NucNews - November 16, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia Taking the anti-dump campaign to Canberra Jon Lamb, Darwin From Green Left Weekly, November 16, 2005. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/649/649p4.htm Fourteen traditional owners from central Australia have travelled to Sydney and Canberra as part of the campaign to stop the federal government’s plan to build a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. On November 7, they visited Canberra to lobby federal MPs to oppose the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Bill introduced into the Senate that day. The day before, they rallied outside the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney to show their opposition to their lands becoming the dumping ground for waste from that facility. Representing Aboriginal communities from Harts Range and Mount Everard — two of the three proposed sites in the NT — the traditional owners were accompanied to Canberra by Central Land Council and NT Labor government representatives. The traditional owners are deeply concerned about the impact a nuclear waste dump will have on the sensitive arid-land environment and on the livelihoods of the people living in its vicinity. Speaking at a November 2 media conference in Alice Springs on the successful campaign by the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta against the location of the nuclear waste dump in South Australia, Steven McCormack, a traditional owner who lives close to the Mount Everard site, said: “This land is not empty, people live right nearby. We hunt and collect bush tucker here and I am the custodian of a sacred site within the boundaries of the defence [department’s] land. We don't want this poison here. The Kungka’s offered their support to the NT campaign, urging ‘Don't give up. If we can do it, just a few elderly ladies in Coober Pedy, you can fight until the end too.’” Under pressure from the strengthening campaign against the dump and the visit of the traditional owners to Canberra, Country Liberal Party (CLP) Senator Nigel Scullion blurted out a patronising retort on November 8: “People are still peddling to a fairly naive community completely evil misinformation to make people so afraid — anybody that suggests that this is at all dangerous to anything ... is entirely wrong.” Scullion, who promised before last year’s federal election that he would oppose a nuclear waste dump in the NT, has done a complete about-face. Scullion and CLP MHR Dave Tollner have been waging a pro-dump propaganda campaign, including sowing the lie that cancer sufferers’ lives are being put at risk by those campaigning against the dump. In a token gesture, the Howard government has delayed the passage of the bill, referring it to a committee that must report to the Senate by November 29. For more information on the campaign, contact the Darwin-based No Radioactive Waste Alliance by phone on (08) 8948 3339 or email at . ---- The engine that could Australia's nuclear reactor is not a security risk November 16, 2005 The Australian http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17258391%255E7583,00.html THE nuclear panic industry will be switching into overdrive on news that alleged terrorists may have shown a close interest in the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, in Sydney's south. We will be subject to familiar urgings from anti-nuke zealots that the reactor should be shut down, or that everybody for miles around should be issued with iodine tablets to block the uptake of carcinogenic radioisotopes. These scare tactics have been employed against the reactor since long before the rise of international terrorism, but have accelerated since 9/11. We should ignore them. In the first place, the reactor at Lucas Heights is encased in sufficient concrete to withstand a direct hit by a large aircraft. Second, even in the highly unlikely event of a rupture of the reactor's core, the danger to the surrounding community would be remote. That is because Lucas Heights is a water-cooled research reactor, not a nuclear power plant. It operates at around an eighth of the temperature of a power reactor and contains around a cupful of uranium, compared with the 100,000kg needed by a power reactor. The effects of any radioactive spillage would be limited to those working within the facility's 1.6km buffer-zone. With apologies to our dedicated nuclear science workers, the public as a whole would be dodging a bullet if terrorists stupidly chose Lucas Heights as their target. Nor is Lucas Heights any stranger to assaults on its security. In December 2001, the reactor had to be shut down briefly, for security reasons, after 30 Greenpeace activists scaled the perimeter fence. The "mobilisation" did not achieve its aim of turning public sentiment against Lucas Heights, but it did have some effects. Perth man Patrick Corbett, who was dying of bone cancer, spent his last Christmas in agony because his dose of the radioisotope Quadramet, the only effective pain-relief for his condition, was past its useful life by the time it reached him. Lucas Heights churns out the isotopes for nearly half a million nuclear medicine treatments annually, in addition to the isotopes needed for scientific and technical purposes. But the present reactor, called HIFAR, has more than exceeded its half-life and will be replaced by a new, equally safe reactor, called OPAL, on the same site next year. OPAL, which will operate at the bottom of a 14m stainless steel water tank encased in two metres of reinforced concrete, will vastly increase the opportunities for cutting-edge nuclear science in Australia. The police statement of facts tendered to Sydney's Central Local Court on Monday said three of eight men facing terrorism charges were stopped by police near the facility in December, 2004. This is alarming for what it might tell us about the mindset of certain individuals who are alleged to wish us harm, but not for anything it tells us about Lucas Heights, which would need to be attacked by an army for serious damage to occur. For nearly half a century, Lucas Heights has produced manifold benefits for the Australian community, without posing any unacceptable risks. We must not allow extremists, of any stripe, to convince us otherwise. -------- india PM favours peaceful use of nuclear energy ECONOMY BUREAU Posted online: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 at 0000 hours IST http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=108716 MUMBAI, NOV 15: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday asserted India was keen on establishing an environment that was conducive to international cooperation in peaceful use of nuclear energy, without compromising country’s national policy of maintaining the integrity and strategic requirement. In his speech at the 16th annual conference of the Indian nuclear society here at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Barc), Dr Singh said India must create the space for a quantum jump in nuclear energy production in coming years. However, he made it clear that it would be done without constraining strategic and R&D related aspects of the country’s nuclear programme. -------- israel Nixon papers show U.S. alarm over Israel's nukes 11/16/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-16-nixonisraelnukes_x.htm WASHINGTON — A U.S. official disbelieved Israel's assurances during the Cold War that it would avoid acquiring nuclear weapons and feared the United States' main ally in the region would spark a Middle East nuclear arms race, documents from that time show. A 1969 memo reported intelligence findings that "Israel is rapidly developing a capability to produce and deploy nuclear weapons," despite promises it would not introduce nuclear arms to the region. The memo by Joseph J. Sisko, an assistant secretary of state, was contained in 50,000 pages of previously secret papers from Richard Nixon's presidency, released Wednesday by the National Archives. The collection draws heavily on national security files during the Vietnam War, arms control negotiations with the Soviets, and the intense superpower competition for influence in the Middle East and beyond. Documents are thick with minute aspects of the ebb and flow of progress in Vietnam, showing growing worries about the ability of the South Vietnamese government years before it fell, but also seeking encouragement wherever it could be found. One May 1970 cable marked "For Confidential Eyes Only" provided National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger with an inventory of captured weapons, supplies and food. It noted, for example, that the 1,652.5 tons of rice seized so far would "feed over 6,000 enemy soldiers for a full year at the full ration." With improbable precision, the memo said U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had deprived their enemy of the ability to conduct exactly 3,779 typical attacks because of the capture of rockets, mortar and rifle ammunition. Kissinger, in memos to Nixon, expressed concern about the increasing isolation of South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, complicating an already unsteady U.S. war effort. He also told Nixon in May 1970, five years before the war ended, that economic chaos, including 30% inflation, was a greater risk to the South Vietnamese government than the communists. To this day, Israel officially neither confirms nor denies its nuclear status and the actual size of its stockpile remains uncertain. But it has long been considered the only nation in the Middle East with atomic weapons. Researcher William Burr said the memo on Israel's nuclear program sheds light on a little known area of U.S. intelligence. "For a long time, the U.S. kept secret its assessment of the status of the Israeli nuclear program," said Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archives at George Washington University. The paper shows "Israel could develop nuclear weapons fairly quickly, something that isn't widely known." In the memo, Sisko urged Secretary of State William Rogers to try to curb Israel's ambitions before it was too late. "If this process continues, and it becomes generally assumed that Israel has the bomb, it will have far-reaching and even dangerous implications for the U.S.," Sisko wrote. Among those dangers: "Israel's possession of nuclear weapons would do nothing to deter Arab guerrilla warfare or reduce Arab irrationality; on the contrary it would add a dangerous new element to Arab-Israeli hostility with added risk of confrontation between the U.S. and U.S.S.R." Sisko said a nuclear-armed Israel would draw Arab states even closer to Moscow and perhaps under a "nuclear umbrella" extended by the Soviets. -------- MILITARY -------- chemical weapons Pentagon Admits White Phosphorus Use in Iraq Wednesday, November 16th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/16/150234 After initial denials, the Pentagon is now admitting it used white phosphorus as an offensive weapon in the attack on Fallujah last November. The allegations were made in an Italian documentary produced by the Italian state television network RAI. Democracy Now played an excerpt of the film last Tuesday, the day of its premiere. On the same program, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Steve Boylan denied the allegations, saying “I know of no cases where people were deliberately targeted by the use of white phosphorus.” The Pentagon now says it used the weapon against insurgents. White phosphorus produces a dense white smoke that can cause serious burns to human flesh. The RAI documentary, entitled “Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre”, showed graphic footage of civilians with severe wounds and burns allegedly caused by phosphorus bombing. Hundreds of Tortured Iraqis Discovered in Government Compound The Iraqi government says 173 tortured and malnourished detainees have been found in a raid on an Interior Ministry compound. U.S. forces carried out the raid Sunday. The detainees were found in a locked basement. In an interview with CNN, Iraq’s undersecretary for interior security said: "I saw signs of physical abuse by brutal beating, one or two detainees were paralyzed and some had skin peeling off various parts of their bodies." Mohsen Abdul-Hamid, leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country’s largest Sunni political group, told the Associated Press he had warned top government officials about torture at Interior Ministry detention centers, including the one raided Sunday. He says his complaints were dismissed. The Iraqi government says it will launch an investigation into the incident. The human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the decision, but said the investigation should extend to cover all detention facilities in Iraq. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- homeland security / national intelligence Patriot Act deal would renew provisions, curb FBI 11/16/2005 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-16-patriotact_x.htm WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators struck a tentative deal on the expiring Patriot Act that would curb FBI subpoena power and require the Justice Department to more fully report its secret requests for information about ordinary people, according to officials involved in the talks. The agreement, which would make most provisions of the existing law permanent, was reached just before dawn Wednesday. But by midmorning GOP leaders had already made plans for a House vote on Thursday and a Senate vote by the end of the week. That would put the centerpiece of President Bush's war on terror on his desk before Thanksgiving, a month before more than a dozen provisions were set to expire. Officials negotiating the deal described it on condition of anonymity because the draft is not official and has not been signed by any of the 34 conferees. Any deal would mark Congress' first revision of the law passed a few weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. In doing so, lawmakers said they tried to find the nation's comfort level with expanded law enforcement power in the post-9/11 era — a task that carries extra political risks for all 435 members of the House and a third of the Senate facing midterm elections next year. For Bush, too, such a renewal would come at a sensitive time. With his approval ratings slipping in his second term, the president could bolster a tough-on-terrorism image. The tentative deal would make permanent all but a handful of the expiring provisions, the sources said. Others would expire in seven years if not renewed by Congress. They include rules on wiretapping, obtaining business records under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and new standards for monitoring "lone wolf" terrorists who may be operating independent of a foreign agent or power. By noon, House Democrats on the panel were issuing objections to the seven-year expiration, arguing that since the House had endorsed the four-year expiration dates enacted as part of the Senate bill, the three provisions should "sunset" at four years, not seven. They also complained that Republican negotiators shut them out of the last phase of talks, a charge Republicans deny. The draft also would impose a new requirement that the Justice Department report to Congress annually on its use of national security letters, secret requests for the phone, business and Internet records of ordinary people. The aggregate number of letters issued per year, reported to be about 30,000, is classified. Citing confidential investigations, the Justice Department has refused lawmakers' request for the information. The 2001 Patriot Act removed the requirement that the records sought be those of someone under suspicion. As a result, FBI agents can review the digital records of a citizen as long as the bureau can certify that the person's records are "relevant" to a terrorist investigation. Also part of the tentative agreement are modest new requirements on so-called roving wiretaps — monitoring devices placed on a single person's telephones and other devices to keep a target from evading law enforcement officials by switching phones or computers. The tentative deal also would raise the threshold for securing business records under FISA, requiring law enforcement to submit a "statement of facts" showing "reasonable grounds to believe the records are relevant to an investigation. Law enforcement officials also would have to show that an individual is in contact with or known to be in contact with a suspected agent of a foreign power. Not included are several "add-on" bills to which Democrats objected, including measures to limit federal appeals of state court decisions, require that sex felons face up to 20 years in prison for failing to comply with registration requirements, and tighten courthouse security. -------- POLITICS -------- investigations Woodward Was Told of Plame’s Identity Wednesday, November 16th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/16/150234 Longtime Washington Post journalist and current assistant editor Bob Woodward testified Monday a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame nearly a month before her identity was thought to be first disclosed. The official appears to be someone other than Lewis Libby or Karl Rove. Woodward was questioned by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald after the unnamed official alerted Fitzgerald of his conversation with Woodward. Citing a confidentiality agreement, Woodward and Post editors did not reveal the source’s identity. Post editors say Woodward only told them of the conversation last month. -------- propaganda wars Do the People of the United States Care Enough to Stop Him? Evidence Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars By BILL CHRISTISON Former CIA analyst November 16, 2005 Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/christison11162005.html In this his time of troubles, Bush seems to be moving deliberately and rapidly toward new wars of aggression in an unforgivable gamble to overcome his troubles. His speech on Veterans' Day, November 11, 2005 at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania leads to this conclusion more clearly than any of his previous speeches and activities. The new wars would be the start of a world war initiated by Bush and radical Christianity against what he calls radical Islam, but in truth the wars would be waged against all Islam. To repeat, despite Bush's arguments to the contrary, the "clash of civilizations" would consist of wars started by us. The killing of innocent people in these wars is likely to be massive, and the wars could at any time turn nuclear. If the people and the politicians of America allow these wars to take place, the stain on the morality of Americans will last for generations. Let's note some of the statements Bush made in this speech of November 11. Many are not new, and some were foreshadowed in a speech by Bush a month ago, but their volume and intensity in the Veterans' Day speech are noteworthy. "Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; and still others, Islamo-fascism . . . These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Hindus and Jews -- and against Muslims, themselves, who do not share their radical vision." " . . . these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace, and stand in the way of their ambitions." " . . . these militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." " . . . the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction; to destroy Israel; to intimidate Europe; to assault the American people; and to blackmail our government into isolation." "The influence of Islamic radicalism is also magnified by helpers and enablers. They've been sheltered by authoritarian regimes -- allies of convenience like Iran and Syria -- that share the goal of hurting America and modern Muslim governments, and use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West, on America, and on the Jews." "The government of Syria must do what the international community has demanded . . . The government of Syria must stop exporting violence and start importing democracy." "Over the years these extremists have used a litany of excuses for violence: the Israeli presence on the West Bank, the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, the defeat of the Taliban, or the Crusades of a thousand years ago. In fact, we're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We're facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world. No act of ours invited the rage of killers -- and no concession, bribe, or act of appeasement would change or limit their plans for murder." "The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses." "Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision. And this explains their cold-blooded contempt for human life." "These militants are not just the enemies of America or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and they are the enemies of humanity. And we have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before -- in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields." "Like the ideology of communism, our new enemy is dismissive of free peoples -- claiming that men and women who live in liberty are weak and decadent." "And Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure. By fearing freedom . . . this ideology undermines the very qualities that make human progress possible . . . And whatever lies ahead in the war against this ideology, the outcome is not in doubt . . . Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future." " . . . we're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror. The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally guilty of murder." "We don't know . . . the sacrifices that might lie ahead. We do know, however, that the defense of freedom is worth our sacrifice, we do know the love of freedom is the mightiest force of history, and we do know the cause of freedom will once again prevail." We cannot be sure how much of this is bluff by Bush -- to what extent he hopes or believes that Muslim nations will surrender to him without a fight. The prudent assumption is that not much of it is bluff, and that Bush, the radical Christians, the Christian Zionists, the nation's military-industrial conglomerates, and their Israeli allies -- all of whom today call the tune in U.S. foreign policy -- are willing and in some cases actually wish to involve the United States in further wars. The people and the politicians of this country should rise from their apathy and shout, "No." The time is past for useless analysis and discussion. We Americans, accounting for no more than five percent of the human inhabitants of this globe, should decide here and now whether we are going to be moral or immoral in our future relationships with the rest of the world. Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis. He can be reached at christison@counterpunch.org. -------- us politics Report: Oil Reps Met With Cheney Task Force Wednesday, November 16th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/16/150234 A White House document obtained by the Washington Post shows executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force in 2001. The documents appear to prove a suspicion long held by environmentalists and contradict testimony oil executives gave before Congress last week. The document shows representatives from Exxon Mobil, Conoco, Shell Oil and BP America met with Cheney aides responsible for developing a national energy policy. Some of their task force’s recommendations have become law while others have been held up in Congress. In testimony before the Senate Energy and Commerce committees last week, chief executives from Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips denied their companies took part in the energy task force discussions. The White House has refused to release records of the meetings’ participants. A spokesperson for Vice President Cheney declined comment on the White House document. The executives were not sworn in for their testimony, and so cannot face perjury charges. Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey said he will ask the Justice Department to investigate. Lautenberg told the Post: "The White House went to great lengths to keep these meetings secret, and now oil executives may be lying to Congress about their role in the Cheney task force.” -------- ENERGY National Energy Corridors May Impact Navajo Reservation Land By Kathy Helms WINDOW ROCK, Arizona, November 16, 2005 (ENS) http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2005/2005-11-16-03.asp U.S. government plans to designate national energy corridors on federal lands in 11 western states surrounding the Navajo Nation, appear to be building toward a legal takeover of Indian land through rights-of-way agreements the tribe could be forced to accept. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 enacted in August directs the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy and the Interior to designate federal land in 11 western states for oil, gas and hydrogen pipelines, and electricity transmission and distribution facilities, or energy corridors. The federal agencies must amend their land use plans to designate the series of corridors on federal lands in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and have been conducting hearings on the issue, though none in Navajo Indian Country. Federal lands are a combination of public domain lands, including state property and lands administered by agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which holds 56 million acres in trust status on behalf of Indian nations and individuals. Federal land under Interior stewardship amounts to 437 million acres. The U.S. Forest Service manages another 192 million acres - including Coconino National Forest where the sacred San Francisco Peaks are located. The Department of Defense oversees 25 million acres on 425 major installations. The feds also control 1.76 billion acres of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. Designating energy corridors as required by Section 368 of the three month old Energy Policy Act could significantly impact the environment, the federal agencies said, prompting them to publish a notice of intent to prepare the West-Wide Energy Corridor Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement in the September 28 edition of the Federal Register. Deadline for comment is November 28. The Department of Energy and the Bureau of Land Management, co-lead agencies in the effort, with the Forest Service acting as a cooperating agency, held a series of public meetings in late October and earlier this month in Denver, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Helena, Montana. Meetings also were conducted in Boise, Idaho; Sacramento, California; Las Vegas; Portland, Oregon; Phoenix and Seattle. The Navajo Nation holds rights to a wealth of oil, gas, coal, uranium and other minerals - as well as hundreds of thousands of acre feet of precious water needed to sustain an ambitious energy corridor. Navajo Nation Left in the Dark Though the proposed corridors completely surround the Navajo Nation, Resources Committee Chairman George Arthur said November 9 that committee members have not been told anything about it and have not been involved in federal discussions. Resources has oversight on issues pertaining to lease permits for oil, gas and mineral development on Navajoland. The Office of Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. has yet to respond to queries from "The Independent" regarding whether the Nation has been consulted. Resources' Arthur said, "In as far as the U.S. energy corridor is concerned, at least for us as oversight on that part of the discussion, we have never been apprised of it." "The Navajo Nation Resources Committee has never been at the table, has never participated in any shape or form in any of these discussions. Furthermore, if there is such a discussion, you've got to keep in mind that the Nation is a sovereign state. Whether people realize it or not, everything stops at the border." The Navajo Nation is still in the process of developing its own energy policy which would reflect the objectives and mission statement of the Nation in regard to energy development in local, national, and international arenas, according to Arthur. One of the greatest concerns in the designation of energy corridors is the vulnerability of the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation because of the land structure and the relationship that it has with the federal government with the trust responsibility. "I guess you could look at it as the Nation is a bigger figure in trust lands than individual allottees, so the vulnerability of individual allottees in respect to the pressure and impact of federal regulations and big corporations coming in is very open. They're very vulnerable," Arthur said. Uranium mining companies already are leasing land in Church Rock and Crownpoint within the Eastern Agency, despite the Nation's ban on uranium mining and processing passed in April by the 20th Navajo Nation Council. President Shirley signed an Executive Order November 4 prohibiting Navajo Nation employees from communicating with uranium mining companies without first receiving guidance from the Nation's Department of Justice. Shirley said the move was necessary because some companies have been willfully disrespecting the Dine Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005 which banned uranium mining and processing. Government Agencies Issue Energy Memo A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed in August 2001 among a host of federal agencies - Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, Council on Environmental Quality, and members of the Western Governors' Association. The MOU was to establish cooperation between western states and the federal government to address the West's growing energy problems. An August 2002 letter to Vice President Dick Cheney from then Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Interior Secretary Gale Norton advised that an interagency task force, the National Energy Policy Development Group, had been formed to address issues associated with "renewable energy" production on federal lands. "Our response to the national Energy Policy reflects a commitment to increase our energy security by expanding the use of indigenous resources on Federal lands, while accelerating the protection of our environment," Abraham and Norton wrote. The Energy Policy Act co-sponsored by New Mexico Senators Pete Domenici, a Republican, and Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat, contains a section on energy right-of-way corridors on federal land. Section 368 directs the secretaries of the various agencies to ensure that additional corridors for oil, gas, and hydrogen pipelines and electricity transmission and distribution facilities on federal land "are promptly identified and designated as necessary." The secretaries also are instructed to "expedite applications." El Paso Natural Gas, now in trespass on Navajoland after the two entities failed to reach agreement on the value of El Paso's right-of-way renewal, has teamed with a Washington, DC based lobby group, the Fair Access to Energy Coalition (FAIR), to "ensure the movement of energy across tribal lands on reasonable terms." Other members of FAIR include - the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, the Association of Commerce and Industry of New Mexico, Arizona State Chamber of Commerce, Arizonans for Electric Choice and Competition, California State Chamber of Commerce, and Enterprise, which had its right-of-way agreement approved last month on the same day El Paso's expired. The Enterprise contract is worth approximately $23 million over the next 20 years for right-of-way access across 318 miles of fee land. The tribe is seeking $400 million from El Paso for its 900 mile stretch of pipeline right-of-way and associated projects. Not in Tune with the Times El Paso representatives were in Window Rock November 10 hoping to get an extension from the Resources Committee. They failed to get on the agenda but will try again later this month. El Paso has asked Interior Secretary Norton for an opinion regarding right-of-way status on Indian land. El Paso contends the federal government actually owns the land and that it is just held in trust for the Navajo Nation. The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association is seeking Domenici's support in amending the Indian Right of Way statute to allow the Secretary of the Interior to grant pipeline rights-of-way over tribal lands despite objections by the affected tribes. Resources' Arthur said, "In the discussion of the rights-of-way ... it's been very difficult because they perceive the Nation as not having to have been in tune with today's market value and the industry as a whole." "But I think that people in the industry need to realize that we've been down that road, and we're not going to go down the same road twice and be expected to conclude our business settlement on the same terms and conditions as it was in the 1980s or the mid-1990s."