Ambient office = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 119 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 116 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 94 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 84 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 109 nanosieverts per hour

     Two tobacco companies have just agreed to pay a total of six hundred and twenty-nine million dollars for violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea (N.K.). This is the biggest penalty of its kind in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). The settlement involves British American Tobacco (BAT), the second-largest tobacco company in the world. BAT Marketing Singapore (BATMS) is a subsidiary of BAT and is also involved.
     Brian E. Nelson is a U.S. Department of Treasury (DoT) undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. He released a statement on April 25th which read, “For years, BAT partnered with N.K. to establish and operate a cigarette manufacturing business and relied on financial facilitators linked to N.K. weapons of mass destruction proliferation network in the process of enriching itself.”
     BAT has agreed to pay the heavy penalty under a “deferred prosecution agreement” along with BATMS. BATMS pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
      According to information supplied by the DoJ, in 2007, BAT sold its shares in a joint enterprise with the state owned North Korean Tobacco Company to a third-party company. BAT declared that it had ended its business in North Korea (N.K.) However, BAT covertly continued operations in N.K. through its Singapore-based subsidiary. Prosecutors say that from 2007 to 2017, the third-party company earned about four hundred eighteen million dollars through the sale of tobacco products to N.K.
     Separately, BAT and BATMS also agreed to pay more than five hundred million dollars in a civil settlement with the U.S. Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control.
     Jack Bowles is the CEO of BAT. He recently said, “On behalf of BAT, we deeply regret the misconduct arising from historical business activities that led to these settlements and acknowledge that we fell short of the highest standards rightly expected of us.” BAT claims that it halted all operations in N.K. in September of 2017.
     A separate case was unsealed on April 25th in which the DoJ charged a N.K. banker named Sim Hyon-Sop and two Chinese nationals, Qin Guoming and Han Linlin, for their involvement in a conspiracy to sell tobacco in N.K.
     Prosecutors alleged that between 2009 and 2019, the three defendants supplied millions of dollars’ worth of tobacco leaf to N.K. They obfuscated their operations through the use of front companies. In total, they allegedly processed three hundred and ten transactions worth representing about seventy-four million dollars through U.S. financial institutions. These activities helped generate about seven hundred million dollars in revenue for N.K. manufacturers.
     According to the Indictment, illegal tobacco sales, which includes cigarette smuggling, are an important source of funding for the N.K. regime. Allegedly, that money is being funneled into N.K.’s nuclear weapons program. N.K. carried out its first nuclear test in 2006. Since then, both the U.N. and the U.S. have placed a variety of sanctions on N.K. to cut off funding to its weapons program.
     As dangerous as N.K. might be to the rest of the world because of its nuclear weapons program, the sale of tobacco products to N.K. will endanger the health of millions of citizens of that country.

Ambient office = 109 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 81 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Ginger root from Central Market = 91 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 75 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     Almost twenty years ago, Utah passed statutes to block an interim nuclear waste storage facility. They based their actions on safety concerns. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit struck down Utah’s laws because they were preempted. In a more recent case, Virginia’s battle to ban uranium mining went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court upheld Virginia’s ban in 2019.
     Legislative approaches have not always paid off. In September of 2021, Texas passed House Bill 7 to block a nuclear waste storage facility similar to the Holtec project. The proposed facility was to be located about a mile from the N.M. border. A few days later, the NRC approved a license for it, but the battle continues.
     The NRC has not yet issued a decision about whether it will approve a license for the Holtec project in N.M. The NRC recently notified Holtec that its decision would be delayed until the end of May.
     Safety issues remain a major concern. Among many possible dangers, critics mention that trains transporting radioactive waste could derail or crash. The recent train derailment disaster in Ohio renders this concern more relevant than ever.
      An accident involving the Holtec project would not only threaten residents and the environment. It could also destroy the N.M. economy, according to a legislative fiscal impact report. The report said, “A significant accident or attack on a radioactive waste storage facility could significantly disrupt oil and gas activity in one of the most productive oil and gas producing regions in the world.”
     In court documents, N.M. has argued that the NRC did not consider the expense of upgrading the state’s rail system to accommodate the transportation of large volumes of spent nuclear fuel to the Permian Basin where the Holtec project would be constructed.
     The Permian Basin is also prone to earthquakes. Quakes have been linked to injection wells associated with fracking. James Kenney is the Environmental Department Secretary for N.M. He has expressed concerns that earthquakes could damage Holtec’s storage canisters. This would jeopardize the public and the groundwater.
     Another major concern is that Holtec could go out of business. This would leave the canisters to languish and deteriorate. Such a prospect was mentioned by many opponents during the legislative committee meetings. N.M. has a history of failed radioactive cleanups, including hundreds of uranium mines on the Navajo Nation that have yet to be remediated.
     Patric O’Brien is a Holtec Spokesman. He said that his company is very disappointed in N.M.’s new law. He said, in an emailed statement, that the proposed storage facility is “safe, secure and does not impact the environment negatively.” The Holtec facility would create many jobs and is desperately needed, according to proponents. The U.S. lack of a permanent geological repository for spent nuclear fuel has forced nuclear power plants to store their spent fuel on site. This results in a huge cost to taxpayers. The expense borne by the federal government has already reached nine billion dollars.
     The Holtec facility has local backing, according to O’Brien. Supporters of the Holtec project include business leaders and public officials in Eddy and Lea counties. The Eddy-Lee Energy Alliance has been promoting the project for years. O’Brien wrote that the facility “is a tremendous economic opportunity for Southeastern New Mexico.” He said that Holtec will continue working “to help provide an interim solution to the spent fuel management impasse in the United States.”

Ambient office = 127 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 86 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

English cucumber from Central Market = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 86 nanosieverts per hour

Part 1 of 2 Parts
     Last March, New Mexico (N.M.) lawmakers took their biggest step yet in an attempt to block plans for a nuclear waste storage facility near Carlsbad. The N.M. legislature passed Senate Bill 53. The bill seeks to block Holtec International efforts to build a facility in southeastern N.M. that would hold eight thousand six hundred metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants across the U.S. N.M. has been challenging Holtec’s plans for years, both in court and before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, N.M.’s best chance at stopping the project may come in the form of a new law, which went into effect when N.M. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed it on March 17th.
     Legal and nuclear experts anticipate that the new law will face legal challenges. Federal courts will likely determine if N.M. has the authority to prevent Holtec from constructing its Consolidated Interim Storage Facility on a one-thousand-acre site between Carlsbad and Hobbs.
     Opponents of the project include the governor and state legislators, the N.M. congressional delegation, the All Pueblo Council of Governors, many local governments and an array of activists and citizens. Opponents say that transporting spent nuclear fuel through N.M. and storing it near one of the world’s most productive oil fields would jeopardize the economy, the environment, and health and safety.
     Rose Gardner is a Eunice resident and member of the Alliance for Environmental Strategies. She said, “People are deserving of protection for our way of life and our health and well-being.”
     The Governor sent a letter to the NRC after she signed the bill. She asked the agency “to immediately suspend any further consideration of the Holtec license application.” The Governor noted that the new law establishes two conditions that must be met before the state can issue permits, contract or licenses for a spent nuclear fuel storage facility. First, N.M. must consent to the facility. Second, the federal government must have a permanent spent nuclear fuel repository, so that an alternative storage site exists. Neither of those conditions have been met.
     If no permanent nuclear waste repository exists, the Holtec site would not be “interim storage”. Instead, it would be forever storage. N.M. would become the dumping ground for all the spent nuclear fuel, say opponents.
     If there is a court challenge, N.M. will need to prove that the new law is not focused on safety concerns. Nuclear safety falls under the purview of the federal government. This was established by the Atomic Energy Act (AEA). Under the AEA, the federal government retains the right to regulate safety issues for nuclear power plants and waste. The federal law preempts state statutes, which can be challenged in court if they conflict with federal authority. The fiscal impact report for the new law says, “Costly and time-consuming litigation could occur if this bill were challenged.”
     Representative Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo) is the co-sponsor of the bill. He directly addressed the preemption issue during committee hearing. He assured fellow lawmakers that the bill avoided any problems. He said, “Federal law preempts the state’s ability to regulate the safety or handling of nuclear waste. So we’re not doing that.”
     Six lawyers and experts said that it was unclear whether NM’s law would be considered a preemption. Nuclear waste storage laws like N.M.’s are almost always challenged in court according to Geoffrey Fettus who is an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He said, “New Mexico took deep pains to sail the ship into the dock without hitting the sides of federal preemption.”
Please read Part 2 next

Ambient office = 135 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 109 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 79 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 89 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 69 nanosieverts per hour