& Supporters of Committee to Bridge the Gap
On July 19th a full year will have passed since the death of Daniel Hirsch. Because Dan was my friend and because I miss him, this anniversary—the Yahrzeit, as it is called in Jewish tradition—has been on my mind. But because Dan was the founder of CBG, whose motto is “Bridging the Gap Between Nuclear Danger and a Safe, Sustainable Future,” he has been on my mind for another reason.
I am board chairman of CBG, and just before the Independence Day holiday began, The New York Times reported that, under pressure from President Donald J. Trump, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission intends to weaken radiation safety regulations that have been in place for half a century. Weakening safety regulations, the agency proposes, will speed up the commissioning and constructing of new nuclear power plants.
As it happens, Dan Hirsch’s last act of public testimony in Washington, the last of many, was a defense of the radiation standards that are now suddenly in deeper peril than ever. Who will deliver comparable testimony at the present juncture? Let me quote Haakon Williams, current executive director of CBG:
"We are very involved in the NRC’s proposed radiation standards. For months we have been key organizers in the emerging Coalition to Stop Radioactive Pollution, helping stand up a multiyear educational campaign to improve public awareness of the harms of radiation, and doing our best to stop the NRC’s proposed loosening of radiation protection standards. Reporting from The New York Times and others has missed some of the key weakenings the NRC is proposing: 10x higher levels of radiation allowed in effluent from nuclear plants, 2x higher exposures allowed for workers, though the public exposure limit will stay the same – oh, except that the industry may now apply, and NRC may at its discretion grant, alternate public limits with no cap on how high those limits could be."
Dan Hirsch’s ashes have been scattered in the woods, but his soul goes marching on.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Trump v. Slaughter case, no employee of the NRC can be confident of retaining their position if they defend existing radiation standards. The President is now legally free, for any reason of his choosing, to fire anyone serving in any of the formerly independent federal agencies except, illogically, the Federal Reserve. At the time of the Slaughter decision, Trump had already fired one of the Commission’s Democratic members, and the current director of the NRC is a Trump appointee. At such a juncture, it is crucial that the voice of the endangered public be heard as loudly as possible. CBG’s role is that of a force multiplier, an informed megaphone.
I thought of Dan Hirsch in a different Independence Day connection as I read the penultimate paragraph in Walter Isaacson’s just-published little book on the Declaration of Independence: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. The hero of this book is not Thomas Jefferson but Benjamin Franklin. His contribution to Jefferson’s substantially revised first draft of the Declaration included the word self-evident, but this was just the beginning. Franklin
"…not only helped craft the sentence that defines our common ground. He lived it. He organized police, fire, and street-sweeping corps; a public library, hospital, and school; a widow’s pension fund and a mutual insurance cooperative. He published a newspaper that was dedicated to publishing a wide variety of opinions and following no party line. He bequeathed a revolving fund for young people to start enterprises. He donated to the building funds of each and every church in Philadelphia, and he helped lead the fundraising for a new hall that would provide a pulpit for visiting preachers of any belief "so that even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service." And on his deathbed, he was the largest individual donor to the Congregation Mikveh Israel, the first synagogue in Philadelphia. So when he died, 20,000 mourners watched his funeral procession, which was led by all the clergymen of every faith, including the local rabbi, walking arm-in-arm.
That’s the ideal of common ground and the American Dream that our founders fought for 250 years ago. And that’s what we must continue to fight for today…"
Isaacson does not mention, though he might have, that Benjamin Franklin was by far the richest man in the newborn United States of America. But this very fact makes him a Founding Father in another, rarely recognized way. He founded the great American tradition of philanthropy among men and women of means.
Dan Hirsch was not a man of major means, but he was indeed a philanthropist as well as an activist for public safety and welfare. He took the Shakertown Pledge, to “live simply so that others may simply live.” The proceeds of his lifetime of willed frugality funded at the end of his life a munificent gift to the charities GiveDirectly and Doctors Without Borders.
Catherine Lincoln, chief operations officer of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, plans on July 19th to spend a little time outdoors, recalling how Dan loved to hike in the redwoods above Ben Lomond. I plan to follow her example, and I encourage you to do the same. Finally, at this moment when so many men and women are asking themselves how they can come to the aid of their country, I hope a few of us will reflect that one good way is a little extra support for the Committee to Bridge the Gap. Dan’s soul goes marching on. Let us march with him.
Jack Miles
Board Chair
Committee to Bridge the Gap