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time"
http://www.blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/000343.html

"Kerry said Dean, when he was the Vermont governor, signed a compact in 1993 with Maine and Texas to send nuclear waste to Sierra Blanca, a plan opposed by civil rights groups. Bush was the governor of Texas at the time"
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/clips/news_2003_1002.html

No corrections or retractions anywhere at johnkerry.com...

Is this the best you can come up with? A clear incident where someone in the Kerry camp is posting an article that happens to have information wrong.

If you actually read the links you posted you would note that ALL of them, yes, EVERY single one of them, is the SAME AP article. It's AP, not Kerry. I don't understand why you can't grasp this. It's very clear.

AP wrote the article. AP is responsible for what is in it. People who posted the article on the blog are not responsible for factual errors by AP.

...to the Nth power: Kerry & The Kerriacs are repeatedly publishing on Kerry's official site (not only the blog as you desperately try to obfuscate) a report of what Kerry said, never correcting anything about it and then ridiculously trying to disclaim that "they are not responsible".

Tweet! :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

You are just like all the other militant dean supporters on this board. Always claiming to be the poor, misundertstood Dean supporter, always mistreated by everyone else on the board. What a bunch of crap! You have continuosly refused to admit what was obvious to everyone else regarding this issue. If you have such a problem with it then write the webmaster for Kerry's site. Kerry supporters are not responsible for each word that Kerry utters from his mouth or each article he decides to post on his page.

Your attitude is on of the many reaons why I will NEVER support Dean. If I have to leave the democratic party and leave this board because of it I won't flinch.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

you are like a broken record, acerbic. A sad, broken record, that has absolutely no point at all.

It is not up to the Kerry camp to correct a story they didn't write. You can't just go in and change someone else's article on a whim.

It is not up to the Kerry camp to correct a story they didn't write. You can't just go in and change someone else's article on a whim.

...to the Nth power: Kerry & The Kerriacs are repeatedly publishing on Kerry's official site a report of what Kerry said about Dean, never correcting anything about it, never publishing what Kerry supposedly actually said if that report is wrong and then ridiculously trying to disclaim that "they are not responsible".

Tweet! :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

This is a repugnant form of NIMBY, Dean completely ignored public safety, and never expressed a change of heart (although he suggested it during a campaign interview).

Oops, did I say your white knight had a lousy environmental record? Well, at least Business Week was impressed.

If Dean has really done something repugnant here, why doesn't Kerry consider it sufficient to just tell the truth about it...? :think:

it's like trying to tell a britney spears fan she can't sing.

there are like 500 different articles in this thread detailing dean's environmental daisy cutters. maybe you should call attention to some of dean's more favorable history...

"He clearly reflected an insensitivity to that community," Kerry said during a campaign stop at a Dallas housing project.

The Massachusetts senator criticized the decision to "dump nuclear waste into a poor community far away from where you live because you can do it. I think George Bush was wrong and I think Howard Dean was wrong."

----

Want to hear the sound of crap?

"If elected, Dean would seek a nonpolitical solution to the nuclear waste storage issue based on science and safety, Enright said."

Add to that Dean's comments in Grist:

Grist: As governor, you supported a plan to store the nation's waste at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Do you still think this is a good solution?

Dean: As governor of Vermont, it was a grand idea because it would get the waste out of Vermont. But now that I'm running for president, I've got to reassess it and see what the science looks like.

---

So very, very Presidential. I'm glad he's seeking a "non-political" solution based on "science." What a maroon. But, hey, at least he was against the IWR...

n/t

...when the compact was signed. Ok, if you insist on looking :dunce:

1993.

And had to be finalized by The three governments who made the informal agreement in 1993. Which means the agreement was with Bush and Dean. It was not legal until finalized by legislative passage in 1996, and then the actual agreement to enter into the project signed By Dean Bush and the Governor of Maine once finalized.

You have provided links to the documents in which the states ratified the agreements, but if you read this part of the document:

Sec. 8.05. The provisions of this compact shall be severable and if any phrase, clause, sentence, or provision of this compact is declared by a court of competent jurisdiction to be contrary to the constitution of any participating state or of the United States or the applicability thereof to any government, agency, person or circumstances is held invalid, the validity of the remainder of this compact and the applicability thereof to any government, agency, person, or circumstance shall not be affected thereby to the extent the remainder can in all fairness be given effect. If any provision of this compact shall be held contrary to the constitution of any state participating therein, the compact shall remain in full force and effect as to the state affected as to all severable matters

http://www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/fullchapter.cfm?Title=10&Chapter=162


P.S. this is Vermont's Statute, and not an agreement signed by the parties of all three states. This is an event that transpired prior to final signature of the documents. It was not a signed document until the federal government approved of it in 1998.

TEXAS LOW-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL COMPACT

Article I. Policy and Purpose

Sec. 1.01. The party states recognize a responsibility for each state to seek to manage low-level radioactive waste generated within its boundaries, pursuant to the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act, as amended by the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 (42 U.S.C. Secs. 2021b-2021j). They also recognize that the United States Congress, by enacting the Act, has authorized and encouraged states to enter into compacts for the efficient management and disposal of low-level radioactive waste. It is the policy of the party states to cooperate in the protection of the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens and the environment and to provide for and encourage the economical management and disposal of low-level radioactive waste. It is the purpose of this compact to provide the framework for such a cooperative effort; to promote the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens and the environment of the party states; to limit the number of facilities needed to effectively, efficiently, and economically manage low-level radioactive waste and to encourage the reduction of the generation thereof; and to distribute the costs, benefits, and obligations among the party states; all in accordance with the terms of this compact.



Rogers and her colleagues also came up with alternatives to worn-out methods of resistance. (If your fingers are covered with second-degree burns from frequent yet ineffective candlelight vigils, look to the Sierra Blanca fight as a case study in creative activism.) In August 1994, for instance, the National Low-Level Waste management program hosted a glittering media conference at an Austin hotel to promote the dump, entitled "Radiation: The Public Depends on You." The Legal Defense Fund quietly reserved a meeting room across the hall, where it held its own counter-conference, featuring leaders from the environmental justice movement, an oncologist, and other educators. In a session called "The Banquet of the Rich Nuclear Industry," activists sat at a table drinking "blood" and "nuclear waste" – and then served baloney on silver platters. "The next day our counter-conference was news in papers across the state," says Rogers. "The Austin American-Statesman editorialized against the Sierra Blanca dump for the first time, and state officials were calling their conference a disaster. And we all had a blast doing it." The activists also took the offensive to elected officials who supported the dump, including Governor Richards. "We had a lockdown at the Governor’s mansion when Ann Richards lived there," she says, recalling the time activists chained themselves to the mansion’s wrought-iron gates. "Then we ruined International Women’s Day for her, one year. We’ve had huge marches and closed bridges. In 1995, we stopped the Compact in Congress – voted down by two-thirds, due to grassroots pressure."

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=939

This law was struck down in 1995, therefore invalidating the original compact.

In order for it to be REINSTITUTED, The original parties ALL had to agree to re-enter the same agreement.

It was also Deans obligation to PARTCIAPATE in the assuaraces that the site be safe, and healthy.

makes your claims true.

You have provided links to the documents in which the states ratified the agreements

...but you haven't provided one single link to anything that Dean signed with Bush as you stubbornly keep just claiming.

in 1993.

Show me the 1993 SIGNED document with Deans, Richards, and the Governor of Maine's signatures on it.

The compact was NOT a deal until all of the states ratified it and ONLY then could it be a legal agreement between all three states.

It was not legal until passed by the federal government.

Meaning Dean wes cutting deals with the Governor of Texas when the deal was finalized. That Governor was George Bush.

It was formalized in 1996, and in order to do so Dean dealt with BUSH not Richards.

In case you didn't notice, it's Kerry's claim that Dean signed it in 1993 when Bush was governor of Texas and your claim that they signed something sometime. You are generally expected to prove your claim, not me.

Original Message "You havnt proven that the agreement was SIGNED"

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

In 1993, in order to avoid the possibility of Texas's becoming a radioactive dumping ground for the entire country, the authority drafted an agreement to form a compact between Maine, Vermont, and Texas, making Texas the disposal site for the low-level radioactive waste generated by those three states. The compact would allow Texas to refuse acceptance of waste from noncompact members. The legislature approved the compact in May 1993 and established a six-member Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission to administer the agreement; the bill was signed into law by Governor Richards in June. Under the terms of the compact, Maine and Vermont would each pay $25 million toward the development, operation, and closure of the disposal facility and an additional $2.5 million each for community development projects in Hudspeth County; they would also make contributions toward improved fire and ambulance services in Hudspeth County. Other states, some of whom generated large amounts of radioactive waste, asked to join the Texas compact, offering millions of dollars for the privilege; however, in the interest of keeping the amount of waste to a minimum, these states were excluded. Even the total waste accepted from Maine and Vermont was restricted to 20 percent per year of the waste that Texas itself produced. Texas retained the right to set disposal fees.



http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/TT/metur.html


Texas
In June of 1993, the Texas Governor Ann Richards (D) signed legislation establishing a low-level nuclear waste compact with Maine and Vermont. The compact was formally adopted by Maine and Vermont with in a year. The Texas compact was submitted to the US Congress for consent the following summer. Neither H.R. 4800, introduced by Representative Olympia Snowe (R-ME), or S. 222, introduced by George Mitchell (D-ME), made it to a floor vote during the 103rd Congress. Similar, futile, actions were taken in the 104th Congress. Opposition to the compact came mainly from West Texas representatives whose constituents resided near the Faskin Ranch site, located near Sierra Blanca in Hudspeth County. In addition to environmental justice concerns that the proposed site area is occupied by a poor, mostly hispanic population, opponents of the legislation alleged that the Sierra Blanca site location imposed on an area already stressed by an extensive sewage sludge problem. They also claimed that actions would violate the 1983 La Paz Agreement with Mexico, in which both countries agreed to "prevent, reduce, and eliminate sources of pollution" in the border area. The Senate passed a conferenced version of H.R. 629, the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Consent Act, on September 2, 1998 by a 78-15 margin, almost a year after the House passed the bill by a 309-107 vote. President Clinton signed the bill into law (PL 105-236) later that month. On October 22, 1998, however, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission denied a permit for the facility, stalling or possibly preventing the site from opening.

http://www.agiweb.org/agi/gap/legis106/lownuke.html#texas

The site was selected BEFORE the compact was ever drafted. In 1991, before the compact itself was even conceived of.

Protests and court actions by El Paso and Hudspeth counties continued to delay the project, and at the prompting of Governor Ann Richards, the authority began to look for an alternative location in 1991. In August 1991 the authority chose a 16,000 acre site near the town of Sierra Blanca in Hudspeth County, eighty miles east of El Paso. The authority's board of directors approved the purchase of the land in February 1992 and submitted a preliminary license application to the Texas Department of Health in March of that year. The disposal facility was scheduled to open by July 1996. In the meantime, the authority planned to offer grazing leases on more than 14,000 acres of the land and was continuing technical studies on the remaining 2,000 acres.


Which means Dean accepted the condition of DUMPING Vermonts nuclear waste in the site selected for the compact two years before the compact was ever concieved.

It was the states who entered the compact and not the governor, It was the gonvernor who had the responsibility for continuing to take part in the compact. IT was the governor who was responsible for keeping the state IN the compact even though he knew he would be dumping his states nuclear waste in area that effected poor hispanics. The compact was not a one time deal, that lasted through Ann Richards governorship, but an ONGOING relation between the two states in the compact. Dean dealt with and authorized and approved of the dealings with Texas, through its chief executive, George Bush.

The formal dates for the compact are listed as :

The Sierra Blanca State Compact Dump (1991-1998)

The 72nd Legislature directed the TLLRWDA to select another disposal site within a 400-square-mile designated area in Hudspeth County (this designation was later nicknamed "The Box"). The authority chose a site known as Faskin Ranch about five miles southeast of Sierra Blanca and applied to TNRCC for a waste disposal facility license in 1992. In 1983, when the agency had hired an engineering consultant group to evaluate sites across the state, it had stated that the land containing the Sierra Blanca site was unsuitable. Despite this, the TLLRWDA said that it did not have complete environmental studies of the site before targeting it, and that only after purchasing the land did the agency realize that the site was located directly above an earthquake fault. Like in the Fort Hancock case, the TLLRWDA pushed forward with the site anyway, despite the data on site suitability.

Sierra Blanca is 76 miles southeast of El Paso, and 16 miles from Mexico and the Rio Grande. Even though it is the county seat of Hudspeth County, it didn't have its own sewage system or more than a few paved streets. Of the nearly 800 people who live there, 40% live in poverty, and 67% are Mexican American. 65 earthquakes over a 3.0 magnitude had occured within 200 miles of Sierra Blanca the previous 70 years. High rates of erosion were prevalent when digging, due to the desert winds and sandy soil. The 100-year floodplain of nearby Grayton Lake was adjacent to the site, and undergound fractures and faults promised a pathway for contamination to infiltrate the groundwater. In 1997, the City of El Paso had bought land near the site from which they hoped to pump El Paso's future drinking water.



When Governor Ann Richards signed legislation consenting to join the Maine-Vermont Compact in 1993, the Sierra Blanca site was immediately designated as the host site. The compact had been delayed due to public opposition, but now passed, co-sponsored by 22 members of the House with Republicans Joe Barton and Tom DeLay leading a bi-partisan rally. By the time the US Congress was voting on enacting the compact in 1998, the opposition to the dump had been able to enlist the help of some sympathetic members of congress, such as Paul Wellstone (D-MN). Wellstone protested the compact strongly, raising the environmental issues, but also stressing the irony of the vast economic differences between the average incomes of the residents of Sierra Blanca, and those of the state of Maine.

The Sierra Blanca dump had gathered the most attention than any other disposal effort so far. Over the years, opposition grew from across the state, and after the Compact had passed, across the nation. Twenty US and Mexican governmental entities, environmental organizations and individuals participated in public hearings and legally challenged the draft operating license issued by the TNRCC in April 1996. In addition to the geological and socioeconomic considerations, building a waste disposal facility on the site threatened to violate the 1983 U.S.-Mexico La Paz agreement to keep polluting facilities 100 km or more away from the border. When the Mexican Congress openly began to reconsider NAFTA, Washington began to take


http://www.radtexas.org/texaswaste.html

makes your claims true, but you STILL haven't provided one single link to anything that Dean signed with Bush as you stubbornly keep just claiming.

Kerry never claimed that Bush signed it.

The statement that Bush signed it was appended by the AP writer. It is not part of the Kerry quote and appears in no other article on the topic but the AP article.


While Dean was governor, Vermont argued tof the Sierra blanca site:

Downplaying Nuclear Hazards

The Texas and Vermont arguments for the dump also rest on hydrological arguments, but while the region averages only a few inches of rainfall a year, rains are often “cataclysmic,” in the words of one area resident, creating fissures that channel water deeply and unpredictably. Sierra Blanca averages 12 inches of rain a year, while the already leaking Hanford nuke dump in Richland, Washington gets 6 inches, and the leaking dump at Beatty, Nevada gets only 4. Despite the claimed average depth to groundwater of several hundred feet, Sierra Blanca resident Maria Mendez reported at the August gatherings in Vermont that none of her neighbors’ wells are any deeper than 70 feet.

http://zena.secureforum.com/Znet/zmag/articles/nov98tokar.htm

Dean was thus supporting Bush's fight for the site.

Kerry never claimed that Bush signed it.

So what did Kerry actually claim (according to you) about Dean's environmental record that the fanatic Kerriacs initially got so enthusiastic about? Anything at all? :eyes: