RE: NIRS Update on High-Level Nuclear Waste Legislation (Mobile

["Weiner, Ruth" <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

I am not trying to sustain a dialogue or continuing discussion, and I won't
respond further on this thread, but I thought this response might be of
interest.

I will try to carry your message to ANS.  I think these are good points, and
I hope HPS can do something similar.  However, not to despair too much:
when I was a Congressional Fellow, I learned that it is very easy to spot
letters and phone calls that have been generated by an organization or by a
campaign. The "talking points" are all more or less the same.  They have an
impact, in the sense that they are counted (e.g. x phone calls opposing a
nuclear waste bill, y phone calls supporting it) and a staff member will
respond.  However, they don't have the impact of an individual letter or a
personal visit (even by an organization lobbyist or during a lobbying
campaign.

Clearly only my own opinion.

Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
Sandia National Laboratories 
MS 0718, POB 5800
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0718
505-844-4791; fax 505-844-0244
rfweine@sandia.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael C. Baker [mailto:mcbaker@lanl.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 1999 12:04 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: RE: NIRS Update on High-Level Nuclear Waste Legislation (Mobile



>
>The ANS monthly Nuclear News has legislative summaries that are excellent.
>If you are an ANS member, you can also receive the Washington office review
>of hearings and legislation.  I am not sure if this is on the ANS web page,
>but it might be.

To the best of my knowledge this information is not available on the ANS
web site.  Also, although the summaries are good, they are still not
timely.  A summary usually covers legislative action that is at least a
month old.  Several of the anti's, including CMEP and NIRS, get almost
daily updates on legislation to their people.  Most of their updates
include talking points, phone numbers, addresses, etc. so their people
don't have to do another thing to influence their legislators besides pick
up the phone or cut and past an email or fax.

I don't believe most of us need to be given talking points but a timely
update with a few supporting facts and the contact information would be
nice.  Most of us are intelligent enough to make up our own minds on the
issues and express them, but we are short on the time to keep abreast of
up-to-date status.  Many of us would disagree on the legislative issues but
ANS, HPS, NEI or some other organization could facilitate our involvement
in the process.

NEI used to mail by "priority" or overnight express issue updates with this
type of information.  I never understood how they could spend the money to
do that when for pennies an email can be sent out to thousands of people.

Mike
______________________________________________

Michael C. Baker, Ph.D., P.E.
Environmental Technology Group
Environmental Science and Waste Technology Division
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Mail Stop J594, Los Alamos, NM 87545

mcbaker@lanl.gov             

(505) 667-7334 (phone)
(505) 665-8346 (fax)  
(505) 665-9800 ext.1045409 (pager)
______________________________________________

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