Nuclear arms, testing still imperil life on earth

The August Atlantic published a few select photos of nuclear tests by military photographers in Nevada amid a series of stories on nuclear arms.

Nuclear power plants aim to fire back up around the country and around the world. That's causing those of us who remember The China Syndrome and The Day After, not to mention real-life Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, to feel anxious. 

Our anxiety is fed by the additionally burgeoning risk of a new nuclear arms race. Like many people, I, and apparently the editors of The Atlantic, are thinking back on the Cold War, when a nuclear holocaust seemed about as likely as not.

I'll republish here in low resolution four photos The Atlantic featured from the era of above-ground nuclear testing. The photos are in public domain, as they are in the possession of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)—collaterally, a reminder of NARA's importance amid its recent, inimical politicization. The photos were published previously in a military-photo compilation edited by Michael Light, 100 Suns: 1945-1962 (2003) (cover inset above).

 

The Atlantic issue, captioned "Eighty Years on the Edge" (cover inset at left), is well worth examining in whole. Coverage ranged from the historical to the contemporary. Inter alia, Noah Hawley traced the origin of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle (1963) to the advent of the atomic bomb. And Ross Andersen explained how American absence in world leadership is setting the stage for the new nuclear arms race. 

I spent two weeks in Nevada this summer and saw that its atomic history persists, for better and for worse. 

To my surprise, there is an active program monitoring ongoing radiological risk, and a federal program only recently ended to compensate people for radiation exposure that resulted in illness. 

The Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990 expired in 2024 and afforded modest compensation to persons made ill, mostly by cancers. Onsite participants in atmospheric tests were entitled to $75,000; "downwinders" of atmospheric tests, present in specified areas near the Nevada Test Site, now called the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), were entitled to $50,000; and uranium miners working from 1942 to 1971 were entitled to $100,000. I picked up a pamphlet from an education program of the School of Medicine at the University of Nevada Las Vegas that encouraged claimants (pictured below).

The Desert Research Institute of the Nevada System of Higher Education, in collaboration with the National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office of the U.S. Department of Energy, maintains a network of air and groundwater monitoring stations surrounding the NNSS. The NNSS describes itself today as a government "enterprise of multi-mission, high-hazard experimentation facilities." The Community Environmental Monitoring Program watches for "manmade radioactivity that could result from NNSS activities" and publishes its data online with an interactive map. At right is a map of CEMP monitoring stations, and below (RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), is one of two CEMP monitoring stations at Tonopah, Nevada.

Though nuclear testing has abated above ground and below, government test sites of all kinds abound still in Nevada. The sites encompass vast swaths of desert, and active sites are well cordoned off with fences and warning signs—including but far from limited to the famous Area 51. (All below photos, RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.) 

A CEMP station in Tonopah, Nevada, monitors air quality and dispenses pamphlets for curious onlookers.

The U.S. Department of Energy shares and leases the Tonopah Test Range ("Area 52") with the Defense Department and contractors.

Signs warn of a U.S. Air Force test site between "Extraterrestrial Highway" Nevada Route 375 and Groom Lake "Area 51."

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management now preserves Lunar Crater, where astronauts once practiced moon landing.

Still operational, a small U.S. Defense Department installation near Lunar Crater affords a staging area.

Displays at the Nevada State Museum and even a bawdy show at the Venetian in Las Vegas highlight Nevada's nuclear history.

"Earth Station," on the Extraterrestrial Highway in Hiko, Nevada, near Area 51, stocks alien-themed souvenirs.

Roberts publishes critique of U.S. government in crisis, endures harassment after criticizing accreditor

Professor Alasdair Roberts, a friend and colleague at UMass Amherst Public Policy, recently published a new article, "The Crisis of Design in American Government." Meanwhile, he endured a baseless investigation after criticizing an academic accrediting organization.

Professor Roberts generously workshopped his thinking on the mismatch between the constitutional design of American government and the needs of contemporary society in a lecture at my law school in March 2025. I wrote then about his compelling ideas.

The refined version became the 2025 Charles Levine Memorial Lecture, which Professor Roberts delivered at the School of Public Affairs, American University, in May 2025. From those remarks, he developed the article in the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, published by Routledge at the start of July 2025 (SSRN). Here is the abstract.

The American political system confronts two distinct crises. The first is the crisis of the moment, stemming from President Trump’s controversial actions since January 2025. The second is the deeper crisis of design, relating to flaws in the system’s architecture that predate Trump and will persist beyond his presidency. In the long run, the crisis of design is more consequential. Over-centralisation within the system has contributed to four pathologies: overload, gridlock, societal polarisation, and programmatic inefficiency and sclerosis. A better-designed system would be one in which authority was devolved and central institutions reconfigured. Systemic reform will be hard to accomplish because of constitutional constraints and a culture of anti-governmentalism. Still, structural changes are essential. History demonstrates that large and complex political systems are fragile. They are particularly prone to collapse under turbulent conditions like those facing the American system in coming decades.

Professor Roberts published an eight-minute explainer video, too:

Meanwhile, Professor Roberts endured this year a suspiciously unfortunate series of events, reaching a culmination also at the start of July 2025.

As Roberts explained on his Substack: "For seven years, I have been asking questions about the governance and policies of NASPAA [Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration], an accrediting organization for graduate public policy and public administration programs. I have never succeeded in getting on-the-record answers to these questions."

In January 2025, Roberts published an article, "False globalism: Public Administration in the United States in the Twenty-First Century," in the journal, Administrative Theory & Praxis. The article challenged NASPAA for asserting that its claims to global authority as an accrediting authority belie a U.S.-centric hegemony that eschews genuine efforts of diversity and inclusion.

Subsequently, Taylor & Francis (T&F), the publisher of the journal and parent company of Routledge, received a complaint against Roberts, alleging that "False Globalism" contained "inaccurate data." T&F opened an investigation. Roberts observed that T&F also publishes the Journal of Public Affairs Education, the "official journal" of NASPAA.

T&F's investigation found some minor misstatements, described on the Substack, one arguable, one based on a mistaken report by NASPAA itself. Roberts agreed to minor corrections accordingly. Nothing was discovered that would come close to undermining the integrity or thesis of the article.

To Roberts's surprise, the complaint persisted for months. He continued to cooperate with the investigation and provide supporting data for his assertions. T&F demanded further changes to the article. But this time, as Roberts described, proposed changes were more in the nature of added "rejoinder" than mere correction. In July, Roberts refused further changes. T&F backed down and at last closed the investigation.

Roberts wrote, "For me, this investigation was a prolonged, lonely, time-consuming, and costly experience."

In eagerness to protect itself, T&F seems to be running a process that facilitates the abuse of academic researchers while protecting complainants who effect harassment by transaction costs. Roberts is meticulous in his work and willing to defend his integrity, and he enjoys some protection of status in tenure. T&F's process meanwhile facilitates a problematic chilling effect on academics who might be more junior or less idealistic than Roberts. 

Rep. Dan Webster (R-Fla.) wrote, "Power tends to protect itself merely to maintain its own status and control. Principle gives up power for the sake of the highest good and to create the best public policy.... Power and principle cannot coexist."

R.I. classifies e-bikes, limits bike path access, but pedestrians remain at risk without enforcement

Kudos to Rhode Island legislators who in 2024 limited state bicycle trails and paths to a single class of e-bikes.

The 2024 law, H7713, chief-sponsored by my own Rep. Jennifer Boylan (D-Barrington, E. Providence), defines three classes of electric bikes:

• Class 1: Bicycle equipped with an electric motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty miles per hour (20 mph).
• Class 2: Bicycle equipped with a throttle-actuated electric motor that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty miles per hour (20 mph).
• Class 3: Bicycle equipped with an electric motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty-eight miles per hour (28 mph).

Only class 1 e-bikes are permitted on the East Bay Bike Path, a paved, 14-mile rails-to-trails route that runs near my home, and which I use regularly (2019, 2021). Fully motorized vehicles are not allowed on paths and never have been.

Though the legislation passed in 2024, signs went up just this summer (pictured, above and below, RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Meanwhile, the problem of persons flouting the law has only grown worse.

My experience has been like that of Ethan Hartley, writing for East Bay RI in August:

It couldn’t have been 10 minutes after this author posted up with a camera trying to grab some photos of people enjoying the bike path near Watchemoket Cove—a particularly scenic stretch of the East Bay Bike Path, located in Riverside off Veterans Memorial Parkway—that I heard the far-off sound of sputtering engines coming from far down the path in the direction of Kettle Point.

That was notable, and odd, considering fully motorized vehicles are not allowed on the bike path.

Yet here they rode. Two young men, perched atop what appeared to be miniature dirt bikes. They were respectful enough, riding on the correct (right) side of the road, in a single-file line, and they weren’t going too fast or revving their little illicit engines obnoxiously.

Problems on the East Bay Bike Path, from lack of snow removal to trash dumping to dangerous road crossings, have long been problematic for lack of enforcement. The bike path comes under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), rather than local police. DEM asserted, credibly to my mind, that it lacks the resources it would need to police the state's bike paths. 

I feel like jurisdiction is a problem we should be able to figure out without much fuss. Yet the problem has remained intractable in my 14 years here, apparently despite even a child's death.

At the annual conference of the New England Political Science Association in the spring, I ran into Roger Williams University Political Science Professor June Speakman, who also is a state representative (D) from districts on the East Bay Bike Path, the towns of Bristol and Warren. Rep. Speakman told me that some local residents were agitating for legislation that would compel foot and bike traffic on bike trails both to stay on the right.

I was horrified at the prospect, I told her. At present, foot traffic stays left, and bikes right. The idea is that the bikes can see facing pedestrians easier than when overtaking, and pedestrians can see oncoming cyclists who might not be paying attention—and jump out of the way.

I've made that jump a few times over the years. Usually it's a youth staring at a cell phone. Once it was a senior who might not have been able to see well in the waning light of dusk.

Now when I am on foot I worry about oncoming bikes, e-bikes and motorbikes, often traveling well in excess of 20 mph. When a racing cyclist passes fast, I don't mind so much, because racers are usually extremely attentive. But why anyone thinks kids or seniors at dusk will be more responsible on an e-bike than they are already on a bicycle, I can't fathom.

So I say kudos to the legislators who enacted the 2024 bill, and who made no changes in 2025. Before we talk about changing anything more, let's address the enforcement problem.

The United Kingdom and Australia have been racked with anxiety recently over the criminal case of an intoxicated British backpacker who crashed a scooter into and killed a father of two in the crowded city center of Perth, Western Australia.

Collisions are inevitable. And I know which side loses when it's pedestrian vs. any motorized vehicle, electric or otherwise, at 20 mph or more.

Transparency research conference issues CFP for '26

The Ninth Global Conference on Transparency Research has issued its call for papers.

The conference is set for June 24-26, 2026, at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The conference theme is "Transparency Under Pressure."

The deadline for paper and panel submissions is January 20, 2026, with final papers of 7,000 or fewer words due April 20, 2026. The CFP suggests a non-exhaustive list of topics:

• Transparency and crises
• Transparency and governance
• Transparency, secrecy, and privacy
• Open government and e-government
• Freedom of Information and access to data
• Transparency and artificial intelligence
• Transparency and digital surveillance
• Transparency in political institutions
• Transparency and corruption 

The Global Conference on Transparency Research was founded under the direction of my esteemed colleague Suzanne J. Piotrowski (pictured), professor at Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration, and director of the Transparency and Governance Center.

The first conference convened at Rutgers–Newark in 2011. The conference hosts an always warm and collegial group of scholars who study transparency and accountability from a broad range of disciplines, embracing both quantitative and qualitative methods.