RED FLAG...a sleeper for Walmart in the government

"Burwell as Obama's budget director: Walmart wins, working families lose"

As head of Walmart Foundation lobbying, Sylvia Mathews Burwell spent millions to open stores that pay poverty wages

by

Bertha Lewis
      
March 7th, 2013

guardian.co.uk

If President Barack Obama goes forward with his nomination of Walmart Foundation head Sylvia Mathews Burwell for director of the Office of Management and Budget, it will be a coup for Walmart and its foundation, where Burwell has used its massive budget to expand Walmart's influence at all levels of government and pave the way for its expansion into towns and cities across America. Unfortunately, it will also be a disaster for America's working families.

The Walmart Foundation is hardly your traditional charity. It exists to advance the company's agenda – silencing dissenters in their rapid urban expansion. It has donated to groups that have gone on the record to support Walmart during its most contentious political disputes, including the ongoing effort to open stores in New York City. And it has even donated directly to municipalities and to groups tied to powerful elected officials.

Here in New York, the company is one of the highest-spending special interests in its effort to open its first New York City store. In 2011, Walmart spent $2.8m on New York state lobbying. It was ranked No 5 on the list of top special interest spenders – money that was spent trying to win favor with elected officials and deploying advertising designed to improve its public image with New Yorkers.

The Walmart Foundation is simply another means by which Walmart can leverage its largesse in order to advance its corporate agenda – and Burwell has been at the helm as the company uses the foundation to deploy millions of dollars to buy silence from erstwhile opposition. Every year, Walmart and the foundation spend millions to influence decision-makers in their efforts to build more Walmarts and shut down competition.

Why does Walmart have to try so hard to simply open a store in the largest metropolitan area in the country? And why is Walmart having this problem repeatedly in big cities and small towns across America? Because voters know the truth: Walmart is bad for local small businesses, and the workers they employ.

When Walmart opens in a new neighborhood, it kills an estimated three local jobs for every two of the poverty-wage jobs it "creates". Just look at what happened in Chicago: Walmart said it would bring hundreds of jobs to the struggling inner city. Instead, it absorbed sales from nearby retail stores. It didn't generate massive new sales tax gains, or additional jobs for struggling residents.

Across the nation, Walmart remains the leading low-wage employer in the United States.

That's right: when you peel back the layers of money and influence, Walmart's donations, and much-hyped American values, are nothing more than a public relations ploy. The reality is that Walmart continues to be the largest private employer in the US – with the highest number of low-wage employees scraping by on public assistance.

The irony is that Walmart's current solution – using its foundation and political donations to throw money at the problem – would be easily solved if, instead of buying its way out of its well-deserved bad reputation, it merely invested meaningfully in its workforce. Walmart can well afford to allow its workers to form a union, pay them living wages, and take on its fair share of healthcare expenses – instead of expecting taxpayers to pick up the tab.

So, before towns and cities roll out the red carpet for Walmart, and before Washington welcomes Sylvia Mathews Burrell with open arms, let's first look beyond this company's public relations campaign. Let's inspect its track record of international bribery, deadly factory fires, divisive politics, and empty promises, and then ask whether Walmart is really the best fit for the country's future.

In choosing Burwell, President Obama has made his priorities clear. Rather than standing with working families, he has chosen someone who has been complicit – and has, in fact, led the way – in ignoring the poverty-level jobs created by Walmart. As head of its foundation, Burwell has instead encouraged the use of Walmart's profits to silence dissent.

Is someone who has become a master of buying and selling a culture of silence what we need in Washington?

The Washington Post...

Wal-Mart is a controversial firm in Democratic and liberal circles, owing to its low wages and staunch opposition to unionization drives. Then again, there are those, like deputy NEC director Jason Furman, who’ve made the argument that the company lowers prices sufficiently to almost double poor peoples’ effective income, and are a net positive for the worst-off. This exchange between Furman and Wal-Mart critic Barbara Ehrenreich offers a good introduction to the debate.

This could make problems for Burwell, who is not totally divorced from Wal-Mart’s corporate concerns in her current role. The foundation’s holiday giving recipients, for example, were in part chosen in a process starting with nominations from store employees. There have been allegations from liberal critics that the company has used the Walmart Foundation to further Wal-Mart’s business interests. In an article in The Nation, Josh Eidelson and Lee Fang allege that the foundation donated to the NAACP and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz to sway them to support or stop opposing (respectively) the creation of a Wal-Mart store in Brooklyn. The incident predates Burwell’s appointment to the foundation, and Wal-Mart told Eidelson and Fang that its giving is unrelated to public policy considerations.
 
Sylvia Mathews Burwell [Wikipedia]

Quietly out, quietly in...Gregory B. Jaczko and Allison M. Macfarlane

Gregory B. Jaczko 

Allison M. Macfarlane

"Obama nominates George Mason professor Allison M. Macfarlane as NRC chairman"

by

Steven Mufson

May 24th, 2012

The Washington Post

President Obama on Thursday nominated Allison M. Macfarlane, a professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University, to be the next chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Macfarlane, a geologist by training, served as a member of the White House Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, which examined nuclear waste disposal.

Her nomination comes just three days after the current NRC chairman, Gregory B. Jaczko, announced his resignation amid complaints that he spoke harshly to women at the agency, allegations Jaczko denied. Jaczko, an advocate for nuclear safety, was frequently at odds with the four other commissioners.

Lawmakers quickly issued statements endorsing Obama’s choice. Groups as varied as the Union of Concerned Scientists and the industry-backed Nuclear Energy Institute also praised Macfarlane and urged her confirmation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he is “confident” that Macfarlane “will make preserving the safety and security of American citizens her top priority.” He praised her education and experience, especially on the White House commission.

That commission recommended a process for choosing a new waste-disposal site, taking responsibility for commercial nuclear waste disposal away from the Energy Department and putting it into a federal corporation and establishing a stable source of funding for waste disposal.

Reid’s support is crucial. Jaczko previously was a member of Reid’s staff and shared Reid’s concerns about safety. Reid opposed using Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as a disposal site for commercial nuclear waste. The Obama administration has cut off funding for the project.

Macfarlane has said that there are real geological as well as political obstacles to the Yucca Mountain site. Like Energy Secretary Steven Chu, she has said that dry casks at reactor sites can provide needed storage for a long time but that the search for a new repository should begin. She was the editor of a 2006 book of papers called “Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste.”

The industry-backed NEI also hailed Macfarlane and urged the administration to submit her confirmation materials “as expeditiously as possible.” It said Macfarlane “has been an active contributor to policy debates in the nuclear energy field for many years.”

Macfarlane’s nomination to the NRC will be considered at the same time as the renewal for a second term for NRC commissioner Kristine L. Svinicki, a Republican. Reid said he continues “to have grave concerns about Kristine Svinicki’s record on the Commission.” But he added that it is in “the best interests of the public” to approve both women and called for Republican support.

The NEI urged the Senate to confirm them both.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a leading congressional critic of nuclear power, called Macfarlane “an able successor” to Jaczko and said that he thinks she “will keep alight the torch of safety Chairman Jaczko has carried for so many years.”

Markey on Thursday also condemned an NRC vote to move ahead with a 20-year license extension for the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts. Jaczko was the sole dissenting vote.

Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on nuclear safety, said Macfarlane’s “expertise, experience, and past leadership on nuclear issues should make her a good candidate for this important position.”