Regulatory oversight

SEC Exposes Whistleblower: Inadvertent? STOP IT!!

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Larry Doyle – April 25, 2012

News this morning that an SEC attorney, in the midst of an investigation, blew the cover of a whistleblower might have been formerly thought of as inadvertent or unfortunate. America is no longer so naive.

SEC Kowtows to Fortune 500, Whistleblower Says

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Matt Reynolds – April 27, 2012

The SEC allows the nation's richest firms and financial institutions - and only the biggest and richest firms - to handpick the lawyers investigating them for corruption, a whistleblower claims in Federal Court.

Rodolfo Michelon claims that the SEC runs an exclusive "outsourcing program" for Wall Street, neutering incentives and protections for whistleblowers under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Fukushima Reactor 4 poses massive global risk

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Andy Johnson – May 19, 2012

More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.

The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe. Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements.

Fukushima a Ticking Time-Bomb: experts

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Experts say acknowledging the threat would call into question the safety of dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Brad Jacobson – May 4, 2012

More than a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the Japanese government, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) present similar assurances of the site's current state: challenges remain but everything is under control. The worst is over.

But nuclear waste experts say the Japanese are literally playing with fire in the way nuclear spent fuel continues to be stored onsite, especially in reactor 4, which contains the most irradiated fuel -- 10 times the deadly cesium-137 released during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. These experts also charge that the NRC is letting this threat fester because acknowledging it would call into question safety at dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants around the U.S., which contain exceedingly higher volumes of spent fuel in similar elevated pools outside of reinforced containment.

Designed to Fail: Why Regulatory Agencies Don’t Work

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William Sanjour – May 1, 2012

Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been “reforming” regulatory agencies over and over again, and over and over again they have failed. Yet, as a result of the recent catastrophic failures of regulatory agencies, politicians and pundits are talking about the same old “Regulatory Reform” again. 

“Fill the regulatory agencies with honest people who won’t cave in to special interests.”  “Give them more money, more authority and more people.”  But my experience has shown that by concentrating all legislative, executive and judiciary authority in one regulatory agency just makes it easier for it to be corrupted by the industries it regulates.

Expert panel urges action to reduce float plane fatalities

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Coroners service report studied four crashes

Larry Pynn – May 2, 2012

Transport Canada should require float plane passengers and crew to wear flotation devices during flights and planes should have rapid-escape emergency exits, said a sweeping B.C. Coroners Service report Tuesday aimed at reducing deaths in commercial float planes.

A special panel of experts prepared the report after closely investigating four crashes that killed 23 people over a five-year period.The panel also recommended Transport Canada require satellite tracking systems to locate crash sites faster, underwater egress training for flight crews, and illumination strips identifying emergency exits.

Canada’s integrity commissioner: in full pursuit of the inconsequential

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David Hutton – April 23, 2012

This is the story of how Canadian authorities suck up to a powerful industry that has a track record of bad behaviour, how public servants who get in the way are punished, and how the watchdog that’s supposed to investigate suspected wrongdoing is turning a blind eye.

Canada’s Integrity Commissioner Mario Dion, who is responsible for protecting government whistleblowers and investigating their allegations of wrongdoing, recently referred his third case to the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal created to examine alleged reprisals against whistleblowers.

Cuts to CFIA put food supply at pre-listeriosis outbreak risk: PSAC

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Chris Plecash – April 23, 2012

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz insists that cuts to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in the federal government’s 2012 budget won’t compromise food safety, but the Public Service Alliance of Canada says that job cuts at the agency will roll back improvements to food inspection that were made in response to the 2008 listeriosis outbreak.

“We’re looking at administrative money for the most part, programming is not being affected,” Mr. Ritz (Battlefords-Lloydminster, Sask.) told The Hill Times following the federal budget’s March 29 tabling. “There will be no changes in frontline inspectors.”

Oil-spill centre moving out of B.C.

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Rob Shaw – April 19, 2012

The federal government is closing B.C.'s command centre for emergency oil spills at a time when the province is facing two possible pipeline projects and a potential spike in tanker traffic in West Coast waterways.

Ottawa has said it will shut down B.C.'s regional office for emergency oil-spill responders, located in Vancouver, and centralize operations in Quebec in the wake of the cost-cutting March 29 federal budget.

Controversial food inspection changes in USA

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Sarah Damian – April 19, 2012

Last night, ABC World News with Diane Sawyer interviewed a USDA inspector – whose voice was distorted and image revealed only in shadow – to discuss the agency's plan to deregulate poultry inspection by expanding a pilot program known as HIMP.

The inspector, a whistleblower who brought concerns regarding HIMP to FIC, told ABC why the proposal – which speeds up the rate birds move through processing plants and shifts oversight duties to industry – is a terrible idea.

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