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| | | published Thursday, January 31, 2008 | 1282 Views | |  |
For immediate release Thursday January 31, 2008
Susan Gordon, Director, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
(505) 473-1670
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
FY 2009 BUDGET REQUEST
The
Department of Energy (DOE) FY 2009 budget request will be released on
Monday, February 4, 2008. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
(ANA), a national network representing communities downwind and
downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, is concerned that
spending on nuclear weapons and power will divert funds away from
environmental cleanup, weapons dismantlement, and plutonium
disposition.
ANA is concerned about the following likely FY 2009 budget proposals.
Nuclear Weapons Activities
Complex Transformation.
DOE has stated that the weapons budget will be flat despite plans for
new weapons manufacturing facilities contained in the “Complex
Transformation.” However the FY 2009 weapons activities budget request
will likely increase above the $6.3 billion in FY08. DOE claims that
rebuilding the weapons complex will cost $150 billion over the next
twenty-five years, yet this figure does not take into account
life-cycle costs, including operations and cleanup.
Question:
- In
light of recent legislation that directs Congress to develop a new
nuclear policy and posture review, isn’t it premature to build a new
weapons complex before the U.S. has evaluated our nuclear policy under
a new president?
The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program.
Congress passed its FY08 "Omnibus" spending bill and zeroed out funds
for further development of the DOE National Nuclear Security
Administration’s (NNSA) first RRW design. Yet, the NNSA announced it
would continue select RRW Program activities in FY08 with the advanced
certification funds granted to the agency.
The NNSA will
request money for the RRW Program burying RRW-related activities within
the overall "weapons activities" budget. It is anticipated that the FY
2009 budget request for RRW will lack detail in the "budget
justification" section and that the money requested will be positioned
to act as a placeholder for increasing funds as the budget process
unfolds. Look for additional RRW Program funding in the Defense
Department FY 2009 budget request.
Questions:
- Why is the RRW program still in the budget when Congress refused to fund it for FY 2009?
- What is the total funding for RRW related activities contained in the entire FY 2009 Budget Request?
Expanding plutonium pit production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
An independent study by expert scientists concluded that plutonium pits
last a century or more. This finding and the fact that the Pantex Plant
is sanctioned to “reuse” up to 300 pits per year seriously undercuts
DOE’s claimed need to produce new pits, but not its desire to expand
production from 20 pits per year to 80 pits at LANL. DOE is expected to
ask for roughly the same as the $281 million requested in FY08.
Congress
has repeatedly rejected a new “Modern Pit Facility” and then the
“Consolidated Plutonium Center” capable of producing 125 pits per year.
In response, increased pit production using LANL’s existing plutonium
infrastructure is now a key component of NNSA’s plan for
“transformation” of its nuclear weapons complex. LANL is building one
new major plutonium facility, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Replacement (CMRR) Project and DOE is expected to again request $96
million for construction funding. Look for the costs to go up radically
in future years as NNSA now documents that its costs will likely double
from original projections.
Questions:
- Why is DOE building a new plutonium pit facility when there are hundreds of pits that can be “reused”?
- The
CMRR was originally envisioned to support pit production but is now
proposed as a key manufacturing facility for plutonium pits. How can
DOE plan and design the CMRR for pit production when the overall size
of the stockpile is likely to continue to shrink under the current and
future administrations?
Environmental Cleanup
The environmental cleanup budget will be substantially cut.
The administration has consistently under funded DOE's Office of
Environmental Management (EM), despite the fact that the FY08 Budget
Request showed that almost $118 billion is needed to fund currently
identified waste management and environmental remediation programs. ANA
is concerned that, once again, the Budget Request will not adequately
fund those cleanup programs, and would result in possible violations of
cleanup agreements in a number of states, including Washington and New
Mexico. Hanford and Los Alamos suffered serious cutbacks in the FY08
Omnibus. Delayed, under funded cleanup threatens water supplies and
human health.
Questions:
- How much is the
Budget Request below what is needed to meet cleanup agreements and
commitments? How is DOE making the decisions about which sites are
under funded?
- Which sites have shortfalls below what is required to meet cleanup agreements?
- Plutonium
has been reported in drinking water supplies in Northern New Mexico.
What does the budget request do to remediate that problem?
- Last
year when the FY 2009 funding levels were discussed, DOE admitted that
the Office of Management and Budget approved target funding levels
would fall short of meeting Hanford cleanup agreements by as much as
$500 million per year through the next five years. Will the Department
face fines for failing to meet agreement deadlines?
Nuclear Energy
Nuclear Energy budget will be substantially excessive.
The Budget Request could include almost $1 billion for nuclear power,
including paying for license applications for new nuclear power plants.
The Budget Request also further commits to multi-billion-dollar
boondoggles, including the Next Generation Nuclear Plant, Mixed Oxide
Fuel (MOX) Fabrication facility, and the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP).
Question:
- How much
will the Next Generation Nuclear Plant cost? How much of that funding
has been committed by the private sector, which Congress emphasized in
the FY08 Omnibus as very important?
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
is a poorly defined program, reflecting technical uncertainties, along
with changing goals and missions. While the administration is working
to craft agreements with global partners in this program, previous
significant problems with reprocessing are ignored. The National
Academy of Sciences 2007 report on GNEP calls for no commercial scale
development at this time; instead, basic research and development work
needs to be done successfully before such a program should proceed. The
FY08 Omnibus Bill mandates that no funds shall be used for
construction.
Questions:
- Does the GNEP
budget request reflect the conclusions of the 2007 National Academy of
Sciences report and the growing skepticism in Congress that
reprocessing is not currently a viable answer to the growing problem of
high-level nuclear waste?
- DOE is months behind in
releasing the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for
GNEP. How does the GNEP budget request implement decisions that DOE
expects to make in the PEIS?
Plutonium Disposition.
Congress drastically cut funding for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication
Facility at the Savannah River Site to $234 million, $100 million less
than requested in the FY08 Budget, due to programmatic problems and
continuing lack of a comprehensive plan to dispose of surplus
plutonium. DOE has gone back and forth claiming that all of the surplus
plutonium can be turned into plutonium fuel and then acknowledging that
some of it will need to be immobilized. Despite the fact that
immobilization is cheaper and safer, DOE continues to try to end the
program by providing only $1 million in FY08. Look for a large request
for MOX funds and little money for immobilization.
Questions:
- When will the plutonium fuel plant at SRS be operating and how does the current cost compare to the first estimates?
- Can
all the surplus plutonium be turned into plutonium fuel and if not,
what is the disposition path for the large amounts of plutonium
currently in route to SRS?
- 30 -
Local Contacts
Weapons Issues
Jay Coghlan, Executive Director, Nuclear Watch of New Mexico
Santa Fe, NM - (505) 989-7342
Ralph Hutchison, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance
Oak Ridge, TN – (865) 483-8202
Marylia Kelley, Executive Director, Tri-Valley CAREs
Livermore, CA – (925) 443-7148
Environmental Issues
Joni Arends, Executive Director, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety
Santa Fe, NM – (505) 986-1973
Gerry Pollet, Executive Director, Heart of America Northwest
Seattle, WA - (206) 382-1014
Nuclear Energy
Beatrice Brailsford, Program Director, Snake River Alliance
Pocatello, ID - (208) 233-7212
Tom Clements, Southeast Nuclear Campaign Coordinator, Friends of the Earth
Columbia, SC – (803) 834-3084
Don Hancock, Nuclear Waste Program Director, Southwest Research & Information Center Albuquerque, NM - (505) 262-1862 |
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