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| | | published Wednesday, April 08, 2009 | 4387 Views :: 0 Comments |
FOR RELEASE, April 8, 2009 Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505-989-7342 cell 505.920.7118 jay@nukewatch.org
Transforming the U.S. Strategic Posture and Weapons Complex
For Transition to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
“…as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act... So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” President Barack Obama, April 5, 2009, Prague, Czech Republic.
Washington, DC - - Today, April 8th, in the nation’s capital, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and the Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Network released a major report outlining how the President’s vision of a nuclear weapons-free world can begin to be concretely realized in the near-term. First, the United States must declare that its strategic stockpile exists for only one purpose — to deter the use of nuclear weapons by others until the world is free of nuclear weapons. For that interim deterrence, a total stockpile of 500 warheads is more than sufficient, and the nuclear weapons complex can be downsized from eight sites to three.
Maintaining a Potent Deterrence
The U.S. stockpile has been extensively tested. Further, recent lifetime studies have shown it to be even more reliable than previously thought. The stockpile can be maintained through a nuts-and-bolts “curatorship” program, instead of the expensive and speculative “Stockpile Stewardship” Program that erodes confidence by intentionally introducing changes to existing nuclear weapons. Under a minimalist (but still extremely potent) nuclear deterrent, U.S. strategic forces can be progressively reduced step-by-step and the weapons complex downsized accordingly, in alignment with the President’s stated national goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Re-focusing Research Critical for the 21st Century
Our plan is the plan that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under the Bush Administration should have proposed for its misnamed “Complex Transformation” – but did not. NNSA’s archaic plan is dead on arrival in the Obama Administration, while our plan sets a reasonable path for 21st Century security on which the U.S. can and should embark. Our plan takes the Lawrence Livermore Lab out of nuclear weapons programs and directs it toward the energy, environmental and global climate change research that our country so desperately needs. It also ends NNSA control of the Sandia Lab in California and the Nevada Test Site by 2012, and ends weapons work at the Kansas City Plant by 2015. As the arsenal is reduced toward 500 warheads, the Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC, and then the Y-12 Site near Oak Ridge, TN, would also cease to be part of the nuclear weapons complex.
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2009 Fact Sheet Plutonium "Triggers" for Nuclear Bombs | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 477 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plutonium pits — carefully fabricated spheres of metal — and high explosives are the “triggers” for modern thermonuclear weapons. The U.S. manufactured pits at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver until 1989, when the FBI raided the facility to investigate environmental crimes, effectively ending industrial-scale plutonium pit production.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Pits5 final.pdf
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2009 Fact Sheet Nuclear Weapons Environmental Cleanup | |
| | published Monday, February 23, 2009 | 394 Views :: 0 Comments |
Six decades of U.S. nuclear weapons research, testing, and production activities have left dozens of Department of Energy (DOE) sites polluted with massive amounts of radioactive and hazardous wastes. Most DOE sites are now on the Superfund list of the nation’s most environmentally dangerous facilities. Their contamination threatens millions of people living near the sites or along major waste transportation routes. Some of the nation’s most important water resources are endangered.
Download 2009 Fact Sheet: Cleanup5.1 final.pdf
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| | | published Thursday, February 05, 2009 | 5471 Views :: 2 Comments |
Dear Senator,
We write to express concern over the $1 billion proposed for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in S.336, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. With Congress seeking to make substantial cuts in the total price tag of the bill, we strongly urge you to eliminate the $1 billion for NNSA. This money is not a cost effective way of accomplishing S.336’s primary stated goals of creating jobs, restoring economic growth and strengthening America’s middle class. Moreover, it would be premature to make major investments in NNSA’s nuclear weapons research and production infrastructure, which the agency proposes to revitalize through “Complex Transformation.” NNSA has a long history of cost overruns and poor management, and is one of the least likely agencies to give taxpayers a sound return on their investment when economic stimulus is so vitally needed. Finally, it is unlikely that this money will go towards preventing terrorism.
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| | | published Friday, November 21, 2008 | 1508 Views :: 0 Comments |
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a network of 36 local, regional and national organizations representing the concerns of communities in the shadows of the U.S. nuclear weapons sites, finds that the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Final Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (SPEIS) did not adequately address comments submitted during the NEPA process. During that time more than 120,000 comments were submitted, most requesting that the final records of decision be delayed until a new nuclear posture review was conducted; that the nuclear weapons complex not support the development of new or modified nuclear weapons; that the role of the Kansas City Plant be included in the SPEIS; and that the NNSA support “curatorship” of the stockpile as a reasonable programmatic alternative. All of these issues are left unresolved in the Final SPEIS.
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| | | published Friday, September 19, 2008 | 942 Views :: 0 Comments |
DOE/NNSA is basing its approvals for current and future operations at the Pantex Plant on a previous environmental impact study that is out of date [Document Citation: Continued Operation of the Pantex Plant and Associated Storage of Nuclear Weapons Components (ROD published in 62 FR 3880, January 27, 1997)]. It does not currently reflect
• the current footprint of the operational area of the Plant,
• accurate boundaries of the Plant, given current access and adjacent land purchase activities underway by Pantex,
• the existing facilities on-site, given that buildings have been decommissioned and demolished and others constructed,
• technologies that have come into existence in the past approximately 13-years, and
• the nature of security in a post-9/11 world.
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| | | published Thursday, February 28, 2008 | 481 Views :: 0 Comments |
February 28, 2008
Pantex Hearing
Submitted by:
Susan Gordon
Director, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
Draft Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
The Draft Complex Transformation SPEIS released in December 2007 describes the history of the 1996 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program, which evaluated alternatives for maintaining the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The Record of Decision (61 FR 68014, December 26, 1996) documented the decisions related to fulfilling these requirements without underground testing. The ROD did not propose any new production facilities.
Download PDF: ANA Bombplex Comments 2-28-08.pdf
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How to Stop a Bombplex by Tri-Valley CAREs | |
| | published Tuesday, January 15, 2008 | 6 Views :: 0 Comments |
Tri-Valley CAREs
Livermore, CA
January, 2008
Just before Christmas 2007, the Department of Energy(DOE) National Security Administration(NNSA) held a press conference to announce the latest in a series of deadly, irresponsible schemes to "revitalize" and rebuild the U.S. nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production complex of the future.
Download PDF: How to Stop a Bombplex.pdf
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