This will take a
little of your time
however, if you really what to know Jane and Bernie,
you
need to know Jane and Bernie.
Jane Sanders,
Bernie's wife, sat on
the Board of the Texas authority.
Bernie Sanders was
then the (I- VT) Representative.
Back in 1994, the
state of Vermont had a problem:
it had a nuclear
power plant operating, but nowhere to dispose of the toxic waste.
The Vermont Yankee
Nuclear Power Plant, located in Vernon, VT, provided 71.8% of all electricity
generated within Vermont, amounting to 35% of Vermont's electricity
consumption, according to figures in 2008.
However, Vernon was
deemed to be geologically unsuitable for nuclear waste disposal, so a search by
the state began for a new low-level radioactive waste dump site.
The result of the
search:
enter a tri-state
compact with Texas and Maine to build a disposal facility in Texas and ship the
waste there.
Vermont's
Legislature passed the General Assembly
Act 137, which outlined the compact but still needed US Congressional
approval to enact.
Enter our hero,
then-Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT),
who ardently
supported and co-sponsored
the bill H.R. 629,
the Texas Low-Level
Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Consent Act.
Once passed and
signed, the bill would validate the currently existing individual state bills,
and thus start the construction of the waste disposal site.
But where in Texas
would the dump site be?
Tasked with finding
a suitable location, the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority
(TLLRWDA)
recommended to build
the waste facility five miles away from a small town in West Texas called Sierra
Blanca:
“Sierra Blanca is a
small town in Hudspeth County about 90 miles southeast of El Paso, TX and only
16 miles north of the Mexico border.
There are about 900
residents,
60% of whom are
mostly Hispanic.
30% of the roughly
430 housing units are vacant.
Sierra Blanca is an
extremely poor town where almost a third of the households live below the
poverty level of $15,000.
The town’s per
capita income is about $10,500
but the entire
county’s is only $8,000”
And how did they
come to a decision to pick that town?
Fighting the passage
of bill H.R. 629 in the senate, Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) spoke
on the matter in great length and detail.
In short, it was a
case of environmental injustice.
Despite the findings
of the consultants that Sierra Blanca was not a good site due to its “complex
geology”
and also a history
of earthquakes in the past due to tectonic faults in El Paso
and Hudspeth
counties,
the Waste Authority
still went ahead and picked the site
because the people
living there would be least likely to resist or make a fuss about it, since the
majority of the residents are Spanish-speaking and poor.
They had tried to
pick other locations for the site, but was met with either lawsuit or fierce
opposition.
So, finally, the
Waste Authority just gave up and chose the path of least resistance, procedures
and recommendations be damned.
Texas legislature
also gave a helping hand by passing the Box Law and stripped the rights of the
residents in Sierra Blanca from suing.
The only recourse
they could take was to obtain an injunction from the state Supreme Court, which
means they would have to make the 500-mile trip to Austin just to be heard.
A factoid one should
note here was that at this time, the governor for whom the TLLRWDA was working
was none other than George W. Bush.
Oh, and Jane
Sanders,
Bernie's wife, sits on the Board of
this wonderful Texas authority.
So, despite all that
has happened to select the nuclear waste site, what was the course of action
taken by Bernie Sanders?
He feigned
ignorance.
Instead of
acknowledging the environmental injustice that was going on, he washed his
hands clean of any responsibility for that.
While introducing
the bill to the House, he insisted that it was not Congress’s job to
designate a specific disposal site
but that the task
should be left up to Texas, a thinly veiled attempt to renege on responsibility
and instead pass the buck to someone else.
As far as he’s
concerned, it’s only his job to ensure that somehow Vermont can send their
toxic waste to Texas.
The town name Sierra
Blanca was mentioned over 58 times during the course of the debates on the
bill.
It’s highly doubtful
that Bernie Sanders didn’t know exactly where they were going to dump the toxic
waste from Vermont.
Fortunately, the
local residents were not just going to take it lying down.
In 1994, Bill
Addington, a resident of Sierra Blanca, with the help of the Nuclear
Responsibility Network, formed the Sierra Blanca Legal Defense Fund (SBLDF)
to try to fight the
building of the toxic site.
Eventually, in 1998,
a group of West Texas residents made their way all the way to Vermont, in hopes
of elucidating the people there how the nuclear waste from out of state was
affecting their lives.
For weeks, they
spoke in front of committees, with Vermont residents unaware of what was going
on, and gained compassion and even apologies from them.
Finally, they met
with Bernie Sanders on the issue.
What was his
response?
“Before the rally
Sanders invited the three West Texans to meet with him privately, and the
Texans eagerly agreed.
The meeting was no
longer than Sanders’ attention span - when it comes to Sierra Blanca.
“He didn’t listen,”
Curry said.
“He had his mind
made up.”
Afterward, Bernie
was giving his pro forma campaign speech, never mentioning nuclear power or
nuclear waste.
Sierra Blanca
activist Bill Addington,
who’d arrived just
that morning to join the march, along with his neighbor María Méndez, had had
enough, and he yelled from the crowd,
“What about my home,
Bernie? What about Sierra Blanca?”
Several others
joined in.
“What about Sierra
Blanca, Bernie?”
Sanders left the
stage, which surprised no one in the small Texas delegation.
Earlier, he had told
them,
“My position is
unchanged, and you’re not gonna like it.”
When they asked if
he would visit the site in Sierra Blanca,
he said,
“Absolutely not. I’m
gonna be running for re-election in the state of Vermont.””
By now, it's clear
that Bernie Sanders knew of Sierra Blanca, and despite the same pleas made by
the West Texas residents as they had done with the Vermont residents, he was
unmoved.
Worse, there was no
sense of compassion or remorse from him for what the bill was going to do to
the residents of Sierra Blanca.
His mind was already
made up, and nothing can convince him to change his position.
As the bill HR 629
had already passed both chambers of Congress with veto-proof margins and was
just waiting to be signed into law, it was already a done deal.
By this point, it
seemed that his re-election campaign was more important than the plight of
these West Texas residents.
It is interesting to
note the pattern we see here that is also currently in his campaign, where his
focus is always in making stump speeches and ignore or evade direct questions
not answerable by his well-rehearsed talking points.
Fortunately, that
was not the end of the road for the residents of Sierra Blanca.
Efforts continued
from the SBLDF and even from the Mexican Government, who cited that the
building of nuclear waste site so near the border violates the La
Paz Agreement of 1983, which states that both the US and Mexico must work
toward reducing or even eliminating “contaminating sources” 64 miles north and
south of the border.
Many Mexican
officials from nearby towns across the border also protested due to the
seemingly blatant environmental injustice occurring in Sierra Blanca.
Due to these
pressures, in the end, despite congressional and state approvals, the Texas
Natural Resources Conservation Commission voted 3-0 on
October 20, 1998 to deny the TLLRWDA a license to build a disposal facility
outside Sierra Blanca, citing concerns regarding the socioeconomic impact and
safety.
Thus, victory was
achieved for these residents of Sierra Blanca,
no thanks to Bernie Sanders.
So, what did we
learn about our glorious revolution leader Bernie Sanders from all this? First,
all his claim of
having always cared about the poor and fighting for minorities is a lie.
He was willing to
let a powerless group of underprivileged Hispanics suffer for the benefit of
his mostly Caucasian Vermont constituents.
He was willing to
let environmental injustice play out at the expense of the Sierra Blanca
residents.
It is disgustingly
hypocritical of him that on his official campaign website right now, he touts
that he will fight racial
injustice, with one of the sub-issues being environmental violence.
Where was his sense
of racial injustice then, when he tried to dump toxic waste on the poor people
of Sierra Blanca?
It was not even in
his realm of concern, because he did not need the vote of the people of Sierra
Blanca to keep himself in office in Vermont.
But now that he
needs the Latino votes, he hopes that everyone will forget this little incident
here in West Texas.
Second,
he is just another
deceptive politician who refuses to be culpable for his actions.
He pretended to not
know where the exact dump site was going to be and emphatically noted in his
speech upon introducing the bill that it’s not their job to debate about the
actual site because that is the responsibility of Texas legislature and its
"people".
He smartly protected
himself in case something bad came out of this, since he could easily blame it
on Texas.
According to him,
he's not responsible for picking Sierra Blanca as the waste disposal
site.
Rather than saying
the buck stops here and be held accountable for it, he chose to pass the buck
instead.
Is this a quality we
want in our potential next President,
someone who avoids
taking responsibility when things could possibly go negative?
Third,
just like the Texas
Waste Authority, he took the path of least resistance, choosing the easy way
out.
If he had really
cared about the environmental injustice suffered by underprivileged Hispanics,
he could have recommended that Vermont pull out of the compact until a more
suitable site is found, one that does not reek so badly of socioeconomic and
environmental racism.
He could also have
supported the proposed amendments to the bill by Senator Wellstone to give
rights to sue back to the residents of Sierra Blanca.
But seeing as to how
those amendments might jeopardize the tri-state Compact, he vehemently opposed
it.
In the end,
all he cared about
was to find the easiest way to rid Vermont of its nuclear toxic waste, instead
of choosing to stand up for what is right and just.
Fourth,
when Bernie Sanders
has made up his mind, one cannot convince him otherwise.
The confrontation
between him and the residents of Sierra Blanca in Vermont was very
telling.
He had already made
up his mind, and nothing the residents said, even detailing how their lives
will be adversely affected by the bill, will change his mind. Some of his
supporters might say this uncompromising quality is something they like in him,
since it seems like he's
"standing his
ground"
or not bending to
the outside influences.
As he makes
grandiose plans to pass single-payer healthcare and free college for all, by
being unyielding and not listening to others and compromise even when faced
with new evidence, Bernie Sanders only guarantees that we will never see the
light of day for any of his lofty goals.
So, let's face it.
Bernie Sanders is no
revolutionary.
In the end,
he's just another
opportunistic career politician
who will do and say things just to advance
himself in the office
--just like how he is opportunistic now
all of a sudden
wanting to proclaim to be
the leader of the Democratic Party,
despite having
remained an independent
and never having really done anything
to help the party
in the past twenty years.
The MSM rhetoric has
been highly pro-Sanders
because they want to prolong this primary race for
ratings.
But the sooner the
people realize who he really is
and start to scrutinize and question his
choices in the past,
such as this abhorrent bill to dump toxic waste
on the
poor people of Sierra Blanca,
the better off we will be.