part of the earth of a girl with. oh and sharp in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture a nuclear disaster looms over japan as toxic radiation continues to leak into towns and night tonight's panel discussion will look at how the radioactive poisons could affect us even here in the united states plus the nation's highest court deals with cases where there's been a high interest in certain rulings and a recent change in how big business is treated by the court explain the sudden shift and you do the crime do the time then you can't vote how

a new florida rule geared toward convicted felons could be the g.o.p.'s strategy for winning in two thousand and twelve. you need to know this officials in japan are desperately working to prevent multiple disaster scenarios at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant the city of sendai a city that was wiped off the map as a result of friday's nine point zero earthquake and tsunami in new york times is reporting that there have been setbacks today in trying to cool the reactors and the situation is to use the times as phrase vereen toward catastrophe the international nuclear radiological event scale that measures the severity of nuclear incidents all over the world situation japan is worse than what happened at three mile island back in ninety's in seventy nine scale goes from one to seven one

being a minor incident so i would be insurable that a situation in japan is a six so far all six reactors at the plant are in danger of meltdown reactors one two and three have experienced hydrogen explosions meanwhile cool. pools filled with nuclear waste that sit on top of reactors four five and six are all running dangerously low on water at risk of igniting that where you act in ways to spew into the atmosphere pretty much like the ultimate dirty bomb and in just the last four hours reactor four has in fact caught fire back in one thousand nine hundred seven the study was done by brookhaven national laboratory and a worst case scenario if one if one cooling pool were fail like what is on the verge of happening at one of the three reactors in japan or there are active we may think of reactor number four the study found that just losing water from the waste storage pool. could kill nearly one hundred forty thousand people within five miles

of the pool and render an area of over a thousand miles of that pool uninhabitable and that's just at the stored for waste caught fire not even the worst case of in the case of a core meltdown or explosion sore we were at the scene of a catastrophic event on the other side of the globe and what lessons should we as americans you learn joining me now is congressman rush holt jersey also happens to be a physicist congressman great to have you with it to be with you tom and nice to meet you in person you've been on my radio show many times over the years it's it is very good to be with you thank you. what is in your experience and opinion the impact that this is having on the mood in congress with regard to the debates over various forms of energy and whether or not as the tea party likes to say we have too much regulation. i don't know yet it's still unfolding we've only been back in session one day since this happened but i assume that we're going to swing as

we have before you know for a while everybody says oh we got to drill drill drill drill everywhere that's the answer to our problems and then people say oh no we've got climate change ok nuclear power that's the answer to our problems. you know we have not had for decades a good hard look at our total energy picture how we're going to get out of this out of this energy predicament and frankly congress doesn't like to do hard thinking you know it's always looking for a quick and easy solution there isn't a quick and easy solution if we're going to talk about nuclear power we mustn't forget that the way we use coal results in ten thousand early deaths a year that's people dying in the united states just call it from you know use the coal so you know that's the tradeoff with nuclear power. yeah absolutely and in fact wasn't jimmy carter's famous one nine hundred seventy eight or nine speech

eighty seven eighty nine whatever i mean except for years but now the muzzle a seventy eight seventy nine yes no when he said when he said we will never import more oil than we did two years previous and by the year two thousand level solar bank producing twenty percent of the nation's electricity and then ronald reagan got elected took those solar panels off the roof of the white house and that was the last time we had an energy policy that's right and we've had and we're not for binders of our perilous situation whether it's uprisings in libya or explosions in the gulf of mexico or now. in japan it's it's clear that we can't keep going the way we're going and yet we keep going the way we're going and so how congress will respond is anybody's guess but we've got to come up with an energy policy that is there is hard nosed that. hunts of coherent and comprehensive and clearly if you look at the cost to lives and society

and using coal and the cost. now to lives and society and using nuclear power offshore wind not a look all whole lot more attractive yeah and geothermal and waves are more than any number everything else here that's right. in fact the germans have done some very innovative stuff with solar panels for the whole banking but i'm sure from there that a way nuclear power plants don't just produce nuclear power they also produce present plutonium and other concentrates along with the. you know the cesium is in the less potent things that come out of uranium some there's a certain amount of fusion in there of because it's creating more potent things they can be made into nuclear bombs isn't that a concern that we should be addressing worldwide churches and the fuel preparation process for a nuclear power plant is indistinguishable from the fuel preparation process for you know where your weapon you send stuff and the reprocessing of plutonium gives

you put tony which could be used for a weapon you know the power people say oh no we deal in electricity we're not involved in weapons there's no connection well if there's no connection then we ought to feel comfortable about iran right now or other third world who decides they want to have a nuclear power plant so clearly there's a lake we've got to admit that there's a link. and and face up to it that is to my way of thinking the biggest issue bigger than waste disposal and bigger even then incidents that plants like we're seeing in in japan you know the number of people who would be killed the disruption to civil society from nuclear weapons is even greater last notice just a quickie what's more difficult getting with republicans in congress or beating watson on jeopardy. you're the only member of congress and i think the famous i.b.m. computer i'll put it this way i've had

a lot of fun with the whole what's an episode. thank you so much for thanks a lot of very nice station. while germany and switzerland are now reconsidering the use of nuclear power in their nations president obama the republicans are still committed to nuclear power here in the states in fact president obama recently asked congress to approve a four billion dollar loan to build two nuclear plants on the gulf coast of texas and of course after katrina the amur hazards of building on the gulf coast. probably shouldn't need to be mentioned so what's going on here shouldn't we be joining germany in switzerland reconsidering nuclear power great powers as an independent investigative journalist and author of the book armed madhouse he joins me now from new york greg welcome. be with you again tom great to have you back with us four billion dollars for two new nukes in texas yes and of course what makes it really thrilling is that the builder one of the builders will be tokyo electric power the guys whose buildings are blowing sky high right now

why been invited. the high i was there why very good japanese company to the united states and i thought we were you know we can do nation we build things here right not anymore and not all of the fact one of the reasons was that the main operator houston power has been cited for criminal coverups of their problems building the first two nuclear plants in south texas they were fined a billion dollars for incompetence and building and they went bankrupt so because they're bankrupt incompetent have a criminal record they said well if you give us the four billion dollars will bring in wonderful tokyo electric to show our guys how to build the plants safely and how to operate them safely i can't make this up tom and in addition they're bringing it to sheba to make the reactor vessel mostly in japan and when you're looking at those vessels blowing up now one of the three is from to shiva that's that's

amazing what is s q and why should we care. we should care a lot s.q. is the technical term for seismic qualification that means that a plant is earthquake proof and not allowed to build a nuclear plant in the united states or anywhere in the world which adopts u.s. standards inclusion panel unless they have an s q certification now these plants that are blowing up now supposedly had an s q that means an earthquake proof certificate saying that they could handle these earthquakes you have to understand we've had eight zero plus earthquakes several of them in the right nearby the cure oil islands this is not some type of surprise events the other idea that they somehow couldn't with handle tsunami that they didn't think that the earth could go with a tsunami if you remember your eighth grade science every single earthquake in the pacific rim offshore everyone no exception produces some tsunami that's that's the simple geology of it these plants are supposed to be certified put when i was an

investigator for the government investigating s.q. certification at the shoreham nuclear plant we found out that these certifications are very often think that in fact the company that faked it the company that we caught faking it and we had a jury agree that they were caught faking it is a company which is now a unit of short construction which will be constructing a south texas nuclear plant we tokyo electric quite a combination yeah that was my next story my next question is going to be who is stone and webster and and shaw and stone webster was the company right that faked it and they got busted shaw and now they are going to join with the japanese company to build the power but it why and this is you know this is making my head explode why on earth greg palast would president obama push for over fifty billion dollars for these kind of nuclear power plants over the next few years and not at

least look at even you know the eccentric right wing billionaire t. boone pickens plan to put all those windmills across the midwest. well that's real simple lobbying power you have to remember that david axelrod is cheap political operative work for exelon which is of course a major nuclear operator they've got the big money wind power even t. boone pickens does not have any close to the lobby power of the nuclear industry and that's what's behind this and don't forget that the south texas plan is backed by j.p. morgan and citibank when we're talking about four billion in guarantees it's not to the actual nuclear plant operators it's to j.p. morgan citibank who are putting up the money so we're guaranteeing and basically have another bank bailout in advance that we're looking at so what instead of waiting world we're bailing we're guaranteeing to the banks that if they finance the construction of these plants and something goes south short term or long term

that and then the company can't pay back the banks and this four billion in this two cases but he's looking for a total of over fifty billion bet basically were dispatched out into banks not the nuclear power plant companies that's right instead of instead of straddles and credit default swaps they've decided to go into into the radiation business and once again we're guaranteeing it or guaranteeing it in advance affect tokyo electric said we will come to the u.s. unless we get these guarantees for our bankers the answer is well. maybe but you don't get the guarantees it is quite extraordinary it's been very much hidden from the public in fact the first attempt to put these guarantees into law was included in the emergency funding bill for afghanistan and that's how they pulled this stuff off as. you know because no one no one in their right mind would vote for this straight up no congressman has the guts to vote for a guarantee like this theresa's this is naomi klein's disaster capitalism on

steroids. greg palast thanks so much for the great investigative work you're doing a great writing you're doing for being on our program today. thankful the reactors currently in danger in japan are known as mark one reactors they were designed by general electric a.b.c. is reporting that thirty five years ago three g. engineers resigned because they feared that the mark one design was flawed and then warned that should a cooling system failure take place by the way exactly what is happening in japan right now the reactors would be unable to handle the immense pressure sadly those engineers warning is starting to ring true. and. it's time for our daily poll your chance to tell us what you think here's today's question will the u.s. remain committed to nuclear power after this partial meltdown in japan your options are a yes the nuclear lobbyists and the political lapdogs are already at work or be no

nuclear power will never ever be safe in america we'll get this now so far a whopping seventy eight percent of you think the lobbyists lapdogs have the upper hand these thoughts on cast your vote if you're an optimist or grounded tom hartman five zero zero zero you think the poll will be open until tomorrow. coming up good japan's increasing energy troubles threaten their neighbors across the ocean discuss what this means for the american west coast. actress lindsay lo and keep. the preaching that these women have nothing people are suggesting she's told her no she says she's a stuck. up

. alan . there are confirmed reports that a the radiation is leaking from the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant and elevated levels of radiation now been measured in tokyo really two hundred kilometers away from sendai when we as we reported yesterday elevated levels of radiation were also

detected aboard the u.s.s. ronald reagan which was stationed nearby and today higher levels of radiation were detected it two u.s. military bases in that region japanese government has instructed people living within nineteen miles of the malfunctioning player to stay inside their homes and close the windows so just how deadly is radiation poisoning if the worst case scenario does occur but can we expect on the west coast of the united states here to speak to this issue when the guns are international specialist and founder of beyond nuclear and city thought hers specials and radiation health also beyond nuclear or look silly welcome to the program. let me start with cindy would question us how does radiation harm people well radiation can harm people by getting their cells and the thousand our body which makes the through we are. can be dividing or going through various prophecies and during some of the prophecies

there are more. able to be harmed by radiation entering other processes but in general it will take the cells of the body and perhaps cause them to reproduce themselves incorrectly and that can rattle you know pieces the d.n.a. yes and that can result the n.a. and that can result in diseases such as cancers ok linda nuclear. east is a huge part of the story i don't think until just maybe the last six or eight hours the york times who started reporting that this morning there's been current benteke mention of it on the on the mainstream networks but nobody seems to want to mention this word you know that there's all there's there's hundreds of tons of nuclear waste sitting on top of each one of these reactors and that that's actually the biggest part of the problem that's what they're trying to cool with seawater that that's what they're hysterical about that that's what's on fire or may well be on fire with reactor number four right now. can you address that whole waste issue

and also your thoughts on why the media of the united states doesn't want to even use that word well i think first of all it's probably it's such a technical issue that i think the media in the united states is really struggling with this i mean old if they don't understand why would they i mean i wouldn't understand if i wasn't immersed in this every day and so to suddenly confronted with this situation in japan and not be a physicist or even just somebody who's looked at this for a long time it's very confusing to think about the boiling water mark one reactors which you alluded to the beginning are just what we're looking at interesting. and we have twenty three of them in the united states is that the fuel pool with outside of the containment pretty much on the roof of the reactor and you saw those two explosions and what was left was sort of a rebar and then you saw the rest of the building right below that where the solid building starts that's where the fuel pool is on the upper level of the building the ones that have been blown up the fuel pool is probably exposed to the sky right

now so it's in the open and they've got to keep those cool because if those heat up you'll have a fire just like you've had it now before which we certainly believe has to be the fuel for it had two fires there now i believe one that put out a second fire and in fact the concern is that the bow bulk of the radioactivity that's being released right now is actually coming from that if you will fire well it's you know the waste is the. killie's heel of the nuclear industry my personal conspiracy theory is that nobody wants to talk about it for that reason. but back to back to back to simply what impact will the radiation has been released so far in japan and. the united states both in terms of wind currents airborne and in terms of water currents and in terms of the food chain we import eighty percent of our seafood in the united states and much of that we get from southeast asia right well there are a couple things to consider is the most immediate impact which can be of course

felt by the people of japan and children and women are more susceptible to radiation exposure. as far as what's going on with the west coast we will have to see alaska british columbia and all the all down the united states we're going to have to sort of wait and see where the radiation decides to deposit itself and how the air currents are going to carry it i was looking at maps today of the currents there are very complex and the relation distribution understanding it is going to be very complex we have right now people on the west coast who are set up to monitor to see what kind of radiation deposition we get here from the japanese reactor accidents simply because we know that the e.p.a. is probably monitoring we also know that the n.r.c. is probably going to be monitoring the n.r.c. of nuclear regulatory commission e.p.a. as environmental protection agency but the history of these engines these has not

has been to downplay or affect the radiation absolutely affects the radiation and the amount of radiation that we are susceptible to that is io available to us and so as a result we are sort of going to have to wait and see what i would recommend people do first is to make sure that they have potassium iodide tablets or something. by rowing block are still a bit radioactive iodine will not be absorbed by the light rays especially important for children it's the thing that helped lower the rate of fire cancer in after the channel explosion in poland it was given in poland even three days after he knew about the radiation releases but not in the former so it follows that i would swallow but that's not the only danger you got cesium easing up as to what's going to must cost it has been kathy i'm trying to ninety will go to your bomb so you know in the heart it's one of the most important muscles in the body

and easy and look go there and can cause heart problems as we've seen in the movie heart of documentary cancer yes. yes is there such a thing as a safe nuclear reactor design. because no matter how well you design and this was the factor human error and you can't design against human error it's what happened at three mile island that's what happened at chernobyl it's probably not happening because they had unimaginable natural disasters but you also probably can't design against you know the whole you know when you point zero earthquake you can't design against that well you could you could argue that putting the the diesel plants at a low level were a total wave of the tsunami would take them out it was human error to begin with them at the top but at the design phase well there's no no i mean these will be backup generators are known to be unreliable to begin with should they could work very well to fail i hope so actually for your guests great last told me. his

information was that they failed before the right three out of three times and in fact first immigration approach. the the. the nuclear industry and it's interesting how this is splitting basically two stories being told to americans right now one story is. you know this is a terrible thing with illustrates a dangerous of messing with the air. and we should have gone there in the first place it's time for us to pull back and maybe we should be looking at solar and wind power and geothermal are always other alternatives or maybe even coal you know . but you know as soon as russell klein pointed out to you or die from that not to mention global warming and on the other hand there's a bunch of people i mean a bunch of these right wing think tanks that are running around going see this proves our point this reactor is forty years old we shouldn't be using forty year old technology we should be using the new designs that are really safe let's switch gears a little bit because yes they were saying it's no it's fine there's no problem everything's fine ever go exaggerating you're overreacting so now they're having it every day

shift gears a little bit i mean they're in a difficult position to defend nuclear power right now exactly i mean usually we feel it we're trying to say look it's unsafe but now unfortunately these horrible pictures from japan are proving a point that's been known for a long time with this design in one nine hundred seventy two you mentioned the whistleblower designers in one thousand nine hundred two the atomic energy commission said these reactors are too dangerous we're not going to build any more of them now they should have stuck and then in one thousand nine hundred five hell bent on the then head of an r. c. safety said to a conference in industry conference there's a ninety percent chance of containment failure of this design reactor in the event of an accident that's a nine hundred eighty five we had almost forty years to stop these things down why the heck are they still run we are trying to reapply as they realize the thing that here's a here's another question the nuclear industry in the us i understand actually since seventy something of the three seven has been buying into an insurance pool

if that's the case why is price anderson still around or c. anderson was the law that was passed back in the fifty's or sixty's to make nuclear power possible because nobody would insure it and to what extent if price here or someone away if we do tax payers stocking backstopping the industry with this massive subsidy if there was a way to what extent would your power still exist either of you want to take a shot. no well it's kind of hard to predict but they can't survive without subsidies now they can't have a new generation without subsidy math of subsidies that they're asking for from congress so if you took away that insurance policy there's no private insurance that is going to insure the american public against any sort of nuclear accident it's written into our insurance policies that's why the price anderson is there because you can't get private insurance if you live near and there's no there's no guarantee if the price anderson act is they're going to be activated after an accident was not after tonight and there is no there's no help for the american

public it's my understanding the insurance that the industry itself asked for basically only against financial disasters and there was just a backstop them with the banks thank you linda cindy thank you both so much for being with us and so much appreciate it or i'll have more on the dire situation in japan and what it means for the united states internet still eighty. it's good that out of the very very excruciating we are to a first because senator kirsten gillibrand as for a job or has more and more americans disapprove of the afghanistan war childred is holding the white house's feet to the fire over their plans to withdraw troops in twenty fourteen using the promise that america cannot afford and most war children are interest legislation to require the white house resent

a clear strategy for withdrawal to congress by july thirty first the new a.b.c. washington post poll showing a record high sixty four percent of americans disapproving of the war senator joe lieberman is listening to the american people good the bad glenn beck is paranoid delusional may have read. critical mass as of yesterday that hinted that the japanese earthquake might be a sign from god but all that stuff we're doing isn't working by stealth he wasn't talking about nuclear power he went on to argue that there may be a connection between the earthquake and support for the muslim brotherhood really i'm not making this stuff up and this was his profound advice to his listeners buckle up buckle up because it's going to be a bumpy ride. make sure you keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times glenn since you talk to god now on it was surprising to get his last message go

take your prozac. and maybe you should have your ears checked lawyer and the very very ugly he has this republican state representative virgil pac that's his solution to illegal immigration shooting people like animals he went on the record with that little gem in a recent committee hearing. shooting to use a greeting works we. do are we going to breach the program. later in fact was asked to apologize or refuse saying i was just speaking about the southeast kansas person and only were pecks words shocking in a front and also managed to embarrass everybody in southeast kansas and that's very clear. coming out democrats fight to win back union rights for workers in wisconsin would be able to gather enough john hancock to overthrow the g.o.p. majority.