John Hall disgraces his new office
The so-called "return of ethics" principle, upon which the new Democratic majority was elected, will be seriously challenged by the attempt of long-time antinuclear celebrity turned congress member John Hall to launch a private legislative vendetta, calling for an obviously unneeded independent safety assessment of Indian Point power plant, to satisfy the wishes of old adherents.
Modeling itself on the only other such inspection ever held, one at Maine Yankee in 1996, this bill would propose a pointless search for some unknown and unspecified "wrong" ---which is at root, an undoable task. (Maine Yankee's inspection grew from a specific whistle blower complaint in a declining and below average plant.)
Hall's bill would target no specific wrongdoing (no whistleblower has complained), in a vastly improved, previously inspected smoothly functioning above average plant, run by a corporation that offers to manage poorly run plants for other utilities, and bring them up to par.
Hall must know this, and so the motive for this inspection cannot be valid, as was the reason for Maine Yankee's inspection. The motive must be sought in Hall's antinuclear past, and antinuclear following, and washes out as pure legislative harrassment of a well run, and widely accepted business, simply because it is "nuclear".
A Bisconti research poll recently showed that 80% of people living within ten miles of nuclear plants favored the plants, and Hall has access to this poll. So that pushes the status of his antinuclear harrassment bill down another notch, to that of a vanity bill, one concocted with no hope of success, to make him look good to old supporters.
And this is supposedly "a new ethics"?
This might more accurately be termed a corrupt misuse of a newly won office, to punish an old enemy, via legislative harrassment, against the will of the people, to gain press notice.
We might even term it "Hallgate".
